As a book, this is probably a little light, not nearly as meaty as Cain's other book Quiet. It's only 200-some pages, and even then it feels at times As a book, this is probably a little light, not nearly as meaty as Cain's other book Quiet. It's only 200-some pages, and even then it feels at times like she's reaching to fill pages and making tenuous connections and examples.
However, as a concept, it really scratched me where I itch; like Milhouse from Springfield meeting Milhouse from Shelbyville. It felt so spot-on for me in my life, and introduced me to character traits that I always felt but never had a name for. I identified so strongly with Cain's personality and she brought me to tears a few times, seeing myself so distinctly in her writing. I think if you don't have the bittersweet personality, you'll probably find this "theory" a bit hard to swallow, and I imagine would find yourself rolling your eyes at some of this stuff. But if you live your life with a constant twinge of sadness (and like it that way), this book is for you.
One thing that bothers me about these sorts of pop psychology books (and she does this in Quiet, as well) is that there always seems to be a whole section where they interview some sort of Silicon Valley mogul trying to make the case for this seemingly-odd character trait can actually be great for your career. Like, "So-and-so grew up drawing in his room and listening to The Smiths, but he's figured out a way to leverage that and is now a multi-millionaire venture capitalist." I wish everyone would please stop pushing this narrative where every interest or hobby or inclination you have should be channeled into some form of capitalism.
That being said I really did enjoy this book and can see myself going back to it for self care from time to time....more
It's a little eerie to be right in the middle of this book when a war in Ukraine threatens to wake the sleeping giant of Chernobyl and Putin is threatIt's a little eerie to be right in the middle of this book when a war in Ukraine threatens to wake the sleeping giant of Chernobyl and Putin is threatening use of nuclear weapons. I'm incredibly fascinated by the Chernobyl disaster and the HBO mini series was one of the best, most intense things I've ever seen on television. I really liked this book, part nuclear power primer, part history lesson, part rundown of the accident and aftermath, and part travelogue. The number of nuclear accidents that have occurred across the world since its inception was eye opening and terrifying, especially the history of Russia's laissez-faire treatment of them. Somewhat surprisingly, the author is actually a proponent of nuclear power and puts forth the argument that it's actually historically much less deadly than almost every other form of energy. But there's something so Promethean to me about the fact that we've somehow figured out how to mine these rocks and create these massively complicated contraptions to create power with them despite the unimaginable danger. Whenever people praise nuclear power, it's always with the caveat of "when done safely." But honestly the margin of error seems so razor thin that it feels like a toss up of whether it is actually worth the risk. It all just feels like it has an almost religious level of hubris that humans would tamper with this stuff. ...more
I listened to the audiobook (delightfully read by the author) on a whim, just looking for something to download before my morning walk (you know, so II listened to the audiobook (delightfully read by the author) on a whim, just looking for something to download before my morning walk (you know, so I could multitask and get the most out of my time lol). It's decidedly NOT a productivity book, and in fact might be the opposite. It turned out to be an incredibly interesting book on the philosophy of time, how our perception of it has changed over the ages, and ultimately how it's not something to be "managed" or "achieved" or "saved up for later". At times it can feel a little nihilistically anti-productive but overall it serves as a great slap in the face reminder that you will never get everything done because you can't escape your own mortality so stop trying to do it with the use of bullet journals and fancy to-do apps. Just pick some of the more important things to you, focus mainly on them, and let the chips fall where they may because most of what's on our to-do list only serves in some way to feed the insatiable capitalist beast and in the end we're infinitesimally small anyway.
