2026 #17 The Anthropocene Reviewed (Green)

 

The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Making conclusions about a book's quality from a 175-review is hard work for artificial intelligences, whereas star ratings are ideal for them." (3). Nothing quite like an introduction that dissects the act of reviewing to make one feel self-conscious in reviewing, but I shall make an attempt.

First, a prescription: take your time in reading these essays. Keep the book on your nightstand and read one or two at a time, when you need to remember that to err is human, but also so is to love, hope, dream, etc... Quite seriously: my only criticism of the book is that Green employs a rhetorical device that, while effective, starts to lose its punch when you read essay after essay. And Green is a good enough writer to nod to that in his "Postscript" (271 - 274). That's all I'll say about that, because there's far more weight that gives the book "five stars" for me. The scare quotes there are in homage to the book's m.0.

Green is a superb writer, and that's basically a requirement when analyzing the Anthropocene through lenses as diverse as Dr. Pepper, teddy bears, staph infections, invisible rabbits (or movies about them), the Indy 500, wintry mix, CNN...and...(here "etcetera" doesn't suffice because "the rest" you can't possibly guess). Each essay drew in my interest, even when I came pre-loaded with disinterest. In most of them, Green manages to do in four to five pages what CNN cannot do in a 24-hr. news cycle (his criticism of lack-of-context in journalism in the essay "CNN" (pp. 127 - 132) is spot on). But of course he isn't trying to provide "news" per se, but you will certainly learn about facets of humanity and history (and about Green himself) in surprising and fresh ways. The essays "Harvey" (pp. 133 - 138) and Auld Lang Syne" (pp. 145 - 152) are particularly excellent if you are in the mood for feeling and sentiment. Green, who is often hilarious and somewhat self-effacing, drops sentences like this as well:

"I'll never again speak to many of the people who loved me into this moment, just as you will never speak to many of the people who loved you into your now." (148)

Did your eyes well up with tears, or did that knot form in your throat? If so, you've probably known loss. I had to put the book down to give some heartspace over to the people who I've lost who have loved me into my now.

If you like art, as Green does, open up "Hiroyuki Doi's Circle Drawings" (191 - 194), which, if it isn't obvious from the above, is about a lot more than the drawings themselves. When it comes to grief, Green finds meaning in art by an octogenarian Japanese chef-turned-artist, but also, the "World's Largest Ball of Paint" (245-249), which, if you weren't aware, is in Alexandria, Indiana.

Even with the heterogeneity of topics, we never lose sight that it is indeed the Anthropocene under review. "For humans," Green writes, "being in uncharted territory is often good news, because our charted territory is so riddled with disease, injustice, and violence." ("Viral Meningitis, 206). The paperback edition includes two additional essays: "The Orbital Sunrise" (279-286) and "The Gingko Tree" (287 - 295), both of which imply that Green probably has a ten-volume set of essays brewing inside of him.

I can't think of a person to whom I would not recommend this book, because I think everyone can benefit from thinking about hot dog eating contests and the Bonneville Salt Flats in ways they did not imagine. If you are looking for "feminist" lit (and there the quotes are because I think it really is just about caring about humans), Green's "Air Conditioning" (73-78) makes a really great point about the determination of "room temperature" in offices and how that came about. If you thought Charles Darrow invented the game Monopoly, you'll want to read his essay on the game (175-179). And C.S. Lewis gets to be "the widower" of American poet Joy Davidman, quoted in the essay on viral meningitis. But if you don't know what you are looking for at all? Pick up this book.

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Challenges on Storygraph (@rebcamuse):

2026 Reading Goals 17/60

Tackle your Physical TBR 2026: no. 11

#192030 Challenge: 2021

2025 #51 The Great Believers (Makkai)

 

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It is stunning to me how visceral my memories of the 1980s are due to the AIDS epidemic. As a young person/pre-teen, I certainly didn't understand all the nuances, but I knew my gay stepuncle was losing friends. I remember well when Ryan White was barred from attending classes due to fear of exposure. My stepmom, who was a supplements editor for the L.A. Weekly, brought me home a print of Robbie Conal's "Artificial Art Official" poster of Jesse Helms.

I was not prepared for how all of these memories would come flooding back in reading this book. In the first few minutes of the audiobook, I listened to Michael Crouch and I thought, "Ugh. This is going to be a long haul." I'm so glad I stuck with it, because I was proven wrong. Michael Crouch's distance is absolutely perfect. It removes sensationalism and replaces it with sincerity--a certain pragmatic matter-of-factness that makes the horrors real, rather than extraordinary.

But it also Yale, who might end up being one of my favorite protagonists ever. What a splendid human in his frailty, his courage, his loyalty. He is written so well and so believably, that he is both inspirational and relatable--and it has little to do with his sexual orientation or even his gender. That's the mark of an amazing character, when identity is in the background of what connects to the reader. That's not to say that his identity as a gay man isn't important -- it is huge, and I'd say he's a very important gay character in that he moves in and out of circles that are often narratively exploited as stereotypes, but in a way that reminds us that we are all human beings trying to find our place in the world, seeking out others who will see us.

Nora Lerner is also another favorite character. She holds the torch -- not just for her lover, but for love itself. The entire book is more about love than anything else. And for something to be about love, it must also be about death, because that's the reality of it, isn't it. Makkai drives home the essential aspect of what makes us human. May we all have the someone we love enough to advocate for them long after they have died.

