Eduardo Santiago

Six days ago, listening to Hua Hsu speaking at the Santa Fe International Literary Festival, I found myself thinking: what a beautiful human being. An hour after that I got to watch him in the hallway, interacting with fans and other invited writers, demonstrating patience and kindness and grace; initial impression confirmed. Of all the books I bought that weekend, his was the first I launched into. In hindsight it was a poor decision: the better decision would've been to read <i>Stay True</i> when it first came to my attention a year and a half ago.

This is a book about friendship and loss and wisdom, and it will only really make sense to anyone over forty. Even then, probably only a certain subset of that cohort: the quieter, nerdier, introspective ones. Hsu writes with gentleness and humility toward his teenage self, reminding us of some of the absolute certainties we held at that age; of the ease with which we came up with opinions and how ill-informed those were. The details of his youth made no impression on me—I still have no idea what a zine is nor do I know any of Nirvana's music—but the soul is completely recognizable.

So. Much. Trauma.

Everyone in this book is so wounded. So many ways to be abused; so many ways to cope. So much suffering. My heart goes out to Figueroa.

I’m going to punt on writing any sort of review and on assigning any stars. It’s too complicated. On the whole the book didn’t work for me—too many fantastical elements, too much bleakness—but I kept reading, felt drawn in, and am glad to have done so. I just don’t think I got everything out of it that the author intended.

Delightful and rewarding for the heart, the senses, and the brain: Garvin understands them all. The book hit so many of my buttons: grief; injustice; (mis)communicating; caring; belonging; responsibility; the joy of curiosity. The characters were complex, the villains despicable, their relationships growing ever more nuanced as the book developed. They all felt real. The science felt real, as did Frankie’s love of learning. The writing was evocative, rich in a way that my more visualizationally gifted friends might love; even I found myself closing my eyes at times and trying to see, hear, and feel.

Although the main storyline takes place in 1998, some of the zeitgeist felt anachronistic, more like 1978; I’d like to know if you felt that too. Some of the events are emotionally manipulative, especially near the end, ... and I was totally OK with it. I left the book feeling thoughtful and satisfied.

If someone had asked twenty-year-old me what I thought the most difficult challenges of my life would be I probably would’ve replied with something about technology, career, financial stability, something banal like that. By thirty I knew better: communicating with others is by far the hardest part of my life. And by forty I had a fair inkling that the effort was going to be a lifelong one.

I was lucky. Sure, I wish I’d known all that earlier, had more time to learn and practice and connect, but I’m still thankful to have learned it at all: not everyone does. Since I was late to the game, I’ve relied on books for my ramping up and ever-continuing education: most notably Nasty People and Nonviolent Communication. And now—did you think I’d forgotten that this was supposed to be a book review?—possibly Supercommunicators, too. Too early to tell, but judging from my notes and page markers I think it has a good chance.

Duhigg’s principal focus is on recognizing three overall types of high-stakes conversations, which he memorably sums up as: Do you want to be Helped, Hugged, or Heard? From that starting point he elaborates fairly effectively, diving deeper into each, offering research, examples, and useful insights. Occasional tangents, such as advice for communicating online, were germane and welcome. My one quibble is hard to describe, maybe a chemistry thing: I occasionally found myself unable to relate. And I’ll leave it at that.

Four stars IMO, but five in importance. I found much new and thoughtful material in here despite my occasional disconnects. Your experience will differ from mine, you may get more out of it, or less, but I urge you to read it because we’re all works in progress, and we all have room for improvement in how we relate to each other. And because, despite it being the most challenging element of my life, communicating is also the most rewarding.

Not what I was expecting but wonderful regardless. Thought-provoking essays, mostly disconnected from each other, about humans and our connections with animals. Some are broad, some (Keiko) highly specific. Some relate to her own life, some not in the least. Most are essay length, the last 20% are short vignettes.

Orlean’s style is intriguing: she has a complex relationship with animals, is fascinated by them, gets attached, but she also manages to deromanticize then in her writing. Much of what she writes is uncomfortable, because much of what humans do to animals is uncomfortable. So is pretty much any aspect of any being’s life. I found myself thinking hard.

Design and inclusion are two of my hot-button favorite topics, so I was really eager to read this... and therefore really disappointed by it. This is a book for activists and community builders and extroverts, not for engineers or what I think of as designers. Even after realizing that I still couldn't get into the book. The tone felt patronizing, Mister Rogersy. Content was poorly edited and awkward to read. Physically, the pages were stiff; hard to flip. I expected much better design.

