Tag: nonfiction

Day 458: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

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Cover for QuietMy first impression of Quiet was that it seemed much like many management books I have read and at one time (when I had a director who enforced a “management book club”) considered the bane of my existence. Hallmarks of many of these books are to base broad conclusions on a few examples and to endlessly repeat the same information. Writer and lecturer Susan Cain’s focus on business and examples of individual people’s experiences made me fear this was yet another such book, so I continued only because it was recommended by someone I trust. However, I was pleasantly surprised, for Cain’s scope broadens as the book continues, and the book shows plenty of familiarity with studies and theories that support her positions.

Cain’s initial observations are about how Western, particularly American, society and business reward extroverted behavior and consider introverted behavior a fault. Since I am myself an introvert, I was happy to read her extensive support for the position that these attitudes can be harmful for business and other endeavors and are based on false assumptions that extroverts are smarter than introverts.

Just to go off on a personal tangent, one of Cain’s points—that volubility is often mistaken for intelligence—was demonstrated to me years ago when I worked with a loud, aggressive woman. One day after a coworker and I had been sledgehammered into submission for some minutes, the coworker remarked that she was annoying but smart. I rejoined, “Did you listen to her? What she said didn’t make any sense!” The coworker had not noticed, seemingly bowled over by the woman’s verbosity.

Cain’s book is full of examples of the qualities of introverts that should be more valued. She gives advice for introverts who want to appear more extroverted, both things people can do and thoughts about how they can evaluate whether that approach is best for them. She also provides suggestions for managers who are interested in creating a workplace that is effective for both extroverts and introverts. She talks about the challenges of Asian students, who tend to be more introverted, in American society. Especially valuable are her suggestions for parents and other adults in dealing with and helping introverted children.

Overall, I find the book to provide perceptive observations and practical suggestions for dealing with work and social life as an introvert, as well as providing insights about the unrecognized value of introverts in our society.

Day 451: The Year of Magical Thinking

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Cover for The Year of Magical ThinkingThe Year of Magical Thinking is Joan Didion’s candid account of the first year after the death of her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne, and the serious illness of their daughter Quintana Roo (which sadly resulted in her death after the time frame of this book).

The couple had just returned from the hospital, where their daughter’s illness had progressed from flu to pneumonia to septic shock. Dunne died in a manner that was so sudden, falling over forward on his face at the table, that Didion at first thought he was joking.

What follows is an honest description of Didion’s mental functioning and thoughts as she tries to deal with competing traumas in her life—the refusal to believe her husband might not be coming back (she won’t give away his shoes in case he needs them), the constant speculation about what she might have done differently that could have saved him (what if they stayed in Malibu? what if they moved to Hawaii?), the attempt to avoid anything that reminds her of time she spent with her husband. She makes a careful distinction between grief and mourning.

What characterizes this book is the unstinting look at the author’s experience, a willingness to document everything, without avoidance or euphemism. Didion’s intelligence shines through every passage as she contemplates our culture’s relationship with death—for one thing, the harm we have done by ridding ourselves of its ceremonies and even its trappings.

Day 445: Annals of the Former World: Crossing the Craton

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Cover for Annals of the Former WorldIn the final short book of Annals of the Former World, John McPhee examines the craton, the flat land that lies in the central Midwest of the continental United States. If you have read my reviews of the other books, you might remember that McPhee wrote each one about a separate geologic area near I-80, along which he traveled with different geologists telling the story of the formation of the country. Each of those four books was published separately, but Crossing the Craton was added when the complete volume was published, perhaps for completeness. (I think it was published separately at a later time.)

Because there are few outcroppings in the Midwest, little can be seen of the rock underlying this area, a thin veneer over the basement rock that comprises 90% of geologic time.  McPhee explains that until very recently this basement, or Precambrian, rock was neglected in geology texts. Because Precambrian rock by definition has no carbon in it from living things, carbon dating was not available. Nothing was known about the rock.  For a long time it was thought to have been there since the creation of the earth, but that idea has been found to be incorrect.

Just in the last 40 years or so, new kinds of dating methods and other technological advances have allowed geologists more insight into what is going on beneath the surface in these older rocks. Gravity maps have revealed a huge tectonic rift, for example, that runs from eastern Nebraska through Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin and under Lake Superior, where it joins one rift shooting north into Canada and another running right through Michigan. This three-pronged rift is similar to the one that runs down the Red Sea to meet the rift in the Gulf of Aden and the East African Rift, only that one is much younger.

