REVIEW: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (1 star or less)

So many people recommended this book to me - and even in the "Silent Meditation" pools at Harbin, a random woman could not contain her enthusiasm as I sat silently reading and felt compelled to interrupt me with "That is the MOST PROFOUND book I have ever read."

Aside:  I did not engage with that woman because a) "silent" means no talking; b) if I am reading a book in public, it is not merely a prop to encourage random strangers to strike up conversation; c) perhaps she feels that I am not clever enough to experience the book for myself and she needs to provide guidance (if yes, then piss off); d) if this is the most profound book you've ever read - you clearly aren't reading enough (Start with "Possessive Investment in Whiteness" and piss off).

First - I want to acknowledge that the author's writing style is enjoyable, descriptive and flows nicely.  It was a very quick read.  Lovely descriptions -- but frankly, it got to a point where I felt like this was just a vehicle for his love of writing such descriptions.

Second - his characters are weak and abused, and lacking agency.  

Let's talk about Marie-Laure -- she's the extreme "Angel in a Glass Box."  Oh, poor little thing - she's BLIND!  She can't be expected to do anything, not dress, not pack to flee Paris, not even wash her own hair when she's a flipping teenage girl (no, her father does it while she is, presumably, naked in the bath tub).  

Did the author actually do any research into blindness (causes and correction)?  Did he actually talk to any blind people?  And, how about whether blind people actually count storm drains, make their own breakfast, get dressed and go outside on their own?  I am curious, frankly, to know what she did with most of her time when she wasn't reading from the same two books between age 6 and 16 -- and how did her father find the time to survey and carve intricate wood model puzzle box houses of the French Quarter in Paris and St Malo while also doing all of the things needed to care for his daughter and himself (oh, and work when they were in Paris). 

The orphan Werner and his sister Jutta -- whose parent(s) were killed in the mines (no explanation on the mother) -- find a broken radio and fix it, launching Werner on a quest to learn all about engineering.  He can fix things just by thinking it through -- SHOCKING! Wait - that's what the rest of us do.  We think about things, try a thing and test it out. What's really shocking is that he can be part of a marginal class in a coal mining town and then spend time in a Nazi school and not have any idea that the Nazis were sending trainloads of people off to die. In fact, the German characters seem so protected from the extent of the war that it's laughable.

We can't just let the evil Germans off the hook for ignorance and passive complicity - let's throw in a few random scenes of gratuitous cruelty involving a (possibly Jewish) prisoner, a student who is beaten into a traumatic brain injury because of poor eyesight, rape three women by a group of Russian soldiers (in one sneaky little paragraph) and kill off our German soldier, Werner, on a land mine after he saves the poor blind Marie Laure.

Frankly, I think the more interesting characters are the agoraphobic uncle Etienne whose illegal radio broadcasts reach England and Germany and the housekeeper (60 years of service!) who knows and feeds everyone in the town (where they get the money and food is still a mystery).

So, let's return to Marie Laurent.  She survives the war, doesn't get raped, nary a scratch on her precious little head and... the author doesn't see fit for her to ever have cataract surgery? Not even an attempt to restore some of her vision?  Cataracts are the most curable cause of blindness -- so she goes through a PhD program, works at the museum, collects sea animals (blind) and writes books but hasn't ever bothered to get the cataracts out? Why does the author see fit to punish her this way?  

Oh, wait - because her blindness is merely a trope to allow him to go off on descriptive tangents of sensual exploration.  Used.

Do I have to even get into the ridiculous sub plot of the priceless blue diamond and all it's mythology?  The cancer-ridden Nazi treasure hunter, keen on tracking down the precious gem that will let him LIVE FOR EVER!  YOU WILL NEVER HAVE THE ARK, INDIANA JONES!!!

Why did this get any prizes?  Seriously. I am calling BS. Did Doerr just get the Pulitzer because it was his turn?  Congratulations, white man.

REVIEW: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

RATING: 1 STAR (or less!)

