Title: What It Is Like to Go to War
Author: Karl Marlantes
Genre: Nonfiction
Year: 2011
Acquired: Book Expo America
Rating:

Review: I think one of the reasons I’ve procrastinated on writing this review is because I just don’t quite know what to say about What It Is Like to Go to War. Karl Marlantes’ nonfiction follow-up to his widely-regarded novel Matterhorn a fascinating hybrid of a nonfiction book — part memoir, part history, part manifesto — that explores a central conflict from Marlantes’ time as a Marine:

The Marine Corps taught me how to kill, but it didn’t teach me how to deal with killing.

Marlantes has an impressive intellectual background, and he pulls from a huge range of sources to develop his thesis about how we can help the young warriors (a deliberately chosen descriptor for soldiers) we send to war as they fight and when they come home. As Marlantes explains near the end of the book:

Throughout this book I have attempted to honestly share my experiences of combat with an eye toward how I might have managed those experiences with more wisdom and psychological, spiritual, and ethical maturity. I have argued that had I been more conscious when I was fighting in Vietnam, I would have contributed just as effectively, or even more effectively, tot he war aims of those in power. I would have wreaked less havoc and pain and still gotten the job done.

As I read, I felt a bit like I was sitting down and trying to have a discussion with someone who clearly knows more and has thought more about a topic than I have. That’s not to say the book in inaccessible, because it’s certainly not. Marlantes makes his arguments clearly and without condescension. But I also ended up not really knowing what to say in response to many of his arguments except, “Yes, absolutely!” I’m very curious to read and hear what other soldiers or military experts might have to say in response — any good sources to seek out, let me know!

What It Is Like to Go to War is a meditation on what it is like to be a warrior, and a compelling argument about what we can to do help young warriors when they return from battle. It’s a wide-ranging and thoughtful book that I hope will make the rounds among the sorts of people who can make the types of decisions that will most help the young men and women we send to war.

Other Reviews:

If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link to the review in the comments and I will add your review to the main post. All I ask is for you to do the same to mine — thanks!

Review: ‘What It Is Like to Go to War’ by Karl Marlantes is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

If I could read everything, I would be …

… learning about flying cars and space portals with Michio Kaku (The Physics of the Future).

… working on my cultural enlightenment with Jen Lancaster (My Fair Lazy).

… exploring an alternate history of the United States with Matt Ruff (The Mirage).

… discovering uncharted territory in New Guinea (complete with a previously undiscovered tribe of natives) with Mitchell Zuckhoff (Lost in Shangri-La).

… falling in love with my stove with Cathy Erway (The Art of Eating In).

… revisiting Jane Eyre with Margot Livesey (The Flight of Gemma Hardy).

… bemoaning the dark side of American politics with Alan Huffman and Michael Rejebian (We’re With Nobody).

… scheming to reclaim my stolen crown with George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings).

… fantasizing about Victorian poets with A.S. Baytt (Possession).

… and fighting against the growing Nazi threat in Berlin with Erik Larson (In the Garden of Beasts).

But I can’t read everything. So for now, I’m laughing out loud with Mindy Kaling (Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)) and wishing that there were a million more hours in the day for reading.

If you could read everything, what would you be doing right now?

Photo Credit: Warron Bebster

If I Could Read Everything… is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

As you may (or may not) remember, Ash (English Major’s Narrative) and I have embarked on a project to read an Essay a Day in 2011. After we announced our grand plan last December, Vasilly (1330v) e-mailed and said she wanted to join us, which was awesome! After one month in, I thought it was time to offer an update on my progress.

I’m still trying to figure out how to fit reading essays (and, probably even more challenging) writing about essays fits into my reading routine. My first thought was to read an essay as soon as I wake up in the morning, to star my day off with some good writing as inspiration. But that hasn’t really worked because I spend too much time reading blogs in the morning and run out of time/forget about reading an essay. I also tried reading over lunch, but that habit hasn’t stuck yet. It seems like the best time to read an essay or two is right before I go to bed. An essay is a nice length to help me get drowsy, and when then end it’s easy to put the book down.

