Sam Enright

Reading group

Every month in Dublin, I run the Fitzwilliam Reading Group. The topics are deliberately eclectic. I tend to choose dense and technical readings, with prompts to keep the discussion focused. One of the aims of the group is to introduce thoughtful people who haven’t previously been exposed to a certain field to that which I find most beautiful and interesting about it.

We often have a special guest – either the author themselves, or a relevant subject-matter expert. Sometimes, we tie the discussion in with an outing (such as viewing a play or concert).

The Fitzwilliam Reading Group is the sister group to the Fitzwilliam AI Circle, the Fitzwilliam Maths Circle, and the Fitzwilliam Exercise Society. If I haven’t updated this page in a while, please bug me to do so at sam@thefitzwilliam.com.

June 2025: The economics of trade

  1. Ricardo’s Difficult Idea
  2. What Do Trade Agreements Really Do?
  3. Economic Sanctions: Evolution, Consequences, and Challenges

July 2025: Statecraft (with Santi Ruiz)

  1. How to Stage a Coup
  2. How to Catch a Lab Leak
  3. How to Save Twenty Million Lives
  4. Bonus: 50 Thoughts on DOGE

August 2025: Taiwan’s chip industry (with Karina Bao)

  1. Morris Chang, The Autobiography of Morris Chang

September 2025: Charles de Gaulle 

  1. Julian Jackson, A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle 

October 2025: Macbeth (with Henry Oliver)

Accompanied by a performance by Druid Theatre.

  1. William Shakespeare, Macbeth

November 2025: Noahpinion (with Noah Smith)

  1. Will Data Centers Crash the Economy? 
  2. Free-Market Economics is Working Surprisingly Well
  3. Toward a Shallower Future
  4. Bonus: Popular Econ Books: What to Read, What Not to Read

December 2025: The Scaling Éire (with Gavin Leech)

  1. Dwarkesh Patel, Gavin Leech, The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI 2019–2025

January 2026: Causal Inference (with Beatriz Gietner)

  1. Where We Are At
  2. In Defence of Machine Learning in Economics
  3. All About Heterogeneous Treatment Effects

February 2026: Irish politics (with Eoin O’Malley)

Selections from Politics in the Republic of Ireland, 7th edition:

  1. Chapter 1: The Foundations of Statehood
  2. Chapter 4: The Electoral System and its Political Consequences 
  3. Chapter 10: The Government and the Taoiseach 

March 2026: ImportAI

Sadly, Jack Clark did not come to this, but he did like a Tweet about it.

  1. Technological Optimism and Appropriate Fear
  2. My Agents are Working. Are Yours?
  3. Moltbook, Agent Ecologies, and the Internet in Transition
  4. Bonus: Jack Clark on AI’s Uneven Impact

April 2026: Railway history

  1. Railways, Market Access, and Development in a Small Open Economy: Evidence from 19th Century Ireland
  2. Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the Impact of Transportation Infrastructure
  3. Railroads and American Economic Growth: A “Market Access” Approach
  4. Bonus: Everything Economic History with Alan Fernihough

May 2026: Mahler’s symphonies

Accompanied by a performance of Mahler’s Fifth by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland in the National Concert Hall.

  1. Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 2.
  2. Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 5.
  3. Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 9.

June 2026: Matt Lakeman travelogues

  1. Notes on Ghana
  2. Notes on Afghanistan
  3. Notes on Guyana

July 2026: James Joyce (with Daniel Mulhal)

Sadly, the timing did not work out to host this on Bloomsday.

  1. Ivy Day in the Committee Room (from Dubliners)
  2. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (chapter 1)
  3. Ulysses (chapter 12, The Cyclops) 

August 2026: Urban economics (with Ronan Lyons)

  1. Housing Prices, Costs, and Policy: The Housing Supply Equation Since 1970. 
  2. The Price of Housing in the United States, 1890–2006. 
  3. The Economic Implications of Housing Supply.