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Dodging Energy Vampires: An Empath’s Guide to Evading Relationships That Drain You and Restoring Your Health and Power by Christiane Northrup (3-stars)

 Reading this book is like having a long chat with a very well informed confidante rather than a medical or psychology book.  I feel like a I have a strong sense of what the author is trying to achieve -- and she has a lot of good advice in this book, illustrated with stories from her life and her friends lives.  Yes, it's true - there's some woo-woo new age stuff in here but for the most part:  nothing in this book will cause harm or injury to anyone who practices her advice.  You might slightly alienate some of your friends and family if you start talking about violet flames and such -- those people can be just as annoying as the narcissists they are trying to avoid. 

The latter half of the book focuses more on self-care and offers a ton of practical advice.  I really like the advice about morning meditation and picturing all the things that can go right, and evening meditation to think about what you can learn throughout the day.  Her description of the benefits of deep breathing through the nose and the way that it stimulates the vagus nerve and shuts down negative self talk generated by your reptile brain is effective at a lay person's level.  

Christiane Northrup is a well educated and well intentioned writer and educator -- but she's also a very big business.  She has a ton of books and videos on her website, but she doesn't self promote herself as a consultant or reference her own books in this book.  Instead, she refers to a lot of other authors -- crediting them for their original ideas.  I found it charming that she referred to the person I most associate with horoscopes in the free local weekly newspaper as a "philosopher"  (Rob Brezsny authors "Free Will Astrology" and a book called "Pronoia").   

Most notably - she's wholeheartedly embraced quite a lot of pseudoscience, generally.  This book comprises a lot of hokum (ie "vampires") but has some good tips buried in what should essentially be a blog post.

The book boils down to the following:  defining and teaching the reader to identify psychic vampires (or narcissists); learning how to create healthy boundaries and distance from those people, and how to avoid them in the future.  Next, she discusses how to find support among people who are not narcissists and how to rebuild one's self-esteem and establish routines for self-care, including focusing on positive news and other inputs (ie, avoid violent/negative films).  All in all - good messages.

REVIEW: Dodging Energy Vampires: An Empath’s Guide to Evading Relationships That Drain You and Restoring Your Health and Power by Christiane Northrup 

RATING: 3-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff (3-stars)

Ruskhoff is in a privileged position – He makes his living as a speaker (let’s face it – books are publicity for the speaker circuit) – and he’s established himself as a “thought leader.”   

While the book is a bit of ramble – it reads like blog postings or bits of a Ted talk – it’s clear that he’s a voracious reader, and he absorbs concepts and streams of information to synthesize and develop persuasive arguments that skirt the edge of radical recommendations that might get him voted off the Marketworld acceptable speaker’s list.  A lot of what he writes seems kind of “insider-y” for those of us who have been in the tech world (at the Commonwealth Club, he and the moderator chuckled about the wonderful days of Well.com, for example). 

Rushkoff has made a living doing what I wish I had the guts to do since college when a respected sociology professor discouraged me from applying to a MA program in Chicago focusing on pop culture and media as “a fad.” In the first dot com boom – my inner sociologist was totally wigging out on the possibilities of technology and the strangely predictable boom and collapse, increasing bureaucratization and specialization and efforts to “monetize” everything and to “gamify” things to trap users into addictive and exploitive behavior patterns.  

I almost have to say that I enjoy the end notes more than the book itself – unfortunately, he doesn’t use any sort of citations in the text to link users back to these notes which would improve the experience a lot.

He makes a lot of generalizations but since he’s going for a visionary approach – I think that’s acceptable.  Some of what he says strikes me as overly cynical (you can see that in my notes) and I don’t agree with all of his assessments.  He has a fairly linear, causal chain assessment of developments in human society and communication. Hindsight, as we all know, is 20-20. 

For example “Before language, there was no such thing as a lie.”  Really?  So, we’re to believe that pre-language cave drawings were entirely accurate?  Some cave artist never fudged a few extra kills or such?  

Again – as with “Winners Take All” – this author is focusing on a process of co-optation that is inherent in the development of non-distributive, hierarchical human societies.  Of course, web technology has been co-opted to commerce – that’s what commerce does.  We’re so immersed in the pursuit of the success and ideals of Capital that business language and processes are saturating all spheres of our lives.  

