This book taught me that many students of English have learned incorrect language rules from their teachers, and their writing can be improved by unleThis book taught me that many students of English have learned incorrect language rules from their teachers, and their writing can be improved by unlearning them. Lucky for me, I went to a failing high school where I didn’t learn shit. This must be why my prose is so sparkly.
Steven Pinker possesses a great mind and admirable writing ability. Ironically, his writing is at its worst when he tries to pin down why it works. The deeper he gets into usage-based explications of linguistically-interesting constructions, the further away he gets from offering real advice to budding Hemingways. Realistically, there are two steps to improving your writing: read some fucking books, and write a lot.
Improving your writing is like improving your Spanish: you’re not going to logic your way into understanding the secrets of syntax, just like you’re not going to find a satisfying logical explanation for that pesky personal “a.� Instead, you have to tune your ear to what sounds right, and what sounds off. The main problem with Pinker’s style guide is that he tries to intellectualize something that has to be learned through experience. It’s like learning Spanish by memorizing the Wikipedia page on the Spanish language. It’s not going to work.
Ultimately, a writer has to get intimate with good prose, roll around in bed with it, be nakedly, uncomfortably vulnerable with it. Pinker won’t get you there. A writer should look to the great writers: Tolstoy, Joyce, Eliot, Proust. Their words make you want to grab their paragraphs, push their chapters against the wall, and ravish them....more
"They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you."
-Philip "They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you."
-Philip Larkin, from This Be The Verse
A few years back, I caught an informercial for a product called "Your Baby Can Read.� Supposedly, the program can teach babies to read before they’re even able to talk, despite the fact that scientific evidence strongly suggests that babies can’t learn language from television. The product seems to have been pulled by the producer, but that hasn’t stopped me from using the hilarious infomercial when teaching psychology. It’s just another example of the flawed idea that children need to be doing everything faster and earlier, with no regard to whether reading Harry Potter is developmentally appropriate at age two.
I was not an early reader. I wasn’t a particularly late reader either, but I certainly wasn’t reading before kindergarten, or even much in kindergarten. My parents read to me, and sometimes I memorized books so that I could parrot them back to my parents, but that was pretty much it. Around first grade I had some sort of a-ha moment, and, after that, I read voraciously. Still do. This was a pretty normal developmental trajectory. Now, with increased pressure on parents to put their kids on the Harvard track by preschool, my reading would probably be a huge cause for concern.
Developmental Psychology is one of the most relevant classes that most people skip in college. College students spent so much of of their time trying to figure out how to not accidentally create a human fetus that they seem to forget that this might be something they’ll want to do on purpose later in life. One great opportunity offered by Developmental Psychology classes is understanding exactly what your own parents did wrong while raising you; this is not because it comes in handy during Thanksgiving arguments, but because it helps to humanize your parents. They were just doing the best they could, but they didn’t know what they were doing. No one does.
More importantly, though, Developmental Psychology clarifies some of the bizarre processes by which children learn and grow. It can help future parents realize that it’s better to provide clear rules instead of trying to be your kid’s friend, although it’s best to keep these rules reasonable and open to negotiation. It can help people understand what so-called normal development really looks like, so that they’ll be able to tell when there’s actually a problem. Hopefully, it can help quell the crazy over-scheduling of kids, which I have to believe wouldn’t be happening if parents understood how important sleep actually is.
Anyway, this book is not as good as a Developmental Psychology class, and there were a few points where I didn’t feel like they explained the research literature as well as I would have liked, but it’s still a good resource for anyone who has to deal with kids. Of course, my boyfriend was very happy to hear that I was only reading this for teaching purposes. Not surprising, really. Parenting sounds terrifying....more
I waffled between giving this a two or three star review, and, as much as I’d like to give it three stars, I just can’t do it. Still Alice sounds likeI waffled between giving this a two or three star review, and, as much as I’d like to give it three stars, I just can’t do it. Still Alice sounds like an excellent book: the story of a Harvard Professor Cognitive Psychology who gets diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers. Author Lisa Genova, also a cognitive psychologist, did a considerable amount of research for the book, and I looked forward to reading a depiction of the experiential reality of Alzheimers from someone uniquely qualified to fictionalize it.
Unfortunately, Genova’s academic expertise far outpaces her writing ability, which significantly reduced the impact of her overall message. Indeed, it read more like a subpar young adult novel than serious fiction for adults, which is a shame. I figured this out early on: in one of the first chapters, Genova describes Alice and her husband’s physical appearance by having them look at themselves in the mirror (note to aspiring writers: if you find it necessary to make sure the reader knows what your characters look like, emulate Tolstoy, rather than Stephenie Meyer. I can still picture Natasha, slight and ebullient, sitting restlessly on the couch of her drawing room, just as I can easily visualize the Little Princess, with her peach fuzz mustache. Yet I have no recollection of what Alice is supposed to look like, even though I just read the description two days ago, because Genova never gave me a reason to care.). The writing doesn’t get any better from there, with a random Mary Sue-ish episode in which Alice ends up at the same restaurant as Jennifer Aniston, and obnoxious PSAs about support for people with Alzheimers thrown in, seemingly independent of the plot.