This book does not shy away from the gruesomeness that is AIDS-related death, but it is never for the shock value. It is related with tenderness and honors those that have suffered it. It isn't an easy book to read, nor should it be, but it is also a wonderful book to read. Any book that reaffirms life through a frank and bold look at death (and love, and joy, and suffering), deserves a place of honor.

This is quite possibly my favorite read this year.


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2025 #43 Martyr! (Akbar)

 

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This remarkable debut novel lives up to the hype. Fans of Akbar's poetry won't be disappointed, as he weaves in poems into the manuscript authored by the protagonist, Cyrus, an Iranian-American poet, writer, and recovering alcoholic. I did not know what to expect, having read little about the book as I'm simply trying to read all the 2025 Tournament of Books selections, and I think I'm better for not knowing what I was getting into. It is hard to describe the ride that is this book -- it is beautiful, tragic, funny, historical fiction, and one of those books where you feel you can connect with almost every character. There's even a plot twist -- handled deftly by Akbar, without resorting to clichéd sentimentality. Akbar lays bare themes of addiction, abandonment, artistic impulse, religiosity, media filters, racism, sexuality, and yes-- martyrdom--all in a way that seems like one of those rare honest conversations one might have with a close friend (often while inebriated, for some). The only drawback (if I can call it that) for me was the final scene between Cyrus and Zee. While I understand the reason for the lack of earthiness, it jolted me out of what I loved so much about the book -- the "here-and-nowness" of it--the starkness and the reality. I would have enjoyed a more subtle experience. But that doesn't keep me from saying that Martyr! is definitely in my top five books that I've read this year.

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2025#40 The Poisonwood Bible (Kingsolver)

 

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Some books, possibly the best books, are experiences. That most definitely describes this epic work. Any review I might write here would not match the scale of the book, but I will try to offer some thoughts. I won't take up space with a summary, since that is available elsewhere, but get right to what made the book so powerful for me.

Characterization. I'll focus on the main characters here: The four daughters are very different, starting with the Nellie Oleson-like eldest daughter Rachel, who launches malapropisms at her detractors (real and imagined) as if they were poisoned arrows. We can occasionally laugh at her (one of my favorites: "Thyroid Mary"), but when she isn't overwritten, we might recognize the whiteness of settler colonialism at perhaps its most pernicious, because it comes with such a set of excuses and sense of self-righteousness. There are also moments where she might remind us of certain "leaders":

"Heck, wasn't I the one hollering night and day that we were in danger? It's true that when it happened I was the oldest one there, and I'm sure some people would say I should have been in charge." (465)

Leah strives to be pious (at least initially) and to please her father, but unlike her older sister, we see far more growth in her character. Adah, Leah's twin sister, is physically disabled, but likely the smartest of the bunch and relies upon manufacturing palindromic phrases (the juxtaposition of this linguistic ability against her sister Rachel's is not lost on the reader). The youngest, Ruth May, has probably one of the more "hit-you-over-the-head" narratives in the book, but we learn why. Then there is the father - Pastor Nathan Price, and the mother, Orleana. Except for Rachel, occasionally, no one is a cliché. We grow to care both for their individual narratives, as well as that of the family. Some of the other major characters, like Anatole, for example, we see mostly through the eyes of one (or more) of the daughters and this is important to remember because Kingsolver seems to do this to recognize her own positionality.

There are so many pull quotes -- I'm glad I read this on my kindle so I could easily share them on GR, but aside from the story itself, Kingsolver's gift with language is astounding. Even the simplest description becomes fresh in her words: "In the local market, a bubble of stopped conversation moves with me as I walk." (472) And occasionally, we get something akin to an aphorism: "we are our injuries, as much as we are our successes" (496).

Truly the book deserves an essay-length review, but if I am not up to the task it is for lack of time, not desire. For readers unfamiliar with the history of the Congo in the twentieth century, I'd recommend even just a quick Wikipedia review before launching into this book (and I almost NEVER , as a historian, recommend Wikipedia). This would make a VERY interesting "companion" read to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

It took me a good chunk of the summer to finish this book -- not because it is long, but because I had to set it aside occasionally. It is rich, sorrowful, deep, informative -- there's just a lot. But I think it deserves that time and attention.



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#2025 #38 On Tyranny (Snyder)

 

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Is this some lofty tome packed with new critical insights and expansive historical knowledge? No. Does it aim to be? No. Did it actually take me five months to read? No. But I had to put it down because I read before bed, and well -- this should keep you up at night. But hopefully with a sense of energy and resolve.

What the book IS, however, is a reminder. A reminder of the things you should hold dear. The things that truly COULD make us great, or at least could reinvest in real patriotism. It is an expanded listicle of 20 "lessons" from the twentieth century. The book opens with: "History does not repeat. But it does instruct." Heather Cox Richardson illuminates that in her "Letters from an American" posts. If you feel you lack courage to resist, throw this tiny book in your bag and take it out and reread it as you wait for the bus.

Make eye contact and small talk (#12).
Start somewhere.



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2025 #3 Grading for Growth (Clark/Talbert)

 

Grading for Growth by David Clark
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

David Clark and Robert Talbert's Grading for Growth is a truly useful book for anyone designing a course, full stop. Even those who may wish to stick to traditional grading structures (or have to, due to mandates), can benefit from thinking about the four pillars (as defined by the authors) of alternative grading: 1) clearly defined standards, 2) helpful feedback, 3) marks indicate progress, 4) reassessment without penalty. The challenge comes in fighting the pre-conceived notions of what letter grades stand for and their import.