While I don’t necessarily believe his dark vision – that computers are programming us to learn how to replace us – but he says some interesting things and overall the book is very thought provoking.  He encourages us to look at the underlying forces and ideologies driving and shaping the requirements of the world around us:  “Technology is not driving itself. It doesn’t want anything. Rather, there is a market expressing itself through technology.”  

“Human ideals such as autonomy, social contact, and learning are again written out of the equation, as the algorithms’ programming steers everyone and everything toward instrumental ends.”

Ruskhoff made a great argument somewhere in this book as well as an NPR interview about education for education’s sake – it’s necessary for people to learn, explore and get exposure to a wide range of ideas and to have the space to experiment intellectually and develop their own perspectives about things.  This is a similar argument to “The Coddling of the American Mind” – and Ruskhoff takes this a step further, eschewing the push to make education a place where people are trained to join the corporate world and to be “useful.”  Education is meant to make you interesting, to make you a human, and to teach you how to interact with adults who have different ideas.  Education is also not meant, as detailed on “Coddling,” to protect you from ideas you find offensive or “triggering.”

Finally – he gets around to the meat of his arguments and his recommendations. He talks about how capitalism as it is implemented is the enemy of commerce because it extracts value and gives it to remote shareholders.  The solutions for underemployment revolve around “getting everyone ‘jobs,’ as if what everyone really wants is the opportunity to commodify their living hours” and punishing the hungry or homeless for “not contributing” even though we don’t really need everyone to be working full time with the abundance we have in our society and economy. 

“We must not accept any technology as the default solution for our problems.”  And – further – question everything around you:  commercial media, mainstream diversions – what are the values they are promoting?  So much of the models around us leave us unable to cope in the face of ambiguity and uncertainty – but increasing our prosocial behavior and interdependence can give us the resilience and resources to solve so many of our contemporary problems.

“Transcending the game altogether means becoming a spoilsport – someone who refuses to acknowledge the playing field, the rules of engagement, or the value of winning” – much like the shaman (or hermit) who lives apart from the tribe.  Delete the app, leave your phone at home, connect with people because “Weirdness is power, dissolving false binaries and celebrating the full spectrum of possibility. Eccentricity opens the gray area where mutations develop and innovations are born.”

Finally, Rushkoff’s key recommendation:  “Just as we can derive an entire ethical framework from the single practice of veganism, we can apply the insights of permaculture practitioners to education, social justice, and government: look for larger patterns, learn from elders, understand and leverage natural cycles.”

“The greatest threats to Team Human are the beliefs, forces, and institutions that separate us from one another and the natural world of which we are a part.”

“We must learn to distinguish between the natural world and the many constructions we now mistake for preexisting conditions of the universe.”

“Find the others.” 

REVIEW: Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff 

RATING: 3-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Winners Take All (2018) by Anand Giridhardas (3-stars)

People who are making money at the expense of the common good are not ignorant about the effects they are having on the world around them.

Take as an example – the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, built by the widow who was the heir to the fortune of Winchester rifles. She earned something like $10,000/minute without having to do a thing because of the pivotal role that those weapons served in the genocide that took place across the US West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sarah Winchester lived in mortal fear of the horrors being caused by those weapons in mass killings of innocent people across the landscape of a country that promoted “freedom.”

To avoid the wrath of angry spirits of the slain, and perhaps because she lacked the power, being a woman in the 19th century, Sarah Winchester commissioned continual work on her house to confound the spirits. This is instead of halting production of the Winchester rifles and closing down the business. Given the power and authority of women at that time, I imagine if she had tried, she would have been committed to an asylum. She did not NEED the money – so why continue a business that was so contrary to her own values?

We live in a society where people at the top are encouraged to accumulate and hoard money – and then to use that money for power to manipulate laws and create conditions for them to continue to make even more money. This can only result in ever-increasing socio-economic polarization.