Actually, the whole thing read like a very special episode of a lowest-common-demoniator sitcom. Exhibit A:
[image]
Definitely a fascinating subject, though. I’d like to see it explored in the future, in the hands of a more capable writer....more
A slim volume about the power of narratives. Gottschall presents empirical evidence about the stories that we tell ourselves, although there's not anyA slim volume about the power of narratives. Gottschall presents empirical evidence about the stories that we tell ourselves, although there's not anything new here. Unfortunately, Gottschall is better at telling stories about the results than describing the experiments in sufficient detail, although he is an English professor and this is a popular science book, so I can't begrudge him too much....more
Have I read this one before? Because it really feels like I've read this one before.
I know I haven't actually read The Paradox of Choice, forgotten itHave I read this one before? Because it really feels like I've read this one before.
I know I haven't actually read The Paradox of Choice, forgotten it, and then picked it up again years later only to find it intensely familiar. My book-related record keeping is far too complete and obsessive for that. I chose this book because it's a classic, one that has been oft referenced in other books that I've enjoyed. While I can fault the book for being somewhat repetitive, I can't fault it for being influential. My three star rating feels disingenuous, kind of like the people who claim The Beatles are unoriginal because a ton of other bands have copied them. However, I think I've already established that my ratings are capricious, and violate all sorts of statistical assumptions, and are generally a bad use of a continuous, quantitative measure. I'm okay with that.
If you haven't read all those books that cite this book, the main idea is that that we have more choices than ever before, and we have a lay presumption that those choices should make us happy. Unfortunately, empirical research suggests that more choices actually make us more overwhelmed, less satisfied when we do reach a decision, and more likely to avoid making any decisions altogether. Additionally, some people (maximizers) are caught up with making only the best decisions; Schwartz postulates a causal relationship between increased choice and depression, although this hypothesis is fairly speculative. I'm apparently a maximizer, because my Netflix ritual involves scrolling through all the movies for twenty minutes looking for the best one, getting frustrated, and turning on Friends reruns again.
One terrifying insight from this book is that 2004 was kind of a long time ago. I sort of knew this already, because I've recently had some Cabernet Sauvignon from 2004 that had developed a really lovely bouquet. The examples provided in this book range from buying a new CD player, to shopping around for long distance service, to picking out a movie from the video rental store. Schwartz mentions that real estate is usually a good investment! There's even a hypothetical recent college grad who is fielding four different job offers (!!) and making trade-offs between a great salary with only moderate room for advancement, and a good salary with lots of room for advancement. In 2016, that kid is totally back at home living with his parents, bemoaning the fact that entry level jobs in his field require six years of experience and a masters degree, and still barely pay above minimum wage. (Note: my iPad just tried to autocorrect jobs to Jo's. Twice. Even my iPad knows that jobs don't really exist anymore.)
Although the United States is the most extroverted country in the world, one third to one half of people are introverts. Introverts are often quiet peAlthough the United States is the most extroverted country in the world, one third to one half of people are introverts. Introverts are often quiet people, the ones who would rather stay in on a weekend than go out to a party, the ones that need to recharge with solitude after giving presentations. Introverts are often deep thinkings and intimate friends, although our society (incorrectly) views them as passive and anti-social. In Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, Susan Cain explains how Western society misunderstands the quiet among us.
I do not count myself as one of the quiet ones. Indeed, I'm one of the extroverts, and I'll go so far as to say that no one has ever called me quiet. I know I'm an extrovert, because I look forward to giving presentations (the bigger the audience, the better). I get antsy when I don't have a party to go to on Friday night, and I recharge after a long day of work by socializing. Plus, I'm going to spend a large portion of this review talking about myself.
Cain's book makes me realize that I also possess some traits that are more characteristic of introverts. I spend a fair amount of time with my nose buried in a book, and I'm hopelessly bad at multitasking. I'm not a fan of group work (unless I can be completely in control of the group), and I would certainly consider myself an intellectual. As Cain points out, no one is completely an extrovert, nor is anyone completely an introvert. Extroverts, however, flourish in American society, while introverts are often forced to pretend to be extroverts.
Particularly interesting is the chapter on raising introverted children. I don't have children, nor do I have plans to gestate a human being anytime soon, so I was surprised at how much I got from this section. After reading it, I realized how difficult school must have been for the shy ones, the ones that "never spoke up" in class. It's clear that I got undue praised for being bossy and talkative. Who knows how many kids my teachers ignored while I blabbed on endlessly about who knows what.