The problem with reading at night is that it doesn’t work with my other goal for the project: to post about each essay on my Tumblr as a way to keep track of my reading. I don’t want to bring my laptop to bed with me, and writing a post on my tablet is a huge pain. And writing after I finish reading wakes me up, which is not the point of reading before bed!

I think what I need to do is start keeping a notebook and pen with my book of essays, so I can take notes whenever and wherever I read, then just make a point of putting thoughts on Tumblr the next time I’m by a computer rather than feeling like I’ve missed my opportunity if I don’t write up a post immediately after I finish reading. Simple solution… it’s silly I didn’t think of it until now!

Other than that, I’ve been really enjoying the practice of incorporating essays into my reading routine. I think I’ll be able to finish quite a few of my unread essay collections by the end of the year, which will be great. I don’t think it’s been slowing down my reading on other books by any measureable amount, which is nice too.

The first collection I was reading from was Best American Essays 2007, edited by David Foster Wallace. It wasn’t my favorite collection of essays, despite how much I liked DFW’s introduction to the book. On the whole, I felt like too many of the essays had a political bent. I’m not opposed to politically-motivated pieces, but a collection (even a “best of” collection) needs to have some variety. I skipped over a number of the pieces, just because I wasn’t feeling engaged. Skipping one essay in a collection used to really bug me, but I must have matured and calmed as a reader because it wasn’t a problem this time around.

I also included some long-form writing that I found online in my first month of reading. Of those pieces, I can’t recommend Tom Junod’s essay, “My Mom Couldn’t Cook,” from Esquire highly enough. I thought it was awesome.

My next collection, which I’m 10 essays into at the moment, is Best American Essays 2011. So far, I’m enjoying it a lot more. There feels like there is more variety, both in topic and format, in the book. I think the editor, Edwidge Danticat, and I have similar tastes in essays, which is a plus! She even included one of my favorite essays from last year, “What Broke My Father’s Heart” by Katy Butler, which I also highly, highly recommend.

So I guess, in summation, despite some fits and starts and missed days of reading, I got to the end of January and I’ve read 31 essays. Here’s to 29 more in February!

Essay a Day January Wrap-Up is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Title: The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Notices into Fearless Home Cooks
Author: Kathleen Flinn
Genre: Nonfiction
Year: 2011
Acquired: Library
Rating:

Review: Fresh from her stint at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Paris (chronicled in her first memoir, The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry) author/chef Kathleen Flinn isn’t sure where her path leads. The idea for her next project comes after a chance encounter in the grocery store. Flinn notices a woman filling her cart full of processed foods. When she gets up the nerve to ask the customer about it, Flinn discovers that the customer wants to eat better, but feels overwhelmed choosing and preparing healthier options.

Lightning strike! Flinn decides her next adventure will be to set up a basic cooking school for home cooks that want to do more and cook better, but don’t have the basic skills to get started. The Kitchen Counter Cooking School is an account of Flinn’s first class, and offers practical advice on everything from basic knife skills to reading recipes to developing flavors to getting the most out of every grocery dollar.

The one word I can think to describe this book is “comforting.” As a wannabe foodie myself, I think I pretty well fit the profile of most of the people in Flinn’s first class. Reading about their challenges and successes made me feel like I too could move beyond the few dishes I know how to make well to being a cook that can improvise and make a meal out of the leftovers in my fridge in no time flat.

I loved that Flinn included recipes for the dishes she taught in the class, as well as tips for how to start improvising with simple foods like dressings and marinades. It also helps that Flinn has organized the book around some of an amateur cook’s biggest challenges — What do I do with the very specific leftovers from a recipe? How can I save money cooking? What are ways to choose the best products? What does “season to taste” even mean?

