Statements about power that are often true: * Power is brutal. * People with power use it brutally. * People who have been powerful for a long time have also been brutal for a long time.
Noam Chomsky writes about power, and the way it has been used (brutally) by the United States. He also writes about language, and how we settle into ways of using it that distort our perceptions. This is one of the best books I've read on either subject.
Even on topics that most authors treat as a tug-of-war, Chomsky is less likely to join one side or the other than he is to pull the rope sideways, or point out that it's been tied to a brick wall:
Some of you are journalists: try talking about the American "attack" on South Vietnam. Your editors will think you came from Mars or something, there was no such event in history. Of course, there was in real history.
His views are often straightforward, but rarely simple:
"I mean, it's a difficult judgment to try to figure out whether Nixon or Humphrey is going to end the Vietnam War sooner [in 1968], that's an extremely subtle judgment to make; I actually didn't vote on that one, because I figured Nixon probably would. I did vote against Reagan, because I thought the guys around Reagan were extremely dangerous-Reagan himself was irrelevant, but the people in his administration were real killers and torturers, and they were just making people suffer too much, so I thought that might make a difference. But these are usually not very easy judgments to make, in my opinion."
The book is mostly people asking Chomsky ideological questions and getting back practical answers. Is now the time for revolution? Well...
"[America's] depoliticized, cynical population could easily be mobilized by Jimmy Swaggart [a televangelist], or it could be organized by environmentalists. Mostly it just depends on who's willing to do the work."
Is capitalism racist? Well...
"Capitalism basically wants people to be interchangeable cogs, and differences among them, such as on the basis of race, usually are not functional. I mean, they may be functional for a period, like if you want a super-exploited workforce or something, but those situations are kind of anomalous. Over the long term, you can expect capitalism to be anti-racist, just because it's anti-human. And race is in fact a human characteristic-there's no reason why it should be a negative characteristic, but it is a human characteristic."
He isn't always right, but his "does this make sense?" filter is always on, and it catches a lot of potential mistakes before they happen. It also lets him cut through the Gordian Knot of tangled pro-America journalism which dominated the media landscape for several decades (and caused immeasurable damage during the Iraq War). To see someone with a similar mind take on our current politics, see William Arkin's resignation from NBC.
Anyway, back to the main review: Understanding Power was endlessly fascinating. I learned about bits of history I'd never heard before (like the story of Vladimir Danchev or the theory of "Diaperology"). I saw old bits of history in a new light (Watergate was a piddling violation of "American values" compared to FBI raids on the Socialist Workers Party; Bill Clinton helped to overthrow democracy in Haiti). And I came to appreciate the mind of the author, who in many ways is a consummate rationalist, always asking more questions and refusing to clap for the applause lights of any party. (I had never realized how deeply he held Marxism in contempt; shame on me for painting him with a broad brush.)
This isn't to say he's perfect, of course. I'll quote a passage from my notes, written minutes after I finished reading:
As a big thinker, he has big weaknesses; the one that first comes to mind is that he doesn't seem to see businesspeople as... human? He claims that people are very difficult to predict or understand, unless they are businesspeople, in which case they will murder their way to profits every time.
Understanding Power doesn't really understand capitalism; Chomsky may have a reasonable model of what it's like to be CEO of Lockheed Martin or United Fruit, but I saw no evidence in this book that he has any idea what it might be like to live inside the mind of Elon Musk or Joe Coloumbe. Also, after reading his thoughts on American libertarianism, I wished that I could find a time machine and arrange things so that he'd been forced to room with Bryan Caplan in college (they could have been such good friends, and Caplan may have corrected a few of Chomsky's silliest mistakes).
Still, the book's minor flaws barely dim its brilliance, and they certainly don't undermine its central point: The American government does not hate you, but it doesn't love you; you are made of atoms it can use for something else. And Americans have built-in blinders to stop them from recognizing this (we also have new blinders in the twenty-first century, but the old ones never slipped off). We have murdered and bombed and killed people at frightening rates, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not. We try to protect people, and we have good intentions, but we almost always put ourselves first.
...of course, other countries are much the same. To study power in global politics, one should study the United States, but had Chomsky been a Russian in an alternate universe where the Cold War went the other way, I think he'd be saying the same things about the USSR (though he may not have lived quite so long).
Anyway, I've rambled on long enough to create a Chomsky-style review. He's really smart and says a lot of true things that are easy to forget whether or not your politics are "mainstream". He is steadfastly pro-human and really seems to care when people get hurt. He has a coherent view of the world. He tells funny gossipy stories about George Will and other journalists acting ridiculous. He is worth reading....more
Read this as soon as you can. You can finish in an hour or two, and every sentence is a jewel. It's nearly impossible to imagine this being writtenRead this as soon as you can. You can finish in an hour or two, and every sentence is a jewel. It's nearly impossible to imagine this being written better in the year 1861 by any other person alive at the time. (Mill's wife was also a major contributor, and it's deeply sad that she didn't survive to see it published.)