“The Winners Take All” is written by someone who was raised in a fairly affluent neighborhood in Cleveland, worked as a consultant and has circulated with social/economic elites most of his life. Our author has an epiphany – as many people do in their mid-30s – and realizes that the philanthropy of the wealthy was not addressing the root causes of the social issues they were trying to resolve. Our intrepid young author makes a speech that shocks all his colleagues. Surfing on this wave of credibility as a “whistle blower,” he rushes publish detailing how the wealthy protect their ability to continue increasing their wealth and how people are co-opted into this system – whether they are entrepreneurs, consultants or thought leaders.

Let’s be clear: the emperor is starkers. This is not news. The elites who are part of the power structure will work to co-opt and de-radicalize people, movements and culture. Most people, if not everyone, knows this – or maybe it’s just my good fortune for having pursued an undergrad degree in sociology.

Based on the wide array of reviews of this book – so much hyperbole such “scathing” and “important” – it seems to me that many people fail to see it as “a good start” on a better book. He’s got a lot of great anecdotal detail from his first-hand experience and his interviews – but it is definitely skewed toward the politically liberal elites. He presents his evidence as a body of case studies of individuals – and leaves out important details about what they might actually do to create real change.

“Economistic thinking dominates our age,” says our author -- this has been pointed out by plenty of other people. Business processes are being seen as the best solution for many other domains where they may not be exactly applicable. His first case study of an idealistic young graduate student being co-opted into such economistic thinking as a means for making positive changes in the world provides a small glimpse into the changing beliefs about such education in our society.

Are schools just a way to train and future workers at all levels of the capitalist machine and indoctrinate them into economistic thinking? As Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt discuss in “The Coddling of the American Mind” – schools are becoming less of an environment where young people are exposed to a variety of ideas, taught how to think critically and independently and given space for intellectual experimentation.

Instead, according to Lukianoff & Haidt, schools are becoming more insular and resisting that which is “different” as just flat out harmful or wrong. Is this an outcome of the increasing need for co-optation into MarketWorld or a is MarketWorld a result? There’s much to explore here in the world of secondary and post-secondary education that is unexplored in this chapter.

As a society – we need to revisit what we believe about education and schools: schools aren’t just for training future workers. Increasing socioeconomic polarization and the fear of falling into poverty provides plenty of incentive to conform and make oneself as marketable to MarketWorld as possible.

One of the biggest problems highlighted in this book is the fundamental problem of putting reform of social problems in the hands of wealthy philanthropists. In addition to failing to address/masking the root causes of social problems, allowing the elites to operate in this way increases the power of these elites over the political structure and influence over changing laws to benefit themselves.

He provides a few questions here and there which seem to be straw men and which he doesn’t flesh out or address in depth. “In a world of true gender equality, might not the beauty industry shrink?” Isn’t the beauty industry just a part of the overall problem – what about professional sports, for example? Millionaires playing games (for a limited time until they are literally too physically damaged) for billionaires. I would argue that affects and drives perceptions of masculinity at least as much as the cosmetics and fashion industries affect femininity – are either of these areas so easily taken down buy “true gender equality”? Giridhardas provides a profile of the Sackler family – founders of Purdue Pharma, the creator of Oxycontin. It’s common knowledge that our nation is in the midst of a national epidemic of, not just opioid abuse, but the incredibly addictive Oxycontin – which was aggressively marketed by Purdue Pharma.

As with my example of Sarah Winchester – the Sackler family doesn’t need more money. So, why not just halt the production of Oxycontin altogether? They must still have some rights to the formula – so why not just halt production? Focus some of their money and attention on resolving the addiction issues and helping promote non-addictive pain management therapies (how many acupuncture clinics do you suppose are in “ground zero” McDowell County?).

Throughout the book, Giridhardas touches on the calls from within and outside the elite to increase taxes on the uber wealthy – but doesn’t dive into any actual proposals and what it might look like for the elites to lead the way to reforming what capitalism means.

An increase taxes on any income over $10MM – say to 70% -- might encourage the reinvestment of the profits into the company in the form of increased wages across all levels of an organization, especially if paired with a value of reducing difference in salary between lowest and highest paid employee of a company to, say, 500:1 (instead of the 2,438:1 at Manpower, for example). An increased tax might also be used to fund other initiatives (such as the proposal by NY Representative Ocasio-Cortez to fund a “Green. New Deal”).