This is not a book that will have much useful information for an expert cook or someone who is comfortable in the kitchen. But for those of us with limited skill but a desire to learn, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School could be just the book to get started with.

Other Reviews:

If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link to the review in the comments and I will add your review to the main post. All I ask is for you to do the same to mine — thanks!

Review: ‘The Kitchen Counter Cooking School’ by Kathleen Flinn is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Happy Sunday everyone! I’m feeling rather random today, so I think I’m going to just go with it.

I’ve been addicted to the library lately. Every time I go in to the library to return or pick up one book, I end up leaving with three more. In the last couple weeks I’ve brought home The Art of Eating In by Cathy Erway, Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction by Charles Baxter, My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster, Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku, Safe from the Sea by Peter Geye and Zahra’s Paradise by Amir and Kahlil. I haven’t read any of them yet, but soon I hope.

Have any of you heard of Smash Books? I just came across them this week, and now I really, really want one. Anyone have one? Worth the money?

I officially went back on a diet this week, which is not my favorite thing. I was last on a diet my last couple years of college and lost 30 pounds exercising and counting calories. I quit dieting formally when I moved to Madison, but slowly gained some weight back after I started my desk job after graduation and then some more after I moved to Morris. I finally decided to do something about it, but the first couple weeks counting calories always puts me in a mood.

I’m so, so tired of PR people sending press releases marked important with the big red exclamation point that shows up in Microsoft Outlook. There is absolutely no reason any press release needs to be marked important. None! For whatever reason, that drove me crazy this week.

I’m back on my The West Wing kick. My brother bought me season five for Christmas, and I’ve been watching it all week. I’m also in love with Parks and Rec, which is probably the funniest and sweetest show on television right now. It is the one show that I make sure to never miss. The first couple seasons are on Netflix Instant right now — go watch them!

I got all caught up on reviews yesterday morning while I was writing from a local coffee shop. Well, not totally done — I still have to add some formatting and clean up some rough patches — but basically done. I’m really starting to like my Saturday morning writing time. I can usually get a lot done over a couple big mugs of tea and a pastry. It feels good to be caught up, for the moment.

Today I’m going to go start week two of Couch to 5K, once I get off the couch and make my way to the gym. I’m also planning to keep reading The Social Animal by David Brooks, my second book from the Indie Lit Awards nonfiction short list. Other than that, I anticipate another quiet Sunday at home. I could get used to this!

The Sunday Salon: Random Tidbits is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

BAND — Bloggers’ Alliance of Nonfiction Devotees — is a group organized to promote the joy of reading nonfiction. We are “advocates for nonfiction as a non-chore,” and we want you to join us. Each month, a member of BAND hosts a discussion on their blog related to nonfiction. 

The host for January’s BAND discussion is Joy (Joy’s Book Blog). Because January is a time of new beginnings when people set goals and channel hopeful energy “into communities around interests like reading 100 books in a year or training for a marathon or taking a photo every day.” Joy asks:

What book or books have you used or are you using to support a goal, resolution, or project?

This has been a tricky one for me to answer since I didn’t really set any formal resolutions for this year. I have a lot of things I’m thinking about trying to do — lose 15 pounds, do a Couch to 5K program, develop a healthier lifestyle, learn to cook better, learn to bake bread — but I haven’t quite gotten that little spark of motivation I need to seriously make any of those things happen… yet.

Perhaps I need to start reading books about how to set goals and get motivated? Or not, because that sounds boring.

The one lifestyle change I really do need to make, starting yesterday, is improved focus. For whatever reason, it’s become almost impossible for me to sit down and actually focus on the tasks I have in front of me — mainly writing — when I’m at work or at home.

I’ve become one of those people with eight or nine or ten or eleven tabs open in my browser, constantly clicking through to check Google Reader and Hootsuite and Facebook and Pinterest and Tumblr, only to get through and start the process over again less than five minutes later. It’s like I’ve turned into a information junkie, constantly clicking through my social networks for my next fix of a funny video or book review or news story. It’s ridiculous.