The language isn't so archaic as to detract from readability, and the arguments are constructed with a care and precision I once associated only with the best philosophers of our era; "Subjection" is leagues beyond Mill's "Utilitarianism" in that regard.
I find something worth quoting on every other page, and much of it still rings true today (indeed, you can see faint echoes of Mill in the best analyses of the James Damore memo). Every time Mill begins to make some statement that might ring false to modern sensibilities, he catches himself and apologizes for his own lack of data, then steps back from the precipice. This feature, combined with his deep appreciation for the contexts within which people and groups live out their lives, makes him the ultimate rationalist social justice warrior. On my best days, I hope to see the issues of our society as clearly as Mill saw the issues of his own....more
Redwall meets Lord of the Rings meets Discworld, with the virtues of all three and almost none of the vices. Digger ought to be roughly a thousandRedwall meets Lord of the Rings meets Discworld, with the virtues of all three and almost none of the vices. Digger ought to be roughly a thousand times more popular. I'd be happy to live in a world where every geeky teenager reads the whole series at some point.
What are the virtues of the comic?
*The titular protagonist is one of my favorite characters in any book. I want to marry her and be her best friend and take a geology class with her all at once. I'm not someone who normally crushes on fictional animals, but... wow.
*Most of the other characters could also fight for that title. With the possible exception of the humans, every single speaking role in Digger is filled by someone with a story to tell, and a life outside the story, and a deep concern for their own goals and well-being. (How often do you see a side character abandon a quest because "I like you guys, but I actually have other stuff to do"? Not often enough.)
*It ends exactly soon enough, after just enough pain and loss and victory and hope.
*It helps you fall in love with wombats, who by all rights ought to replace dwarves as the default underground fantasy creatures.
*You can read it for free (and should start right away -- Google it, right now). ...more
Worm, my favorite book of 2014, featured (mild spoiler) a man whoseSometimes, you just want numbers. And in this case, the numbers are free. Free!
Worm, my favorite book of 2014, featured (mild spoiler) a man whose power was organization: The bigger and more complicated the plan, the better. He becomes a villain when the government rejects his brilliant strategy to solve world hunger.
David MacKay is the nonfictional version of this. He tells you facts, then more facts, then combines the facts into a plan that would clearly work, if only everyone would cooperate!
He isn't as frustrated as I am, unless he hides it very well behind his graphs. He just gets on with the facts, at a rate of approximately 0.8 facts per sentence. (Many of the non-factual sentences are quotes from other writers who make things up, and require correction from Mr. MacKay.) If two sources disagree, MacKay breaks down their claims into a single question, answers the question, and moves on. He even uses colored fonts to make his numbers easier to read!
I'm a little bit in love with this man, and judging by his miraculous Amazon reviews, I'm not the only one. And his book, again, is free. Please join me in my devotion....more
Update: Recently read the actual graphic novel. It's really well-done, and a few original jokes land well, but the material can't help but loseUpdate: Recently read the actual graphic novel. It's really well-done, and a few original jokes land well, but the material can't help but lose something in the translation away from audio (the biggest loss may be the bits where the brothers crack each other up and have to stop and laugh it off). Big fans of the podcast will enjoy it, but I wouldn't consider it essential. (Once the scope of the story grows and the potential visuals become more epic, the books might get better.)
Past review: For now, reviewing the book as a way of reviewing the podcast, which is a five-star piece of audio storytelling just as compelling as any book I've ever read. Listen to the first episode, and you'll find yourself laughing a lot/crying a little over the next few weeks....more
This may be a "dystopian satire", but I read it neither as dystopia nor as satire. It's certainly a funny book, but it's not especially satirical:This may be a "dystopian satire", but I read it neither as dystopia nor as satire. It's certainly a funny book, but it's not especially satirical: Instead, the author takes a very simple premise and drives it off the Cliffs of Insanity (in a good way). This could have been a ten-page short story, but instead it just spirals wonderfully out of control without ever becoming boring.
Also: The Newts are some of the most memorable aliens in the history of science fiction, which is amazing for a book written before the term "science fiction" existed....more
Update: Five years later, some of this has aged poorly (especially Klosterman's creepy interview with Britney Spears). Still a 4/5, but no longer theUpdate: Five years later, some of this has aged poorly (especially Klosterman's creepy interview with Britney Spears). Still a 4/5, but no longer the kind of thing I see myself taking the time to reread. This podcast is full of hilarious Klosterman put-downs if you dislike him (or would consider re-evaluating him).
* * *
I like music, but I don't especially like the music Chuck Klosterman writes about.
