Ranting Wright (rantingwright) (17 books)

Ranting Wright rated a book it was amazing Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
“I wished a round score of men--in case of natives, buccaneers, or the odious French.” One of the funniest elements of classic English literature is the petty jabs taken at France and its people. French jokes aside, I was surprised at how many times ...more
Oct 03, 2018 06:16AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson <iframe id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Ranting Wright and 308 other people liked Sean Barrs the Bookdragon's review of Treasure Island: "Someone recently asked me what review I enjoyed writing the most, and, well, this is it: I have a massive problem with this book. It’s one I’m a little embarrassed to admit. The problem is not with the writing or the characters that Stevenson has c..." Read more of this review »
Oct 03, 2018 06:15AM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson <iframe id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Ranting Wright rated a book it was amazing The Simple Solution to Rubik's Cube by James G. Nourse	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
It works. What more needs to be said? …okay, let’s say a little more. People should be buying Rubik’s Cubes instead of fidget spinners, but of course with the cube you would actually have to learn something, god forbid. Sorry, I usually avoid ...more
Sep 26, 2018 06:17AM · like · see review
Ranting Wright rated a book really liked it 20000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne Read 2 times	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Feb 06, 2018 12:45PM · like · see review
Ranting Wright rated a book it was amazing The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Feb 03, 2018 07:56AM · like · see review
Ranting Wright rated a book it was ok Pessimisms: Famous (and Not So Famous) Observations, Quotations, Thoughts, and Ruminations on What to Expect When You're Expecting the Worst by Eric Marcus	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This book is like a bathroom reader without the variety or entertainment, the kind of book you might purchase for a quarter at one of those book sales you see at the bank. My copy says $8.99 CAN, a price which is completely egregious. One in ten ...more
Jan 31, 2018 12:02PM · like · see review
Ranting Wright rated a book liked it Cellar of Horror by Ken Englade (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Jan 26, 2018 05:56AM · like · see review
Ranting Wright rated a book it was amazing The Gray Rhino: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore by Michele Wucker (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This book blew my mind. A ‘Gray Rhino’ is a recognizable and often avoidable threat which is nonetheless ignored and allowed to become an overwhelming disaster. Michele Wucker carefully and intelligently details the five stages and nine configurations ...more
Jan 22, 2018 06:50PM · 2 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Gray Rhino by Michele Wucker. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Gray Rhino by Michele Wucker <iframe id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Ranting Wright entered a giveaway Illegal by Eoin Colfer	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jan 12, 2018 07:15PM · like · see giveaway · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Illegal by Eoin Colfer. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Illegal by Eoin Colfer <iframe id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Ranting Wright wants to read 10 books in the 2018 Reading Challenge He has read 6 books toward his goal of 10 books. 6 of 10 (60%) Create your own 2018 Reading Challenge »
Jan 12, 2018 07:13PM · like · view books

Ranting Wright rated a book it was amazing

Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

“I wished a round score of men--in case of natives, buccaneers, or the odious French.”

One of the funniest elements of classic English literature is the petty jabs taken at France and its people. French jokes aside, I was surprised at how many times “I wished a round score of men--in case of natives, buccaneers, or the odious French.”

One of the funniest elements of classic English literature is the petty jabs taken at France and its people. French jokes aside, I was surprised at how many times I literally laughed out loud to myself while reading Stevenson’s first novel. Treasure Island is a wonderfully vivid, humorous, and perilous adventure. Descriptive without being flowery, the brisk writing style pulls the reader into the world of murderous pirates, high seas adventures, hidden riches, marooned sailors, and squawking parrots. A wide range of unique characters complements the serial nature of the narrative; not that each chapter focuses on a different character, but the narrative never ruminates on one character so long as to bore the reader. Definitely worth rereading.

Upon first read-through, I would argue that there are three layers to this novel. The first layer is the obvious adventure: the discovery of a treasure map and the subsequent voyage to unearth the buried fortune; the gunfights; the marooned Ben Gunn; and the journey home.

The second layer of the story is Jim Hawkins’ coming-of-age. As an innkeeper’s naive son, he bravely tries to protect Billy Bones from violent pursuers. When this endeavor falls out of his control, he protects his mother until the authorities scatter the villains responsible for Billy’s death. Jim then becomes Cabin Boy on the Hispaniola as its crew seeks fortune. As Jim becomes more confident in himself, he begins to make decisions on his own, decisions which appear to disadvantage his peers in the short term yet ultimately save their lives. He even becomes captain of the schooner, albeit temporarily, as he handily commandeers the ship from mutinous crew members. His journey from boy to man is entirely encapsulated in this adventure.

