#80 - "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy

After reading the famous and classic novel, Anna Karenina (1878) by Leo Tolstoy, on and off for the past two months, I'm finding the task of writing about it rather daunting. Anna Karenina consists of eight hundred large, dense pages of 19th Century Russian society, history, and philosophy with themes of love, betrayal, and questions of the meaning of life. Knowing I can never do justice to this novel, I'm not even sure where to start. So, I guess I'll just half-ass it.

When I had previously thought of Anna Karenina, I assumed it was only the story of an adulterous love affair. I had no idea that it is really two stories in one. One is the story of the adulterous affair between Anna Karenina and Alexey Vronsky and the subsequent collapse of Anna's marriage to Alexey Karenin. The other is the story of Levin, his love and marriage to Kitty Scherbatsky, and his struggle to succeed and find meaning in his life. Apparently the story of Levin and his life closely mirrors something of Leo Tolstoy's life. These two story lines are tenuously connected partly because high Russian society is relatively small and incestuous but also because Anna's brother, Stepan Arkadyevitch, is married to Dolly, Kitty Scherbatsky's sister. Also, Kitty was in love with Vronsky and wanted to marry him before Vronsky met Anna. Interestingly, the one time Levin actually meets Anna Karenina, he is immediately besotted with her. Something could probably be read into the fact that Kitty and Levin might have loved Vronsky and Anna respectively more deeply than they love eachother.

I found the story of Anna Karenina and Vronsky slightly more dramatic than Levin and Kitty, even though both are compelling in their own fashion. While Levin and Kitty try to do what is expected of them and make the best of their situations, Anna and Vronsky are ruled by their passions, ignoring the dictates and consequences of society. I found the juxtaposition of the collapse of Anna and Alexey's marriage with the engagement and marriage of Levin and Kitty very interesting. The sweet and optimistic beginning of Levin and Kitty's relationship showed me what Anna and Alexey's marriage might have been in the beginning, before either knew what marriage really meant.

I was most impressed by Tolstoy's ability to get into the head and show the perspectives of each of his characters. I once even learned the attitude of one of Levin's hunting dogs during the story. But Tolstoy's descriptions of Kitty and Levin's expectations and viewpoints as they go into marriage and forge an existence together are rather brilliant. They both have rather naive ideas of each other and marriage and they completely misunderstand each other. Levin anticipated that marriage would in some ways fulfill his life and in others not change it at all, but although Levin and Kitty love each other and create a "successful" marriage they end up being two strangers who live together. Similarly the breakdown of the love affair between Anna and Vronsky is littered with misunderstandings, heartbreak, and pride. Even though Anna and Vronsky continue to love each other, their relationship inexorably falls apart. Tolstoy is sympathetic and understanding to both of them.

Tolstoy also delves into political questions of the time, such as women's rights, western influence from Europe over Russia and various political ideas of the time. Although this sometimes became a little tedious--I was very ready for a local election scene to end--it gives the book a rich context. And even though I often found Levin kind of annoying, I saw myself in him more than any other character. He was idealistic, wanting to succeed and change the world. He questioned religion, had little patience with the niceties and requirements of town society, and he was looking for the meaning of his life. Compared to Dostoyevsky, there is very little focus on the lower classes in Russian society. Tolstoy's characters come from the Russian aristocracy and besides some conversations of what to do with the peasants there is little focus on their life. But I can see why Anna Karenina is a classic. Tolstoy has a knack for capturing personalities and relationships in a way that resonates with honesty even today.

#79 - "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell

I was a little surprised by some of the rather negative reviews of Malcolm Gladwell's books on my library's website. Sure, his books aren't exactly scientific, but they're interesting, informative and entertaining. I read Blink a while ago and learned some fascinating things about my subconscious, so when The Tipping Point (2000) came onto my radar again recently, I picked it up.