While I appreciate the spirit of the book – it presents a terribly skewed perception of the players as mostly US and liberal – leaving out, for example, the Koch brothers and others, giving the impression that maybe they are somehow golden geese (what about the philanthropy of the Gates foundation, for example)? Giridhardas leaves out analysis of the broader global issues (and makes a few snipes toward globalization) and ignores recommendations for solutions entirely.

Giridhardas doesn’t even come close to recommending any such ameliorative strategies for people whose incomes are derived from socially destructive activities. In fact, in his wrap-up, he seems to leave the door wide open for any other alternative, good or bad:

“For the inescapable answer to the overwhelming question – Where do we go from here? – is: somewhere other than where we have been going, led by people other than the people who have been leading us.”

Perhaps the elites are malicious and intentionally manipulating perception through philanthropy – or perhaps philanthropy is just a “Winchester Mystery House” being pursued by people who don’t know how to undo the damage being caused by their addiction to capitalism and the unending drive to hoard wealth. What we need – as much as the criticism and “emperor has no clothes” kinds of reportage in “Winners Take All” – is an escape from this system for the elites and a way to rethink our values around society and wealth.

For more reviews of this book – check out Black Oxford’s review of this book from a broader intellectual and moral perspective. Michael Siliski’s review dives into the proposals as well as other defects of the book

REVIEW: Winners Take All (2018) by Anand Giridhardas 

RATING: 3-stars

 © Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Mrs. Chippy's Last Expedition: The Remarkable Journal of Shackleton's Polar-Bound Cat by Caroline Alexander (3-stars)

We all know the true end to Mrs Chippy's expedition -- and I have put off reading this book for ages because of it.  The book itself is an homage to life from the perspective of a very self-assured feline.  The world revolves around him, in his mind, and he doesn't see the ultimate betrayal coming at the end.

There are some laugh out loud passages in this book -- like when two of the ship mates are describing how to turn around in a bunk while Mrs Chippy is nestled between one's ankles.  Mrs Chippy finds this droll but "instructive" because, as he notes -- his sleep has been disturbed by the tossing and turning of louts who were not very considerate.  Mrs. Chippy is depicted as very curious - inspecting and supervising, going on watches and tormenting the dogs who are persistently depicted as less intelligent. 

Whenever someone picks up and carries Mrs Chippy - it's always "I accompanied him on his shoulders ..." or "I accompanied him in the crook of his left arm" ... as if Mrs Chippy is making the decision to have the person pick him up and carry him.

The book is a very amusing exercise in life from the perspective of the cat -- but ultimately, it's an homage to a creature who was betrayed by those humans whose lives intertwined with his.  His mate, Chippy, never forgave Shackleton for this act.  There's a statue to Mrs. Chippy in Wellington!

REVIEW: Mrs. Chippy's Last Expedition: The Remarkable Journal of Shackleton's Polar-Bound Cat  by Caroline Alexander 

RATING: 3-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: The Genius Habit: Break Free from Burnout, Reduce Career Anxiety and Double Your Productivity by Leveraging the Power of Being Who You Are at Work by Laura Garnett (3-stars)

 One of the recommendations throughout all leadership, management and career self-help books is to get to know yourself better.  Really be open-minded to hearing feedback and paying attention to what you do best, what you enjoy most and what kind of impact you have on those around you as a means of measuring your effectiveness.

Along that same line, author and career coach Laura Garnett has provided a very positive, peppy and supportive book to help other people better understand their strengths and what they are most comfortable doing.  The book is a strange mix of primary experience and observations with some very thoughtfully considered processes with probably a bit too much padding from secondary and tertiary sources.  In some cases, it feels like she’s chosen the references to build or support her claims.

The strongest parts of the book are where she talks passionately about improving self awareness of one’s strengths and impact by creating a process to measure one’s own subjective experiences using performance tracker she has designed.  You can download this with an e-mail sign-up http://www.lauragarnett.com/geniushabittracker

The author offers many groups of questions for self-reflection and for requesting feedback from colleagues to help build a stronger sense of confidence in one’s particular “Genius Zone” skillset.