Unrated, because I’m clearly not the target audience. I want to think that maybe there’s good material here for someone else.

Really difficult to get into: the narrative voice felt mushy, distant. Maybe that was the point, given the themes of prejudice, alienation, and loneliness? Maybe her technique is brilliant but doesn’t translate well? Or maybe (probably) I’m just not smart enough to get it.

Riveting. Exquisite writing, masterful pacing, memorable characters.

In a recent interview with Dr. Laurie Santos, Malcolm Gladwell unconvincingly argues against journey-is-the-destination thinking. About halfway through this book, when it became increasingly obvious how it was going to end and how we were going to get there, I found myself remembering that interview with amusement because there was no way I was leaving this delicious journey. (To be fair, Gladwell’s focus was narrow and unrelated to reading).

Three narratives: one first-person, two third-person, an intriguing and effective choice that slowly starts to make sense as we learn how the protagonists’ stories are connected. Many story elements reminded me of Susanna Clarke—the nature of the magic, the complexity and depth of the main characters. Dark, in different ways. Hart’s voice is unique, though. I was hooked early, and devoured the book in one weekend.

For a brief while this was on my dont-bother list; I am grateful to A. for insisting that I try and for suggesting that I read with attention.

Another installment in the ever-popular Poor Life Choices series, but with a twist: the author is self-aware. Sometimes a little too much so: her childhood reminiscences have more emotional depth than I can really buy. Sometimes I let it go, sometimes not so much, but this is a powerful book regardless. Part memoir, part history lesson, part ethnography, and one hundred percent filled with grace. Taffa is not gentle: not with colonizers, nor her family, nor herself. Throughout the book she expresses her childhood anger over shitty situations: at those who caused them and at those who perpetuate them. She doesn’t sugarcoat the violence, rage, helplessness she grew up seeing, or the systemic bigotry and humiliations she experienced everywhere she lived. She is candid about her childhood selfishnesses, in a way that demonstrates remarkable forgiveness toward herself and others. And in the end, this is not a spoiler, she makes good with her life.

It’s a complex book. The Taffa who wrote this is in her fifties, still (justifiably!) angry but now wise enough to focus her energy. This is a book for all of us in the Southwest, may we learn to see and prevent injustices.

It Does Not Work That Way. None of it works that way! Not the technical stuff (the cryptography was particularly embarrassing). Nor the human-motivation stuff nor the relationships nor just anything. And it just kept annoying me more and more. There was one person to care about, maybe two, but even they were cardboard.

I’m betting this was written as a screenplay. Whiz-bang descriptions of computer animations and complicated artwork and stuff that has nothing to do with anything.

A mixed bag of short stories: hit or miss, but the hits were exceptional and even the medium ones were breathtaking. I find myself still thinking about them days later. Every story was wildly unique, the unifying element her voice. Distinct and powerful, with a sublime gift for understatement. The situations Oliver writes about are horrifying beyond anything you or I have ever dealt with; the calm with which her characters handle them compels the reader to really think about them. What lifetime of abuse makes someone take suffering in stride? How do they find strength and courage?

The first third alternated between annoying and compelling. Then something flipped inside me: the more farfetched the story became, the more immersed I got in it and the more I came to love it. I think it’s because my expectations weren’t well suited to the book: although the content is harsh and sobering, the presentation is more yarn than epic. Everett was channeling Twain. With the right expectations I think you, too, will love this.

Ugh. What an irksome, aggravating, wonderful and beautiful book. I can’t say it was always a joy to read, but it always gave me joy to keep reading, and I know that makes no sense but in many ways neither does the book so nyah.

A lot of my hot buttons in this one: handwavey, superpowerful, how-convenient magic, with completely unexplained rules and equally unexplained inconsistencies. Soul-hurting lookism, where everyone is just so damn attractive. Appalling cruelty. Multiple forms of the amnesia gimmick (the Project Hail Mary and Seven Moons of Maali Almeida type, where protagonists start out not remembering the vitally important and you-might-think-memorable events that led to their predicaments; and also the You Will Forget This Ever Happened mesmerism stuff, both equally cheesy). And, sigh, the one character I related to—the one with the strong moral code and sense of responsibility, who is skeptical and wary of the magical elements, who simply tries to be invisible and do some good—is derided almost nonstop, called boring and more, not just by other character in dialog but even in the author’s own narrative voice.

