en-US Fri, 21 Mar 2025 06:49:25 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Friend1418954487 Fri, 21 Mar 2025 06:49:25 -0700 Review4859902 Mon, 10 Mar 2025 17:37:06 -0700 /review/show/4859902 C gave 3 stars to The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Paperback) by Malcolm Gladwell
bookshelves: psuedo-scientific-hogwash, 11th-grade-lit
To understand "The Tipping Point," one must understand what led to its creation: In the year 2000 A.D. (Anal Dominos), there were 5.5 billion people living on the planet Earth. Many of them were considered human beings, but a few were thought to be celery. The difference between the two categories bewildered the top dog breeders of the day.

To help us think more deeply about the consequences of the problem, consider the following fact: If you were born after 1975 and tried to ride a bicycle from Iceland to Darfur, the chances of colliding with a British nanny increased 13% based on the number of Blossom reruns you watched as a child. Whether or not your parents are divorced is immaterial, as is the amount of padding in your seat. Social Scientists had a term for this late 20th century phenomenon: "Whoa!"

Meanwhile, in Canada (if that's your real name), a young, mild-mannered boy named Malcolm recognized the unique power of combining individual letters into meaning-units called “words.�

He quit his job making ice sculptures out of rusted fenders and moved south of the border to America (the nation, not the toy store).

His timing was impeccable. At the end of the 90s, America had just entered a period of reckless behavior wherein, with little prompting, Americans would try to arrange words into "sentences" and, if sufficiently coked-up, slap those sentences into "paragraphs."

Conservatives like Pat Buchanan were furious. Senator Bob Dole went on Meet the Press and blamed his erectile dysfunction on syntax. The era ended suddenly on December 31st, 1999, when, according to a budding bow-tie fanatic named Bill Nye, both the year AND the century had run their course.

Feeling threatened, Gladwell went on national television to declare "writing" is the radical, counterintuitive explanation for the existence of what he called "books" but what conservatives called "syphilis".

The strategy worked: He signed a contract with the biggest publishing house in America, which then promptly issued his first minor masterpiece: "Writing: How Letters, Sentences, Paragraphs, and Chapters Add Up To The Thing That Came Before the Colon." From that point on, it was all gin and roses (until Slash and Hypen left the band). ]]> Review2527007136 Sun, 12 Jan 2025 19:36:45 -0800 /review/show/2527007136 C gave 3 stars to The Count of Monte Cristo (Paperback) by Alexandre Dumas
After I finished this book—while crossing the Manhattan bridge on the Brooklyn bound Q train—I hugged to my chest and began to cry, not tears of joy, but tears of pain because a man dressed like Patrick Bateman stepped on my surgically repaired big toe with his Italian loafers. He looked like the kind of man who wears expensive LL Bean vests on the weekend and drinks craft IPA beers and played lacrosse growing up in Rye.

Meanwhile, I looked like the kind of man who wore thick glasses and rolls his own cigarettes and grew up reading Catcher in the Rye. But did I say anything to him? Like, watch where you’re going, bozo? No, I did not.
]]> Review3278854876 Sun, 12 Jan 2025 10:53:51 -0800 /review/show/3278854876 C gave 4 stars to There There (Hardcover) by Tommy Orange
Reflections on the Covid-19 Great Books Discussion
Over the past few weeks, I’ve led a weekly seminar called the Covid-19 Great Books Discussion. Open to anyone, we tackle challenging texts—college seminar-level material—to keep our minds sharp and engage in meaningful conversations about life. What began as a way to pass time during the pandemic has become an intellectual lifeline.

So far, we’ve explored Emerson’s Self-Reliance, Jung’s The Stages of Life, and McKibben’s The End of Nature. As I connect these works, I’m struck by how they all converge on a central idea: the moral and spiritual superiority of what Carl Jung calls the “natural man,� Daniel Quinn refers to as the “Leavers,� and scholars often describe as Indigenous cultures. These writers illuminate the turning point when humanity transitioned from living off the land to dominating it through agriculture—a shift that marked, depending on perspective, either progress or downfall.

