Eduardo Santiago
"Chilling" is probably not the right word. Would you prefer "horrifying"? Vaillant paints a bleak picture of Earth's future, one shaped by greed and negligence.
The book loosely centers around the week of May 3, 2016 in Fort McMurray, Alberta: fire start, then Everything Is Fine, followed quickly by panic, chaos, terror, disbelief, struggle, shellshock, adaptation, and misery. War, essentially; war that will be coming for most of us. These parts of the book will feel hauntingly familiar to my friends and neighbors in Los Alamos, especially the part where Vaillant writes "[this or that] was—how many times can one say this?—unprecedented." We've lived through that: Cerro Grande (2000) was unlike anything else before; Las Conchas (2011) likewise; and the next one is simply unimaginable as I write this. I don't mean that in a good way.
It's not just the Fort McMurray fire, though: the most impactful parts of the book are the contexts that Vaillant provides. He writes a rich history of atmospheric science, what we know, when we learned it, and HOW we learned it. The scientists and dabblers who, through curiosity and determination and cleverness, figured out the nature of oxygen, carbon dioxide, combustion. The ones who sounded the alarm about CO2 in the nineteenth century, then with increasing urgency in the early and mid and late twentieth. And the subhuman oil executives who squashed those findings.
One of Vaillant's recurring themes is the Lucretius problem (which I'm more familiar with as the Black Swan problem): humans have a poor ability to imagine and plan for events beyond the ordinary. He writes about pyrocumulonimbus: everyone in New Mexico is familiar with these, but apparently they were only formally identified in 1998. He writes of fire tornadoes, which are even newer. He notably does not write about the next unexpected megafire effect, but we can be sure that one future day there'll be another shocking development in fire behavior. I am infinitely grateful that my children will never see what that is.
A wild ride -- the book, that is, not just the boat trip. Fedarko is a master storyteller: he zigs and zags through history, prehistory, geology, climate, politics, personality, and of course boating, and he makes every one of those enjoyable reading. Good levels of tension all throughout, making it hard to stop reading. Exquisite prose, often poetic. Long, descriptive sentences: I would not want to be the audiobook narrator for this one! I read it aloud and often had to gasp for breath midway through a sentence. But I never felt annoyed by that; only delighted.
Part One was irritating, often to the point of being grating: a shallow, self-absorbed, successful, privileged, hyperdramatic white woman has a midlife crisis, ditches commitments and responsibilities, starts lying pathologically to her partner and child, and becomes infatuated with a prettyboy two-thirds her age. Do I really need to keep reading this? No--said my friend A.--I didn't care for it either, but there are almost-redeeming aspects later on. I trust A. So I made it through Part Two, in which infatuation becomes obsession and the drama escalates with anxiety on top.
Part Three, thankfully, was a big improvement: mature, intelligent themes of adult relationships. Frank conversations and redefinitions and accepting of responsibilities and life challenges. (This is not the same as saying that the protagonist navigates the process of growing up; I will let each reader decide on that). New sets of problems and of course drama, but more fulfilling this time. I'm glad I kept going. Can't say I enjoyed the book as a whole, but it did spark good conversation. Unrated because I don't really have the right.
"Someone asked me yesterday what hope looks like," muses Camille Dungy partway through her breathtaking book, _Soil_. Reflecting on bulbs planted in the fall; on anticipation; on efforts that may take months or years to yield results--if they do at all--she responds: "My garden."
_Soil_ is not a gardening book. You need not have a green thumb to enjoy it, although you may be inspired to try once you dive into it. You won't learn how best to plant irises, or where or when, but you may gain new perspectives on why to do so and on how meaningful a garden can be. You may also pick up some valuable historical knowledge, or pause once or twice to admire a beautifully crafted sentence. Dungy identifies as a poet, and her prose shows evidence of it. Her paragraphs are deliberate, rich in imagery and meaning and insight, rewarding the careful reader.
The narrative begins in 2013, with Dungy and her family moving from Oakland to Fort Collins. Her vision for their yard -- pollinator-friendly, with a large variety of native flowers -- is a far cry from the herbicidally sterile lawn the previous owners left them. It will take work and time for soil to heal, for columbine and blue flax to come in, and for insects and birds to start visiting. "Changing our environment from homogeneous to diverse is rewarding. But the process can be slow."
Woven all throughout are threads of memoir, history, art, literature, biography, language. The word dandelion being removed from a kids' dictionary, perhaps replaced by blog or chatroom. The etymology of the prefix "eco." Slivers from the lives of Mary Cassatt, Thomas Nuttall, John Muir, Anne Spencer. Tales of privilege and of lack. The history and chemistry of neonicotinoids. And, significantly, Dungy herself and her family and their lives: their Covid experience; breathing smoke-saturated air while wildfires rage nearby (sound familiar?); moments of learning and imperfection and growth, in and around and away from the garden. "It is difficult to survive, much more difficult to thrive, without a community on which to depend."