The third layer demonstrates criticism of ‘civilization’ and disbelief in the idea of humanity’s social progression. Are individuals within ‘developed’ countries truly civilized, or is it the development of modern civilizations that allow humankind to disavow their primitive, primeval, savage nature? How strong are the civilizing effects of society? How far and how long must one travel before the civilizing effects break down and collapse under the weight of intangible human desire? Hawkins’ inn, the Admiral Benbow, is a quiet centre of English modernity until it is invaded by ill-tempered, seafaring pirates who have not been within the confines of civilization for months. Similarly, the crew of the Hispaniola manages to get along relatively amiably on dry land, but allegiances are tested, dissolved, and reformed as mutiny occurs on Treasure Island.

The development of mutiny is sort of a counterpoint to Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon. For Bentham, the panopticon keeps order in a prison because the inmates do not know if they are being watched and thus they police themselves. On Treasure Island, the ensured lack of state authority allows Long John Silver his opportunity to build a mutinous crew and put into effect a plan that lies outside civilized legality and morality.

Themes aside, the characters really make this novel work. The fear Billy Bones demonstrates while waiting for the arrival of “the seafaring man with one leg” is palpable to the reader, and the eventual appearance of the old man is no less unnerving. Billy Bones himself is a formidable and intimidating man, one who keeps all around him in check until he is backed down by an even more formidable man, the Doctor Livesey. Billy threatens the doctor with a knife; the doctor threatens Billy with a noose and reveals himself to be a magistrate of England. Again, the only reason the savagery of the pirate does not succeed is due to the proximity to civilizing forces as represented by the doctor. Looking at antagonists, Long John Silver is one of the classics, no less present or villainous than Dracula. And, of course, we get the parrot on the shoulder, squawking, “Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!”

One final note: I noticed some strangely modern language. Long John Silver is described as “being tricked out in his best,” and at another moment we read that “Ben Gunn is fly.” It is funny to picture a marooned sailor, disheveled and beastly after being abandoned on an island for three years, with the song “Pretty Fly for a White Guy” playing in the background. ...more

Ranting Wright and 308 other people liked Sean Barrs the Bookdragon's review of Treasure Island:

"Someone recently asked me what review I enjoyed writing the most, and, well, this is it:

I have a massive problem with this book. It’s one I’m a little embarrassed to admit. The problem is not with the writing or the characters that Stevenson has c..." Read more of this review »

Ranting Wright rated a book it was amazing

The Simple Solution to Rubik's Cube
by James G. Nourse

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

It works. What more needs to be said?
…okay, let’s say a little more.

People should be buying Rubik’s Cubes instead of fidget spinners, but of course with the cube you would actually have to learn something, god forbid.

Sorry, I usually avoid ...more

Ranting Wright rated a book really liked it

20000 Leagues Under the Sea
by Jules Verne

Read 2 times

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

A dagger fight with a shark and an axe battle with giant squids. An international mystery. An underwater spaceship. Secret grottos in extinct volcanoes. Sunken treasure and shipwrecks. Collapsing icebergs. A river of corpses. A Canadian named Ned. A dagger fight with a shark and an axe battle with giant squids. An international mystery. An underwater spaceship. Secret grottos in extinct volcanoes. Sunken treasure and shipwrecks. Collapsing icebergs. A river of corpses. A Canadian named Ned. The lost continent of Atlantis. A 600-pound oyster and a 10 000-pound dugong. Drunken Birds of Paradise. What more could you ask for? The characters are entertaining and the narrative is so saturated with real science, locations, and political figures that it feels like a true historical account.

This book deserves to be read with a map, compass, and marine encyclopedia. I have read it twice, once over a few days and another time in one 14-hour sitting, but I feel I have still missed much of it because I am not a geographer or marine biologist. There are enough recognizable continents, countries, and creatures to follow the narrative, but there are so many literal latitudes and longitudes given, so many random names of plant species and this strait or that island or this canal or that current---Jules Verne challenges the reader to do some research and increase one’s knowledge base.