As with many contemporary folks in the leadership and coaching field, she’s a strong believer in personality typing – but rather than using a system that exists and has been tested, she offers her own list of types which loosely resembles Meyers-Briggs, In these six groupings.  

Process Creation—Making Everything Work Better 

• Chaos-to-Order Problem-Solver
• Improvement Strategist 
• Needle Finder
• Process Architect
• Good-to-Great Strategist 

Visionary—Redefining the World 

• Barrier-Breaking Visionary 
• Opportunity Excavator 
• Innovative Idea Strategist 
• Possibility Architect
• Vision Strategist
• Strategic Visionary
• Visionary Change Maker 

Strategist—Creating the Path 

• Analytical Solution Strategist
• Efficiency Strategist
• People Strategist 
• Possibility Strategist 
• Results Strategist 
• Training Results Strategist 
• Solutions Excavator 

Synthesizing—Bringing People and Ideas Together 

• Collaboration Strategist 
• Diagnostic Problem-Solver 
• Discerning Ideator
• Synthesis Expert 

Catalyzing—Igniting Opportunity 

• Connection Catalyst
• Holistic Crisis Problem-Solver
• Social Advocate 
• Team Maximizer 

Builders—Ideas and Structures 

• Creative Results Architect
• Deal Conductor 
• Design Strategist 
• Experience Producer 
• Innovative Rebuilder 
• Language and Idea Architect 
• New Business Growth Strategist

This could be a much stronger book if she focused much more on how to map the results of the Performance Tracker to the personality/genius types that she’s describing.  

The “Genius Habit” is an ambitious term and perhaps a bit confusing – to many.  Even in the book, she describes providing clients with examples of their “Genius Zone” to share in job interviews but says “don’t use the term since people aren’t familiar with it.” 

While she provides a ton of great examples from clients and her own experience – but she can be quite repetitive throughout the book.  The book is written in first person – this makes it very accessible but dilutes the strength of her key offerings when combined with the fluff -- repeated references to her own experience and use of the full names of authors and books throughout.   There’s also something about the editorial style – I noticed that there was inconsistency in references to other researchers – for example, there are six mentions of “Carol Dweck” for example but “Carl Jung” is mentioned once and all following references are just “Jung.”  

The massive variety of case studies is super interesting but sometimes a bit distracting – it would be great to have greater distinction about why a specific case study is being called out and perhaps moving some case studies to an appendix.  The author makes a cursory nod toward meditation, exercise and other things – almost as if leaving those things out would be remiss.  I recommend leaving those things out and focusing more on the process of developing greater self-awareness with use of the performance tracker and identifying one’s Genius Zone via her typology (or even another established typology).

“The Genius Habit” is a strong introduction to the way that our author thinks about work and how to help people shape their careers – I look forward to a greater exploration and strengthening of her concepts and tools in her future works.

REVIEW: The Genius Habit: Break Free from Burnout, Reduce Career Anxiety and Double Your Productivity by Leveraging the Power of Being Who You Are at Work  by Laura Garnett

RATING: 3-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape by Sohaila Abdulali (5-stars)

 Powerfully written testimonial of the attitudes and experiences of women (mostly) of rape across cultures and time.  The author provides her own experience with rape -- and with writing about rape -- as a backdrop for first-person accounts of the impacts of rape, getting on with life after and the changes in attitude around the world toward rape (though mostly in India, Europe and the US).   This book is incredibly well written and personal - highly recommended for everyone.

REVIEW: What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape by Sohaila Abdulali 

RATING: 5-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence--A Complete Guide to the GroundbreakingWheel of Awareness Meditation Practice by Daniel J. Siegel (3-stars)

 "Aware" is a massively dense book -- and a bit repetitive but mostly in ways that help reinforce the concepts.  I will never forget that "neurons that fire together wire together" - or is it the other way around? 