Gladwell discusses trends in The Tipping Point, likening trends to viruses and focusing on what causes trends and describing how they spread. He breaks his theory down into the people that cause trends to spread (connectors, mavens, and salesmen), whether something is "sticky" or not, and the context of the situations. It takes a pretty talented writer to make a topic like this so readable and entertaining, and Gladwell manages this through clear writing, compelling logic, and fascinating anecdotes.

Gladwell's theory begins with the story of Hush Puppies, the classic American shoe that was soon to be phased out because of low sales. But when some trendy Manhattanites started buying the shoes in thrift stores around 1994, the shoe "caught on" and went from sales of 30,000 to 430,000 in 1995, to six times the latter by 1996. Every point that Gladwell makes in The Tipping Point is accompanied by a fascinating little tale. I was impressed by the breadth of his examples. Gladwell jumps from Hush Puppies, to Sesame Street, to the Goetz subway shooting in NYC, to a teen suicide epidemic in Micronesia. And even though Gladwell's theory isn't exactly "proven" in a scientific way, he creates a compelling explanation for how the world works. Maybe it's because I had a lot of Economics in college, so I'm used to this kind of theorizing, but I liked Gladwell's arguments. And even if some of his points are somewhat obvious: charismatic and well-connected people serve to spread trends, the clear way in which he identifies these people and the stories he tells along the way make this book worth reading.

#78 - "Club Dead" by Charlaine Harris

I'm ready to give up on Sookie Stackhouse after reading (actually, listening to the book-on-cd) Club Dead (2003), the third book in the series by Charlaine Harris. Sure, I'm kind of curious to see what happens, but not enough to get through seven (?) more books. I guess it didn't help that I just watched the first couple episodes of "True Blood." I didn't dislike the show, but besides wondering who's going to sleep with whom and some eye candy, there's not much to it.

And that's how I feel about the books, too. The first book drew me into Sookie's world. I liked exploring the ramifications of dating as a mindreader and the unique world of the vampires that Harris created. I also liked the infiltration of the anti-vampire church in the second book, and Sookie can kick ass sometimes and is fun to read about. But I've consistently been weirded out by the sex in these novels. And it's not that I don't like reading about sex, but the way Harris throws all kinds of disturbing sexual violence into a cotton candy story and then has Sookie hypocritically disdaining all those "slutty vampire hangers-on" when she's hooking up with every supernatural creature she runs into, rubs me the wrong way.

In Club Dead, Sookie's boyfriend Vampire Bill goes missing with his old vampire girlfriend in Mississippi, and Vampire Eric (who also has the hots for Sookie) sets Sookie up to go find him with the help of Alcide. Alcide is a werewolf who owes Eric a favor. Needless to say, Alcide quickly falls for Sookie as well. While her cheating boyfriend is being tortured, Sookie does what she does best, which is getting hit on at vampire bars while trying to read people's minds. One of my problems with these books is that there's not much to any of these mysteries. Bill disappears and Sookie reads one person's mind to find out that he's being tortured while Eric singlehandedly searches the entire city of Jackson and figures out the only place Bill could be kept confined. There's not much to it. And (SPOILER!) once Bill is freed, he quickly makes a deal with whoever initially wanted his information, which makes you wonder why they ever captured and tortured him in the first place.

When Sookie was in high school, she and a friend of hers did a dance for the talent show. They were "so innocent" in high school that they didn't understand that all the promiscuous and suggestive dance moves they picked up from MTV could be inappropriate. When Sookie arrives at the vampire bar in Jackson, Mississippi, she runs into her old high school friend and they do their high school talent show dance for the bar(?). I was ready to forgive this, but it epitomizes all of my problems with this book. If Sookie wants to go to a bar and dance for everyone a la Paris Hilton, then she should own up to her own sexuality and do it. Instead it's always, "I was so innocent. My friend pulled me on to the dance floor. I had no idea what I was doing." And why is her high school friend in Jackson, Mississippi? And why would Sookie want to attract attention to herself when someone's already tried to kill her and she's trying to find her missing boyfriend?