The Divide: Takers vs. Leavers
Daniel Quinn, in Ishmael, defines two archetypes: the “Takers,� who believe the world was made for their use, and the “Leavers,� who see themselves as part of the world’s natural balance. According to Quinn, the Biblical story of Adam and Eve symbolizes the moment humanity took life and death into its own hands, abandoning harmony for control. Agriculture, in this view, isn’t a triumph but a tragedy—a departure from living in sync with nature.

Jung echoes this perspective, describing the choice to eat from the Tree of Knowledge as the “sacrifice of the natural man.� For Jung, the natural man focuses on survival and instinct, while the civilized man is burdened by existential angst and artificial concerns—questions like whether to buy a vacation home in Vermont. Civilization, Jung suggests, comes with a heavy price: the alienation from nature and from ourselves.

Emerson, too, critiques civilization, reserving his sharpest words for “society.� He sees it as a force that cuts us off from nature, the source of all truth and wisdom. Instinct, he argues, is our most reliable guide, yet we’ve abandoned it in favor of social conventions and hollow comforts.

The End of Nature
Bill McKibben, in The End of Nature, argues that humanity hasn’t just disrupted nature—we’ve ended it. Through genetic engineering and other technologies, we’ve turned the natural world into a product. Once a rabbit or a cloud can be manufactured like a can of Coke, their intrinsic value disappears. McKibben suggests that by taking control of nature, we’ve destroyed its essence—and with it, the spiritual connection that once defined our place in the world.

A Leaver Perspective: Tommy Orange
While Emerson, Jung, and McKibben write from the Taker perspective, Tommy Orange offers the perspective of those forced to adopt the Taker way of life. His novel There There examines the scars of Native Americans—descendants of Leaver cultures who have been uprooted and assimilated. Through a series of character portraits set in Oakland, California, Orange portrays the identity confusion, historical trauma, and cultural dislocation that define the contemporary Native experience.

Orange’s characters bear the weight of a violent history. Their culture, bodies, and lands have been mutilated and commodified, leaving them with faint echoes of a better way of life. By inhabiting their consciousness and “walking a mile in their moccasins,� readers come to feel the deep pain of a people confined to reservations, casinos, and cities—far from the natural world that once sustained them.

Final Reflections
We, the so-called civilized, are the malevolent zookeepers of history, while Indigenous peoples are like Ishmael: wise, perceptive, and imprisoned. As we plow fields, build cities, and engineer ecosystems, we must confront the possibility that we’ve lost more than we’ve gained. These authors compel us to ask: What does it mean to live in harmony with nature? And can we ever reclaim the instincts, wisdom, and humility we’ve sacrificed on the altar of progress? ]]> Review96887148 Tue, 15 Oct 2024 18:05:39 -0700 /review/show/96887148 C gave 4 stars to Civilization and Its Discontents (Paperback) by Sigmund Freud
This book helps explain one of life’s enduring phenomena: rage. It explains why standing behind that scruffy, ponytailed, mustachioed gentleman in the checkout lane (let’s call him “Gerard,� for good measure), can trigger paroxysms of homicidal fury. Something deep and ancient roils inside as you do a quick comparison: Gerard, with his sensationally attractive girlfriend in tow, (let’s call her “Melanie�); and you, with just you. You stand there fronting a twitching half-smile that conceals the throbbing urge to rip the man-bun off his head. Alas, the spell is broken: you need to pay the cashier for those artisanal cucumbers, the ones you read about on that message board dedicated to “wellness.�

Later, sitting behind the wheel of your Hybrid, you shudder. Where did that come from, you wonder. The answer: you're an animal, buddy. That handsomely tailored Oxford button-down only goes so far to hide the truth: you're a bloodthirsty, sex-crazed, status-seeking ape. Go on, if you dare, look inside yourself. You'll see the truth. Just try to keep your clothes on. ]]> Review4859902 Tue, 15 Oct 2024 17:51:49 -0700 /review/show/4859902 C gave 3 stars to The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Paperback) by Malcolm Gladwell
bookshelves: psuedo-scientific-hogwash, 11th-grade-lit
To understand "The Tipping Point," one must understand what led to its creation: In the year 2000 A.D. (Anal Dominos), there were 5.5 billion people living on the planet Earth. Many of them were considered human beings, but a few were thought to be celery. The difference between the two categories bewildered the top dog breeders of the day.

