If you like the history of science and mathematics, as well as speculative fiction, then this is the book for you. (In other words, yes, I am the targIf you like the history of science and mathematics, as well as speculative fiction, then this is the book for you. (In other words, yes, I am the target audience here.)
Labatut writes a work that interrogates history with fiction and vice versa. The technique here mirrors the slow dissolution of Newtonian physics in the twentieth century: just as the science and maths become increasingly centered around contradictory concepts and unthinkable answers that demand a new (mathematical) language for their expression, so does the text itself slowly dissolve from fact to fiction, destabilizing the reader’s ability to disentangle to two without doing some serious homework.
The result is remarkably effective: the destabilized text generates the sense of nostalgia and loss for a time when the physics was “simpler” and seemingly more truthful and trustworthy (not capable of mass killing). And yet the reader is aware that the more the text moves into fiction, the truer in some ways the text becomes as it continually returns to the image of a dark death at the center of the history of these advances saying they illuminate the nature of reality (and mathematical truth). And in the end, the inescapable truth of an approaching death grounds the final section, which is wholly fiction.
The tension between fact and fiction and the nature of knowledge in the text thus aesthetically represents the tension of the quantum itself. And Labatut pulls this off without seeming contrived, artificial, or forced throughout the whole book. *chef’s kiss* It’s pretty amazing to experience as a reader.
Book pairings: stories by Borges, Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Hillary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy, Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age, and Jason Josephson Storm’s The Myth of Disenchantment. ...more
This book was so beautiful—in thought, in writing, in reading, in memory, in theology—that at one point I literally had to put it down and Exquisite.
This book was so beautiful—in thought, in writing, in reading, in memory, in theology—that at one point I literally had to put it down and go write a poem.
That’s a lie: it happened twice, not once.
This is a two-poem book. I couldn’t help myself. It’s the only way I could handle the stark beauty of what Arthur Riley has brought into the world with this text. ...more
Business books don’t often make my 5-stars list, just because in part their content, while interesting and informative, generally isn’t something thatBusiness books don’t often make my 5-stars list, just because in part their content, while interesting and informative, generally isn’t something that changes me on a fundamental level (which is what a 5 star book has to do to me to get that fifth star).
But this book, while written for a business audience, is different—at heart feedback is about communication, and the way that we communicate with each other is a large part of what defines our humanity. This approach to feedback embraces the underlying humanity of the communicative act, all while acknowledging the constraints of a business dynamic relationship. It’s thoughtful, clear, and practical. I borrowed from the library and then bought because it’s one of those “oh, I’m going to need to go back to that again” books.
Key points:
1. Tailor your feedback to meet the specific needs of your employee—whether they require appreciation, coaching, or evaluation in that moment.
2. Approach feedback with a mindset that is flexible, compassionate, and forgiving.
3. Be upfront about your intentions, clearly expressing what you hope for them and acknowledging any concerns they may have.
4. Listen with empathy, focusing on their feelings and validating their experience, rather than jumping straight to critique.
5. Make sure to recognize and praise strengths, particularly those that uplift the whole team.
6. When offering constructive feedback, do so with a focus on growth, always in a private and respectful setting.
7. Regular check-ins help avoid surprises and create ongoing opportunities for dialogue.
And then, this may seem like a simple point, but it’s one that’s stuck with me—not just in giving feedback, but also in conversations with colleagues when trying to identify root causes of operational issues: avoid asking “why” and instead ask “what.” Questions like, “What is the real issue for you?” “What is the real challenge here for you?” and “What do you need to succeed from your perspective?” help get to the heart of the matter without making people defensive.
So, recommended for anyone who has to provide feedback to anyone in any situation for their entire lives. (Unless you’re a true hermit, this means you.)...more
Somewhere along the line I heard that if you were going to read Tolle you should start with Stillness Speaks. So that's what I did. As I haven't read Somewhere along the line I heard that if you were going to read Tolle you should start with Stillness Speaks. So that's what I did. As I haven't read other works I can't compare it in terms of difficulty etc., but what I can do is say that I have a handful of books that I read over, and over, and over. Annie Dillard's Holy the Firm. Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy. Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. Gunaratana's Mindfulness in Plain English. Derrida's The Gift of Death. Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. Wendell Berry's Selected Poems. Giorgio Agamben's The Unspeakable Girl. Mary Rakow's This is Why I Came. There's a few more, but the point here isn't to list them all out, but rather cause myself to think about the first time I read those books.
The first time through gripped me in each of those books. These are different genres--extended personal essay, fantasy, how-to, play, philosophy, fiction, poetry, literature--and that particular gripping can happen with any type of text. It's not snobby. It's just something where I know that that experience is the beginning of an ongoing, lifelong relationship with that text. The book and me-as-bell are both ringing to the same frequency. I know that I will be back, again and again, and that I will drop in and out of the text for the rest of my reading life.