But.

But, dammit, the author herself is in on it. The characters themselves get irritated at the magic. They vent frustration over the cruelty, and draw frustrated but reasonable parallels to the random cruelties of natural forces. They invent workarounds for their amnesia. Every time you think Link is being sloppy or lazy, she gently winks and lets you in on the joke. But it’s not a farce; not even close. It’s exquisitely smart. Much more importantly, Link understands kindness. She really, really understands it. And cruelty, and love. And she doesn’t overdo any of them nor does she get preachy. Partway through I realized that, magical gimmicks aside, this is purely a book about choices and seeing and caring. It really is a book about loving. And I could go on for hours more, but just go read it.

Book bans. Racism, xenophobia, misogyny. Strong, violent, omnipresent police. Lapel flags and loyalty tests. The world of this book is a r*p*bl*c*n’s wet dream. The kind we might see if you don’t vote.

The first half of the book, Part I, was a bit of a slog. A too-heavy mix of Orwell and Havel, each extreme almost cartoonish in their cruelty and heroism respectively. I almost DNF'ed... but kept going and am really glad I did: parts II and III are where Ng gets her voice. Beautiful language, captivating story, and serious heart.

VOTE.

AIUI when Hughes wrote The Spanish Daughter her publisher insisted on a sequel. Well, she wrote one, and... um... it has many fine words in it. Many fine sentences, too, because Hughes writes beautifully. Sadly, as a whole it was not a fine book. It felt forced the whole way through. Contrived storyline, jarring anachronisms, unlikable characters. I got the sense that Hughes herself was tired of them: with one very minor exception, every character was painted unsympathetically. And, having recently read Thornhedge, I found the lookism kind of offensive.

Hughes can do much better. She has. I trust that her next book will be a labor of love and inspiration, not contract, and I look forward to reading it.

(Also, DAE find the sugar/salt thing weird? I find it impossible to imagine anyone doing that.)

DNF, p.99. I found it horrifying. The adults are violent and cruel. Maybe they’re meant to be cartoonishly so? Not to me: I found them repellent, even sickening. Had to put the book down many times; then each time after continuing the violence only got worse. I'm sorry I kept on as long as I did.

The first-person narrator, a twelve-year-old girl alternating between her present self (1971) and herself at nine, comes off as affectless. Mostly just trying to disassociate from her abusive situation. Her numbing strategies are soulcrushing.

Plot twist: I found myself growing angry as I read. In a book that is in every possible way entirely about love. Why are some people such meddling busybodies? How DARE they prescribe a one-size-fits-all lifestyle, and hurt those who don’t fit in? I’m looking right at you, churches. Fuck you all.

Anyhow. This is a lovely book that, in a better world, would not be necessary. Each chapter is a portrait of real people in what some neurotics (see above) would call unconventional relationships. Each is intimate, sometimes bordering on uncomfortably so. Necessary, given the nature of the book. Some of the relationships come off as beautiful, some less so (to me). Some ended in heartbreak; others will one day; but every single one of them has led to growth & happiness & rewards for all involved. That’s what it’s about. That’s why we put ourselves out there and risk our hearts, “conventionally” or not.

The final chapter has great, thought-inducing material on government-sanctioned relationships: marriage, domestic partnership, a really cool legal framework in Colorado that I need to learn more about, for granting specific and distinct financial/medical end-of-life designations possibly to different people. Marriage is obviously an antiquated and idiotic institution, what surprised me is just how harmful it really can be. Worth reading for this chapter alone.

Well researched and referenced. Compassionately written, although it’s very clear that Cohen is young. This is probably a good book for younger people. Us olds, we either understand it already or we never will. It is my great fortune, a blessing, that I only hang out with people who do.

Wowwwww. Painful and powerful. Furious and tender and oh so familiar to anyone living in the Western US. This is a novel only in the loosest sense—objectively speaking it’s a collection of vignettes, written in different voices, centering around one massive wildfire and its effects on a small Colorado town—but it’s damned cohesive, and effective, and beautiful.