But honestly, I’m not sure where to start looking for books that talk about focus that will be engaging enough to read. I don’t like self-help guides, but I also don’t think the kind of narrative nonfiction I like to read about how the brain works is going to be particularly helpful either. I need books that are a combination of engaging and practical… which is tough.

One book that I read last year and enjoyed was Hamlet’s Blackberry by William Powers, ““A crisp, passionately argued answer to the question that everyone who’s grown dependent on digital devices is asking: ‘Where’s the rest of my life?’” I liked the book because it balanced out the alarmist (“Technology is ruining our minds!”) with the enthusiastic (“Technology will save humanity!”) and offered some good, practical suggestions for unplugging.

Another book on my list is a new release, The Information Diet by Clay Johnson, which seems like it could be the In Defense of Food of media consumption. While I wasn’t over-the-top in love with In Defense of Food, I did like the way author Michael Pollan blended science and anecdotal evidence to come up with some practical advice for eating better. The Ominvore’s Dilemma was a more engaging book, but In Defense of Food was much more useful in my day-to-day life.

Another book I’ve had my eye on is Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn by Cathy N. Davidson. Davidson, a researcher at Duke University, outfitted the entire freshman class of 2003 with free iPods, then waited to see what happened. As it turned out, students across campus found academic uses for the devices, prompting a discussion about how schools and workplaces need to adjust to a new, digital society. This may actually be in the wrong direction for what I’m looking for, but I think it’s worth a look.

Another recently-released book I could consult is You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney. In the book, McRaney goes through many of the misconceptions we have about how we think and the reasons why our brain deceives us. I first heard about McRaney after reading a post on his blog (of the same name) about procrastination, which is still the most coherent and interesting explanation of why we put of tasks we know we should do that I’ve ever read.

But I don’t know. I’m not entirely convinced these books are quite what I’m looking for or, to be honest, quite what I need. Does anyone have a book that will jump up and down on my desk when I’m getting distracted and yell, “JUST WRITE YOU IDIOT!”

Do you have any suggestions for books about focus or techniques for getting offline and being more productive in the real world? How are you dealing with being an information junkie?

BAND January Discussion: Books to Support Resolutions is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Title: Oryx and Crake
Author: Margaret Atwood
Genre: Fiction
Year: 2003
Acquired: Bought
Rating:

Summary (Source): Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey–with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake–through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride.

Review: Oryx and Crake started out really slow for me. Whether that was my reading slump or a fault of the book, I couldn’t tell you, but the first 100 or so pages felt like they dragged. There is quite a bit of setup to the story, which on most days wouldn’t seem slow, but in the middle of a reading slump seem tedious. In order to show how Crake became the mastermind of some sort of crazy world, you have to start with Jimmy and Crake as kids, and that part of the story is really more about setting up what kind of society these characters are functioning in.

But once the book got some momentum and began to explore the central relationships of the book — Jimmy/Snowman and Oryx and Crake — it starts to play on Atwood’s biggest strength, her ability to absolutely nail writing about people and how they connect with each other. Although Oryx and Crake is a sort of sci-fi/dystopia book, the focus on people and their relationships was the part I loved most.

One of the reasons I admire Atwood so much as a writer is that she writes books that have stellar plot lines that suck you in and won’t get go and that make you feel smarter having finished them. She balances that excitement/intelligence line so well, and Oryx and Crake is no exception. I can’t wait to grab a copy of the second book in the Madd Addam trilogy, The Year of the Flood.

Other Reviews:

If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link to the review in the comments and I will add your review to the main post. All I ask is for you to do the same to mine — thanks!

Review: ‘Oryx and Crake’ by Margaret Atwood is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

It’s taken until January 22, 2012, but I finally managed to put together my book stats from 2011. Geek joy!