Nevertheless, I would read Chuck Klosterman write about more or less anything. He is very funny, down-to-earth, and a clever philosopher who genuinely seems to think he isn't as clever as he really is.
It's hard for me to review this book in particular, since his essays all sort of blend together in a pleasant way. He spends much of IV hanging out with bands, which is nice, because any band who hangs out with Chuck Klosterman is going to come out of the experience sounding funny and clever and down-to-earth. I liked Wilco and Radiohead more after reading Klosterman's take on them. I like everything more after reading Klosterman's take on it.
Recommended for: People who like the world already or want to like it more. Also, you should probably listen to music sometimes....more
I did not fully appreciate Holes until I read it at the age of 20, as the English tutor for a 13-year-old recentLouis Sachar is a friggin' genius.
I did not fully appreciate Holes until I read it at the age of 20, as the English tutor for a 13-year-old recent immigrant from Korea who barely spoke any of the language.
Every week, we read a few chapters of Holes, very slowly. I was reading each sentence five or six times as I waited for my student to finish, and I began to notice things I hadn't noticed when I'd read the book as a kid.
I noticed how every single sentence propelled the story forward, adding some bit of information we hadn't known. I noticed the lack of complicated punctuation or sub-clauses. I noticed the perfect economy of the flashback scenes, which gave us just enough clues to appreciate the solution to the mystery while providing relief from the relative monotony of the Green Lake desert. Sachar does all of these things better than almost any adult novelist, and he does it while writing for an audience with a limited vocabulary and a limited understanding of the world.
Each week, my student read a little faster, understood more of the colloquial or semi-advanced language, and grasped the relationships between the various characters. The novel engaged him on a different level each time he returned to it. Even after I stopped tutoring him, he tore through the rest of the story on his own and sent me a triumphant email to share his victory.
If I ever write a book for 9-to-12-year-olds, I'll keep a copy of Holes close at hand. I wouldn't read it again for sheer pleasure, but I will do my best to make sure my children do....more
This is not a book for sport-specific athletes or aspiring Olympic lifters. This is a book for people who want toWhat can I say? It worked for me.
This is not a book for sport-specific athletes or aspiring Olympic lifters. This is a book for people who want to build and/or maintain muscle mass without spending very much time. In other worlds, this is a book for most people, especially older people.
I'll stay specific from now on. I am 22 years old. I weigh 180, bench 225, squat 275, deadlift 350 (with some variation around these numbers). I can do 20 strict chin-ups without stopping. I work out once every four or five days, for 20-25 minutes of actual lifting (and about the same amount of rest time), with some Tabata intervals thrown in once in a while for cardio. Most of the time, I'm either lifting 90 seconds to failure (as the book recommends) or lifting for 1-2 sets of 3-5 reps, followed by 90 seconds to failure.
From ages 17-20, I built up to my current level of strength by working out 3-4 times per week, with slightly longer workouts. Since then, I've used the workout pattern described above to maintain that strength. My bench hasn't gone down in two years (and has gone up a bit). My body fat percentage hasn't really changed. I still sleep well at night, have a resting heart rate of 58 bpm, and have near-optimal blood pressure.
Admittedly, I don't power-clean as much I once did, and I don't see my main lifts increasing much unless I do something fancy. But I can see myself following my rough Body By Science protocol pretty much as-is for the next 20 years without losing strength. (I'm certainly lucky to be young, but I'd be happy to compensate for aging by working a bit harder and cleaning up my diet.)
* * * * *
Anyway, you don't really need to buy this book. Visiting the website and watching the YouTube videos of people working out with the method should suffice to get you started. I mostly bought BBS to support Dr. McGuff's work. It's the sort of book I'd give as a gift, or lend out to a friend.
What else can I say?
The scientific bits are interesting. The writing is crisp, and the authors don't repeat themselves too often. The photos show people lifting heavy weights with questionable form: ignore them.
Also, if you like this book or the ideas within, you might also like Tim Ferriss' The Four-Hour Body, and Martin Berkhan's essays on "Reverse Pyramid Training" (which have also been influential on helping me figure out my workouts)....more
"Some readers might find that this story depicts a deeply horrifying end-of-humanity scenario, and other readers might consider it a triumphant ascent
"Some readers might find that this story depicts a deeply horrifying end-of-humanity scenario, and other readers might consider it a triumphant ascent to a (slightly odd) utopia. I can see a little of both, really."
--Facedeer
I second the above. I'll add that I found the characters to be different and interesting enough to propel the story forward; the writing is better than that of all but the very best fanfiction.
It's remarkable how many things the author does that haven't often been seen in mainstream sci-fi: In addition to the step-by-step description of a takeover by a reasonable, friendly artificial intelligence, we also get the adjustment of an ordinary human to an AI-driven utopia, the exploration of a different system of physics from the one on Earth, a bunch of different reverse-AI-box conversations... and that's just the first half of the story.