That's what it was like for me to read Stillness Speaks. ...more
I always enjoy Thich Nhat Hanh's work, but this was a different level for me. I don't know if it's a case of the right book at the right time in my liI always enjoy Thich Nhat Hanh's work, but this was a different level for me. I don't know if it's a case of the right book at the right time in my life or what, but the clarity and compassion in the writing here just blew me away. One of the books I want everyone I love to read....more
One of the best non fiction books I’ve read this year, and one of the best meditations on race in America I’ve read as well. Tobar articulates the swiOne of the best non fiction books I’ve read this year, and one of the best meditations on race in America I’ve read as well. Tobar articulates the swirling, diaphanous center of “latino” with a steady yet impassioned hand, and the result is a nuanced look at the performance of US Latino identity across political, generational, and cultural interstices. The book is highly readable and accessible (Tobar is a natural storyteller, and has honed his skills through his previous work writing novels). I’m not going to waste your time; stop reading my words and go read Tobar’s!
Pair with: Ibram X Kendi’s “Stamped from the Beginning” and Erika Lee’s “The Making of Asian America.”...more
3.5 stars. Would I recommend that you read this book? Short version: yes. It’s highly readable, the topic is very interesting, and it does good work s3.5 stars. Would I recommend that you read this book? Short version: yes. It’s highly readable, the topic is very interesting, and it does good work shifting the conversation around emotions and their study away from purely negative frameworks and into the positive. Awe is quantified and qualified in useful ways that allows us to understand its shape, dimensions, and tone with more articulate nuance.
Why the 3.5 stars then? There are a few glaring misses in my opinion.
Even though there are plenty of references to the philosophy and physiology of awe, there wasn’t one ounce of phenomenology, which just seems weird to me. I mean, how can you talk about the science and psychology of an emotional experience generated in the body and given specific embodied manifestations, and not at least gesture toward Merleau-Ponty? There’s plenty of other theoretical content, it’s just rooted squarely in 19th century American transcendentalism. Also odd, though perhaps not as glaring, was the absence of any use of the various theories of performativity. Butler, even Searle would make sense; and of course Austin’s whole project could be read as an attempt to read the linguistic structure that supports the experience of awe, rendering that which is moved upon visible.
I get it: not the audience he was aiming for I guess. But still, these gaps signal to me an unconscious bias toward the romantic, the transcendent, and the ineffable that will inherently cover the usefulness of the project as a whole over time.
Be that as it may, as I said at the beginning, if this is a topic that interests you, then this is a great place to go for Information and thoughtful exploration of the role of awe in contemporary (secular, disenchanted) culture and society....more
Keegan just blows me away with her writing. Everything is so tight, so crafted, so well wrought that it’s almost painful to finish and put the book doKeegan just blows me away with her writing. Everything is so tight, so crafted, so well wrought that it’s almost painful to finish and put the book down, because you know you can never have that exact experience, that first reading experience, again.
Like many others I’m sure, I’ll be adding this into my holiday collection to be read again going forward. It captures the way the Christmas holiday derives from holy day: god manifesting among the banality of human beings living their lives and occasionally noticing each other, even seeing each other.
The placement of Mary in the Christological space via her suffering under the hands of the nuns at the Magdalene laundry such that she becomes that which *moves* the protagonist (Bill) into compassion outside his own life is rich and inventive. My only hesitation here revolves around the way this particular plot emphasizes a man gaining his salvation at the expense of all his family, particularly his daughters. And for that salvation to be made possible by the abuses of women upon women, all to be able to gain some semblance of authority and power in a world clearly structured by economic patriarchy.
Much better to have a new world. But that would break the historical moment, I know. Still, to me it came across a little too on the nose when it comes to the angel whore saving the oblivious but good hearted man.
Wholeheartedly recommended. I swear Keegan could play Pierre Menard and simply copy the phone book and I would find it gorgeous and worthwhile ...more
Mary Kane is a new author for me, and she blew me out of the water with “In the Book I’m Reading.” I can’t remember the last time I was so impressed bMary Kane is a new author for me, and she blew me out of the water with “In the Book I’m Reading.” I can’t remember the last time I was so impressed by a book of short stories.
The experience here is tricky to describe: I’m saying short stories, but many are more like fragments—two or three paragraphs at most. But even the shortest texts here (one or two sentences) are so carefully thought out and well executed that the essence of the short story—plot, character, scene—is all in there. Kane creates a whole world in under a page.
The experience reminds me of reading Jorge Luis Borges’s story “The Garden of Forking Paths,” distilled down to pure essence. The themes are all there: language, text, relationships, death, time, permeability, and desire.
I read this slim book incredibly slowly over the course of two months because that’s how much I enjoyed it. And then I re-read all my favorites, And the structure of the book as a whole started to emerge—these aren’t just stories, they’re texts connected to each other, interwoven with nodal moments. The effect is that, as a collected book, it feels like you’re reading facets. It’s like somewhere in there is the seed or kernel of a specific life already experiences, and then we’re looking at it through a faceted jewel that refracts this underlying “hidden narrative” so that every time we turn a page, we are reading something new.