In this book McPhee explains how the Canadian Shield and the central portion of North America were mostly likely created. He also looks at recent technologies such as zircon dating and aeromagnetic mapping, and speculates on the discoveries about the basement rock that could emerge in the future.

Although this is the shortest book in the volume, more the length of an essay, its emphasis on technology makes the subject matter of lesser interest to me than that of the previous books.

Day 428: Annals of the Former World: Assembling California

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Cover for Annals of the Former WorldAssembling California is the fourth volume of McPhee’s massive book about the geologic structure of the country. It dwells mostly on how the ideas of plate tectonics by themselves do not explain the geology of California.

As explained in my reviews of the previous volumes, McPhee spent years traveling along I-80 in the company of different geologists with the aim of describing the geologic formation of the country. In this volume, McPhee continues his travels along I-80, this time with geologist Eldridge Moores. They begin a series of journeys at the eastern border of California near Donner Pass, crossing to the Oakland/San Francisco area.

McPhee introduces the concept of the ophiolitic sequence, a sequence of rock strata that has been found to originate from ocean floor crusts. These crusts were ripped from the floor and mashed upward when an island arc, like that of Japan, collided with the western coast of the continent. Thus the ophiolites, which are the oldest rock, end up on top of mountains. The theory is that three such island arcs joined with the continent over the ages to form California.

McPhee also travels with Moores to Cyprus and Macedonia, two areas with similar rock. He introduces some other structures that are not completely explained by plate tectonics, such as the whole of Southeast Asia, which appears to be a part of the continent that was pushed sideways by the impact of India smashing into Asia and creating the Himalayas.

McPhee finishes this book with a dissection of the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco-Oakland (which occurred after his initial visits). He returns to examine the damage and explain how the shockwave spread and why some areas were more damaged than others.

As in the other volumes, McPhee imparts a great many concepts and theories in clear and interesting prose. This series of books (or the larger volume) makes for reading that can be a little difficult to grasp, as plates and continents seem to whirl and gyrate all over the earth (only, of course, very slowly), but it is nonetheless fascinating.

Day 417: Annals of the Former World: Rising from the Plains

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Cover for Annals of the Former WorldRising from the Plains was my favorite book of Annals of the Former World. In this third book of the series (or third section of the complete book), John McPhee examines the geology of Wyoming along I-80 and makes a side trip to Jackson Hole.

McPhee travels with geologist David Love, and he enlivens the geological discussion with a discursion on the settling of Wyoming, particularly with the history of Love’s own family. He begins with Love’s mother, Ethel Waxham, a Wellesley graduate who arrived in the wintery landscape by stage to take up work as a schoolteacher. Waxham kept absorbing journals that describe the harsh conditions as well as the striking characters she encountered. Waxham was courted and won by a rancher, John Love, a nephew of John Muir, the great writer and naturalist. McPhee has tales to tell of Love’s adventures, including his acquaintance with Robert Leroy Parker and Harry Longabaugh (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid).

This book continues to explore questions raised by too comprehensive an application of the theory of plate tectonics. It introduces the concepts of hot spots and plumes and their involvement in the formation of structures.

The book delves deeper into the story of the discovery of oil shales and uranium in the area. It touches on issues of ecology and preservation of natural areas.

Of all the parts of Annals, Rising from the Plains is the widest in scope. McPhee has a talent for making his subjects understandable and readable–and very interesting.

Day 406: Annals of the Former World: In Suspect Terrain

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Cover for Annals of the Former WorldIn the second book of Annals of the Former World, John McPhee returns east to examine the geology of the Appalachians along I-80. Beginning with the Delaware Water Gap, he travels along the highway with geologist Anita Harris exploring the road cuts to see what can be determined about how the landscape developed. The two continue on this route through Pennsylvania and into Ohio, where they explore Kelley’s Island, travel along the Cuyahoga River for a spell, and end at the Indiana Dunes.

Having explained the basics of plate tectonics in Basin and Range, McPhee now travels with a geologist who is skeptical of the broad application the theory has found, particularly in relation to the Appalachians. Harris takes issue with the idea that the mountains were formed by the ramming of the African coast up against North America. She believes that a study of the rocks does not support this concept.

In Suspect Terrain is deeply concerned with glaciation. As well as explaining how glaciers could have formed this area of folded and complex geology, McPhee breaks off to expatiate on how the theory of the Ice Age came about, among other geological ideas. He also tells how Harris herself figured out how to use the color of conodonts, a kind of fossil, to make it easier to find the conditions for oil.