Dungy's efforts -- and hope -- are rewarded. (This is not a spoiler: from the beginning she writes of the purples and golds and magentas, whites and browns that thrive in her garden and in her life. She has a finely tuned awareness of color). The book is about the journey, and it's a lovely one.
Disappointing, but I'm not going to rate it because I did get a few important reminders, most particularly the need to stick with N-Back: I sort of drifted away from practicing it a few years ago, then picked it back up in response to this book and, yeah... I better make it a habit again.
What really bugs me is that he's heavy on anecdote, light on solid data. Two examples: for remembering numbers he introduces and recommends a system of his own invention instead of the canonical Major system; and although he acknowledges the aphantasia spectrum, many of his recommendations for memory systems are "this is what I use", and are visualization-based. No references to published research, no accommodations for different types of memory.
Short and easy to read, and reinforces the Sleep well, Eat well, Exercise well mantra, and has other useful info so sure, if you find a copy go ahead and read it, but don't go out of your way to find it.
Not only informative but beautifully written, too, with gorgeous sentences and lively spirit and tension and clear-eyed compassion and the slightest touch of sardonic humor. Impeccably researched and ingeniously organized. REALLY ingenious: Immerwahr repeatedly takes the reader on what seems like puzzling tangents, and each time ties those tangents into the main theme in alarming and sometimes disturbing ways. It's almost like a legal thriller.
I was born in a U.S. colony and spent almost my entire youth there. A close friend is a legal scholar with several publications on territorial law. I thought I was well informed on U.S. colonialism and empire... oh, I had no idea. I learned soooo much from this book, not just about colonialism but about technology, culture, standards, music, health. This is a masterpiece, I can't recommend it enough, and it breaks my heart that all my friends are going to see the title and think, eh, sounds dry.
I was soooo looking forward to this.... but it's a big nope. The introduction is a long, tedious tirade and then it just gets weird: magical thinking (plants with their own "distinct wavelength", animism, mysticism, overuse of "sacred", everything natural is benevolent); meaningless word salad ("Still, we manage to create a poetics out of that which wishes to destroy us and the planet") indistinguishable from the wonderful Bullshit Generator [ https://sebpearce.com/bullshit/ ] only much much longer. The kind of book where I expect "hegemony" to appear any moment. The content is not helped by the writing, which is choppy and staccato.
There are nuggets of actual information, on Jamaican geography, extractive mining, flora and fauna, but not enough to make it worth the slog. Not enough to be useful. Abandoned, p.41 (two pages into chapter two).
Not what I was expecting. The preface and the scholarly essay appendix are suitable for adults but the main text and artwork seem incongruously targeted toward grade schoolers. Simple declarative sentences. Illustrations that feel like they came out of a Chamber of Commerce brochure. Unrated, because I am not the target audience.
Exquisite writing, both in terms of language and emotional power. Many sentences I had to pause to savor. Peters is a gifted writer and empath.
It is impossible to say much about this book without revealing spoilers, so here's a quick safe rundown of key points. First, Peters got the tone right. There were many angles she could've taken: misery porn, rage, handwringing. The way she crafted it was moving and effective. And second, I really want to talk about some aspects of the book, so please just read it and let's chat over coffee or a walk?
Charming and sweet and fun. A little dated in places, cringey even, and that got me wondering if Juster saw those as cop-outs at the time, or if he did later in his life, and lots more tangents on the shortcuts we take in life and regret later. But I digress.
This is my first reading, and I enjoyed it. Very smart: sparkling wordplay, whimsy, randomness, and Dodgsonian absurdity. Unfortunately, it's hard to sustain freshness with that type of witty banter, so the last two thirds dragged a little. That's okay, there were other redeeming qualities. Thank you, K., for the recommendation.
A welcome addition to the canon. Much more readable than Supercommunicators and less dated than Nonviolent Communication. Well organized and referenced. Written with compassion, sensitivity, and humor.
This is probably going to become my first-choice recommendation for people waking up to the importance of listening. Even though it was published in 2019, it's well tuned to the problems of 2025: loneliness, attachment theory, cell phones, identity politics, and the importance of silence (both ambient noise and not speaking). I lurrrrved the opening of the last chapter, When to Stop Listening: a pompous blowhard professor mansplains humor to her. I'm quite sure that person is by now aware of this book and his presence in it, and I wonder: is he cringing in shame now, striving to become a better person? Or is he digging his heels in defensively? Because that's really the root of the problem: those who most need this book are the least likely to read it.