Throughout the book, Cain argues that introverts should be cultivated, that their unique abilities (such as the deep focus that so often eludes me) should be valued. I agree, and I think she should take her argument one step further: extroverts should try to bring out their introverted sides. Maybe, instead of telling introverts to be louder, we should all try to become more quiet....more
�...no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the f�...no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish.� - David Hume
What kind of person could deny that the holocaust actually happened? Who could argue against the evidence for evolution? And how do smart people believe such outlandish claims as ESP, alien abductions, and haunted houses? In his book, Michael Shermer explains the logical fallacies and cycles of belief that cause smart people to believe some really weird stuff. This book is worth reading for the in-depth discussion of logical fallacies alone; these fallacies should be taught in high school science classes. Shermer points out that part of the issue with pseudoscience is the way we approach science eduction: as a collection of facts, instead of an imperfect but self-correcting method for discovering the truth.
Shermer treats believers kindly: he does not attack them as ignorant or crazy. Indeed, he claims that intelligence and belief in weird things are completely orthogonal (in other words, statistically unrelated). However, he does compare creationists with holocaust deniers (both fringe groups that use similar tactics to deny a well-established truth), and he certainly counts a belief in God, particularly a belief that God can be proven scientifically, as strange. Shermer's discussion of Ayn Rand's cult of objectivism is amusingly vitriolic, and one of my favorite sections of the book....more
The internet is a jumble of information: as I type this, I have two different email inboxes open in different tabs, another tab open to a blog post, iThe internet is a jumble of information: as I type this, I have two different email inboxes open in different tabs, another tab open to a blog post, instant messaging windows chiming, and text-messages being sent to my computer through Apple's iMessages systems (I forgot it was called iMessages, so I also had to open google and look that up). In short, my computer screen effectively works as a purveyor of distraction; in The Shallows, Nicolas Carr argues that the internet impacts my brain outside the pleasantly-blunted edges of my MacBook Pro (and my iPhone. And iPad. And, come to think of it, my Apple TV).
In making his argument, Carr first examines the history of information technology, starting with scrolls, wax-tablets, and my beloved codex. He shows that the type of "deep-reading" afforded by books is an anomaly in our history, although one with a myriad of benefits. This history covers everything from Guttenberg to artificial intelligence to Google, and is the best part of the book.
Carr also examines the scientific literature on multi-tasking (something people simply cannot do well), memory, and cognitive load. He argues that the internet puts more demands on executive function, leading to poorer storage and retrieval of information. This is supposed to affect our brains through neuroplasticity (changes in brain structure due to particular inputs), although he doesn't cite much evidence specific to internet use and reading. Carr's understanding of the scientific literature is fairly shallow, but not necessarily incorrect. If I were to grade his work in an introductory course on cognitive psychology, I'd have to mark him down for lack of precision.
One minor pet-peeve: Carr uses the term "the Net" to refer to the internet, which feels as out-of-touch as saying "the world wide web" or "the information superhighway." I'm guessing this was an editing decision, but it still bothers me....more
As I turned the last page of this book, I couldn't help but feel a bit guilty. Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a stroke that left him unable to talAs I turned the last page of this book, I couldn't help but feel a bit guilty. Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a stroke that left him unable to talk or move, painstakingly dictated his memoir by blinking, over the course of months. I finished reading it in an afternoon.
At the age of 44, Bauby, the former French Elle editor in chief, had a stroke that damaged his brain stem. Here's a bit of a refresher on neuroanatomy: the brain stem is an evolutionarily ancient structure at the base of the brain, right before the brain becomes the spinal cord. Newer, cortical areas of the brain are involved in recently evolved functions, such as language and planning. Deeper structures control more basic functions, such as movement, respiration, and circulation. Strokes that damage cortical areas are no picnic, but the brain is plastic enough that skills can often be relearned. Strokes that damage the brain stem, however, are catastrophic.
Following the stroke, Bauby became locked in to his own mind. His locked in syndrome meant that he was unable to move, unable to speak. He was luckier than others with the syndrome: he could blink his left eye, and he learned to move his head 90 degrees to the left.
His memoir consists of a series of non-linear vignettes that deal with his life, both before and after the stroke. He speaks of the nurses, his children, travels he went on before the stroke, former lovers, old friends. During a particularly moving scene, he writes about the imaginary meals he eats (due to the stroke, he has to be fed through a feeding tube). Because he memorized each chapter before dictating it, he was forced to be concise. His brevity adds a haunting quality to the memoir.
This book will be of interest to almost anyone, but especially those of us who are interested in the brain. Psychologists, neuroscientists, and neurologists in particular should read this book. It's amazing to see what a rich inner world can be created by those who the outer world writes off as close to vegetative....more
Loading...