I find it fascinating to try to imagine the pictures of the earth that McPhee describes, how different they are from the continent as it is today. McPhee tells us how rivers ran to the west instead of to the east, huge tropical seas took up the middle of the continent, the glaciers shoved rock down from Canada to create places like Staten Island.

McPhee is an extremely interesting writer. To be sure, the subject matter, the ideas it evokes, and the language he uses demand full attention, but this series of books is involving.

Day 400: Annals of the Former World: Basin and Range

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Cover for Annals of the Former WorldBest Book of the Week!

Beginning in 1978, John McPhee began a series of journeys across the United States along the length of I-80. His goal was to form a picture of how the geology of the country evolved over time. This project proved to be so large that he ended up breaking it into chunks, publishing four books that he finally combined into one (with an extra section). Basin and Range is the first book of Annals of the Former World, the combined volume, for which McPhee won the Pulitzer. Although I am reading the large volume, I have decided to break up my review by the original works, as reading this book has involved a lot of concentration.

Although the book begins with the genesis of the idea during an outing McPhee took with a geologist in New Jersey and briefly covers other areas of the world, Basin and Range concentrates on the Basin and Range area of western Utah and eastern Nevada. McPhee is a journalist who majored in English, but his interests lead him to take courses in geology, among other sciences. To supplement his basic knowledge and interests, he traveled with and interviewed noted geologists.

Basin and Range discusses changes in basic geological theory from the 17th century, providing readers with a primer on plate tectonics by using examples of various structures in the Basin and Range. In the course of these discussions, McPhee expatiates on some of the larger debates in the history of the science and tells us about some of the more colorful characters. All the while, he conveys his fascination with geology and his appreciation of language. He finds inventive ways of suggesting the vastness of the time he is discussing and the relative rapidity with which major geological forces can create change.

I have an interest in geology that is only basically informed, mostly from a couple of classes, science TV programs, and a former job in a related industry. I always considered myself a dunce at science and so never followed up this interest seriously. McPhee throws around geology terms without always explaining them, so I found myself looking up terms like “oolite” and “craton,” but in general he is gifted with the ability to make this topic abundantly clear. Although I was not sure at the beginning of the book that I would read all the parts, I am certainly planning on continuing. I am finding it fascinating to try to imagine the changes in the Earth that he describes.

Day 392: The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime

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Cover for The Invention of MurderJudith Flanders, a British journalist and history writer specializing in Victorian times, has written an entertaining and exhaustive book showing how the Victorian fascination with murder grew and forced improvements in policing. In addition, it resulted in the evolution of the detective novel. Flanders begins this discussion with the interest in a few major crimes from before the Victorian era, explaining how public response changed during the Victorian age.

One theme of the book is class. Flanders effectively shows that the public interest in murder was for crimes that involved the middle or upper classes, with a tendency of the newspapers and popular songs and legends to elevate in class the murderers who were from the lower classes. Newspapers flagrantly made up “facts” about accused murderers that sensationalized their backgrounds or their crimes, including changing their social class. Even as late as the Jack the Ripper murders, interest was probably only taken by the public (since the victims were lower-class prostitutes) because of the number and viciousness of the crimes.

Flanders tells us about a series of panics that took place as a result of a growing audience for this kind of subject matter. Once a tax was removed from newspapers in 1855 that had kept the price high enough to restrict their circulation to the middle and upper classes (although the poor shared newspapers or picked them up in coffee houses), circulation greatly expanded and the papers found a new audience for sensationalism.

Even though there had only ever been a very few cases of murder by poisoning, in the early and mid-nineteenth century a poisoning panic resulted from a highly publicized murder case. In the ensuing rash of accusations, people were brought to “justice” when there was no actual proof that anyone had been poisoned let alone any proof that the accused was guilty of any wrongdoing. Unqualified persons were allowed to testify on the “scientific” evidence, including one Alfred Swaine Taylor, who for years testified to the presence of arsenic using a test that actually introduced arsenic into the sample through copper gauze. Even worse, the lower class “poisoners,” who usually had little or no legal representation, were invariably hanged, while the middle and upper class accused often got off completely or with lighter punishment, even if there was more real evidence against them.

Eventually, with improvements in the science of criminology and the rise of public indignation about some obvious miscarriages of justice, the police force was compelled to become more professional and the law to pass more stringent rules of evidence.