She has a Recommended Reading list at the end, books she considers masterpieces of the art of listening, and War and Peace is first on it—a choice that delights me, because I thought the same thing when I read it. Unfortunately, Middlemarch, a book I found insufferable, is also on that list. I will have to grit my teeth and give it another try.
More a collection of amuse-bouches, some WTFs, and a few genuine delights, and I would expect nothing less from someone who acknowledges Montaigne within the first ten pages and concludes with a tip of the hat to Galeano. These are, after all, essais, and even the masters didn't putt 1000. It is, on the whole, an uplifting way to end this year. (Aside: Gay wrote the essays between August 1, 2016, and August 1, 2017. The careful reader may note some uncomfortable parallels between that timeline and today.)
This is a book to read slowly, and I did. Gay is obviously a poet first and foremost and second and third too. Even at a gentle pace, a good number of essays needed a reread: some because of Gay's circumloquaciousness, some because his cultural references are just too obscure for me. I found myself enjoying even the rereadings. And the delights, those were mostly simple reminders to observe and be present as we go about our days.
And with that, farewell 2024!
I'm not quite sure what this was. Elements of generational trauma; the violence chronically inflicted on Turtle Islanders; addiction; hopelessness; searching for meaning; with occasional didactic history lessons wedged in. Characters (and chapters) had unique voices, mostly third person, occasionally first, and once second, most of them too rambling or stream-of-consciousness for me to follow clearly. It felt experimental, avant-garde, intended for people much smarter than me. The first half covered many characters over a long time span, with not enough exposure to get to know any of them. The second half was contemporary, fewer characters, tighter focus, but most of that focus was on two teenage males who were ... uninteresting.
The first book was fresh and intriguing; this one felt much too long. It dragged on. The side plots felt forced. The romance angle got to where it just felt tedious. The cutesy oppressed creatures were depicted in a way that seemed cringily Samboish. The lookism was awkward. Yes, I will read Kingfisher again, her heart is huge and loving. Just not for a while.
Kinda wish I'd DNF'ed. The first half was intense, with Many Valuable Elements crammed in: Plucky Young Woman Gets Rude Awakening, check. Horrors Of War, check. Despair Over Senseless Tragedy, check check check. Sexism Racism comma Suitable Outrage Expressed, check. The second half changed focus, more toward reintegration and Meaning and PTSD, all crafted with Sensitivity And Tact, all of it carefully engineered to manipulate your ire and sympathy and tears.
This could've been a knockout. A lighter touch, a little less bathos; sometimes less is more. Maybe the protagonist could've been a tad less rich talented beautiful privileged. Or the romance angles less predictable, the plot elements less formulaic. the auxiliary characters more real. And that's the word I was looking for: Real. There's not enough of it. This just felt like it was assembled from a kit. The pieces are all there, they snap together right where and when they should but the life is missing.
Please disregard anything I say, though: I'm a crotchety old insensitive male jerk.
Strong start, and the momentum persisted: tension, discomfort, wonder, tenderness, loss, discovery. Pritchett has a knack for understanding that end-of-life despair where we realize our life has been mostly wasted, and we can never fix it, but we might have a small chance to give meaning to the little that's left. Ammalie—her protagonist—is intensely figuring out how to do so. Her decisions are not ones I would make, nor (I hope) would you, but even so I get it. I could relate and deeply empathize and even love her. Love everyone, actually, because that's the sort of book this is: All the characters are kind and wise and wonderful; all the conversations are Real; all the vistas are breathtaking and are mindfully appreciated. (If you're getting a Lake Wobegon vibe, you're not too far off). Gently antiracist and ecoconscious without being heavyhanded. Emotionally powerful and sensitive. Satisfying conclusion.
Once again I'm impressed and moved by how huge a heart Pritchett has and how effectively she paints the kind of world I want to live in. Or, if I'm very lucky, to help shape, in the company of the kind wise wonderful loved ones in my life.
(Can't quite justify five stars because the dialog is so stilted and cringey. Plus the dei ex machina, eyeroll. Please don't let that put you off from reading this. Just have a grain of salt on hand.)
Sweet, moving, humbling. At times reminiscent of--and doubtless inspired by--Pale Blue Dot, but that's just a fraction of its complexity. Much of it centers around the simple logistics of one 24-hour period aboard the ISS. The simple, even banal (it seems criminal to use that word, but there you go) humdrum (ditto) of daily existence: moving around, doing chores, performing bodily maintenance, reminiscing, gaping in wonder at our home planet below. Harvey skillfully blends feelings of awe with simple everyday reality, and I think offers us Earthbound masses a realistic glimpse into what it must be like.
