Gordon Price

pricetags.ca

Director, the SFU City Program

Whatcha readin’? The Trillion Dollar Meltdown by Charles R. Morris. Bad Money by Kevin Phillips.

What are they about? Quick, explain “Collaterized Debt Obligations.” How about “Structured Investment Vehicles”? I thought so. But not to worry, even those dudes who buy and sell this stuff can’t explain them either.

On the other hand, worry. Apparently we have a financial system gone wild beyond comprehension. We can’t even talk about it since most of us, including the media, can’t grasp the complexity. And that’s why these books are so helpful: short, incisive, revelatory. At least you’ll be able to talk about it.

Who do you recommend these books to, and why? Clearly, some of the pinstriped risk-takers who should have known better if they had read a little economic history, and realized that wild parties inevitably come to a hangover-inducing end.

Guilty pleasure time. What kind of mind candy do you sometimes read? Well, there are some gossip-and-picture [web]sites that I find weirdly attractive. It’s like a long-running serial with attractively clad characters.

If we looked at your bookshelf we’d be surprised to see… I doubt anyone would be surprised to see a copy of Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs on my bookshelf. But in my last year on council, Jane Jacobs came to City Hall for a meeting of Big-City Mayors, and so I grabbed this, her most famous book, for an autograph. I was surprised to see that it was a first edition (OK, paperback version, but still…), which means that I must have bought it when I was just out of diapers. I realize now what a profound influence that single volume had, now surrounded by dozens of books on cities and urban design—none of which are as important or as insightful as that brittle, much, much-cherished paperback.

They say that everyone has one great novel in them. What would yours be about? The West End—a serial in many, many parts. Many have tried (most recently [the TV series] Robson Arms) but nothing has captured the artifice and serendipity of my neighbourhood. What an opportunity for an updated Dickens: so many characters, in a setting that invites coincidence, in a comedy/tragedy of contemporary manners.

—Erica Gehrke