A handful of actors appear at the beginning and throughout the story, but for the bulk we are given four memorable characters. Pierre Aronnax is the straightforward and comical narrator. As a professor of Natural History in France, his travel-journal style of description is both impeccable in its empirical nature and wanting in its abstractions. He will go on for paragraphs, if not pages, describing fish by their markings, colors, shapes, and their classification by class, order, family, genus, and species. On the other hand, when describing emotion and feeling, he routinely exclaims something along the lines of, “if only I were competent in describing emotions,” or, “if only this event were in some way describable!”

For the other three characters we have Conseil, Pierre’s phlegmatic assistant who must occasionally save the book-smart yet physically bumbling professor from a near-death situation; Ned Land, the short-tempered Canadian harpooner whose outbursts are hilarious, who loves the thrill of hunting and fishing almost as much as he loves his native land; and Captain Nemo, the mysterious millionaire-engineer-architect who has taken the other three as “prisoners of war” and who has altogether abandoned human civilization and terra firma for an underwater existence.

The entire narrative is from the perspective of Professor Aronnax, but the key figure is the mysterious Nemo. How did he build the Nautilus, the infamous denizen of the sea which terrorizes nations? What secret language does he speak with his crew? Within the Nautilus is a crew of sailors, a kitchen and a dining hall, ornate bedrooms and sleeping quarters, an engine room and a navigator’s cockpit, a museum with inestimable treasures of art, literature, and zoology, and innumerable scientific marvels---how could a private citizen afford to build and operate such a vessel in secrecy? What would drive a man with such wealth to hide under the sea rather than stay on land and claim a position of tremendous power? The funny thing is that Nemo disappears for hours or days at a time, so the narrator (Aronnax) spends a great deal of time looking for the main character (Nemo). As the narrative progresses, the professor’s discoveries and hunches paint the captain in both philanthropic and sinister lights, leaving to the reader the task of making a final judgement upon Nemo and his intentions.

This book is one of those narratives in which the technology is fantastic and unheard of, whereas the same contraptions are quite understood and taken for granted by today’s standards. For example, the scene with the speedometer---it is funny to read the professor’s baffled response to a device which is connected to the screw of the ship and, through technological innovation and simple mathematics, tells the speed of the vessel without having to ‘heave the log.’ Headlamps, or ‘electric reflectors,’ are also quite shocking to the professor, as are the self-contained underwater breathing apparatuses (not yet called SCUBA suits, only modified Roquayrol devices). Spring-loaded gun magazines, electric air-gun rounds---this book is packed with innovation. Chapters 11 and 12 describe most of the Nautilus’ technology, and though they are two chapters of Nemo giving us layman’s terms, they are still less dry and more entertaining than the frequently-encountered descriptions of passing fish.

Final notes and theories: first, the crew covers 20 000 leagues in total, some of which is traveled on the surface; they are not 20 000 leagues deep, i.e. perpendicular to sea level.

Second, Nemo claims to ‘capture’ Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned, as ‘prisoners’ of war, but I have a better theory: what good is escape with no reference to that which has been escaped? This is why Nemo keeps his prisoners: not to protect his secrets but to protect his connection to human society. He wants to have his cake and eat it, too, so to speak, to be separated and free from the law of man, but to also be observed in his enterprise. When Nemo breaches the surface near ships and coastal communities, when he keeps the professor alive, when he saves the diver from the shark---he’s like a serial killer who leaves clues at the crime scene, like he wants to be hidden but also wants people to know him and how good he is at being hidden. This duality is also what makes Nemo offer all his findings to the professor; what good is all this knowledge if it is never found by others?

Third, this book reminds me of The Picture of Dorian Gray insofar as it’s a narrative completely based on men. I haven’t done any research but I imagine there has been a queer-theory reading of this novel: a professor who never mentions a wife or girlfriend and who has had a ‘partner’ for ten years who is also ten years younger than him; a sea captain who, it is later revealed, lost a wife and child and is now remorselessly bitter and who, by all evidence given in the novel, has an all-male crew and all-male prisoners; and hardly any mention of any female characters whatsoever, except a few references to specific goddesses and other mythological females.