The book offers some background on alternative grading: SBG (standards-based grading), specifications (specs) grading, and ungrading, although SBG gets pride of place in the authors' own assessment strategies. Because of this, sometimes it can be a bit blurry when they are talking "standards" as a pillar, or SBG as a specific system--especially later in the book. Chapter 5 does address standards-based grading quite specifically, and chapter 6 is devoted to specs grading, so the frameworks are fairly clear, but those new to these systems might benefit from additional reading, such as Linda B. Nilson's Specifications Grading.

The most significant part of the book (for me) was the Chapter 11 Workbook. I'm reminded of a wonderful professor I had for Macroeconomics in college. I was on the verge of failing her class--a first for me, and I came to her office in tears, one or two days before the final exam. She wrote out a schedule for my next 24 hours, specified exactly which carrel in the library I was going to sit in, when I would be taking breaks, eating, and sleeping. That list held my hand through studying for this final exam I thought I would surely fail. I didn't fail, and I passed the class with a very low grade, but I passed. What does this have to do with Chapter 11?

Well, it is truly a step-by-step guide to course design. It says it is a workbook for alternative grading, and certainly that is the focus, but the process the authors lead us through is a beautiful example of backward design. Now many teachers I know (myself included) always think that our learning outcomes are tied to our assignments, but I fully admit that my intentionality in making sure that's the case hasn't always been optimal. Administrative mandates about "phrasing" rather than helping faculty make the connections between outcomes and assessments haven't always helped either. About two years ago, I started numbering my course's learning outcomes and placing that number next to the various assignments. This was just something that made sense to me as I started to feel like LOs were becoming frivolous rhetoric--at least for the students. I didn't know that I was starting the process that undergirds alternative grading. Each of the 9 steps is clearly explained, with a time estimate for each step, as well as a continuous case study featuring "Professor Alice" and her "First Year Seminar" course that you review before working with your own course. Again, some of what's included might seem like basic common sense, but I suspect many instructors skip some steps here and there, and I know that I've certainly come up with coping strategies when I've not thought something through as well as I might. Steps 1-8 are doable in an entire day (and that's suggested), but I found it more effective (given my cognitive load preferences) to spread it out over several days, which allowed me to be fresh. The authors stress that one shouldn't spend TOO much time because essentially everything is fundamentally a draft. Most helpful to me were Step 3: Make A Prototype of the Marking Methods and What the A and C (D in my case) represent and Step 5: Build one Assessment and rehearse the Feedback Loop. Given my time constraints and the way I tend to think, I did sort of mush steps 6-8 together a bit, but perhaps those more disciplined can compartmentalize better. Whether one is designing a brand new course (which I think added to my inability to isolate those latter steps) or redesigning an existing one, this chapter is invaluable.

Chapter 12, "How to Do it," is also very useful, taking us out of the grade book and into reality, and reminding us of the big picture, e.g. building trust and promoting buy-in. The book can be used somewhat piecemeal, I suppose, although I think there is much to be gained by reading the chapters on large classes and lab classes, even if those scenarios are not directly applicable to one's own courses.

The authors, who have an absolutely terrific Substack of the same name (Grading for Growth), are humble and intentional. There is no smug grandstanding, or hyperbolic claims. Well-balanced in theory and practical advice, the book is one of the best I've read about teaching (in general). It models the collegiality that should be encouraging instructors to invest intentionally in their course assessment. While the authors don't specifically address UDL (Universal Design for Learning), the four pillars certainly intersect with the concept of building "expert learners" (old UDL guidelines), and "learner agency" (UDL 3.0 guidelines). Iterative work and feedback loops are at the heart of it all, and the spirit of the book is in keeping with the "plus-one" approach in Tobin/Behling's Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone (West Virginia University Press, 2018). If you are a teacher who has been feeling a bit "meh" about your courses, read this book. You'll find something to take with you. And do you yourself a favor, start reading it a month prior to your course (or at least get to Chapter 11). Learn from my mistakes.

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2025 #2: Bird by Bird (Lamott)

 

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've read many books about writing. I honestly cannot remember how or why this audiobook wound up on my list, but I'm so glad it did. While much of Lamott's advice is geared toward writers of fiction, the book is invaluable for anyone who writes (or frankly, reads). And if you want to get caught up in the eccentricities of broccoli as metaphor, that's fine, but...please, allow yourself to enjoy the comedy. Some of it is fairly irreverent and may not land 100% in 2025 social mores, but most of it is a lot less offensive than a lot of what comes flying out of the mouths of stand-up comedians. If you've understood life's absurdity through grieving someone close, you'll get it. Lamott's reading is perfect--think Lily Tomlin's character "Frankie" without the woo-woo stuff. And in between the quips and the sometimes a-bit-too-long tongue-in-cheek tirades, lo and behold--there are some sound lessons about "...being militantly on your own side," and how you don't want to "look at your feet to see if you're doing it right--just dance!". Lamott learned through trial and much error perhaps the biggest lesson of all: "being enough was going to have to be an inside job." Mic drop.

Proponents of mindfulness will value Lamott's observations such as: "You get your intuition back when you make space for it and stop the chatter of the rational mind." That seems key to a lot of art and creativity, not just writing. Truly, one of my favorite read-by-the-author audiobooks (sharing company with Anthony Bourdain reading Kitchen Confidential and Stanley Tucci's reading of Taste), and Lamott keeps you laughing while you nod your head in affirmation of the book's wisdom. If you find yourself in a slump (of any kind), give it a listen. Lamott's tell-it-like-it-is isn't doom-and-gloom, but instead very life-affirming. I've got a post-it note on my monitor now that reminds me: "bird by bird!"