And later in the book, boyfriend Vampire Bill almost kills Sookie and then he rapes her. Sure, the explanation is that he's a vampire and he'd been tortured and starved for a week, but how is this okay? I was uncomfortable in the first book when Sookie goes to find Bill after his friends have been killed. Sookie says that Bill was so mad she was afraid he was going to kill her so she distracted him with sex, but the scene in Club Dead was much more unequivocal. In addition, most of the people who are killed in Harris's books are sexual deviants. The first book has a man killing women who have sex with vampires and the second book has some mythological creature (acting almost like a vengeful god) who goes to an orgy and kills all the lustful drunks. I thought these books were easy to read and sometimes fun and entertaining, but the combination of fake innocence, sexual violence, and judgments about sex have turned me off of the series.

#77 - "Life in Rewind" by Terry Weible Murphy

I am quite the sucker for books on display at the library and bookstore. I think that's the main reason I could never compile a list of 100 books to read for the next year. I have no idea what book or books will catch my interest or what I will feel like reading. And Life in Rewind is one of those I spotted at the library. Actually the full title is: Life in Rewind: The Story of a Young Courageous Man Who Persevered Over OCD and the Harvard Doctor Who Broke All the Rules to Help Him (2009) by Terry Weible Murphy with Edward E. Zine and Michael A. Jenike. I've obviously heard of OCD and sometimes wondered if I had some light OCD tendencies, but most of my knowledge of the disease comes from a vaguely remembered documentary that might have aired on MTV. I like reading real stories about people and I wanted to learn more about OCD, so I picked up the book.

Murphy tells the story of Ed Zine, a young man who has lost his life and humanity to the extreme demands of OCD, and Michael Jenike, a renowned specialist in OCD who went out of his way to help Ed. Although Murphy does not discuss this until the end of the book, her personal interest in the subject is that her son was diagnosed as having the disease when he was seventeen. Ed had a rather difficult childhood. His distant, sometimes abusive, and military father raised Ed after his beloved mother died when Ed was a young boy. Ed was often alone, uprooted, and never addressed the grief from his mother's death. He became obsessed with "rewinding" everything in his mind in order to keep his family member's safe. At his lowest point, which lasted for years, Ed had stopped showering, brushing his teeth, or changing his clothes. He lived and stayed alone in the "safe" basement of his father's house, keeping his bodily excretions in gatorade bottles and plastic bags, and eating noodles delivered to the basement door in plastic bags by concerned family members. Walking down the basement hall to use the telephone could all day.

After a forced stay in a psychiatric ward with disastrous results, Ed's concerned family learned of Dr. Michael Jenike and contacted him, asking for help. Murphy delves briefly into Jenike's history; she mentions Jenike's traumatic time in the Vietnam War, his urge to help people, and his philosophy as a doctor. Jenike tries to focus on providing the best care possible for his patients without concern for the requirements and dictates of the insurance industry. Therefore, when Jenike hears of Ed Zine's problems, he drives three hours one-way to Cape Cod in order to help him. And even though Ed Zine is too sick to leave his basement, Jenike keeps coming back and even pays his daughter to work with Ed through behavioral therapy. Jenike's compassionate concern and relaxed demeanor quickly create trust between the two and they considered each other friends. Even though Jenike tried everything he knew, however, he couldn't get Ed to make any noticable improvement and eventually stopped visiting Cape Cod, still making himself available by phone.

Ed greatly admired Dr. Jenike and wanted more than anything to repay him for the many hours that Jenike had devoted to him for nothing. With a combination of pure willpower, mainly inspired by Dr. Jenike, and the specifics of the disease Ed had learned, he combatted the disease on his own and made great progress. In the end, although Ed is still constantly fighting with his demons, he was able to take some control of his life. And the feel-good ending includes a marriage and two beautiful daughters.