Beautiful and moving and heartbreaking. If you listened to the podcast you remember the tension and the fascinating, disturbing history of greed, abuse, pillage and murder. It's all in here, and much more: photos, extra history, updates.
Nagle is a great storyteller, in both podcast and book mediums. Her prose kept me on edge and engaged. She is honest. She sticks to facts; and those facts are damning.
One month from now, greedy white predatory lawbreaking immigrant cockroaches will begin looting and pillaging the U.S., destroying an entire country and killing millions of people. Possibly including you and me. We will all get to find out first hand what it's like to be hunted and crushed and slaughtered. Some will survive and, perhaps, get to write stories like this one.
Charming! Not a whole lot of new material for anyone who's been cooking a while, but enough to read (not skim) the whole way through... and worth doing so for the sense of joy that infuses the book. Nosrat is a storyteller, an ebullient one; all of her lessons are illustrated via memorable tales of her experiences and mishaps and successes. She uses humor judiciously: as a seasoning, if you will. Every page is filled with delight.
Well written and organized. Informative and engaging. Much of what she wrote in 2016, it's not that it's "still relevant" today, it's that it's worse. Chapter 5, on corruption, was chilling. The next pandemics will hit a U.S. whose medical and clinical institutions have been decimated; a U.S. with subhumans in charge of all national offices and with an economic depression or possibly full collapse. Information gathering and sharing, research, prevention, treatment, will all be up to states or isolated universities. And, as Shah clearly describes, violent mobs will likely strike at the latter. Interesting times. I feel sorry for the few who might survive.
All I felt was dismay that a book like this would even need to be written: nothing in it is new or even unusual. It's simply how a human being lives day to day, with integrity and decency.
Then I started thinking about two books I read in the past week, [book:Mountain Time|201358084] and [book:Thunder Song|185767242], both dealing in part with the Turtle Island genocide, and in particular illustrating historical interactions between individuals. Both books reinforced a belief I've long held: inferiors are <i>incapable</i> of understanding honor. It's not that they scorn it or use it selectively, it's that their brains genuinely don't have the ability to register it. Sort of a corollary to Jonathan Haidt's work. Anyhow, that makes it challenging to reach them... and impossible for a book like this. So who is Snyder's target audience then?
There is a lot packed into this short work. Not all of it worked for me, but the ninety percent that did, wow. And the rest, it's probably a failing in me: one gift-slash-curse of mediocrity is being able to recognize genius but only myopically, where you know it's there and if you squint you can almost make it out but you know there's much more to it.
Like, Sokal Hoax. Chapter 2 is obviously a riff on pompous postmodernist windbags, with lovely echoes throughout the rest of the book. Or is it? And Heller: I thought I saw hat tips to Catch-22 several times, particularly the absurdist exchange between de Kooning and Rauschenberg. But what am I really seeing? I can tell that's the central focusing point in the book, but I lack the ability to see it in its fullness.
Erasure is much more than satire. I'd say the main theme is loneliness, with Everett tackling it from an impressive number of perspectives. Loss, too, and racism, code switching, integrity (artistic and personal), and our human need to be seen. Plus much, much more.
Fierce and powerful and disturbing. LaPointe's life, and her ancestors', is filled with traumas that most of us will never experience. Also tremendous good fortune, if we can call it that to escape attacks from a predatory exploitative system that shouldn't exist. Would you call yourself lucky to walk through a park without being kidnapped/murdered? To survive domestic abuse and negligent medical care? The book had me constantly reflecting on my privilege.
Hers is a life I will never truly understand: 90's punk scene, queer, rage, neglect, fear. LaPointe gets me to see, hear, and feel more intimately than perhaps I ever have. Gives me a new deeper sense of the generational trauma of Coast Sailish people, of the racism and violences against them, of the daily weight of loss.
This isn't just a rage-etc book. LaPointe is an adult now, with a huge and beautiful heart. She writes of transformation and reconciliation and hope and growth. Deeply moving.
Strong recommendation: look up <b>Vi Hilbert</b> before you begin reading.
Piggyback note: reading this in December 2024 is especially painful. Being reminded of the disease, destruction, violence, and suffering inflicted upon good people by a much smaller group of white monsters; of Chief Seattle's courage in the face of indescribable loss; I'm imagining some wise old souls bowing heads sadly and thinking, here we go again.
2024-12-07 Abandoned, p.148. Friends of mine who are smart, literate, and compassionate love this book; I just find it tedious. The Russian Master stories are meh. Saunders's over-over-overanalysis of each one is navelgazing to extremes I never imagined possible. But shrug, I'm not a writer or a literary critic nor do I GAF about the art of writing nor am I smart literate compassionate, and life is short.