Flash Book Reviews: Universe Picks Edition (3/3)

The previous installment of this series was less flash and more book review than I intended. Let’s see if I can keep it pithy this time (update: I could not).

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

Why I read it: on the recommendation of a girl who invited me shoplift alcohol from a grocery store for our first friend date. (I suggested we meet at a cafe instead.)

I never thought I’d find something written in 1940 that uses “skeet” and “realest” the same way we might today. An sensitive creator with a subtle touch, McCullers writes impartially about the virtuous and the violent, the generous and the self-absorbed, the politically apathetic and those wracked with yearning for a more just world.

Like The Namesake, this character-driven novel has the mundane rhythm of life; unlike The Namesake, it follows some truly hard lives. Some terrible things happen, but people adjust, and life goes on. This book is about so many things; loneliness, yes - the loneliness of losing a friend, of losing a partner, of being misunderstood, of being isolated in your passions and moral beliefs - but it’s also about music, kinship, community, race, gender, childhood, mental and physical impairment, and brief beautiful moments of deep connection.

Shoplifter girl told me, “This is a very special book.” I have to agree.

Verdict: I wouldn’t recommend this book to just anyone, but to the right person, this book could be everything.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones by James Clear

Why I read it: Everyone everywhere recommended it, so I stole it from my sister’s bookshelf.

I’ve seen so many articles about these contemporary how-to books with names like “Top 5 Takeaways from <Book>” or “<Author’s> Best Tips for <Topic of Book>.” But these lists often miss some of these books’ most effective tactic: their value framework. Atomic Habits, like Julia Galef’s Scout Mindset, values honesty, intrinsic motivation, and a nonjudgmental, curiosity-driven approach to understanding and changing ourselves. If these qualities appeal to you, then

In addition to providing helpful methods to build and break habits, author James Clear explains the psychology of habits, explaining the feedback loop between our identity and our actions and systematically countering the negative thought patterns that keep us from achieving our goals. My only criticism of this book is that it doesn’t specifically discuss social media, which resists many of Clear’s best practices. Maybe for a future blog post, I’ll try to extend the ideas in Atomic Habits to figure out how to address my Reddit drama addiction. Lord knows I need it.

Verdict: Buy and keep within easy reach.

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson

Why I read it: I think my neighbor is a psychopath.

Initial Googling on the topics of “psychopathy,” “narcissism,” “Dark Triad,” and “Dark Tetrad” led me down rabbit holes that led me down even more rabbit holes, until my mind was such a jumble of ideas and interpretations and open questions and diagnostic philosophies that I ended up knowing less than I had when I started. I figured, I’ll read a book about it. That’ll clarify things. But it seems journalist Jon Ronson went through the same process I did.

A book with an elusive and ever broadening focus, The Psychopath Test is full of incredible stories. There’s a Haitian death squad leader who evaded prison by threatening to reveal secrets about his CIA backers. A British spy turned whistleblower turned conspiracy theorist turned self-proclaimed prophet. A 1960s psychologist who believed LSD could cure psychopathy and his murderous inmate patients. Ronson finds disturbing psychologies among businessmen, journalists like himself, even the psychologists themselves (many of whom signed a letter denouncing the book - although considering that the letter doesn’t address his sharp criticism of their practices, it reads as a bit defensive).

While I was frustrated that The Psychopath Test has nothing concrete to say about psychopathy as a condition, that itself is its greatest lesson. With humor and ample evidence, Ronson writes a solid critique of the way we as a society treat and think about psychopathy.

Verdict: Entertaining and educational, but very exploratory - I would recommend this book to open-minded readers with an interest in the topic.

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae

Why I read it: Someone with a very poor gift giving sense gave it to my mom.

I’ve enjoyed of the work of writer, actress, filmmaker, and comedian Issa Rea for a long time. As a middle schooler, I cringed through her web series Awkward Black Girl and then went digging for more. Nowadays, I’ve been too miserly to subscribe to HBO, but I love watching YouTube clips from her show Insecure, as well as her prickly interview personality. So I was disappointed to find that her memoir-style essay collection lacked the magic of her work on camera.

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl is rife with cliches, defensiveness, and unexamined self-loathing. The second essay, “Fat,” was the hardest for me to read. It’s supposed to be a funny piece about her “food addiction,” but Rae’s unacknowledged self-hatred about her relationship with food and her weight distract from the humor. Rae calls herself “greedy,” “greasy-faced,” and once even “truly disgusting.” Was 2015 truly so different of a time that this was considered funny back then?

But the bigger issue was that I didn’t find much of the book funny, even the unoffensive parts. Sure, there was a turn of phrase here or there that I liked, but overall, I found Rae’s written attempts at humor, well, awkward. Maybe that’s the point.

Verdict: For now, I advise readers to only consume Issa Rae’s work in video format.

Bonus: Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference by William MacCaskill

Why I read it: Last review, I mentioned going to an Effective Altruism (EA) meetup to look for volunteer opportunities and leaving with a book list. This is another book from that list - in fact, it’s the book.

Although a tween during the One Direction’s rise, I was always too ~quirky~ and ~different~ to call myself a fan. But years later, when I heard Zayn (my secret favorite) was leaving the band, I somehow ended up listening to Four (especially bangers “Night Changes” and “Fireproof”) on repeat. That’s how I feel about reading Doing Good Better three days after the SBF scandal.

Effective Altruism is a movement that seeks to use statistical, economic, and philosophical analysis to maximize our ability to do good. It’s best known for promoting earning to give, the notion that the best thing many of us in wealthy countries can do is donate to highly effective charities. SBF is Samuel Bankman-Fried, the founder of crypto exchange FTX and (perhaps no longer) major donor to EA through the FTX Future Fund. His contributions funded EA so well so the community began to pull back on promoting earning to give - they were starting to have more money than they knew how to spend (source).

Then on November 11, following possible fraud, FTX declared bankruptcy. Many EA-allied organizations have made commitments based on donations that will never come, and now the headlines are all “Is the Effective Altruism Movement in Trouble?” (The Guardian) and “Effective Altruism Helped FTX and Samuel Bankman-Fried Deflect Scrutiny” (The Washington Post).

Meanwhile! I would like to talk about how Doing Good Better led me to think about my ability to contribute to the world in new ways, including by becoming a Wikipedia contributor (could be fun, I think). I had criticisms, too. I wanted to counter the book’s claim that most volunteering doesn’t actually do much good by looking into the effectiveness of volunteer programs to support children through mentorship, tutoring, and court advocacy, which in my personal experience always were always struggling to find consistent volunteers. But now bloggers and news outers are talking like EA’s philosophy is canceled along with the organization.

To be fair, Effective Altruism community in the Bay Area still seems pretty active to me - there’s a convention in Berkeley soon - but then again, One Direction did hold it together for eight months after Zayn’s departure.