I found this book compelling and easy to read. Both Ed and Michael seem like extraordinary people and I admire both of them for what they accomplished. But this isn't one of my favorites. While I was reading it, I felt like I was watching a special on OCD and Ed Zine on the Oprah show. It never went into enough detail for me to really understand OCD or relate to what Ed Zine was going through. Murphy mentions that Jenike suffered from PTSD and some depression long after the end of the Vietnam War. Although I felt like she was somehow trying to connect Ed and Michael, the couple of sentences about Michael's struggle didn't give me a much clearer picture of the doctor. And maybe this comes from the fact that Terry Murphy is a mother whose son is suffering from OCD, but I felt it had an almost forced feel-good aspect to it. I am very impressed by Ed and his accomplishments, but Murphy would describe Ed's moments of triumph and then seemingly gloss over some major problems with his marriage. On the whole, a good story, but I didn't learn too much about OCD and I wish it had been a little more in-depth.

#76 - "Sense and Sensibility" by Jane Austen

I have seen Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995) so many times that when it came to reading Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility (1811), I couldn't get away from the images from the film. Emma Thompson took the best of Austen's dialogue and story and created a brilliant screenplay that works perfectly as a film. It's difficult for me to say this because the movie owes its entire story and its best lines to Jane Austen's book, but the movie also managed to be a little tighter than the book without losing anything. I enjoyed the book, but felt that Austen was sometimes a little wordy, and she even got a little preachy near the end. Don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of Jane Austen, so it's not that I didn't enjoy it; it's just that I prefer Pride and Prejudice.

Like all of Jane Austen's books, Sense and Sensibility is set at the beginning of the 19th Century in England. Her heroines, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are two sisters who (along with their mother and younger sister Margaret) are kicked out of their home and left with little money to live on after the death of their father. Their father's son from an earlier marriage inherits their old home, and his avarice prevents him from burdening his rather wealthy coffers by helping out his step-family. The women find a small cottage on the other side of England to let, and they remove themselves to begin a new life. And, of course, the focus of their lives is the men in them and whether and whom they might marry. After powerlessly losing their home, marriage is the only possibility of any change of their situations in life.

The two sisters have drastically different personalities. Elinor, the elder, is rational and practical and often checks her more passionate and spontaneous mother and younger sister Marianne when they get out of hand. Marianne is a passionate romantic who lets her feelings rule her actions. Both sisters are quickly caught up with loves of their own. Marianne falls for the dashing Willoughby while Elinor more quietly falls in love with Edward Ferrars, whose family strongly disapproves of the match.

Sense and Sensibility is something of a mystery with unexpected twists and turns and characters constantly misunderstanding eachother. I wish it were possible to somehow go back in time and read Sense and Sensibility with a virgin's eye because I know the story so well I couldn't even begin to guess what I would have predicted and what would have surprised me in the book if I didn't already know the plot.

And this leads to a new pet peeve of mine regarding classical literature. Just because it's a classic doesn't mean that everyone knows the plot, so if it's necessary to have an introduction, does it have to be filled with spoilers and other specific information about the upcoming novel? I look for context and history in the introduction; anything else can always go at the end. Obviously, this did not affect me for Sense and Sensibility because I already knew the story, but I'm currently reading Anna Karenina. Starting the book I only had a vague notion that Anna Karenina was about adultery and that it might not end well. Now even though I'm only about halfway through, I'm pretty sure of the exact ending. Sure, it's nice to be told of some of the author's use of foreshadowing, etc., but it changes what I focus on while I'm reading. Even if the discussion doesn't "ruin" the book, I'd really prefer not to be burdened by other people's interpretations until I've had a chance to form my own.

As far as Sense and Sensibility, I am always amazed that Jane Austen, writing almost two hundred years ago can write such entertaining and accessible characters and stories. Her description of the personalities and situations in her books are witty and scathing, and her understanding and display of the predicaments of the gentlemanly women of her time were prescient.

#75 - "Beautiful Boy" by David Sheff

I picked up Beautiful Boy (2008) by David Sheff when I was browsing through the books-on-cd library shelves. Beautiful Boy is the true story of David Sheff and his son, Nic, a varsity athlete, honor student, and creative writer who falls into a downward spiral of addiction to meth as a teenager.