Recommended for: Transhumanists; rationalists; people who hate transhumanism (this story sees it as an extreme moral gray area); people who enjoy both sci-fi and (MLP and/or fanfiction....more
A big sprawling webfiction ensemble piece, best read over a long weekend. (Update: Several long weekends.)
The Gods Are Bastards takes place in aA big sprawling webfiction ensemble piece, best read over a long weekend. (Update: Several long weekends.)
The Gods Are Bastards takes place in a swords-and-sorcery world as it goes from epic fantasy to Western, complete with gunslingers and dangerous trains. There are more than twenty different protagonists; they all speak in distinct voices and hold very different philosophies. Every character, protagonist or not, might surprise you if you let your guard down and start to make assumptions.
On a narrative level, there’s a lot of focus on the interactions between a group of friends, giving an emotional core to a story that spans thousands of years and dozens of cities. We see the machinations of demigods alongside the personal problems of college students, and it all fits together nicely. No one scale overwhelms the others.
The book isn’t over yet, but it’s still worth starting now (since it’s about 400 chapters long, and it’s only going to get longer). There are a few chapters I’ve saved to reread as perfect examples of how to capture a certain emotion, or how to write a fight scene, and I think you’ll find those chapters (or others!) worth the journey....more
Very interesting, but frequently dry, and the big ideas can be summarized in shorter form. If you think you might want to read it, start with thisVery interesting, but frequently dry, and the big ideas can be summarized in shorter form. If you think you might want to read it, start with this review, and see if the subject interests you enough to keep going....more
Recommended for: People who think art is getting better; people who think art is getting worse; people with neither opinion who just enjoy artRecommended for: People who think art is getting better; people who think art is getting worse; people with neither opinion who just enjoy art history.
Tyler Cowen is in fine form here: "In Praise of Commercial Culture" reads like a great Marginal Revolution post stretched out to a few hundred pages. The book is packed with cultural history, and most of its arguments are built around historical events rather than abstract economic theory, which enlivens the discussion from start to finish.
When I began reading, I already felt that it was obvious that culture gets "better" over time: More diversity in what gets released, more diversity in what audiences want to experience, and (of course) a higher population that gives evolution more chances to produce incredible artists. For me, "Commercial Culture" fed my confirmation bias and made me feel smarter and more secure in my own beliefs.
What about pessimists? This book will provoke people who firmly believe culture is heading downhill, but it might also convince them. At the very least, it will make you an interesting and/or insufferable conversationalist at your next dinner party....more
Patrick's review says most of what I'd like to say, but in more detail.
My own short review:
Recommended to anyone with an interest in the subjectPatrick's review says most of what I'd like to say, but in more detail.
My own short review:
Recommended to anyone with an interest in the subject matter, or U.S. politics at large, or experimental science at large.
This book seeks to apply our knowledge of economics and psychology to criminal justice policy in the U.S. By relying on commonsense principles and well-executed case studies, Kleiman leaves very little room for disagreement. Of course it's absurd that we think "30 years in prison" is twice as scary as "15 years in prison", or that criminals are calculating the expected value of their crimes before they rob stores or sell drugs. Of course it's better to focus our energy on small punishments for small crimes, rather than a few enormous punishments for moderate crimes. And so on, for a few hundred clear and readable pages of polite suggestions.
I won't ignore the possibility that I, as a total non-expert, might be missing some key flaw in Kleiman's research. But even if he isn't telling the whole story of criminal-justice policy, he's telling an important part of that story, thoughtfully and with admirable modesty. Despite the subject matter, I couldn't help but smile as I read "When Brute Force Fails" -- it's a masterful example of how to write about controversial issues without overshooting the evidence....more
Nick Winter had a productive year. Here, he discusses several days from that year literally from start to finish. I find that hyper-detailed "how to"Nick Winter had a productive year. Here, he discusses several days from that year literally from start to finish. I find that hyper-detailed "how to" format extremely helpful in a book that hopes to actually change my behavior. Winter also provides an excellent beginner's guide to Beeminder, one of my favorite apps.
My favorite thing about this book --- other than the fact that it cost $3 and increased my productivity by around 5% thereafter --- is that Nick is a regular guy. You can write him emails and he will answer them. (I have, and he did.)
For all the good intentions of people like Tim Ferriss and Tony Robbins, you know that those gurus are doing things that you cannot do because you are not rich or ridiculously smart and charming. Nick Winter may be ridiculously smart and charming, for all I know, but he at least gives the impression of being approachable....more
I don't give books any extra points for having been written a long time ago. That said, Montaigne lives up to the hype.
My copy of "The CompleteI don't give books any extra points for having been written a long time ago. That said, Montaigne lives up to the hype.