Fourth, I would greatly appreciate anyone who can draw me a diagram and explain what is happening in Chapter 38. I understand the iceberg rolls over, but how they get trapped in an ice cavern that blocks them on all six sides is beyond my powers of comprehension. I read this section again and again and cannot get a picture of it in my head. ...more

Ranting Wright rated a book it was amazing

The Exorcist
by William Peter Blatty

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Strangely enough, my reading of this book coincided with my reading of a theory book: Robert Shattuck’s Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography. What The Exorcist achieves that is lost in the movie is the attention placed on Father Merrin Strangely enough, my reading of this book coincided with my reading of a theory book: Robert Shattuck’s Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography. What The Exorcist achieves that is lost in the movie is the attention placed on Father Merrin and his role in bringing the devil back to Earth in the first place. Father Merrin is working on an archaeological dig in Iraq when he unearths a stone talisman depicting the demon Pazuzu. Merrin immediately feels the effects of his work---he knows the devil will return to claim a human soul. It is revealed in the book that Merrin has already done battle with the devil twelve years previous to Regan’s possession. It is also revealed that the four months Merrin has been waiting to do battle are the same four months that see Regan transformed from a loving, clueless young girl into Satan’s vessel. It calls the work of Merrin into question: should we search for forbidden knowledge? Should Merrin have continued on his quest for archaeological relics when he knew the potential for unearthing evil? Perhaps he trusted in himself and in The Lord enough to know that, should his work come to such unwanted consequences, he has the power to deal with them. Unfortunately, he underestimates his own powers---he dies during the exorcism of Regan, and it is only by the tremendous courage of Father Karras that the devil is removed from Regan and subsequently destroyed.

Many scenes in the book are truly more terrifying than they appear in the movie. Don’t get me wrong---I saw the movie for the first time when I was nine and it was not until I was nineteen that I could return to the movie and watch it a second time. That being said, the book does blow the movie out of the water in a few places. For instance, the movie depicts Regan quickly doing the backwards crab walk down the stairs---horrific to say the least. In the book, however, Regan follows the housemaid around the house doing said crab walk. She follows “wherever Sharon moved,” and flicks her tongue at Sharon’s ankles like a snake testing the air. It is scary to see Regan move so quickly in the movie, but it is even more disturbing to picture Regan taking halted steps and trailing the maid around the house and licking at the maid’s ankles.

I wholeheartedly agree with the review from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch when it states that this book must be read twice: once for the atmosphere and sheer chilling effect, and again to ponder the curious turns-of-phrase employed by Blatty. For example, he describes a liquor truck as “full of warm, wet promises.” At another point, a certain character analyzes another character and can “hear his mechanism ticking like a conscience.” The understanding of Roman Catholicism and the priesthood, the occult and events such as Black Mass, the reluctance of human beings to suspend their spiritual beliefs---the research and work that went into this novel is splendidly evident. If you are one of those readers who can be unnerved by a book, then I would suggest reading it in the daytime (or leaving all the lights on when you go to bed). ...more

Ranting Wright rated a book it was ok

Pessimisms: Famous (and Not So Famous) Observations, Quotations, Thoughts, and Ruminations on What to Expect When You're Expecting the Worst
by Eric Marcus

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

This book is like a bathroom reader without the variety or entertainment, the kind of book you might purchase for a quarter at one of those book sales you see at the bank. My copy says $8.99 CAN, a price which is completely egregious. One in ten ...more

Ranting Wright rated a book liked it

Cellar of Horror
by Ken Englade (Goodreads Author)

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Reading this book felt like watching The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in the sense that such vivid material could have been better handled.

The first hundred pages quickly detail the gory terror that took place in Gary Heidnik's basement from Reading this book felt like watching The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in the sense that such vivid material could have been better handled.

The first hundred pages quickly detail the gory terror that took place in Gary Heidnik's basement from 1986 to 1987. Some scenes might be considered disturbing to anyone living under a rock for the last fifty years, but on the whole it feels like the author rushed through these scenes to get to the trial scenes, as though the story was being rushed onto shelves to capitalize on the media hype surrounding the case and to line the pockets of authors and lawyers with money. The details of the crimes are efficiently dealt with and then forgotten.