To help us think more deeply about the consequences of the problem, consider the following fact: If you were born after 1975 and tried to ride a bicycle from Iceland to Darfur, the chances of colliding with a British nanny increased 13% based on the number of Blossom reruns you watched as a child. Whether or not your parents are divorced is immaterial, as is the amount of padding in your seat. Social Scientists had a term for this late 20th century phenomenon: "Whoa!"

Meanwhile, in Canada (if that's your real name), a young, mild-mannered boy named Malcolm recognized the unique power of combining individual letters into meaning-units called “words.�

He quit his job making ice sculptures out of rusted fenders and moved south of the border to America (the nation, not the toy store).

His timing was impeccable. At the end of the 90s, America had just entered a period of reckless behavior wherein, with little prompting, Americans would try to arrange words into "sentences" and, if sufficiently coked-up, slap those sentences into "paragraphs."

Conservatives like Pat Buchanan were furious. Senator Bob Dole went on Meet the Press and blamed his erectile dysfunction on syntax. The era ended suddenly on December 31st, 1999, when, according to a budding bow-tie fanatic named Bill Nye, both the year AND the century had run their course.

Feeling threatened, Gladwell went on national television to declare "writing" is the radical, counterintuitive explanation for the existence of what he called "books" but what conservatives called "syphilis".

The strategy worked: He signed a contract with the biggest publishing house in America, which then promptly issued his first minor masterpiece: "Writing: How Letters, Sentences, Paragraphs, and Chapters Add Up To The Thing That Came Before the Colon." From that point on, it was all gin and roses (until Slash and Hypen left the band). ]]> Review3762984738 Sat, 15 Jun 2024 02:06:48 -0700 /review/show/3762984738 C gave 5 stars to The Last Temptation of Christ (Kindle Edition) by Nikos Kazantzakis
I finished this book in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was the summer I joined the Traveling Sacred Bums, an anarchist collective devoted to spiritual enlightenment and voluntary poverty. Our mission was to go completely off the grid. We never spent money—we bartered—and to feed ourselves we opted for dumpster diving and eating fresh roadkill.

Each summer we visited the homeland of noted spiritual leaders like Gandhi, Buddha, and Lil' Nas X. That summer, we selected Nazareth in honor of Jesus but one of our tribe, Chuck, was allergic to cat dander and Israeli cucumbers so we did the next best thing: we visited the homeland of Dan McCafferty the founder of the band Nazareth. Love hurts, my chickadees, love hurts.

We had a good time that summer. We had a good collective. We brought something special to the ancient land of William Wallace and Ivanhoe. The problem was Fern. No amount of traveling sacred bummery could disguise the fact that she was beautiful like a sunrise or a good steak. On top of that, she was the only woman in our collective. We, on the hand, were a sorry lot, with our raggedy clothes, matted hair and body lice. We thirsted for enlightenment but we were starved for love.

Love tore us apart faster than you can say Joy Division. Chuck first fell for Fern, but it wasn’t long before Gilbert and Timmy did, too. They were all moon-eyed and tongue-tied. One traveling sacred bum would give her first dibs on the dumpster scones and the other would sneak her the choicest cuts of roadkill Haggis. We had a strict anti-fraternizing policy (thanks HR!) so this kind of thing was forbidden, but spiritual enlightenment is no match for the heart.

Eventually, I, too, fell for Fern.

One night, while the group was asleep in a Tesco parking lot, Fern and I found ourselves alone. She noticed my copy of Kazantzakis' novel poking out of my plastic satchel. "Cool title; any good?" Yes, I said, it was good. I told her the novel had a mysterious pull on me, as if it were channeling the same pentecostal spirit that flowed through apostles. The novel seemed to pulsate and breathe. It was so real, it resurrected the passion of Christ.