My copy of "The Complete Essays" is scribbled-upon and corner-folded to a greater extent than nearly any other book I own, for the language and the humor and the clarity of the ideas. I read it at a time when I tried to finish every book I started, but still felt comfortable putting it down, picking it up nine months later, putting it down again, and so on.
As far as I know, there's nothing Montaigne says that hasn't been said better by someone else. But he says a great deal, says it well, says it from the unusual perspective of 16th-century France, and is a kind, curious person worth spending time with....more
Jay Abraham is a strange guy. He likes to brag about how much he can convince companies to pay him in a single day. He is friends with a lot of peopleJay Abraham is a strange guy. He likes to brag about how much he can convince companies to pay him in a single day. He is friends with a lot of people who get paid huge amounts of money for vague and sometimes contradictory advice. He is not one of those people.
He is, instead, a fire hose of ideas, some of which will be relevant to whatever you are selling. I photograph book pages when I want to remember something I've read; this had my highest photo-to-page ratio of 2014. Within the first five pages, Abraham convinced me that he is a genius. This is not easy to do.
Try the Amazon sample before you read the whole thing; it is highly representative of the book....more
Low four. Best as an introduction to the topic. Quotes all the studies that everyone quotes, with no special insight. More interesting are theLow four. Best as an introduction to the topic. Quotes all the studies that everyone quotes, with no special insight. More interesting are the sections where the author attends home sales parties, sells cars, or otherwise gets personal with his material. In that sense, you could see this as Influence, part II -- but you should definitely start with Influence, which is shorter and easier to read....more
I opened this book as a skeptic of democracy, and it didn't do much to change my views, but it did give me some new reasons to be skeptical.
TheI opened this book as a skeptic of democracy, and it didn't do much to change my views, but it did give me some new reasons to be skeptical.
The authors marshal a lot of support for their first thesis -- that swing voters mostly care about what happened to their wallets in the past year when they vote, and that not much else makes a difference. This didn't surprise me, but I hadn't thought much about the perverse incentives it offered to non-dictatorial governments (e.g. Richard Nixon manipulating the economy to create a false economic boom just before reelection, with the downsides only arriving once the votes were in). The second thesis is splashier (we care about identities we create for ourselves far more than we care about policy), but comes with fairly light empirical evidence (though I can't think of many reasons to doubt it).
The book's occasional missteps (happily quoting some sketchy priming studies, leaving out economic theory almost entirely) stop it from getting a fifth star. More complaints: the prose can be repetitive, and the graphs are muted and sometimes under-labeled. There will be a market somewhere for a popular-science book that quotes the same ideas.
On the other hand, that popular-science book may leave out some of the best parts of the book: The authors' description of the benefits of democracy (despite everything), their political-science-insider discussion of how folk democratic theory developed almost independently of any evidence, and a solid collection of international examples that help them dodge American myopia. They also avoid talking down to "the people", freely admitting that education is no panacea, and that irrationality dominates the voting patterns of even the most knowledgeable partisans. (If they are partisans themselves, they never mention any personal ideological affiliations.)
I think most pro-democracy, let-the-people-rule types will get more out of this than I did. If any of you are reading this review, pro-democracy people: Give the book a try! You'll find the authors friendlier and less elitist than you suppose, and you can skim without missing too much.
Hooooooooly ****. How can something this good, in my favorite genre, have existed for this long without my finding out? This is a propulsive storyHooooooooly ****. How can something this good, in my favorite genre, have existed for this long without my finding out? This is a propulsive story told by an author with a vast imagination, who moves from human to transhuman scales without missing a beat and somehow ends this insane adventure on a note of real beauty. I laughed. I worried. I tried to figure out how I could turn the comic into a movie. Read it!...more
(Note: I read this when it was still available on Medium for free, so my quotes may be worded differently from those you'll find in the published(Note: I read this when it was still available on Medium for free, so my quotes may be worded differently from those you'll find in the published work.)
This has many, many reviews from intellectual types already (there's even an arch-conservative review from one of the most erudite citizens of Goodreads). My points here won't be original, but they are what stuck with me most, more than a year after I first read the online-essay version of the book.
Stubborn Attachments is unusual in that it thinks about what the world may look like hundreds of years in the future, without much reference to modern technology. This lets Cowen avoid the problems of many past prognosticators (picking the wrong technological horse to back and looking silly in two decades). Instead, he picks a very old technology, with a better track record: money.
"Do not take the existence of wealth for granted."
Cowen's summary of how wealth really does seem to make life better is worth the price of admission, though I think his In Praise of Commercial Culture also did this well, with more detail. You may find it hard, after reading, not to carefully track world GDP (or whatever other metric you think best captures the notion of "people having access to more of the things they want").