Nic is home from his year at Hampshire College, but it is quickly apparent to his father that he is using again. Nic lies and makes denials, but when he is confronted with taking a drug test he admits that he'd been using the whole time. The earlier aborted semester at Berkeley, fall into stealing and despair, and subsequent rehab had not been successful. Nic disappears again.

Sheff begins at the beginning of his son's life, looking for clues or actions that contributed to what has occurred; he is ravaged by guilt, wondering if an action or inaction on his part caused his son's addictions. Could the bitter divorce and draconian custody arrangements have led to this addiction? Should he have told Nic about his own past drug use? But for the most part, Nic led a stable, happy childhood in the San Francisco area. He played sports, loved his father and step-mother and excelled socially and academically. But it's a useless and traumatic game to guess what might have caused an addiction when others--including David Sheff himself--can try some drugs recreationally without ruining their lives.

The life of Nic and his father revolve around his addiction. Nic is in and out of rehab, managing to get himself clean and start his life over again, just to fall back into the drugs. Seeing the constant heartbreak of David Sheff as he helplessly tries to save his son really hit home to me how addictions can ruin lives. I've never personally known or had a close relationship with a drug addict, so this book was eye-opening and unbearably sad. I wanted nothing more than Nic to beat his demons and have a normal life, but even if he manages to never relapse again, he's going to be fighting the urge for the rest of his life; his father will always answer the phone with a sense of dread.

Sheff discusses how addiction is like a disease, almost like cancer, except that the only people who can stop it are the addicts themselves. Thus, family feel the fear of losing their loved ones but often feel also anger at what the seemingly voluntary drug use is doing. The drugs and addiction changed Nic's personality so drastically that David Sheff did not know where his son ended and the drugs began. As someone with a brother suffering from either manic depression or schizophrenia I could truly relate to this part of the book. I swing between feeling angry and annoyed at my brother's selfishness and utter sadness at seeing his despondency and pain. I don't know if it's possible to parse the disease from his personality, but in the end it doesn't matter because it doesn't change anything; mental diseases are harder to deal with in many ways because the person you knew is changed forever. David Sheff's book was an honest, informative and compelling narrative of his son's struggle with meth. With the numerous rehabs and relapses, it sometimes started feeling a little repetitive and long, but it also clearly showed the rollercoaster ride that Sheff was forced to ride.

# 74 "Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing" by Mignon Fogarty

I'm pretty sure I somehow stumbled on Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing (2008) by Mignon Fogarty when I was on Amazon.com. My grammar education has been rather spotty, and I've realized that my consistent reliance on guessing, and learning by osmosis through extensive reading doesn't always work. I'd like to really know and understand the rules and always write and speak correctly, but those huge grammar and style books are so intimidating and dry; Grammar Girl is very much like Eats, Shoots, and Leaves in that it is a short, easy-to-read guide that clears up a lot of common errors and vague rules about the English language.

Partly because I only have a little time before I have to go and lose my internet connection and partly because I don't feel it's necessary to go into too much detail on a grammar and usage book, I'll keep this short. Fogarty apparently started out the "Grammar Girl Empire" with a series of podcasts that immediately became very popular. Her style is clear and practical, which I really appreciate. She will discuss what the actual rule is and why, what people actually do in real life, whether there is controversy, and what she recommends. Sometimes she even breaks down what each usage books recommends, which I found very helpful. I feel more confident in following The Chicago Manual of Style than something like Dictionary.com. A lot of the topics, I already knew, but because it was so gratifying to go over a rule I already knew, I certainly didn't mind. And you never know when you'll come across a gaping hole in your education. Fogarty discussed about the pronunciation of "the." "The" is pronounced "thuh" when the next word begins with a consonant-sound and is pronounced "thee" when the next word starts with a vowel-sound. I had never heard that rule before in my life, even though once I started thinking about it, I realized that I do usually follow it.

