STICK CLOSE TO YOUR DESK AND NEVER GO TO SEA. Some perspectives on success as an academician, from Professor Mankiw.

Real world experiences and outside interests are a distraction. Don't take time off from academic pursuits for a job in public policy. Don't ever work on Wall Street or do any consulting. Don't engage in the broader societal debate by writing op-eds or working on political campaigns. All of that takes time away from getting papers published in academic journals.

But don't stop there. If you have this objective, then it is best not to have hobbies, or read novels, or go to the movies. Don't spend time teaching well or mentoring students, except the very best students who can help you with your research. Don't get married or have friends, unless your spouse and friends are PhD economists and can coauthor papers with you. Whatever you do, don't have children--boy, are they a time sink! And if you make the mistake of having children, make sure you spend as little time with them as you can.

In other words, if you want to be the best academic you can be, get ready to be a miserable human being.

Alternatively, you might decide that, at the end of your life, Saint Peter will not judge you solely by checking the Social Science Citation Index. If so, maybe you should make life choices using a broader objective function--one that encourages you to sacrifice some degree of academic success narrowly construed for a more diverse, more satisfying, and more noble life.

Indeed. But keep in mind an anecdote that the Chicago Tribune repeated in a Sunday feature on a local economics department during its run of consecutive Nobel Memorial Awards. A junior professor urged his colleagues to wrap up a meeting that was running long as his wife was waiting in a car outside and he didn't want her to divorce him. One of the older heads is quoted as saying "You'd fit in better if she did." Draw your own conclusions. Draw whatever inferences you wish about the book reviews and the model-building efforts offered here.