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Follow The Leader Challenge 2025 1A ---> Discarded Image by C.S. Lewis

2025 #1 Call Us What We Carry (Gorman)

 Happy New Year. This might have been the perfect book to pick back up at the end of 2024 and to finish in these early days of 2025. I also want to note that I am partaking in two challenges this year: a 25 for 25 Follow the Leader Challenge (technically this means my next book title should start with the letter Y) and a "serious about series" challenge wherein I read one book a month that is a sequel, or part of series. I'm also dedicating 2025 year to working with my stash. I own far too many unread books.

Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

On the front flap of the dust jacket, the book reads:

This book is a message in a bottle.
This book is a letter.
This book does not let up.

This book does NOT let up, indeed. "What place have we in our histories except the present?" (123) Gorman asks in "War: What, Is it Good?" The book is a memoir, largely of the pandemic. But to read it is remember that it was more than Covid-19. It was a reckoning. It was a nightmare and a dream. It tested all of us, not all in the same ways.

Gorman's gifts with language are woven through poems that rhyme and poems that don't, pieces of prose by Corporal Roy Plummer (1896-1966) interspersed with Gorman's verse, a list of scenes to make up a filmic "Monomyth" that narrates the crumbling of normalcy beginning in December 2019 in Wuhan, through apocalyptic brushfires in Australia, through the murder of George Floyd, ultimately to emerge/submerge into the Unordinary World:

"We are not all heroes, but we are all at least human. This is not a
closing, but an opening, a widening--not a yawn but a scream, a
poem sung. What will we admit of & into ourselves. There is no such thing as "all over" and "all done". (191)

The short poem "Anonymous" on 180 features white letters on a black mask, an emblem so charged with meaning in this Unordinary World.

The title of the collection, Call Us What We Carry, truly captures a sense of the book as a whole, and is not just a reference to the penultimate poem "What We Carry" nor the poem "Call Us" (34) wherein we find that exact line. Naming and carrying both feature in much of the work, as does navigation and light.

There are seven sections of the book: Requiem, What a Piece of Wreck is Man, Earth Eyes, Memoria, Atonement, Fury & Faith, and Resolution. These titles become more like beacons as you read through the collection and pick up the various threads. For example, in the poem "Lucent", which is the first piece of "Earth Eyes", the meditation on lumen, lucent..."Our requiem as raptus" (60) reminds us of the role of light in a requiem Mass (luceat eis, lux aeterna) but also how "perhaps it is we who make/Falsities of luminscence--" (61).

In the middle of the book, in a piece called "Pre-Memory", Gorman reminds us:
"Storytelling is the way that unarticulated memory becomes art, becomes artifact, becomes fact, becomes felt again, becomes free."

Yes, the book does not let up, nor should it. We need to feel again. We need to be free.

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Follow the Leader Challenge 2025 1B -->Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

2024 #41: A Gentleman in Moscow (Towles)

 

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you told me that I would come to love a 462-page novel about an aristocrat held under house arrest in a luxury hotel in Moscow, I probably would have been skeptical at best -- visions of Eloise with a "touch" of Solzhenitzyn? How strange. But given the wide variety of personalities belonging to the myriad friends who recommended this book, I finally dug in courtesy of my local public library network.

I was charmed by Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, who has been in exile in Paris, only to be arrested upon his return to the mother country after the Bolshevik revolution. It is the arrest that starts the narrative, and Towles artfully employs flashbacks to fill in the backstory of the Count. According to Wikipedia, the formal structure of the novel is what we might call arch form in music -- the time intervals between each chapter double until we reach sixteen years later, and then it reverses, with the time intervals halving (16, 8, 4, etc...) until the final day. I will confess I did not notice this, nor have I confirmed it (having returned the book to the library), but if it is true, it is just one more delightful aspect of this subtle and enthralling book.

Yes, indeed -- perhaps subtly enthralling might be a better description. A few chapters in I was healthily invested, marveling that there were so many pages to go and yet very little had happened. But then we meet Nina, and Towles writes one of the most wonderful relationships between adult and child I've ever read. We don't need third person narration to see what happens to the Count. And what is so wonderful is that this is not a cliché tale of a child warming the stone-cold heart of the cantankerous adult. The Count is seemingly a constant model of affability and good cheer, taking his (relative) misfortune in stride, finding comfort in routine, books, food, wine and the ordinary miracles of the everyday. The relationship reminded me of one of my other favorite books (The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery), although Nina is far less precocious than Paloma , and the Count has social graces absent from Barbery's genius-in-disguise, Renée Michel.

While 98% of the novel takes place in the hotel, we see the Metropol as few do, courtesy of a "borrowed" key and later, as the Count takes up a job in the hotel. Without resorting to maudlin sentimentality, there are some significant shifts in the plot that other writers might lean into, but Towles casts both the dramatic and the mundane through the eyes of the Count, who remains even-keeled and debonaire, but NOT--and this important--NOT aloof. That's what makes him such a wonderful character. He is invested in loving what (and whom) there is to love. By the time we get to the "intrigue" of Book Five, we are already on board with wherever Towles wants to take us -- a planning meeting with the head chef Emile and the maître d' Andrey, or a meetup with the actress Anna Urbanova, or a game of "Zut" with Sofia--and we barely notice the shift into a different genre!