There's a TON of scientific sounding discussion of the brain and how it works - but for me, the most interesting parts were the concepts of the "wheel" of awareness and the meditation practices.  I also enjoyed the stories of individuals and how even a 6-year-old could grasp these concepts.  Some of the science-y stuff in the middle is above my pay grade but sounds interesting.  

I listened to this as an audiobook and had to turn it up to 1.5x because the narration was so sloooooow.   The science behind mindfulness is interesting but some of what he's written is super clinical.  It's hard to skip sections on an audiobook -- but don't feel bad if you do some skipping around in the printed book.  The author has provided some resources to the audio book https://drdansiegel.com/book/aware/ that includes some guided meditations.

REVIEW: Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence--A Complete Guide to the GroundbreakingWheel of Awareness Meditation Practice by Daniel J. Siegel  

RATING: 3-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

REVIEW: The Nature Instinct: Relearning Our Lost Intuition for the Inner Workings of the Natural World (Natural Navigation) by Tristan Gooley (4-stars)

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” – W.B. Yeats

I remember the first time I went mushroom hunting, nearly 15 years ago, and the moment when it was like a light switched “on” and, all of a sudden, I could see the chanterelles everywhere, peeping out from under the duff.  More than an “instinct” – it’s having a patient teacher to explain what to look for and spending time looking and absorbing one’s surroundings until it feels like an instinct.

Tristan Gooley is a gifted writer -- sharing his stories of his observations of signs of plants and animals and diving into details of scientific findings.  His writing is so detailed – I wonder if he just spends time writing after he gets back home or if he jots down notes while he is afield. 

While his writing is not as wild and captivating as some of John Muir’s stories – Gooley is providing a level of detail and making connections in a way that weave a story of the cloth of existence and how all creatures are connected.  I never knew, for example, that robins could hear earthworms popping up out of the ground.  While I have always known that cats, dogs and other animals have mood and character – I enjoyed the story about how dogs “play” humans with the head tilt and science confirming that many animals possess an awareness of mind and think about what other animals may be thinking/doing in the future.

I enjoyed reading about the differences in the way animals (prey/predator) see things – and have long ago learned the value of sidelong glances toward shy feral cats and other wild things.  I love the term “jink” and have noticed this behavior in animals when hiking on trails but didn’t know it had a name.  The story about raptors hunting away from their nests – and songbirds nesting near raptor nests – was brilliant.

My favorite story was about how the author went hiking in a new area, drumlins covered with zones of bracken and heather – and found himself compelled to walk in one area and return via the other, realizing later that he’d instinctively chosen the routes based on maintaining comfortable body temperature (without a jacket, on the return, the higher bracken provided a break from the wind).  I also learned a lot about hedges – which we don’t have here in the US.

Gooley is a huge fan of the slow/fast thinking and references Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow” several times (it’s on my pile to read, right after this one!).

It’s interesting that many people consider knowledge of the plants, animals and environment around the to be inaccessible.  I remember asking a Spanish friend who lives on a small island called Mallorca, in a quaint small town of Palma, about some flowers.  She insists that she is a “city girl” and really doesn’t know much about farming and plants.  Even identifying the orchards on the side of the road as we whizzed by was outside her realm of knowledge.  When showing a friend who lives in a gated-community in Colorado my 6 different types of basil, he commented “You’re the only botanist I know” (though I imagine as a fly fishing aficionado, he could tell me much about fish behavior).  Another friend recently revealed to me that he hates the outdoors and avoids nature as much as possible. 

There is much to see an analyze in modern urban, “civilized” life – as demonstrated from the breadth of effort expended on mindfulness, meditation, understanding human motivation and behavior (even the Kahneman book) – that one might make the argument that most humans have had to make the choice of paying attention to select things in their immediate environment that yield the most reward or benefit for the lifestyle to which they aspire.

Perhaps, what Gooley is implying, is that we need to step outside of our own minds and away from human society to pay attention to the greater web of plants, animals and environment around us to preserve those things we most value.  There’s so much to learn  -- and humans so easily get trapped into thinking they are the most important and interesting thing around.  Maybe cats do, too. 