Frankly, our lurid interest in crime hasn’t changed, as shown by the prevalence of true crime shows on TV. A large part of the fascination and entertainment value of this history has to do with the details of the crimes as well as the plots of the many plays, novels, and penny dreadfuls that derived from them. Flanders has written an entertaining and lively history for anyone interested in true crime, the evolution of the mystery novel, or the history of advancements in criminology.

Day 367: Between the Woods and the Water: On Foot to Constantinople: From the Middle Danube to the Iron Gates

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Cover for Between the Woods and the WaterBest Book of the Week!

In December 1933, 19-year-old Patrick Leigh Fermor set out to walk from Amsterdam to Constantinople. He wrote about the first leg of this journey years later in A Time of Gifts, ending the book as he crossed a bridge from Czechoslovakia into Hungary. In 1986, he finished this memoir of the second leg of the journey, which begins on that same bridge in Esztergom the evening of Easter Sunday and ends in the early autumn of 1934.

In the second part of the journey, Leigh Fermor breaks his rule of making the entire trip by foot and also spends much of the time in more luxurious surroundings than he did in the first part. As he makes his way through Hungary and the Romanian border, as it was then, into Transylvania, he is passed by his growing list of acquaintances and friends from one kastély to another, spending days with a learned professor discussing languages and history, borrowing a marvelous horse from a count for part of the journey across the Hungarian plain, staying for weeks with a new friend named István in Romania, and dallying with a young married woman on a motor trip with István to Prague.

Leigh Fermor does not spend all his time in such exalted circles, though. He happily camps out with gypsies, spends the night outside a shepherd’s cottage, is hosted by a Jewish family after an afternoon spent discussing the Hebrew language, sleeps in a cave, and camps on an island in the Danube near a village inhabited by resettled Turks. On his way, he describes the scenery in lyrical terms, explains the ancient history of each area he passes through, and tells us about the people he meets and the sights he sees. His chronicle is supported by the notebooks he kept and a nearly photographic memory of a remarkable journey. In addition, he tells us that he revisited some of the areas 20 years later.

This memoir is beautifully written. Although relatively unacquainted with formal learning, having abandoned military school at that early age, Leigh Fermor has an astonishing range of interests, and he tells us all about them. He is constantly plunging into dusty tomes in his hosts’ libraries but is just as ready to dance and drink the night away. This is a delightful series of books, still full of the youthful joy and enthusiasm Leigh Fermor must have felt when he was 19 and 20 years old.

In the Appendix to this book, Leigh Fermor reflects on how many of the sights he writes about in this book are now under water, for the Danube valley that he traversed and the torrents and currents that once rushed along it as well as the Iron Gates themselves have been subsumed by a huge concrete dam and hydro-electric power plant. And of course there have been other causes of destruction since 1934.

Unfortunately, The Broken Road, the unfinished manuscript of the final portion of the journey, is being republished but is not available from Amazon until March of next year! (It may be available used from some other site.) I am so disappointed to find the book never gets us all the way to Turkey but stops in Greece.

Day 354: Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance

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Cover for Worldly GoodsWorldly Goods promises a new look at the European Renaissance from a different point of view. Lisa Jardine, a professor of English at the University of London, proposes an interpretation of the period in terms of the growth of commerce and a new consumerism and multiculturalism.

However, the information offered does not seem new. Rulers and wealthy men have always been conspicuous consumers. Jardine attempts, for example, to turn around our view of the flowering of art as merely a series of demonstrations of the wealth of patrons who commissioned the works, a sort of competition to show who is most wealthy or powerful. But simply providing examples of patrons who specified expensive materials or the inclusion of their goods in pictures doesn’t prove this point.

Jardine does a better job of showing how the development of printing made the exchange of ideas easier, thus affecting the advances in many different fields, including the arts and the sciences. However, her argument that the policy decisions of the period were all driven by the dictates of commerce is taking things too far, I think.

The book is well written and lively. It does not back up its assertions with footnotes or a bibliography, however, indicating that it is written for the general public but frustrating those who would like to look further. At some point, I felt that the examples were becoming too repetitive and no new points were being made. For example, Chapter Three is about the proliferation of books and printing, but Jardine continues to make the same points about printing and the sharing of scientific and technical information repeatedly throughout the rest of the book.

Although the history provides an interesting discussion of commerce during the Renaissance, it is oversold as a complete history of the period.