This book is, in short, a piece of art. It deserves to be read even by those who don't think they will enjoy it. Yes, it is literary--allusions and references abound -- to Russian literature, world history, and the movie Casablanca. It is not plot-driven until the last part of the book, but instead an opportunity to read beautifully rendered characters--even the antagonist (such as he is) is entertaining seen through the Count's general bemusement (and occasional amusement). Unlike other books garnering a five star review from me, this wasn't a book I "couldn't put down" but more of a book I "had to pick back up." I only read a few pages at a time (largely because I read before bed and I'm middle-aged), but I always looked forward to tuning in the next night. I was disappointed to say goodbye to the Count, but also pleasantly sated--a rare feeling with books these days.


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2024 #25: Looking for Spinoza (Damasio)

 

Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain by António Damásio
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love genre-less books...or at least ones that don't fit neatly into one category. This book is chockfull of accessible neuroscience with helpful diagrams, but it is also a memoir of searching, of curiosity, of embracing the past to understand the present. Damasio makes a strong case that Spinoza was ahead of the game in terms of understanding feeling and emotion in terms of a body-mind connection, but this is no dry scientific work of Spinozan-apologetics. Damasio embraces humanistic inquiry, contextualizing Spinoza's work in a well-researched (and sometimes suprisingly enjoyably sentimental) study of his life. Anathematized from the Sephardic community in Amsterdam, Spinoza's identity during his life was well-known, but his ideas were sub rosa. The inverse was to be his legacy (257). With this study, Damasio contends that Spinoza was a "forerunner of modern biological thinking" (259) in a very important and specific way. He does not resort to hero-worship--Damasio is clear regarding where he think Spinoza misses the mark. But in this book, the result of his "quiet simmering of hints and reflections" (263-4)--one of the best descriptions of the historian's craft I've encountered--Damasio concludes the big takeaway from Spinoza is that "Science can be combined with the best of a humanist tradition to permit a new approach to human affairs and lead to human flourishing." (283). But he is more expansive yet, making the case that our brain, with all its mappings and homeostatic processes and endeavor for self-preservation, is crucial in carrying out Spinoza's "virtuous life in civitas" (274), and that ultimately, even in the face of all we see in the news, "there simply is no alternative to believing we can make a difference." (288)

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2024 #13: Half of a Yellow Sun (Adichie)

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a beautiful and difficult book. Difficult because of the painful narratives of the Biafran War, but beautiful in the characters who are so vivid and real in their flaws, their hopes, and their lived existence. We meet Ugwu, a thirteen year old boy from a small village who works as a servant for Odenigbo, Professor of Mathematics at Nsukka University. Odenigbo's girlfriend, then wife, is Olanna, daughter of the influential Chief Ozobia, and more significantly, twin sister to Kainene, who was one of my favorite characters in the book. Not blessed with Olanna's commonly-accepted beauty, Kainene is fearless, acerbic, and honest (especially in the latter half of the book when war reaches her heart). Kaynene takes up with Richard, an English writer who comes to Nigeria to write a book about the art. Adichie artfully uses Richard to express the more subtle racism (whereas his ex-girlfriend is outright and obviously racist). For example, in Chapter 6, Kainene says to Richard: "...it's wrong of you to think that love leaves room for nothing else. It's possible to love something, and still condescend to it." This powerful statement is made after Richard is called out at a party for going on and on about the amazing details and complexity of some African bronzes, not realizing the implication of his surprise--why would they NOT be amazing and complex? Richard is one of the three main narrative voices and the way he grows, partially due to his love for and relationship with Kainene, is really thoughtful and not a single narrative. None of the main characters are unidimensional. Odenigbo moves from idealist to grieving son. Ugwu moves from innocent to war-worn and morally compromised. But perhaps it is mostly the story of the two sisters, Olanna and Kainene where this book touched me most. The horrors of war have their own narratives, but Adichie does not lose sight of the human story that perseveres -- love, betrayal, friendship, enmity--everyone with a heart that has to question some of the time.

Adichie does not sidestep some of the particulars of the Biafran War, however. The book is an opportunity to understand better (particularly for those of us who were not taught about the Igbo and the Hausa) the complex politics, racism, and global manipulations/voyeurism that brought about between 500,000 and two million Biafran civilians dying of starvation.

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2024 #11 Tenderheart (McKinnon)

 

Tenderheart: A Cookbook About Vegetables and Unbreakable Family Bonds by Hetty Lui McKinnon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For those that know me, the fact that I have pledged to try at least one of the eggplant recipes in this book if I try ALL the other recipes, is probably the most astounding review I could ever give a cookbook. But this is more than just a cookbook. It is a story of the way food both nurtures and cultivates memories and helps us work through our grief to find those tangible things in life that help us hold on in healthy ways. McKinnon writes beautifully about both her parents, but particularly her memories of her father. The book opens with a quote from Francis Weller's The Wild Edge of Sorrow: "Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close." McKinnon's father, Wai Keung Lui (Ken) worked at the then Flemington Markets (now Sydney Markets), the "largest wholesale fruit and vegetable market in Australia." (9) She narrates her childhood memories of a man who was "tenderhearted" and prepared food as an act of love and nourishment for his children, entertaining their whims and desires when he could. When Hetty wanted to try cheese, he brought home Kraft singles and then moved on to blocks of cheddar. And then there was the produce. Hetty McKinnon writes about vegetables with as much passion and interest as one might expect someone to detail a fine wine.