The last 170 pages read like the script to an episode of Law and Order, and these pages demonstrate the book's existence as a quickly-milked cash cow. It is interesting to see such a focus on the topic of mental illness and the boundaries of sanity, especially since the book was published in '88, but the book reads as though mental illness is an incidental topic---an ironic feeling, considering most cases involving murder call into question the mental state of the killer. Another strange feeling occurs when reading the chapter describing the newspaper headlines. The layers of sensationalism are palpable as the book describes the reactions of media outlets, as though the reader needs to be reminded of the severity of the crimes. If the first third of the book had been better handled, there would be no need for such an extensive section covering the trial scenes. Also, one of the insert photos, placed in the middle of this edition, is captioned, "guilty and condemned to death." I do not usually criticize a book for its edition or layout, but the bulk of Englade's retelling relies on suspense built during the insanity plea. Can Heidnik's lawyer get him out of the death sentence, or will the prosecutor convince the jury that Heidnik is a monster who deserves murder charges in the first degree? The defense obviously fails if one of the pictures tells us that the death penalty stuck.

Overall, Cellar of Horror makes vaguely interesting the crimes and trial proceedings of Gary Heidnik, but the book feels like it was rushed into life to capitalize on a news trend. ...more

Ranting Wright rated a book it was amazing

The Gray Rhino: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore
by Michele Wucker (Goodreads Author)

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

This book blew my mind.

A ‘Gray Rhino’ is a recognizable and often avoidable threat which is nonetheless ignored and allowed to become an overwhelming disaster. Michele Wucker carefully and intelligently details the five stages and nine configurations This book blew my mind.

A ‘Gray Rhino’ is a recognizable and often avoidable threat which is nonetheless ignored and allowed to become an overwhelming disaster. Michele Wucker carefully and intelligently details the five stages and nine configurations involved in Gray Rhino identification, but for simplicity’s sake I would say that Gray Rhinos are all those crises that are obvious and platitudinous. Gum disease, animal extinction, home repair, climate change, housing bubbles, recessions, natural disasters, final exams, energy shortages, collapsing currencies, epidemics, deadlines---we are so aware of and experienced with these threats that we willfully ignore and delay our preventive mechanisms until our only available reactions proceed panicked and unprepared. The cost associated with these rushed responses often exponentially exceeds the cost of planned mitigation, especially when the consequences of shortsighted investments include lost lives. To avoid these disasters, we require a flexible combination of leadership, strategy, circumstance, character, and luck.

My first thought when I saw this book was, “I read something called The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, I wonder if there is any relation between the two.” My suspicions were confirmed as the first sentence in The Gray Rhino’s dust jacket contains the phrase ‘black swan.’ In his electric endeavor, Taleb details outliers, the highly improbable yet high-impact events that completely reshape the globe and for which retrospective explanations are given: the totalizing behemoth that is the Internet; the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the ensuing First World War; the ‘87 stock market crash known as Black Monday; and the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism in the 21st century. Coincidentally, The Black Swan appeared April 2007, around the same time in which another Gray Rhino began to stamp the ground: the American housing bubble and the Great Recession of 2007-2012. I was driven to read Wucker’s work in attempt to discover how these two projects would be related.

Simply put, Wucker’s work is not a rebuttal but a necessary counterpart to Taleb’s galvanizing effort. The Gray Rhino essentially argues that many people missed the point of Taleb’s work and dedicated resources to develop predictive models and investment strategies that could somehow stop, create, or at least profit from the next unpredictable, world-changing event. This hubristic optimism coupled with perverse, short-term financial and social incentives: investments that were momentarily profitable yet unable to achieve longstanding sustainability; social media marketing developed to warp minds into chasing ‘likes’ and retweets with short bursts of text rather than exhaustive and intelligent dialectic engagement; and the era of online shopping which continues to grow as the same customers who support it decry the closing of small ‘mom and pop’ businesses. Spice this concoction with the fact that inertia is the opiate of the human mind, not to mention the ever-present romanticizing of ‘living in the moment,’ and the end result is a half-baked society that doesn’t want to do anything yet expects everything immediately and ignorantly believes that none of it will ever run out or go wrong. Lisa Simpson warns us from way back in 1993 that this “quick-fix, one-hour photo, instant oatmeal society” is a threat to all of us, and Wucker echoes a similar sentiment when reexamining the work of Taleb: “Why worry about an odd bird when you’re facing a two-ton beast?” (15).