Doing book stats is one of my favorite things. It’s always interesting to me to compare what I thought I read over the year to what I actually read. Often, I find out that my impressions of my reading are pretty different from the reality. But anyway, onward!

The Basics

• 109 books read
• 34,127 pages read
• 656 pages per week
• 93.5 pages per day

Longest Book: A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin – 788 pages
Honorable Mention: The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee – 608 pages

Shortest Book: Scenes from an Impending Marriage by Adrian Tomine – 56 pages

Most Common Book Length: 352 pages (9), 320 pages (9), 416 pages (8)

Oldest Book: House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (1905)

Books Published in 2011: 47/109 (43 percent)

Books by Genre

In the past, I’ve broken this out with more specific genres, but I’m in the mood to keep things simple. Of the 109 books I read, 39 were fiction and 70 were nonfiction.

Books by Acquisition Type

This is always one of my favorite charts. I always set a goal to read more of my own books, rather than library books or review copies, but I rarely succeed. But, this year I was closer! Of the 109 books, 29 were my own, 30 were from the library, and 50 were review copies.

Books by Format

I also keep track of what format I read my books in. I don’t really make much of an effort to read books in a particular format, but I like looking back to see how the year worked out.

Author Gender

The last couple years, I’ve read far more male authors that female authors. I don’t know what the reason for that is, but this year things have changed and my female author number is just slightly higher. Awesome!

That’s what I’ve got for book stats in 2011. Overall, I think it was a good year in reading and I’m glad I finally got the stats put together too look back.

And now, back to the really important activities for Sunday: reading and football. Happy Sunday everyone!

The Sunday Salon: 2011 in Bookish Stats is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Title: Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys, Lost at Sea and of the Beachocombers, Oceaongraphers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them
Author: Donovan Hohn
Genre: Nonfiction
Year: 2011
Acquired: Library
Rating:

Review: Confession time: I picked up this book because I fell in love with the subtitle. I have this readerly weakness for a great subtitle, and Moby-Duck by Donovan Hohn has one of the best that I’ve read in awhile:

The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys, Lost at Sea and of the Beachocombers, Oceaongraphers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them

Doesn’t that make your heart flutter a little bit? Just me?

Anyway… Moby-Duck is a hilariously awesome book that covers just as much ground as the subtitle suggests it will. Hohn’s quest — evocative of Captain Ahab’s quest to find the great white whale — is to follow the life of a single plastic duck. Strange? Absolutely! But worth the read? I’d say so.

Hohn gets started on this seemingly strange journey after reading a newspaper story about a freighter accident in the North Atlantic that dumped 28,800 plastic bath toys into the ocean. Years later, the little beavers, frogs, turtles, and ducks were appearing on beaches around the world. Oddly entranced and curious about the path of these rogue toys, Hohn decides to chase the elusive ducks wherever they may lead him. Through the course of the book, Hohn goes beachcombing in Alaska, sailing for trash in Hawaii, sightseeing in China’s industrial wilderness, and exploring in the far reaches of the Arctic wilderness.

Moby-Duck is a ranging and meandering journey of a book, but it never feels like Hohn has gone off course. Part of the reason for that is, I think, Hohn’s background as an essayist. Each “chase” is really a series of vignettes that connect together around the part of the journey Hohn is currently on. It’s nice because it makes Moby-Duck a book you can slip in and out of easily and still get back to where you were.

Hohn also has the essayist’s skill of writing evocative and memorable first and last lines to each piece, and the essayist’s trick of connecting together disparate elements. This, for instance, is the opening line to a section where he writes about polar bears and humans:

Two days out of Resolute, four days from Cambridge Bay, in the smoking lounge, where the yardlong penis bone of a walrus hung, trophy-style, above the wet bar, members of the Louis‘s crew were drinking cans of Pepsi purchased from vending machines, and tapping their cigarettes against the crenellated edges of black plastic ashtrays, and watching, the flat-screen television, a National Geographic documentary called Hunter and Hunted: Arctic Attack.