Fogarty covers some common mistakes people make with words, such as less v. fewer (something I needed to learn); further v. farther; good v. well; hanged v. hung; and others before she quickly goes into the major rules on punctuation, capitalization, pronouns, the Internet, and some style tips. Her tone is friendly and practical and she avoids sounding anal or picky. It was easy to read and I liked the way she explained her reasoning behind her writing choices. I almost wish I had bought this one instead of borrowing it from the library because I know I'll want to look something up again, but enough will stay with me to have made it worthwhile. I did start listening to one of the Grammar Girl podcasts out of curiosity, but I found it kind of difficult to listen to, so I found the book medium much more helpful.

#73 - "Queen of the Road" by Doreen Orion

With this entry, I have officially finished reading a book that starts with every letter of the alphabet. Was there any point to this mini-diversion? No, unless you want to count it as an unnecessary distraction from the things I should be doing; or that it's fulfilling my somewhat obsessive-compulsive tendency to complete things. I can rationalize it by saying that it encouraged me to find some books I enjoyed but otherwise wouldn't have read. This certainly ended up being the case, but I still can't help but cringe at the dorkiness of it. Anyway, "Q" and "X" were the only letters where I had to actively search for books. I typed "qu" into Amazon and immediately had a much larger selection than with my previous "X" search. I settled on Queen of the Road (2008) by Doreen Orion, "the true tale of 47 states, 22,000 miles, 200 shoes, 2 cats, 1 poodle, a husband, and a bus with a will of its own" because I apparently like travel memoirs, and it had lots of reviews and over four stars.

I have come to realize that I have a general stereotype in my head of "RV people," so I wasn't sure how much I would have in common with Doreen Orion, especially when she described herself as a lazy, shopoholic, Long Island, princess who hates exercise and the outdoors. I do have a knack for being lazy when I want to be, but I love being outdoors and exercising. And even though I can appreciate that heels look much better than an old pair of dirty running shoes, I will almost always choose comfort and practicality over style, and my tolerance for shopping has its limits.

But as I read the book, I found that Orion had created a caricature of herself that wasn't completely true. She might describe herself as lazy, but she still finished college in only 3 and a half years, is a triple-boarded psychiatrist, and along with her psychiatry job is an award-winning author. She also works out almost every morning and the picture in the back is of her in a t-shirt and hiking boots. I'm not sure if she was trying to relate to more people, or if she really sees herself this way (and she is "lazy" when you compare her to her workaholic husband), but she's a much more rounded person than I was expecting. I also discovered I had much more in common with her than I initially thought when I read that she lives in Boulder, Colorado (I live in Denver now, but I grew up in Boulder), and that her husband and I graduated from the same college (it's always very exciting to hear about others who went to Pomona because it's such a small school).

Anyway, Orion tells a humorous and entertaining tale of her life on a bus as she and her husband travel around the United States for a year. They customize their traveling bus with granite countertops and other accoutrements that allow them to live rather luxuriously for such a small space. Hitting almost every state, they meander through the Northeast before turning south for the winter and then back up to Alaska for the next summer. Orion manages to discuss enough details of their travels that you get a good idea of what they've done without getting weighed down. From Roswell's UFO festival, to Disneyworld, to the nudist camp, to the corn palace, I enjoyed reading about their vacation. But the heart of the story is Orion's relationship with her husband. On some level, they are opposites, but as I read the book, I realized that they complement each other quite well. It was sweet to read about these two people who could enjoy and have fun with each other no matter where they were or what traveling snafu they were dealing with.

Some of the more negative reviews on Amazon criticized Orion for trying too hard to be funny and constantly making jokes. I noticed this but wasn't bothered by it. At some point I just accepted that it was Orion's personality to make jokes about everything. In the end, Queen of the Road worked for me because Orion described her bus vacation in a way that had me (surprisingly) wishing I could have been there.