I would have liked to have seen the author dive into more parallels between the human thought and observation process of the natural environment with the human and human-constructed environment, and perhaps a greater focus on the potential impact of our disconnect with the rest of the non-human world around us. Or, at least, the richness and reward of greater connection.  Overall – quite an enjoyable book – my takeaways include a renewed commitment to memorizing constellations, “vegetalistas” of the Amazon, the “gokotta” – Swedish practice of rising early to experience people-free environments,  “ikus” and “allelomimesis.”  Zig-zagging off to read my next book… 

REVIEW: The Nature Instinct: Relearning Our Lost Intuition for the Inner Workings of the Natural World (Natural Navigation) by Tristan Gooley 

RATING: 4-stars

© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.

Butternut Squash on Bittersweet Blog

Made some ravioli - guest post up on Hannah's Bittersweet blog - maybe I'll start blogging again here...

Here’s a quick “no measure” recipe for a rustic ravioli dish that will make any occasion seem super special. You don’t need any special equipment — just a rolling pin though I prefer to use my Kitchen Aid pasta roller attachment to save time.

Pasta:
1-2 cups of fine semolina flour
2 Tb extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp salt
water, as needed

Filling:
1 butternut or kabocha squash, roasted and seeded
chopped fresh herbs (your choice), quantity as needed
pinch of salt
pinch of nutmeg

DIRECTIONS – FILLING:
To make the ravioli filling, Just mash the roasted butternut (or kabocha or pumpkin) and blend with the finely chopped herbs and spices. You don’t want this to be too fine a puree, you want to be able to drop it by the spoonful onto the pasta.

DIRECTIONS – PASTA:
1. Make the pasta – mix the dry ingredients and start adding the olive oil and mix well. Add cold or ice water in a thin stream, in small amounts, until the semolina starts getting a sandy texture. Check it periodically to see if you can clump it by smashing some inside the palm of your hand with your fist. If it is too tacky and wet — add more semolina (easy, right?). I prefer to use my stand mixer but you can do this by hand.

2. Use a flexible spatula to scrape out of the bowl onto a work surface. Work it with your hands to press, squeeze and smush it together into a ball that starts to really stick together. You want to develop the gluten. Get out the rolling pin and work it flat, fold it and repeat.

You can continue to work it with the rolling pin or you can get it thin enough (about 1/4″ for the widest setting on your pasta roller) to start putting through the pasta roller. I start out at “0” on my KA attachment and after a couple passes, narrow it a few more times until I get to 4 or 5.

Get the pasta sheets as thin as you can without them being transparent, developing holes or tears when you try to stretch a bit (since you’ll be doing that to make the ravioli) but not so thick that you just have a super squishy dumpling.

To shape the ravioli – you can do this with a water glass or biscuit cutter, a fancy ravioli cutter (I have individual cutters as well as a metal mold that is about as wide as the sheet of pasta.

Get a small bowl of water and maybe a brush to keep at hand. Once you roll out your sheet of pasta — put it on the form or lightly mark it with your cutter, then use a measuring spoon to scoop a small ball of your cool filling onto the center of that mark.

Dab a bit of water all around where the edge of the ravioli will be using the brush or your finger tips. Lay another sheet over top (or just fold a very long sheet) and then use your cutter (or rolling pin) to score the raviolis. Check to make sure the edges are sealed the first few times and then lay them out in a single layer on cutting board or cookie sheet to rest.

Freezing the ravioli before you cook them yields better results. You can drop them into boiling water and then scoop them out and cover them with sauce, but for this thanksgiving treat — we browned some of Miyoko’s vegan butter and crisped up the ravioli on both sides with some holy basil out of the garden, and then sprinkled with vegan parm.

You can’t eat just one!

Oh yeah – and – if you have more pasta than energy to make ravioli — you can slice the sheets up into linguine or fettuccine, or make farfalle (butterfly or bowtie pasta) just by cutting squares and pinch in the middle. In all cases — leave pasta on a cookie sheet to rest and freeze or dry. You can also tightly wrap leftover pasta ball with plastic wrap and refrigerate to roll out later.