Another strong point of Stubborn Attachments: It is a serious attempt to respond to Yuval Harari's concern that progress may not have made us any happier than we were a thousand years ago, or ten thousand. (On that topic, also read Harari's Sapiens, Ache Life History, and How to Be Happy.) Since I think Harari's is one of the most important concerns we can have as a species, I'm pleased by Cowen's ambition.
This book makes lots of gigantic claims very quickly, and since Cowen would need thousands of pages to mount an adequate defense of the full claim-cluster, I suspect he deliberately went the other way, leaving others to argue in his wake. But these are arguments worth having, and his latest book is an excellent conversation-starter. In case you still don't plan to read it, I'll leave you with some of his other conclusions:
a. Policy should be more forward-looking and more concerned about the more distant future. b. Governments should place a much higher priority on investment than is currently the case, whether that concerns the private sector or the public sector. Relative to what we should be doing, we are currently living in an investment drought. c. Policy should be more concerned with economic growth, properly specified, and policy discussion should pay less heed to other values. And yes, your favorite value gets downgraded too. No exceptions, except of course for the semi-absolute human rights. d. We should be more concerned with the fragility of our civilization. e. The possibility of historical pessimism stands as a challenge to this entire approach, because in that case the future is dim no matter what and there may not be a more distant future to resolve the aggregation dilemmas involved in making decisions which affect so many diverse human beings. f. At the margin we should be more charitable but we are not obliged to give away all of our wealth. We do have obligations to work hard, save, invest, and fulfill our human potential, and we should take these obligations very seriously. g. We can embrace much of common sense morality, while knowing it is not inconsistent with a deeper ethical theory. Common sense morality also can be reconciled with many of the normative recommendations which fall out of a more impersonal and consequentialist framework. i. When it comes to most “small” policies, affecting the present and the near-present only, we should be agnostic because we cannot overcome aggregation problems to render a defensible judgment. The main exceptions here are the small number of policies which benefit virtually everybody.
These are four very traditional novels: One protagonist telling her own story over the course of sixty years. She also tells(covers the entire series)
These are four very traditional novels: One protagonist telling her own story over the course of sixty years. She also tells the story of her best friend Lina Cerullo, one of the most convincing smart characters ever written onto a page.
“Elena Ferrante”, the pen name of the author, writes about the lives of women in a patriarchal world (mid-century Italy) with brutal honesty. You hear her stories of poor, uneducated characters, and it’s as though you grew up with them, in the same circumstances. Ferrante makes marrying the son of the middle-class grocer in your neighborhood sound more thrilling than anything in a Jane Austen novel.
But while the writing is wonderful (these books are #2 through #5 in my most-highlighted books of the year), Lina Cerullo is the key to the series. She is the smartest person in the neighborhood — perhaps in all of Italy — and we know this because Ferrante makes us *feel* it.
It’s hard to write a convincing genius, but Ferrante avoids the usual pitfalls (nobody plays chess or writes equations on a blackboard). Lina’s brilliance develops in a hundred small moments throughout the quartet, as she twists people and situations to her own advantage and changes her small, constrained world for the better. She makes Ender Wiggin and Hermione Granger look like cardboard cutouts. And unlike Ender or Hermione, she lives in a place where being “smart” offers no clear advantage — which makes her combination of Neapolitan street smarts and Napoleonic strategy all the more thrilling to watch.*
*It’s hard to tell whether Napoleon was actually good at strategy, but there’s no good way to make “Carl von Clausewitz” into an adjective....more
I wrote a semi-review of this book in an application to the New York Times. They didn't like it enough to hire me, but I still like it enough toI wrote a semi-review of this book in an application to the New York Times. They didn't like it enough to hire me, but I still like it enough to publish.
If you don't read much history from more than 50 years ago, I really recommend it. Sometimes, the past is a different country; sometimes, it's a different planet. A few quotes that stood out to me:
From an Eisenhower donor, questioned by a Senator in advance of his appointment to be the Ambassador to Ceylon:
Do you know who the Prime Minister of India is? "Yes, but I can t pronounce his name." Do you know who the Prime Minister of Ceylon is? "His name is unfamiliar now, I cannot call it off."