Even though most of the crises in this book appear within governmental and corporate frameworks, The Gray Rhino makes very tangible the connection between these larger disasters and our struggles with personal meltdowns. For example, I know very little about futurism, financial and economic analytics, stock market algorithms, climatology, and engineering---most of what I now know actually came from reading this book and researching the people, events, and exhaustive vocabulary discovered within the exhilarating ten chapters. However, through explicit description of the five stages of Gray Rhinos---denial; muddling; diagnosing and bargaining; the panic state; and the watershed moment in which we either avert disaster or succumb to the trampling---Wucker suggests that action at the individual level is not only parallel to action at the governmental and corporate levels, but that one informs the other, becomes the other, and all levels of responsibility and accountability become at some point fluid and inseparable.

In other words, we as democratic citizens cannot fairly attack our leaders for procrastinating in the face of danger and mishandling taxpayer money if we can also catch ourselves forgetting to vote, brush our teeth, recycle our cardboard, change our oil, renew our passports, and make our beds on a regular basis. Ironically, on a shortsighted scale it may seem that I am trivializing the situation by comparing my laziness in bed-making to something like Rob Ford’s mishandling of the 2013 Toronto snowstorms, Minneapolis routinely ignoring warnings that could have prevented the I-35W bridge collapse, or the Bush administration misjudging the effectiveness and timing of hurricane preparedness strategies set forth by FEMA before Hurricane Katrina. However, the presidents, prime ministers, mayors, doctors, CPAs, climatologists---our experts are only human. We expect these experts to carry intelligence and skill beyond our own capabilities, but as Michele Wucker warns, “too few leaders step up in time, unless it is on the off chance that they are hearing voices, have a teenager’s sense of invincibility, feel that they have absolutely nothing to lose, or are a saint” (23). Our leaders are just like us: often afraid to be wrong; often complicit in confirmation bias and ‘groupthink’, the tendency to take recent examples and like-minded opinions as more valuable than others; often afraid to spend money even when fiscal conservatism will actually create larger debt loads in long-term realities. We often prefer to complain about a flat tire rather than spend the money on a tire change, just as governments often prefer to express condolences over flood damage rather than renew floodplain projections that will spike insurance and construction rates. Take the average citizens’ disinterest in preventive measures and multiply it by a factor of seven billion. Yes, some of those citizens are paid extraordinarily more money than others and are thus supposed to have a more vested interest in the survival of our societies and our species as a whole, but the sad, simple truth is that caring about the planet and its lifeforms is often too daunting a task to achieve on a consistent basis.

Far from being a harbinger of doom, however, The Gray Rhino is brightly yet functionally optimistic. Wucker carefully details the simple but powerful strategies we can employ to counteract denial, disinterest, muddling, ignorance, panic, and chaos. We need to absorb information from as many viewpoints as possible, being careful to avoid settling on popular opinion, confirmation bias, ‘groupthink,’ and conventional wisdom. We need to act decisively, but we must simultaneously stay flexible, unafraid to transmogrify if we catch ourselves in the middle of an incorrect prediction. We must be transparent with each other at the individual, governmental, and corporate levels so there are no hidden variables for which we have not accounted. We must keep a steady, adaptive eye on the horizon instead of resting on our laurels and expecting one successful strategy to be a catch-all for the future. Opportunity is never far from disaster, so if we take all preventive steps and we still find ourselves trampled by a Gray Rhino, we must not wallow in despair and self-deprecation but instead spring forward with renewed enthusiasm. If we find ourselves in times when crises are not imminent, we must not relax in the downtime but instead train ourselves and fortify our strengths with new skills and conditioned confidence. We must occasionally break our preconceived notions and review the world with “Alien Eyes” in case we missed something to which we have previously numbed ourselves. At the most fundamental level, we must combine the relatively calculable and practicable elements of ourselves (leadership, character, strategy) with the turbulent elements (circumstances, luck) that require our minds and actions to be as flexible as they are sound.

By the year 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities, and most major cities lie along coastlines (9). Combine these threats with rising sea and pollution levels and in the next few decades the world will potentially face unprecedented elevations in unemployment, political upheaval, broken transportation systems, crumbling infrastructure, energy shortages, water wars, jammed health care facilities, natural disasters, education imbalances, and total apocalypse---that last one was a joke, and I say the world ‘potentially’ faces these crises because they can all be prevented, or at least maximally mitigated, if we as a species can wake up and collectively dedicate ourselves to our own survival. There is so much more to say about Michele Wucker’s powerful work in The Gray Rhino, but I will leave it to you to read the book and discover the awakening for yourself. ...more