#72 - "X" by JD Glass

I only have a couple letters left in order to read a book starting with every letter in the alphabet this year, and I was looking for a book beginning with 'X'. I knew my choices would be pretty limited, but I typed the letter 'x' into the Denver Public library catalog to see what came up. And X (2009) by JD Glass was what I found. (I also repeated this search on Amazon with similar results). On the plus side, there was a wait list for this novel, which I took as a good sign. The descriptions: "Computer hackers Fiction; Lesbians Fiction; Biotechnology Fiction; Romantic suspense fiction," didn't seem too promising, though. But it was a short book (only 219 pages), so I figured it wouldn't kill me, and I'd never read a hacker, biotechnology, lesbian romance novel before.

And X certainly benefited from my low expectations. I finished it thinking, well that wasn't too bad, but now that I look back on it, there wasn't too much good in it either. Charli Riven (whose screen name is CharliX, or X) is a hotshot executive and hardcore surfer working at an investment company. I'm not sure if I'm remembering this correctly, but Charli wrote this fantastic piece of code that allows her company to transfer funds safely and securely between the Department of Treasury and her firm. Charli is in charge of making sure all that computer stuff works (you might have guessed by now that I am not exactly literate in all things computer). At the same time, Anna Pendleton (a/k/a Elaine something) is a CIA agent, posing as a Treasury Agent, who is posing as another computer hacker/worker at Charli's firm. Anna likes to surf, too, and she and Charli fall in love, but Anna is torn between her job and telling Charli the truth. To add to this tension, a rogue CIA agent, known as Romello, is using an insider to hack into Charli's firm to get funds to acquire some kind of (never explained) bioterrorist weapon. His initial intention is to lay the blame for the hacking at Charli's feet before he figures out that she might be useful.

The best part of this book was reading about Romello's reasons for turning rogue. Glass doesn't resort to calling him "crazy" and using him as a simple plot device, but intertwines paranoia, government conspiracies, and legitimate and real world problems to fuel her antagonist's dreams. For awhile I wasn't sure if we were in some parallel universe where Romello was actually in the right, or if he was, in fact, insane.

I didn't relate to too much in the rest of the book, however. As an admitted sucker for romance, the lesbian romance in this novel didn't do much for me. I'm sure part of that was how it was written. Glass continuously went into great detail about the lovers' emotional connection on some higher plane. They rarely had discussions about anything, but felt what was going on between them and that's how they got closer. "The dynamic between them was slipping, changing, and Anna knew that this was another test, a more important one than any of the others. Charlie wanted to tell her something important, something that carried enough weight for her that she was certain it would determine anything futher between them. If Anna let the moment go, it would be forever lost." I also never appreciate throwing in some kind of rape threat or painful memory of a rape to further a showing of protectiveness in a relationship, which Glass did here and I found annoying.

I'm not sure if Glass deliberately avoided tying up all the loose ends and finishing her story to make it somehow more meaningful, or if she was setting herself up for a sequel. I would guess that there's a sequel coming, but I was surprised there was no kind of mention or teaser at the end of the book, so I'm not sure. With no real closure, I almost feel like I only read half a book; but with no real interest, I also don't feel like I need closure that badly.

#71 - "Born to Be Good" by Dacher Keltner

I have always been fascinated by people, their personalities, and what makes them act the way they do. For a brief moment, I even contemplated majoring in Psychology in college, but in Intro to Psych (my first and only foray into academic psychology), I learned about all those cruel, early psychological experiments where researchers messed with people, shocked dogs, and slowly drowned rats. Sure, those experiments aren’t “ethical” anymore, but I couldn’t handle the clinical attitude that seemed to glory in dissecting and experimenting with people’s fucked-up lives.

Yet I haven’t lost my interest in people and what makes them tick. So, I was immediately curious when I happened to see Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life (2009) by Dacher Keltner on display at the bookstore. According to the blurb on the back cover: “Born to Be Good presents a masterful account of how positive emotions—including love, compassion, and awe—lie at the core of human nature and shape our everyday behavior.” And as a repeat sucker for misleading book blurbs, I immediately put it on hold at the library (I guess I’m just not sucker enough to buy the book).

