Book Review: Wish You Were Here

People who write book reviews are careful about spoilers -- either avoiding them or warning about them beforehand. In the case of Jodi Picoult's Wish You Were Here, everyone who writes about it is very careful not to spoil it for other readers because the unexpected turn it takes is such an important part of the experience. So I won't spoil it, other than to say that the turn was huge and made all the difference for me.

In Wish You Were Here, Picoult provides a nuanced exploration of the personal impact of COVID-19 from several points of view. Although this book feels very different from most of her other work, that nuanced exploration is very much Picoult at her best. She looks at survivor guilt experienced by those who are largely untouched (like me) side-by-side with the daily trauma felt by health-care workers. She spends more time than usual, for her, in examining romantic relationships. At times, this book began to feel like a romance novel and I almost put it down. 

Parent-child relationships are central to the story. As she peels back the onion of the fraught relationship that Diana, the protagonist, has with her mother, Picoult takes her on a twisted, often painful journey of self-discovery. Forgiveness and redemption ultimately enable Diana to find her way in the world, but I confess to finding the outcome equal parts sad and uplifting. 

This isn't Picoult's best work but even her "above average" is definitely worth reading.  

Quote of the Day -- bell hooks

Many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone. Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.

-- bell hooks

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According to her New York Times obituary, bell hooks' incisive, wide-ranging writing on gender and race helped push feminism beyond its white, middle-class worldview to include the voices of Black and working-class women. Her work included over 30 books, and encompassed literary criticism, children’s fiction, self-help, memoir and poetry, and it tackled not just subjects like education, capitalism and American history but also love and friendship. She died in December 2021 at the age of 69.

Book Review: American Nations

I'm a sucker for a book that tackles a "big story," that synthesizes disparate information across time and space to develop a theory explaining the seemingly unexplainable. The book cover of In American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North American depicts the territorial and cultural divisions that Colin Woodard lays out in his book. He traces the history of how each "nation" was settled and describes the underlying values that motivate its citizenry. 

I'm a native and inhabitant of "Yankeedom," and Woodard's summary rings true -- emphasis on education, pursuit of greater good for the whole community, faith in the potential of government to improve people's lives. What I didn't completely understand is why other "nations" don't share these values; why their heritage emphasizes different, even diametrically opposed beliefs and moral virtues. 

Woodard provides a unique lens for viewing key events in our history and highlights the "life and death" battle that Yankeedom and the Deep South continually fight for control and for the ascendancy of their world view. Each considers the others' success an existential threat to their way of life. Each battles, with varying degrees of success, to form coalitions with the other nations to achieve that control.

Understanding the root of a problem doesn't necessarily solve the problem, but it goes a long way toward appreciating how we got here. I'm sure there are holes in Woodard's arguments that astute students of US history will find, but overall, his characterizations ring true and explain so much about the divisions we are experiencing today.

Quote of the Day -- Henry David Thoreau

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

-- Henry David Thoreau

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According to Wikipedia, Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience", an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.

Quote of the Day -- Henry Kissinger

Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.

-- Henry Kissinger

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Henry Kissinger,as he approaches his 99th birthday, remains a sought-after political analyst who is both respected and despised. As first National Security Advisor and then Secretary of State under Richard Nixon, Kissinger played an instrumental role on the international stage. He orchestrated rapprochement with China and an end to the Vietnam war, for which he won a Nobel Prize amidst loud criticism. On a personal note, I was in Paris when Nixon resigned in 1973. French students, who were pretty confused by our Puritan approach to lying, asked me "will Henry Kissinger have to resign, too." He was popular around the world. 

 

 

Book Review: We Are Not Like Them

Christine Pride and Jo Piazza, a Black woman and a white woman, long-time friends and colleagues, write a book about a Black woman and a white woman who are best friends faced with incredible challenges to their relationship. It has the potential to be trite or overwrought, but it's neither of those things. It's thought-provoking, gut-wrenching, insightful. The prose is straight-forward, not overly flowery or emotional, but laced with wonderful well-turned phrases and astute observations. As I started reading, I was almost immediately sorry I was reading a library copy because I wanted to underline and comment. Instead, my book is filled with little post-it tabs I'll need to remove before I return it to the library.

When Pride and Piazza talk about their book, they quip "Come for the friendship, stay for the social justice." They explore the challenges of any close friendship (honesty, different life experiences, diverging achievements). And then they add an incendiary social justice issue to the mix. Riley is Black and a rising media figure in Philadelphia. Jen is white and married to a cop who kills an unarmed Black teenager. As a journalist, Riley takes the lead in covering the story. (No spoilers here. This is on the book flap and in the first few chapters of the book.) Through alternating first person narratives, Pride and Piazza explore the many cracks this exposes in Riley and Jen's relationship with nuance and compassion. 

We Are Not Like Them probes difficult subjects, often painfully, but it does so against the backdrop of a deep lasting friendship. As Riley says to herself, "Sometimes you just need to be around someone who loved you before you were a fully formed person. It's like finding your favorite sweatshirt in the back of the closet, the one you forgot why you stopped wearing and once you find it again you sleep in it every night." Awkwardly constructed but heartfelt. And I'm sure these two experienced writers and editors thought long and hard about each turn of phrase. 

As Jen struggles to cope with the fallout from her husband's horrific mistake, she pleads with Riley, "I just need you to be on my side." Riley, the more introspective of the two, and the authors along with her, understand that's it's not that simple. The situation has multiple sides, and there is no right side. And therein lies the strength of this book. There is no easy answer. There is no escaping the impact of race, so Jen and Riley (and the readers) might as well face it and deal with it. Here's Riley again: "I've been consumed these last few months (or a lifetime, really) with all the ways race oozes its sticky tentacles into every relationship, every interact, every intention... There are no easy choices, no safe choices, you can't plan your way to happiness."

