给图书馆荐购的70本书

也许是因为我常在非数学课的课上看闲书，给一些同学造成假象，觉得我必定读过许多书，而且还是好书。因此常常被问到最近看什么书，或者有什么好书推荐。前一个问题，就像“吃了吗”一样，我就当是打招呼的。因为询问的口气很像一个大学一年级的校报记者，或者让人无语的新闻传播专业学生。

面对后一个问题，我却常常手足无措、表情狼狈。原因大概是，我大部分时间都挣扎在数学习题中，根本没读过几本书。就算我看过几本书，也称不上好书，最多只能说不坏，但我却喜欢。更重要的是，我完全不知道对方的偏好集，怎么可能推荐一本书刚好映射到他的偏好集合里呢？如果推荐了一本我特别喜欢的书，但对方的读完却认定是本坏书，浪费了时间，那我就很麦当劳叔叔了。因为这些原因，我常常保持沉默。这大概给很多人造成不好的印象。

其实对这个问题，我还有另外较妥当的策略，就是推荐一堆经典书籍，而我完全没读过。这种行径我小时候常干，大部分文科生都擅长谈论“从来没读过的书”，这种装内涵的事情学习成本很低，又很塑造形象，据说经典的例子是我的朋友胡适之推荐的书目。但现在，基于“脚踏实地”的深大精神，我也少选择这个策略了。

尽管如此，我仔细想了想，还是很愿意讲出我觉得好的书的，大概有两种场合。

一是我们的文山湖读书会。倘若在随意的聊天场合，我报出一个书名、作者名、出版社名，对方会开始觉得我是无聊的一个人。倘若我居然不识趣地继续谈论这本书的行文、八卦、译笔，肯定会被拉入黑名单。这种事，还是在读书会上聊没有压力。跟人推荐一本书，常常要花力气提供关于这本书多个维度的信息，哪怕有一个维度触碰到对方，也就够了。

二是面对苏飞或者图书馆。中学的时候，想看的书那么多，金钱的约束又那么大，无可奈何之下，我选择了一种突破我购书约束的策略，就是花大力气给苏飞同学推荐书。苏飞同学手头比较宽裕，所以我努力对他做一个inception，让他感觉某本书值得买……他真的会去买。这样，一旦他买来，我就有书看了。上了大学，我发现我们的图书馆也是一个苏飞同学，有什么想看的书，大可花图书馆的钱，所以，我们就给图书馆荐书了。前阵子图书馆的外文书展上，Nick同学就花了图书馆许多买外文书的经费。向图书馆荐书比向苏飞同学荐书麻烦，要填表格，很花时间。我的想法很简单，在毕业前至少让图书馆买314本书。下面是我迄今给图书馆荐购的书。很多畅销书，离目标还很远。

1. A Short History Of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson
2. Ever Since Darwin Stephen Jay Gould
3. The Theory of Incentives Jean-Jacques Laffont / David Martimort
4. Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy Daron Acemoglu / James A. Robinson
5. Why Evolution Is True Jerry A. Coyne
6. 1984 George Orwell
7. Introduction to Linear Algebra,4e Gilbert Strang
8. Institutions And Economic Theory: The Contribution of the New Institutional Economics (Economics, Cognition, and Society) Eirik G. Furubotn / Rudolf Richter
9. Bargaining Theory with Applications Abhinay Muthoo
10. Advice for a young investigator Santiago Ramón y Cajal
11. The Art of the Short Story Dana Gioia / R. S. Gwynn
12. Does God Play Dice? Ian Stewart
13. Fermat’s Last Theorem Simon Singh
14. The Code Book Simon Singh
15. Big Bang Simon Singh
16. The Lady Tasting Tea David Salsburg
17. The Golden Ratio Mario Livio
18. The Equation That Couldn’t Be Solved Mario Livio
19. How to Lie with Statistics Darrell Huff
20. One Two Three . . . Infinity: Facts and Speculations of Science. George Gamow
21. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running Haruki Murakami
22. Get Into Graduate School Kaplan
23. Freakonomics Steven D. Levitt
24. Advice for a young investigator Santiago Ramón y Cajal
25. The Power of Gold Peter L. Bernstein
26. Traffic：Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What it Says About Us) TOM VANDERBILT
27. Everyday Survival：Why Smart People Do Stupid Things Laurence Gonzales
28. Self-Reliance Ralph Waldo Emerson
29. The Passion of Michel Foucault James Miller
30. Flushed: How the Plumber Saved Civilization W. Hodding Carter
31. Hilbert Constance Reid
32. The Botany of Desire Michael Pollan
33. Hyperspace Michio Kaku
34. A Beautiful Mind Sylvia Nasar
35. Controlled Diffusion Processes Nikolai Vladimirovich Krylov
36. Deterministic and Stochastic Optimal Control Fleming, Wendell Helms / Raymond W. Rishel
37. A Brief History of Neoliberalism David Harvey
38. Hayek’s Challenge Bruce Caldwell
39. Self-Reliance and Other Essays Ralph Waldo Emerson
40. Ghostwritten David Mitchell
41. The Now Habit Neil Fiore
42. The ABCs of RBCs George McCandless
43. Piano Notes Charles Rosen
44. Gang Leader for a Day Sudhir Venkatesh
45. The Princeton Companion to Mathematics Gowers, Timothy (EDT)/ Barrow-Green, June (EDT)/ Leader, Imre (EDT)
46. Outliers：The Story of Success Malcolm Gladwell
47. The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives Leonard Mlodinow
48. Theory of Decision under Uncertainty Gilboa, Itzhak
49. Outline of History H. G. Wells
50. A Short History Of The World H. G. Wells
51. Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain Paul W. Glimcher
52. Understanding Capitalism Samuel Bowles / Richard Edwards / Frank Roosevelt
53. Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions, and Evolution Samuel Bowles
54. Moral Sentiments and Material Interests Gintis, Herbert (EDT)/ Bowles, Samuel (EDT)/ Boyd, Robert T. (EDT)/ Fehr, Ernst (EDT）
55. Recasting Egalitarianism Samuel Bowles / Herbert Gintis
56. Unequal Chances Samuel Bowles / Herbert Gintis / Melissa Osborne Groves
57. The Bounds of Reason Herbert Gintis
58. On Ethics and Economics Amartya Sen
59. Models of My Life Herbert A. Simon
60. THINKING STRATEGICALLY Avinash K. Dixit / Barry J. Nalebuff
61. The Bounds of Reason Herbert Gintis
62. A Course in Microeconomic Theory David M. Kreps
63. Moral Markets: The Critical Role of Values in the Economy Paul J. Zak
64. Introduction to Dynamic Macroeconomic Theory: An Overlapping Generations Approach George McCandless, Neil Wallace
65. Fixed Point Theorems with Applications to Economics and Game Theory Kim C. Border
66. A Brief History of the Paradox Roy Sorensen
67. Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition Milton Friedman
68. Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Self John C. Eccles
69. The Geography of Thought Richard E. Nisbett
70. The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind Elkhonon Goldberg