Organized alphabetically by vegetable, starting from "Asian greens" and ending with "Zucchini", McKinnon celebrates what vegetables have to offer, encouraging with a preface for each one, an investment in the pleasures of the vegetable itself, even before digging into the recipes. Since receiving this book a few months ago, I have cooked at least twenty of the recipes, with thirty or forty earmarked for "soon." Some are simple and easy stir fries, like "Stir-Fried Cauliflower with Capers, Chile and Parsley" while others are more involved and might require a visit to your local Asian grocery if you don't already go there regularly! While there is a definite Asian leaning toward many of the recipes, there are a wide variety of dishes represented: soups, loaves, salads, mains, sides, pickles, and even dessert (butternut squash tiramisu--I'm working up to it!)! Favorites thus far include "Seaweed, Tofu, and Sprout Soup"which was one of the best dashi-based soups I've ever made, and the "Cabbage and Kimchi Okonomiyaki," which I could eat every week and never tire of it. Dishes like "Ras el Hanout Cauliflower Wedges with Mashed Chickpeas" will help you make a list of spices to keep on hand as well as making sure you always have a can or two of chickpeas in your pantry. The "Red-Braised Brussels Sprouts and Tofu" reminded me so much of the red-cooked pork my mother used to make that my eyes filled with tears when I took my first bite. If you are new to cooking with seaweed, McKinnon's recipes really help illuminate the wide variety of seaweed and its different uses.

I praised McKinnon's To Asia, With Love: Everyday Asian Recipes and Stories From the Heart for this same thing, but it is important: the index! She indexes everything from breadcrumbs to za'atar. The only thing I couldn't find in the index is Maggi Seasoning sauce, which she seems to love, but I'm wondering if there's a copyright issue there. I went ahead and bought a bottle because I trust this woman--she's given me an even deeper love of vegetables and my dear departed mother is hopefully smiling down from Heaven to see it.

If you are trying to eat more vegetables and are happy with plant-based proteins, this book will give you an endless supply of ideas. If you are more omnivorous, many of the recipes can be used as accompaniments to meat. If you are someone who values meaningful words about food and love, read this book.

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2024 #10 Project Hail Mary (Weir)

 

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I had very little idea what to expect going in, only that several people had recommended this book to me. I would not have guessed that a dad-joke telling protagonist who is a cross between Bill Nye the Science Guy and Liz Lemon from 30 Rock and his relationship with a spider-legged creature named Rocky would make me laugh and cry, as I rarely do with sci-fi.

The earth-is-in-danger storyline is simple enough, and yes, the unassuming science teacher saving the day might be a basic trope. However, Ryland Grace, a molecular biologist maligned by academia, now teaching junior high, is one of the better written characters I've come across in the genre. Yes, there are moments where his facepalms and self-effacement-in-order-to-explain-scientific-concepts thing got annoying, but his general sense of humor and interactions with other characters--most especially Eva Stratt and Rocky--make him absolutely loveable and engaging. There's a motley bunch joining the party as well -- an avid Beatles fan researcher from UBC whose development of "Beetle" probes named after the Fab 4 play a crucial role in the book, an not-so-much-ex convict who also happens to be an expert in solar energy, a French climatologist who serves as Weir's strongest and most obvious eco-preacher, and several other characters who bring conflict and questions in ways that make the book provocative, not preachy.

The back and forth timeline actually adds a lot to the plot and the character development as well, as does Grace's own recovery from what befalls him.

Ray Porter's reading in the audiobook is an absolute gem, and is largely responsible for why Ryland Grace will stick in my mind as one of my favorite protagonists ever. I know, if I'm honest, had I been reading it in print, I would have flipped past some of the lengthier scientific explanations. Porter manages to pull you in to listen because one gets the sense that while astrophage don't (yet) exist, and there's a lot in the book that requires one to suspend disbelief, there's also a lot of really critical scientific concepts explained in accessible ways. Rarely did I feel like it was just a gratuitous display of street cred (something I find so often in the genre)--instead I found myself wishing I could sit in Ryland Grace's classroom. I thought the melodic sound effects (vocorder? I wasn't sure) for Rocky's speech made a lot of sense in the audiobook (I hear the words are just italicized in the print edition?), and had I copious free time, I might even dig into it a bit more to test its lexicographic legitimacy.

There are several folks on the internet recommending the audiobook over the print, and I think people's mileage will vary on that, but I will say this is one of the best audiobook experiences I've had and the deeper questions of the book are still sitting with me, long after the glow of the sheer pleasure of the experience has dimmed in my memory.

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2024 #4: The Starless Sea (Morgenstern)

 

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I don't exactly remember what led me to read The Starless Sea, but that seems fitting. Perhaps I encountered a painted door of my own. That metaphor, which may not mean much to the uninitiated, is as poetic and amorphous as the beginning of the book. Morgenstern's fantasy has its sharp edges, evident from the violence and captivity described in the initial pages. But the wardrobe,
at least initially, does not quite lead to Narnia here, and we are better for it.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins, who is half-heartedly chipping away at a Master's degree in "Emerging Media,"would rather just read. He hides out in a Vermont college library during the term break, only to encounter a strange book that changes his life forever.