We Are Not Like Them is a terrific, timely, important book.

Quote of the Day -- Eurdora Welty

My continuing passion is to part a curtain, that invisible veil of indifference that falls between us and that blinds us to each other's presence, each other's wonder, each other's human plight.

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According to Wikipedia, Eudora Alice Welty (1909 – 2001) was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer, who wrote about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

Bird by Bird, Book by Book

TBR (to be read). One of the most seductive and sometimes terrifying acronyms that I know. My physical TBR has reached monumental proportions, justifying the labels aspirational library or the lovely Japanese tsundoku. And my physical to-be-read library is positively dwarfed by the 1200+ titles on my Goodreads TBR. How in the world did I get here and how will I ever dig my way out?

For starters, I've always been an avid reader, and I've always loved to own books. I go through cycles where I try to restrain myself and rely solely on the library, but eventually I re-offend and start buying books again.  My family and friends know that I'm incapable of leaving a bookstore empty-handed, and I love bookstores.

I've stepped up my reading game in the past several years, partly because of the pandemic, of course, but also simply because it was time. Time to get a bit more serious.  Time to get over the graduate school experience of always needing to read so critically that it ruined "good books" for me for years. But those scars have healed. And there are so many "good books," both classic and recent, that I've decided to avoid wasting my precious reading hours on just average books or relying on the Barnes and Noble 3-for-the-price-of-2 table to make my selections.

I'm actively seeking out book recommenders whom I respect, and I'm entranced by all the possibilities. When it comes to books, I'm what Gretchen Rubin calls an abundance lover. I really, really enjoy being surrounded by lots of books. I have a priority list of sorts for my next 5 or 6 reads, but if none of those suits my mood when I'm ready for a new book, I know that everything within reach is "worthy" of my attention. I've set myself up to avoid the dreaded DNF (did not finish).

I sometimes wonder why I feel excited about all these books that I might never read, why I don't feel completely overwhelmed. Then I remember the story Anne Lamott told in her wonderful book Bird by Bird. When her brother was in elementary school, he had a big project that required him to research and report on a number of birds. As elementary school kids (or 70-year-old women) are wont to do, he procrastinated. And then, a few days before the project was due, he panicked. So much to do, so little time. Anne tells us: "Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder and said, 'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'” And that is my approach to my TBR. My eye isn't on some end goal of reading them all. I just want to take it book by book and enjoy the journey.

Quote of the Day -- Thomas Sowell

The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite.

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According to Wikipedia, Thomas Sowell is an American economist, social theorist, and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Sowell has written more than thirty books, and is a National Humanities Medal recipient for innovative scholarship which incorporated history, economics, and political science. Sadly, I had never heard of him until I encountered this quote.

Thoughts on Aging

People today are living longer, dramatically longer. The details of the chart on the right from Our World in Data are a little hard to read but the visual image is striking. For the developed world or the "global north," life expectancy was relatively stable from the mid 18th century through the mid 19th century. Starting in about 1875, it rises sharply from 35 years to nearly 80 years today. In the "global south," the increase in longevity starts almost 75 years later, but it is equally dramatic. And the increase continues. Experts estimate that a child born today in the developed world has a 50% chance of reaching the age of 100.

This trend has huge societal implications, particularly in the global north where the birth rate is declining. The growth in the percent of the population that is "elderly" isn't as shocking as some news stories imply, but it has the potential to become a significant burden. (As an aside, Our World in Data is a treasure trove of fascinating information.)

The Stanford Center on Longevity recently launched a new podcast called Century Lives. Their premise: if many of us now have the possibility of living to see 100, that calls for radical new thinking both as a society and as individuals. We need to construct lifelong learning, for example. The notion that we can educate our children intensely from ages 5 to 22 and equip them with everything they will need to know for the next 80 years is clearly misguided. As is the notion that most people should "retire" at age 65. Doesn't it make more sense to intersperse learning with work? And if we're going to work for 45 or 50 years, should we consider instituting sabbaticals for everyone?

On an individual level, we need to think about age differently. What does it mean to "look your age" or "act your age" when our potential lifespan is so much longer.  This image of the stars of Golden Girls in 1985 and the stars of the reboot of Sex and the City in 2022 is making the rounds on public media accompanied by lots of heated discussion. You can certainly make the argument for ageism and the outsize emphasis on appearance. On the other hand, no matter how much work (both physical and airbrushing) the ladies on the right have had, they simply look younger. 40+ years has made a difference in how people think, act, and feel after 50 (or 60, or 70). We as a society and we as individuals are doing a lot of soul searching about what age really means, and I think that's a good thing.

You can make the argument that we "elders" (the boomer generation) still want to have it all. We are spending substantial time, energy, and money trying to ensure that our wellspan aligns with our lifespan as much as possible. We want both a quantity of years and quality in those years. At the same time, we crave a society that isn't so focused on youth and that values the knowledge and wisdom we've acquired in our 6 or 7 or 8 decades. In my last decade or so of working, I was pretty careful to disguise my age. I dyed my gray hair. I hid my age in social media. I worked with lots of young people and didn't want them to think (or know) that I was old enough to be their mother. I'm not sure that was necessary, but at the time, it seemed the wisest course. When I turned 70 last year, I chose to be very public about it (and to expose my age on Facebook for my friends of all ages to see). I want friends, young and old, to see that you can have a full vibrant life at 70. That a 70-year-old woman knows some things that they don't. That being a "village elder" is something you earn and should wear proudly.