To be fair, the above blurb was not exactly misleading. Keltner, a Psychology professor at Berkeley, examines seven different emotions (or actions), including: embarrassment, the smile, laughter, teasing, touching, love, compassion, and awe. He observes where these emotions and actions come from in our evolutionary history as well as how they positively affect our relationships and lives today. And with the constant streams of über-negative and scare-tactic media today, I was happy to see something that focused on the positive. Keltner begins his book with a discussion of the Confucian concept of jen, a “complex mixture of kindness, humanity, and respect that transpires between people.” If you look at life as a jen ratio, positive relations between people such as a smile or hug, etc. would go in the numerator while negative relations like a bout of road rage would count in the denominator. Keltner argues that we need a higher jen ratio: more positive experiences and fewer negative ones.

I like behavior and psychology. I liked that Keltner was focusing on the positive, and I probably would like Keltner as a person, but I was disappointed in this book. Although I dread contributing to a more negative jen ratio here, I didn't learn much from reading this book, and I often found it boring and annoying. One of the main problems I had was that it seemed to lack focus and it felt sloppy. Keltner jumped around from philosophy (Confucius) to some behavioral studies, to quoting literature—none of which I found convincing or enlightening.

I would also have appreciated some better definitions. Keltner says that he’s discussing emotion, but smile, laughter, tease, and touch are not emotions. And then his definition of awe—when it finally came—was so uninformative I would have given up on the book right then if I hadn’t already been in the last chapter. “Prototypical experiences of awe involve perceived vastness, anything that is experienced as being much larger than the self or the self’s typical frame of reference.” I was okay with that part, but then… “[v]astness becomes awe-inspiring when it requires accommodation—the process by which we update and change our core beliefs.” No examples or further discussion! And then there was some talk about how awe often connotes dread and respectful fear, which made me wonder whether it was a positive emotion at all. Keltner also mentioned pride a number of times as a positive emotion, but again with no definition and no discussion of what I would consider some negative aspects of pride—I mean, isn’t pride a deadly sin?

Even when Keltner was focused on the topics I considered to be more interesting—how these emotions affect our lives and relationships—I was disappointed. Besides a number of interesting anecdotes and studies, what I took away from this book was: smiling and laughing make people happy. Happy people naturally smile and laugh more. I didn’t need to read a book to know that. And despite his optimistic subject, it was kind of depressing; Keltner seems to say that happiness is innate, dependent mainly upon personality and chemistry. So, if I’m unhappy now, I guess I’ve got a lot to look forward to in the future.

Random complaint: The chapter on teasing states, “[c]himpanzees dangle their tails, tickling noses and eyes, to provoke response in slumbering or distracted chimps nearby.” Chimpanzees don’t have tails!

Keltner’s lack of explanations, definitions, and discussion about his subject consistently turned me off. For instance, Keltner used the many pickup basketball games he’s attended without seeing a fight to “prove” that the “violent physicality of basketball is transformed by touch…[t]he language of touch in the pickup game neutralizes the aggressive intent of these actions.” First, I know someone who got in a fight and was almost kicked out of the gym because of it. Not to mention that every competitive soccer team I’ve heard of usually ends their games with fights of some kind, and there’s just as much touching in soccer as basketball. Marriage partners touch each other all the time and still manage to fight; it doesn’t even make sense that touching someone makes it less likely that you’ll fight them. I would suggest that there isn’t much fighting in pickup basketball mainly because of the general social stigma against fighting; but then the teams are also usually pretty random—leading to less team pride; and the games usually don’t mean much of anything—people aren’t pushing themselves to the limit to win.

There were numerous instances like the one above where I thought Keltner failed to look at and analyze the whole picture. I had some big problems with his compassion experiments, but I’ve already complained enough. I felt as though Keltner has a view of the world and he then tried to shoehorn everything he knew and liked to fit in with his theory, whether it was psychological experiments, personal experience, favorite literature, or his own personal philosophy of life, but it felt disjointed and strained.