We paused for second while the Tesco customers finished loading up groceries in the boot of their car. Normal folks, people with families and friends and good jeans. We exchanged pleasantries with them—people were always keen to exchange pleasantries with the Sacred Bums, mostly to see if they could sniff out our intentions. Once they were gone, Fern confessed that she was tired of bumming around, that she missed her childhood home in Liberty Springs, Arkansas. She grew up in a double-wide trailer with a kitchen nook and two bedrooms. She missed her cat Doodles. There was more to be said, I'm sure, and the night could have ended with a tender kiss, but we'll never know because I got bashed in the head by a runaway grocery cart.

When I woke up, everyone was sleeping. Immediately, I was hit with a thunderbolt of certainty. And a thunderbolt of electricity. Up I got and home did trot as fast I could caper. I found my most valuable possession: a Topps Bill Buckner rookie card worth hundreds of dollars. With my windfall I bought a double-wide trailer home in Liberty Springs, Arkansas. Fern's childhood home. Her parents were kind enough to move into a nursing home at my lawyer’s request. With a little help from the internet I located the Traveling Sacred Bums in Glasgow, Scotland. I brought Fern back with me to Liberty Springs. Fern and I got hitched; we had two kids, Chip and Betty, and two chocolate labs named Hershey and Squirt.

It's a good life, I know. Sometimes it feels like a dream, or a dream within a dream. I wonder if I'm awake or if somehow I'm asleep and dreaming my life. We'll never know, will we? ]]> Review4859902 Sat, 08 Jun 2024 06:55:48 -0700 /review/show/4859902 C gave 3 stars to The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Paperback) by Malcolm Gladwell
bookshelves: psuedo-scientific-hogwash, 11th-grade-lit
To understand "The Tipping Point," one must understand what led to its creation: In the year 2000 A.D. (Anal Dominos), there were 5.5 billion people living on the planet Earth. Many of them were considered human beings, but a few were thought to be celery. The difference between the two categories bewildered the top dog breeders of the day.

To help us think more deeply about the consequences of the problem, consider the following fact: If you were born after 1975 and tried to ride a bicycle from Iceland to Darfur, the chances of colliding with a British nanny increased 13% based on the number of Blossom reruns you watched as a child. Whether or not your parents are divorced is immaterial, as is the amount of padding in your seat. Social Scientists had a term for this late 20th century phenomenon: "Whoa!"

Meanwhile, in Canada (if that's your real name), a young, mild-mannered boy named Malcolm recognized the unique power of combining individual letters into meaning-units called “words.�

He quit his job making ice sculptures out of rusted fenders and moved south of the border to America (the nation, not the toy store).

His timing was impeccable. At the end of the 90s, America had just entered a period of reckless behavior wherein, with little prompting, Americans would try to arrange words into "sentences" and, if sufficiently coked-up, slap those sentences into "paragraphs."

Conservatives like Pat Buchanan were furious. Senator Bob Dole went on Meet the Press and blamed his erectile dysfunction on syntax. The era ended suddenly on December 31st, 1999, when, according to a budding bow-tie fanatic named Bill Nye, both the year AND the century had run their course.

Feeling threatened, Gladwell went on national television to declare "writing" is the radical, counterintuitive explanation for the existence of what he called "books" but what conservatives called "syphilis".

The strategy worked: He signed a contract with the biggest publishing house in America, which then promptly issued his first minor masterpiece: "Writing: How Letters, Sentences, Paragraphs, and Chapters Add Up To The Thing That Came Before the Colon." From that point on, it was all gin and roses (until Slash and Hypen left the band). ]]> Review6558220326 Mon, 03 Jun 2024 17:50:59 -0700 /review/show/6558220326 C gave 5 stars to The Clash of Civilizations?: The Debate (Paperback) by Samuel P. Huntington
]]> Review6558219763 Mon, 03 Jun 2024 17:50:47 -0700 /review/show/6558219763 C gave 5 stars to Keeping Things Whole: Readings in Environmental Science (Paperback) by Crispin Tickell
]]>