On the profession of teaching in early America:
A Delaware minister observed, around 1725, that "when a ship arrives in the river, it is a common expression with those who stand in need of an instructor for their children, let us go and buy a school master!" In 1776 the Maryland Journal advertised that a ship had just arrived at Baltimore from Belfast and Cork, and enumerated among its products for sale "various Irish commodities, among which are school masters, beef, pork, and potatoes." It was about the same time that the Connecticut press printed an advertisement offering a reward for a runaway described as "a school-master, of a pale complexion, with short hair. He has the itch very bad, and sore legs." Disabled men were frequently turned into schoolteachers for lack of anything better to do with them....more
Good gravy, this author can write! Some of the best prose I've seen in a book, ever, both for its beauty and its good sense. Just... just listen toGood gravy, this author can write! Some of the best prose I've seen in a book, ever, both for its beauty and its good sense. Just... just listen to this:
"Proust has pointed out that if one goes on performing any action, however banal, long enough, it automatically becomes ‘wonderful’: a simple walk down a hundred yards of village street is ‘wonderful’ if it is made every Sunday by an old lady of ninety. Franz Josef had for so long risen from his camp bed at four o’clock in the morning and worked twelve or fourteen hours on his official papers that he was recognized as one of the most ‘wonderful’ of sovereigns, almost as ‘wonderful’ as Queen Victoria, though he had shown no signs of losing in age the obstinacy and lack of imagination that made him see it as his duty to preserve his court as a morgue of etiquette and his Empire as a top-heavy anachronism. He was certain of universal acclamation not only during his life but after his death, for it is the habit of the people, whenever an old man mismanages his business so that it falls to pieces as soon as he dies, to say, ‘Ah, So-and-so was wonderful! He kept things together so long as he was alive, and look what happens now he has gone!’"
You could write an entire business book around this quote, and she just spins it off as though it were nothing, and keeps going, for twelve hundred more pages. Listen to this, too:
"The conspirators blew open the door of the palace with a dynamite cartridge which fused the electric lights, and they stumbled about blaspheming in the darkness, passing into a frenzy of cruelty that was half terror. The King and Queen hid in a secret cupboard in their bedroom for two hours, listening to the searchers grow cold, then warm, then cold again, then warm, and at last hot, and burning hot. The weakling King was hard to kill: when they threw him from the balcony they thought him doubly dead from bullet wounds and sword slashes, but the fingers of his right hand clasped the railing and had to be cut off before he fell to the ground, where the fingers of his left hand clutched the grass. Though it was June, rain fell on the naked bodies in the early morning as they lay among the flowers."
Rebecca West takes nothing for granted. Everything she ever reads about or sees during her years studying and visiting the Balkans, she stares at with such intensity that she enters into the person or place or thing and examines it from all angles, external and internal, before picking out the most interesting bits and flinging them at the page.
Now listen to this, about some Germans she met, who complained about Nazis raising their taxes:
"It was disconcerting to be rushing through the night with this carriageful of unhappy muddlers, who were so nice and so incomprehensible, and apparently doomed to disaster of a kind so special that it was impossible for anybody not of their blood to imagine how it could be averted. Their helplessness was the greater because they had plainly a special talent for obedience."
And this quote about Yugoslavia:
"A State which fights and believes it has a moral right to fight, and would give up either fighting or religion if it felt the two inconsistent."
Or this quote about a church service, which is objectively existentially terrifying but also just so, so pretty:
"From this divided congregation came a flood of song which asked for absolutely nothing, which did not ape childhood, which did not pretend that sour is sweet and pain wholesome, but which simply adored. If there be a God who is fount of all goodness, this is the tribute that should logically be paid to Him; if there be only Goodness, it is still a logical tribute. And again the worship, like their costume, was made astonishing by their circumstance. These people, who had neither wealth nor security, nor ever had had them, stood before the Creator and thought not what they might ask for but what they might give. To be among them was like seeing an orchard laden with apples or a field of ripe wheat endowed with a human will and using it in accordance with its own richness."
This is how the entire book sounds: A consummate observer and writer who has either stumbled upon some of the world's most interesting people at one of the most interesting times in history, or who is just so good that any people and time she chose would feel just as special. Good gravy....more
The only book I read this year that made me want to drive to another state, walk into someone's office, and start yelling at them.
This book is shortThe only book I read this year that made me want to drive to another state, walk into someone's office, and start yelling at them.
This book is short and repetitive, but that doesn't change the fact that David Halperin has found a worthy, underreported topic to be repetitive about.
The more books I read, the more I appreciate authors who pursue a single subject with passionate fury, even when that subject isn't often in the headlines. Halperin gets his facts straight and has spent a decade gathering heartbreaking stories from people who tried to work hard and follow the rules, and who were punished for their efforts, for the enrichment of people whose businesses pervert the idea of human progress and do very little to advance society (while taking 90% of their funding from your taxes). This broadside will enrage liberals and libertarians alike, and may expose four-year-college grads to a side of education they wouldn't see otherwise.
If you want a taste of Halperin's work before you invest your dollar, I recommend this especially powerful story (which made me, a naturally laconic fellow, as angry as I've been all year):
An excerpt of the story (the book contains many, many other stories like this):
"A librarian at a southern California campus of Everest College abruptly resigned last week, deeply upset that the for-profit school had admitted into its criminal justice program a 37-year-old man who appears to read at a third grade level. The man, who shakes, speaks haltingly, and may suffer from a developmental disability, told the librarian he expected to be a police officer after completing the program. But the librarian, Laurie McConnell, is certain he can never obtain such a job
[...]