Sounds depressing but surprisingly it's not....more
This book wasn’t bad, it was pretty enjoyable, but somehow it turned into a slog for me. It seems like the language is overly convoluted in an intentiThis book wasn’t bad, it was pretty enjoyable, but somehow it turned into a slog for me. It seems like the language is overly convoluted in an intentional sort of way to be delightful, but it wound up making it a little hard to get through with any kind of speed. I think overall I just didn’t care enough about the characters to make it that compelling for me....more
I grew up in a Howard Stern family but I didn't have a driving commute when I lived in the New York area and I don't have Sirius so my actual daily exI grew up in a Howard Stern family but I didn't have a driving commute when I lived in the New York area and I don't have Sirius so my actual daily exposure to him has been minimal. This was a fun read and I did a fair bit of loling (especially the Tracy Morgan interview). Despite all his work in therapy, Howard is still pretty self-obsessed but there were a lot of interviews in here with people I could not care less about (the Kardashians? Ed Sheeran? Sia who?) and it was interesting to be forced into at least a tiny bit of understanding of some of these people. I didn't think the interviews were quite as hard-hitting as Howard sets them up to be in all of the chapter intros, but It was still enjoyable.
One thing that was tough was all the Trump phone calls. I'm not sure what the point of including all of those were - it seemed like it was some sort of cautionary tale thing, like "Holy shit this guy becomes president," but Howard really just kissed his ass the whole time so it didn't help Howard's image. I do love that Robin's disdain for him is so thinly veiled and she's actually the only person who tries to call him out.
Howard [talking to Ivanka]: ...Your father says you're one of the most attractive women on the planet. I don't disagree...Hey Donald, do you ever discuss sex with your daughter?
Donald: No.
Howard: You do not?
Donald: No.
Howard: Donald, seriously. You know about sexual predators and things like that.
I never would've thought I'd pick up a book about agriculture but I wanted to dip into Wendell Berry and saw this as a recommendation. I have to say, I never would've thought I'd pick up a book about agriculture but I wanted to dip into Wendell Berry and saw this as a recommendation. I have to say, although the writing can be a little obtuse at times, this book really opened my eyes to the interconnectedness of...well, everything. This was written in 1977 but it feels extremely valid today. Some ideas that particularly resonated with me: - How we've been led to try to treat work with disdain and minimize it in exchange for "leisure" which has created an entire capitalist economy around a) saving time and b) spending the time that we've saved. - We've gone from producing our own food and goods to working jobs that pay us money to purchase food and goods produced elsewhere, effectively using money as a proxy for people and values, which removes the humanity from what we surround ourselves with. I.e. if you get your food from a giant supermarket and your clothes from China, you don't know or care about the people producing them. - Laws have been created ostensibly to protect the consumer but in reality they serve to consolidate production into the few huge agribusinesses that can afford the necessary equipment to fulfill the requirements. His discussion of small dairy farmers brought about one of my favorite quotes in the book: "…It is one of the miracles of science and hygiene that the germs that used to be in our food have been replaced by poisons." - The concept that in order to survive as a species we cannot have unrestricted growth. "And with this shift of terms, science and agriculture have been nominated to do the work that can be done safely and adequately only by complex cultural changes leading to restraint of consumption and competent care of the earth. It is exactly this refusal to consider survival except as continued affluence that has brought our survival into doubt. There is anyhow only a fanciful connection between affluence and survival. We do not have to be as comfortable and extravagant as we are in order to survive. And there is no connection between affluence as we understand it and civilization. All that civilization requires is enough. It does not require extravagance. Until these distinctions are made we cannot even begin to talk sensibly about the problem of hunger."
So lots of really good stuff in there. That being said, I agree with a lot of the other reviewers that his views can sometimes be overly simplistic and rosy with regards to "the good old days" of farming, and he's not very clear on when those good old days even were - some of his examples of good agricultural practices reach back to the dawn of farming which is clearly unreasonable. It doesn't seem to occur to him that a lot of people don't actually want to be farmers. Many of his examples don't seem like they would scale up to meet the needs for more than a hyper-local scope.
The chapter on birth control obviously set me off a bit and is another example of a time when he manipulated the story to be extremely simplistic, as if women were sold a bill of goods by scientists when in reality they'd just love to continue to have tons of babies.
He also spends the vast majority of the book complaining about agribusiness without really addressing the problem of providing for exponential population growth. There's a bit of solution here and there but it feels mostly lacking in steps to move forward.
In general though I thought this was an incredibly worthwhile read and "unified theory of everything" to contextualize agriculture within the larger world ecosystem. ...more