Yes, there are definitely Neverending Story tropes here, as well as Narnia tropes (the latter made transparent by the author), but Morgenstern weaves stories within stories that seem so distinctly unique yet familiar at the same time. This is, as Joseph Campbell recognized, the power of mythmaking--to hold on to the common themes, but dress them up in an unending variety of costumes. Most of the characters stay behind a gauzy curtain of mystery by necessity, but not without character development. Most endearing is Zachary's friend Kat, whose sense of humor and self-awareness provides moments of utter charm: "I accepted because mysterious ladies offering bourbon under the stars is very much my aesthetic" (464), she tells us, explaining her choices. Kat, notably, also gives a shout out to Campbell via a quip regarding the Hero's journey.

There were moments when the journey felt a bit too drawn out -- a choose-your-own-adventure without being able to choose, and being taken down every possible path. There are things--crucial things--that are never really explained, and that's part of the point. One doesn't mind so much, and comes to accept the truths of the novel as fantasy and reality begin to blur. Time and Fate are leading players in all worlds, it would seem. What we protect is not always what we love, and we don't always protect that which we do love. These are some of the wisdoms that Morgenstern reveals through paper stars, bees, owls, keys, and swords.

This is a book that will benefit from more than one reading, no doubt unearthing layers upon layers. It deserves to be savored, not rushed. And if you happen to like cats, you'll be an even more willing participant.

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2023 #46: Year of Wonders (Brooks)

 

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It may be erroneous to say a work of historical fiction is prescient, but this 2001 novel took on new life in 2020. Based on the true story of the remote English village of Eyam that communally sacrificed itself during an outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1666, Year of Wonders is a miraculously beautiful novel. The characterization is rich and dimensional, with housemaid Anna Frith as a wonderfully developed (and developing) narrator. When the village rector convinces (most of) the village to self-quarantine from outlying towns, the loss is immense, but there is hope and growth and surprises. What is good and what is bad become murky and no one is immune from the challenges, even if they manage to stay healthy. The writing is extraordinary, wrapping in references to seventeenth-century village life and social structure without artifice. For all its graphic depiction of disease and childbirth, there is an underlying elegance which carries the reader along with just enough distance that we can understand 1666 to be 1918, or 2020, or whatever catastrophes we may face in the future.

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2023 #44 The Terraformers (Newitz)

 

The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In all honesty there were long passages wherein I never thought I'd give this book five out of five stars, but the plusses definitely outweigh the minuses for me. This is an incredibly imaginative, yet very real, book. Newitz has a gift for world-making, but also weaves in extended metaphors that are occasionally heavy-handed, but too relevant to ignore. In some ways, there’s a sense that we are all part of some cosmic and cyclical raison d’etre to build and destroy and rebuild. On the other hand, there’s also a hope for taking two steps forward without the compulsory step back.

Fans of Octavia Butler's Earthseed series (e.g. Parable of the Sower ) will appreciate the "ERT" (Environmental Rescue Team) for its idealism in a dystopic context. The characters are diverse in shape, gender identity, hominid status, and Newitz challenges the idea of human vs. animal. Frustratingly, however, just as one gets attached to characters the story shifts forward in time. This is effective in demonstrating generational legacy, but leaves a hollow space, particularly in the case of the first protagonist, Destry, and her friends in La Ronge. This was a similar complaint I had of Olivia Wolfgang-Smith's Glassworks, but The Terraformers works better in terms of continuity as it serves a larger statement about some inevitabilities of humankind. Despite the darker conclusions, the book is hopeful in some ways as well, not completely reliant upon dystopic tropes of ecological demise.

The acknowledgments are an inspiration--Newitz did their homework. While I don't have the expertise to fact check every idea in the book, it is rich with vision and foresight. Newitz asks us "what if" with just enough verisimilitude that we want to seek out the answer.

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2023 #38: Lessons in Chemistry (Garmus)

 

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As I began reading this book, I was prepared to wind up with a "meh" for an overall review. I was wrong.
Elizabeth Zott is a heroine in her own time, and ours. We need not work hard to translate the sexist transgressions of the 50s and 60s to today. Maybe we don't fully identify with Elizabeth, but Garmus provides Calvin, Harriet, Mad, Walter, and even Six-Thirty to fill in the gaps. Writing omniscient narration for the dog provided something more than whimsy. There's truth in animal sense. Six-Thirty is the sage observer, and the little windows we get into Six-Thirty's mind are sometimes as heart-wrenching as they are smile-inducing.

I am mildly sympathetic to the fatigue expressed by some regarding feminists being cast as social misfits, but I feel this particular character is a real opportunity to understand neurodiversity and how one's calling and focus can shape how they relate to the world. This is why Calvin and Elizabeth find each other. I can also see how some expected an easy beach read, but discovered some really crushing scenes of the terrifying reality that many women face. Garmus owes no one an apology, from my perspective. It is exactly that these scenes are interwoven into more comical and lighthearted engagement that makes this such an excellent book. The cover's mid-century vintage design might belie the true nature of the book, but isn't that the entire point? It encapsulates the status of women in the 1950s it its use of that art.

There are yes, a few bra-burning clichés of feminist narratives, but they are used sparingly and with care toward the protagonist's character, so they seem plausible and less like clichés. What appears at first to be the central relationship of the book, is soon supplanted by a "it takes a village" story that includes villagers with secrets and skeletons aplenty, but who are ultimately so human in their stumbling and bumbling and sometimes successful attempts at growth.

An absolute favorite book for me.

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2023 #35: These Precious Days (Patchett)

 

These Precious Days: Essays by Ann Patchett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"People want you to want what they want. If you want the same things they want, their want is validated. If you don't want the same things, your lack of wanting can, to certain people, come across as judgement." (143).