Pritchett is an impressive writer, evoking a roller coaster of emotions in each short chapter. She starts off strong, with that horrific anxious tension of an approaching fire, and she gets it right: I really felt it from the first two pages. In subsequent chapters she gets the helpless rage, the numbness, humor, bitterness, loss, desire for connection, and even, in a couple of chapters written first-person from the perspective of loser piece-of-shits, lets us see and almost empathize with said losers. She has tremendous heart and compassion, much more than I do. (I will never forgive anyone who lights a campfire in dry conditions).

This is a smart book. Scientifically literate. Respectful of Indigenous perspectives. Well informed on fire behavior, ecology, suppression. Intelligent, well-read characters. But above all it’s a deeply human book. It’s also one I’m glad to have read in February: it would be much too stressful in May.

An unexpectedly well-rounded medley of astronomy, cartography, and history. Informative in a way that I think will stick with me: along with descriptions of cosmological phenomena, Natarajan explains how and why we know what we do. The who and the when. What did they notice in the skies? What questions did those observations raise, how did they go about searching for answers, what technologies did they have available to them, and—most discouraging—what personality conflicts hindered them?

I long for an updated edition. The book was published in 2014, which you’d think is fairly recent but it really isn’t. In particular, just a few months after publication, LIGO recorded observations that confirmed some of her predictions. It was fun, and inspiring, to see what Natarajan has been up to in these last ten years.

DNF, p.139 (almost halfway).

Asymmetry (the concept) fascinates me: so much of our world is defined by imbalances in power, desire, ability, and most especially information. Every day, and I really mean every day, I spend time observing and analyzing aspects of my life in terms of asymmetries.

Asymmetry (this book) explores the asymmetry of sex between a mid-seventies man and a mid-twenties woman, neither of them in any way interesting or with any spark of soul. No connection between them.

I actually found myself reading beyond page 50 out of curiosity: contemplating my asymmetry of interest. Wondering if there was something for me to learn. I sought counsel today from two wise friends who had finished the book some years ago. I am heeding their advice.

Delightful. Sweet. Refreshingly nonlookist. Kindhearted. It felt at times like a love child of Brené Brown and Becky Chambers with a little DNA from Epictetus. (Doesn’t that make you want to grab a copy right away?)

I loved the explorations of trust; how it can develop over time. I especially loved how Kingfisher uses kneejerk reactions, moments caught off guard, to reveal personality. I loved the lead-with-heart conversations, the leaning into curiosity without initial judgment. Obviously I loved the snipe at the “beautiful people are good, ugly are evil” trope. I loved the exploration of whether some people simply need killin’. And, above all, I loved the overarching spirit of kindness even in difficult circumstances.

Recommendation: don’t read the jacket blurb. It’s anti-helpful. Not really spoilery, but just, I think it would've detracted from my enjoyment of the first 20-30 pages (I read the blurb after finishing the book).

The word “horrid” seems to have fallen into disuse, how lovely that I get a chance to use it now! Not the book—its characters. Dreadful, the lot of them: self-absorbed, venal, contemptible from the very first page and increasingly more so.

Jackson had a gift for depicting us at our ghastliest. Here she uses a variety of paintbrushes, at times inspiring disgust, other times pity, once in a while veering into almost (Preston) Sturgesesque levels of farce. Her dialogue is believably natural. Her social commentary a bit heavyhanded at times but always spot-on. I’m left with mixed feelings: I want to read more of her work, but not for a while.

So much more than the jacket blurb suggests. This was a sobering high-level look at regional, national, and international factors that shaped today’s world. Both discouraging and inspiring; complex and nuanced. I have a much greater understanding for the difficulties involved in balancing morality, law, and governance. (Spoiler alert: morality does not always win).

Most fascinating to me was the delicacy with which good leaders need to tread: slaveholders and defenders of slavery are obviously subhuman vermin, but there were a lot of them and they were powerful; policymakers were forced to make horrible tradeoffs in order to avoid riots and ouster. Depressingly reminiscent of the suffering today in Palestine, Ukraine, and the U.S. South, none of which can be fixed (right now) because of the preponderance of subhumans in positions of power.

Almost as fascinating is the snowballing consequences of even minor policy actions: even though the absolute number of enslaved Blacks who fled to Mexican territory was a small fraction of those who fled North, the Mexican government’s freedom principle — slavery shall not be recognized within their borders — had enormous repercussions on U.S. territorial expansion and ultimately on the U.S. Civil War.

Impeccably researched and referenced. Elegantly written, and with compassion. Baumgartner is a phenomenal writer, historian, and legal scholar. I can’t recommend this book enough.