Later in that same section he writes:

The way we look at polar bears is indicative, I think, of a larger confusion, a larger and perhaps untreatable blurriness in our vision. It’s as though the more pictures we take of the world the less clearly we see it, as if out megapixelated screens weren’t windows but kaleidoscopes.

And then closes with:

On the bridge of the Louis, somewhere in Peel Sound, we were all still watching the bear beside the hole. Its patience was so great that it resembled somnolence. I swear to both God and the monsters thereof, that as we watched, a seal popped up to catch a breath, and as it did the until now statuesque bear sprang forth, catlike, extending its fatal paw. With one terrible and yet somewhat leisurely swipe is snared the seal by the neck, punctured the jugular with one terrible bite, and then, limp carcass hanging from its jaws, trailing blood, lumbered off, making an exit that Nansen describes well, assuming “an easy shambling gait, without deigning to pay any further attention to such a trifle as a ship.” Then it disappeared behind a pressure ridge to enjoy its mean in private.

Those examples don’t capture the sense of whimsy and curiosity that Moby-Duck has, the real sense of fun that Hohn exudes as he moves through his quest, but I still like reading them anyway. Even so, I do think these passages show the way Hohn can write beautifully about the range of topics — from the fun to the terrible — that make up the narrative of Moby-Duck. 

Other Reviews:

If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link to the review in the comments and I will add your review to the main post. All I ask is for you to do the same to mine — thanks!

Review: ‘Moby-Duck’ by Donovan Hohn is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Title: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
Author: Siddhartha Mukherjee
Genre: Nonfiction
Year: 2010
Acquired: Bought
Rating:

Review: I bookmarked so many fantastic passages from The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee, it’s hard for me to pick just one to start this review with. But really, if there’s one quote that epitomizes the things I loved best about this book, I think it would be this one:

This image — of cancer as our desperate, malevolent, contemporary doppelganger — is so haunting because it is at least party true. A cancer cell is an astonishing perversion of the normal cell. Cancer is a phenomenally successful invader and colonizer in part because it exploits the very features that make us successful as a species or as an organism.

By giving cancer a human side, both through stories of his patients and through his characterization of cancer itself, Mukherjee has written a medical history that seems to have more heart than any other that I’ve read.

The Emperor of All Maladies is, as the subtitle, suggests, a biography of cancer. The book starts as a fairly traditional medical history, beginning with our first glimpses of cancer in ancient remains through our troubled and evolving medical treatments for this tricky disease. I was fascinated to learn how our treatment for this disease as evolved (or, in many cases, not evolved) since a first treatment was shown to be at least slightly effective.

But what really makes this book stand out from other medical history books is the way Mukherjee uses his experiences as an oncology fellow, working with patients battling all types of cancer, to humanize the story. The book is filled with these unexpectedly emotional and heartfelt moments where Mukherjee shows the impact cancer treatments have on patients and on the doctors administering them in what is otherwise a pretty typical narrative look at the history of medicine.

In fact, that humanizing aspect of the book extends all the way to the main character, cancer. By characterizing the book as a “biography” rather than a “history,” Mukherjee is able to extend and use his metaphor of cancer as our malevolent doppelganger through the story and show how the very practice of medicine is an ongoing and battle of wits against an enemy we’re only beginning to understand.

Add to that the fact that Mukherjee’s writing is just beautiful, and you end up with a book that manages to be educational, heartbreaking, frustrating, and interesting throughout it’s more than 500 pages. Once you get into the narrative, this book really flies along. Don’t let the length intimidate you — grab this one the next time you get a chance. I highly doubt you’ll be disappointed.

Other Reviews:

If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link to the review in the comments and I will add your review to the main post. All I ask is for you to do the same to mine — thanks!

Review: ‘The Emperor of All Maladies’ by Siddhartha Mukherjee is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.