In a followup email to the AG’s office on May 23, McConnell added, “After working with him extensively for the last 6 weeks, I have found that he cannot read beyond a 3rd grade level. We read some children’s books together, which were fairly difficult for him. He still believes he will be able to be a police officer when he finishes the CJ program. However, the other day he asked me how long school is. He doesn’t understand how the terms work.”"...more
In a world where domestic fiction were still the most respectable genre, The Good Wife could be our generation's Anna Karenina... or something.
ThisIn a world where domestic fiction were still the most respectable genre, The Good Wife could be our generation's Anna Karenina... or something.
This novel, without taking up too much space, tells the epic story of a woman abandoned, accidentally, by the man she loved. She manages to retain her dignity and honor throughout, but she's not perfect, and the years take a natural toll on her. Still, you can sense that she lives a real life even outside of the novel, that we're only seeing bits and pieces of what a real person -- any real person -- has to experience between young adulthood and late middle age. I suppose that many books try to do this, but I've rarely seen it done so well.
What else can I say? Readers will learn a few things about parts of the world they probably don't know much about (how many fictional protagonists spend time as highway construction workers?). The non-central characters still read like real people with their own lives to live. The time-skipping happens as gracefully as possible (considering the need to squeeze 28 years into 320 pages).
This is just... well, it's not fancy, but it's a really good book. I read it at a time when I'd been reading a lot of fanciful sci-fi epics and modern literary fiction, and The Good Wife helped to ground me in the lives of real people for a time. That was valuable for me. If you also tend to shy away from realistic fiction, it may be valuable for you as well....more
I read this book twice between the ages of 10 and 12. One of my mother's favorites from her childhood, and now also one of mine.
There's nothingI read this book twice between the ages of 10 and 12. One of my mother's favorites from her childhood, and now also one of mine.
There's nothing "special" about the story. Two ordinary (but resourceful) children do their best to survive in the city without parents, and with a little bit of luck, they succeed (sort of, I think -- I don't remember the ending anymore).
As best I can remember, the realism drew me in -- the dialogue especially, since the author knows how children talk, but also the action. If I were an abandoned 10-year-old who'd been taught not to talk to strangers, I might very well start trying to wring spare change out of pay phones. Sometimes I'd be very scared, and sometimes I'd forget how much trouble I was in, and sometimes I'd put on a brave face for my little sister... yeah. Everything in this book just clicked for me....more
3.5 stars. Contains a well-written introduction to wei-ch'i, and a few interesting points about Mao's victory against the Nationalists. But there are3.5 stars. Contains a well-written introduction to wei-ch'i, and a few interesting points about Mao's victory against the Nationalists. But there are better books about Go strategy for the sake of strategy, and the author's views on how the Communists took advantage of wei-ch'i tactics could have been summarized in half or a third of the length.
I'd have liked the book more, I think, had it been written a decade or two later, with the Vietnam War completed and more chances for Chinese writings on the Communist/Nationalist war to have been exposed to the West. What would Mao and his lieutenants think of Boorman's ideas? This book doesn't give us much evidence either way. (Still, it's an interesting effort, and if you aren't familiar with Go, the first 30 pages could very well be worth your time.)...more
I think of Azumanga Daioh as the Japanese Peanuts. It's about a group of students, each with one defining character trait, living their lives withoutI think of Azumanga Daioh as the Japanese Peanuts. It's about a group of students, each with one defining character trait, living their lives without much help from adults. It is laugh-out-loud funny, but doesn't shy away from the cruelty and confusion of childhood.
You can finish the series in a single day, but by the time you finish, you might feel as though you've been reading it for years. The characters find themselves in the same situations over and over again, and this gives the comic a timeless feel. Sakaki will successfully pet a cat as soon as Charlie Brown kicks the football. Osaka's bizarre ideas are about as helpful as Lucy's psychiatric advice. Chiyo has the same incorruptible spirit as Linus. And Kiyohiko Azuma has the good-humored wisdom of Charles Schultz in his prime....more
If the review sounds interesting, the book will be interesting; if not, not. I'm the sort ofI can't possibly top this review from Reddit. Read it.
If the review sounds interesting, the book will be interesting; if not, not. I'm the sort of person who will happily read 20 pages about how much better bread has gotten since the 17th century, so... yes, I'm a fan of The Structures of Everyday Life, as well as Braudel's whole thing.
(I suppose it's good to know about kings and battles, but most of human history, measured in "total moments of human experience", has been about things like "making food", "wearing clothes" and "trying not to get sick". Braudel has that stuff covered.)...more
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