This is just one of many tremendous insights (this one from "There Are No Children Here") tucked into this marvelous series of essays. Patchett writes with honesty that is neither brutal nor saccharine in its emotion. From "Three Fathers", where Patchett narrates navigating paternal relationships with her mother's three husbands, to "Flight Plan", where she articulates so beautifully the relationship between fear, love, and anger, these essays are as intimate as they are universal in the way they express multifaceted humanity. Patchett makes us want to look more deeply at our own lives, whether it is the mundane stuff we decided to keep or toss ("My Year of No Shopping", "The Nightstand"), or the relationships that just happen, redirecting our lives in ways we don't anticipate. It is this last area where Patchett's writing shines the most. The title essay, "These Precious Days" is the longest essay and tells the story of Patchett's friend Sooki, whom she first met as Tom Hanks's assistant. Much as she often does in her fiction, it is the conversations and the small moments that draw us in, rather than the rhetorical denouements and anticipated endings so common in narratives. The essays are best read in order, capturing what at first glance seems a whimsical curation of musings and soon reveals itself to be a carefully crafted meditation on exactly these (or this) precious days. Fans of Patchett's fiction will find several of these essays particularly enriching, both in providing some back story (particularly about The Dutch House) and illuminating the author's process, devotion to her craft, and relationship with life itself.

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2023 # 34 The Dutch House (Patchett)

 

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This novel succeeds because the characters are believable and in some ways, ordinary. In Danny and Maeve Conroy we have two siblings, the former who grows up in The Dutch House, and the latter who chooses to play the role of mother to her younger brother. This is not a strange and esoteric tale, but the nuances that Patchett weaves into her characters makes this a powerful narrative. Danny Conroy learns how to negotiate his past in all his decisions, and the skillful back and forth of past and present lays bare how much of living is this constant dance with our past. He can't escape his father's paternalism, foisting a house on his wife and children much in the same way his father did to Danny's mother. He's at the mercy of his sister, who sets him on a path that is very much about her desire to get revenge. Maeve is headstrong and rebellious. Their mother makes a deeply misguided decision that impacts their lives forever. Their stepmother, Andrea, is perhaps the most archetypal, although she too gets recast in the latter half of the book. Even with all these traumatic situations, however, Patchett manages to illuminate the messiness of love.

As the main narrator, Danny seems almost unfazed, seemingly a passive participant in his own life. But this is what makes the story so compelling--we are allowed to bring our own backgrounds into the experience. When Danny says, "Thinking about the past impeded my efforts to be decent in the present" (304), I had to stop reading for a bit, reflecting upon when I, too, had this realization. Danny has astoundingly beautiful turns of phrase and uses of metaphor that spring forward without preamble, made all the more potent by the lack of emotional window dressing. Likewise, one of the most tragic losses in the book happens without drama or ceremony--a sentence at the end of a chapter, the final item on life's great checklist.

This is a remarkable book that should be savored and read carefully. Anyone who has a mixed or blended family will likely relate to much of the book and even those that don't should appreciate the multi-dimensional, heart-wrenchingly human characters.

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2023 #5: Standing At the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet (Joan Halifax)

 

Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet by Joan Halifax
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Listening to this book was profoundly meaningful. I've admired Roshi Joan Halifax for her balance of earthy sensibility and intentional spirit-ness (which I use distinctively from spirituality). The book examines five "edge-states": altruism, empathy, integrity, respect, and engagement. In recognition of Thich Nhat Hanh's wise caution: "no mud, no lotus", Halifax unpacks each of these edge-states to dig into when altruism goes awry, when we can suffer empathic distress, recognizing empathy as a precursor to compassion (but not compassion itself), when mouthing off is just sanctimony and not principled moral outrage (integrity), and so much more. It would be enough for her just to speak to her own experiences--as a social justice advocate, a volunteer at maximum security penitentiaries, a hospice caregiver, a medical anthropologist and psychologist, founder of the Upaya Zen Center, and probably half a dozen other things I don't even know about. She brings in amazing stories, but also grounds a lot of what she shares in neuroscience and psychology. Roshi Joan is quick to credit all the various figures from whom she has learned (formally, and informally), and it is worth listening to the acknowledgements at the end of the book, because she says each name with intentionality and it is a very impressive list. She integrates introductions to concepts like Stephen Karpman's Drama Triangle, pathological altruism, the Hungry Ghost (in Buddhism), Darwin's original concept of natural selection unmodified by Spencer, David Halberstam's account of the self-immolation of Thích Quảng Đức in 1963, horizontal hostility/peer-aggression, Clark Strand's concept of meditating inside the life you have -- the list goes on. And even with all of this in there, her gentle but firm narration keeps it all digestible and meaningful.

Far from a feel-good self-help book, this is truly an honest investigation of what it is to be human. She offers some suggestions for practice, but ultimately she uses powerful metaphors (ending with a astounding story about her experiences at a charnel ground), storytelling, historical documentation, and scientific investigation, to help us grapple with our own condition(s). She holds up others: Fannie Lou Hamer, Florynce Kennedy, Laurance Rockefeller, and so many others. She shares their stories as well as her own. Roshi Joan offers a contemplative practice model to help guide us through these moments that challenge us at the edge, but one that is centered in active presence and acknowledgment of systemic injustice and our individual biases. This is not a stick-your-head-in-the-sand approach, but instead one of intentional centeredness to create spaces of mutuality and trust. I'll be returning to this often.

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