Highly recommended for readers who enjoy thinking about the nature of language and its textual form, thinking about the ways texts intersect with bodies and the material world, thinking about the various shapes desire can take and how language affects this desire. And for lovers of poetry, ambiguity, and beauty....more
The writing here is so lush you can almost feel the words rushing around in your mouth as you read. Jesmyn Ward has a stunning ability to write about The writing here is so lush you can almost feel the words rushing around in your mouth as you read. Jesmyn Ward has a stunning ability to write about the horrific with beauty.
The novel’s usage of Dante, Virgil (where else would all those bees come from?!), and Aeneas (which is how I read the choice of the name Annis) worked well for me, and create a sense of the epic / the heroic as a tonal background—you cannot help but be amazed at Annis’s strength at every point.
The magical realism here worked fine for me, but I’m prone to not require absolute reality in my novels. In fact, I thought it was a brilliant solution to the problem of how to provide a space for autonomy for Annis, who was otherwise stripped of her own identity as an autonomous individual in the context of her world.
I’m still really thinking about the bees here, because Virgil’s usage of bees in the Georgics emphasizes community in such a direct way. Community, putting the good of the community up front, and the ordering of community for labor. Annis as some sort of guide pointing to the interdependence of the communities in which she lives? Something along those lines? I’ve got to think about this more, but it was really effective for me in terms of a visual as well as cultural/literary symbol. ...more
I’m interested continually in the question of whether the new tech fundamentally changes anything in the project of education, or whether it simply reI’m interested continually in the question of whether the new tech fundamentally changes anything in the project of education, or whether it simply reconfigures the available modules. Khan’s approach to the unfolding relationship between AI and edtech points toward the former: AI fundamentally rewires the impact, meaning, and execution of the educational experience itself.
The patterns of behavior that Khan begins to explore here point to a communication and education model in which the material used to construct the model itself has shifted. I believe that this is the kind of thing that will revise our expectations over time regarding how we communicate as a species. ...more
I'm reviewing the recorded staged adaptation of Threthewey's poetry volume of the same name. The adaptation for stage was done by LA Theatre Works, anI'm reviewing the recorded staged adaptation of Threthewey's poetry volume of the same name. The adaptation for stage was done by LA Theatre Works, and presents the poems via the performances of the Native Guard and the Poet, accompanied by a marvelous singer and a pianist. It's a fantastic play, and such an interesting experiment (in my opinion) in adapting textual poetics into embodied, performative poetics.
Threthewey is marvelous in any form: she's writing America in all its messiness, which is as beautiful as it is painful, fragile, hopeful, ugly, and traumatic. The play highlights a plurality of experiences through vocal/aural texture, and evokes a wide range of rich emotions.
I think that it would make a solid choice for a book club interested in discussion American history, race, gender/feminism, yes; but also just the larger questions of what it means to live meaningful life and what we hold dear as human experience. ...more
The story of an older couple in rural Ireland who agree to foster a young girl for an overburdened familPerfectly crafted novella. Not a wasted word.
The story of an older couple in rural Ireland who agree to foster a young girl for an overburdened family one summer, and her reaction to experiencing care in a new way.
At one point, a character observes that everything changes, that we are all on our way to becoming some version of what we were before. As an expression of the experience of growth as a human, this story centers around the ways our lives are lived at a nexus of past, present, and future, but always narrated in the first person now.
Really beautifully executed both in terms of the writing and in terms of the thematic exploration of love, loss, and restoration....more
A play about the relationship between the material and the moral.
Put another way, this is a play about maternity and grace.
I think it’s probably easA play about the relationship between the material and the moral.
Put another way, this is a play about maternity and grace.
I think it’s probably easier to latch onto the presentation of the ideas via the first articulation (materiality/morality) than the second for many people, since that’s how we encounter this debate in contemporary culture.
But what’s fascinating here to me is the way Stoppard insists on structuring the apparently primary material/moral story on top of an explicitly maternal (with all the embodied dimensions that word implies) wound whose resolution is, at root, *gifted*.
Plenty think through, and rethink through. Would love to see this one staged. ...more
This is being marketed as an “unconventional”/“fantastical” love story. And yes, it’s certainly clearly built on the bones of magical realism, and theThis is being marketed as an “unconventional”/“fantastical” love story. And yes, it’s certainly clearly built on the bones of magical realism, and the central relationship to which all the other relationships connect in one way or another is that of a man and woman who meet, fall in love, marry, and then discover that the man has a rare genetic mutation which means he is turning into a shark.
But don’t miss the other relationships. They’re just as important in my opinion.
For me, the novel read as a gorgeously, playfully, written speculative experiment into the thematic relationship between form, narrative, performance, and meaning. It was like the author took all the aspects of live theatre and then reconfigured them into prose—a refraction of the ways we perform our humanity and our lives set against the potential for connection and self understanding, even as the context and content of those lives constantly changes.
There were a few things that I would have adjusted or worked with the author on if I were the editor in terms of clarifying how much character inconsistency was a deliberate device to illustrate our own selves as inherently contradictory, and the ending felt a bit rushed to me, but these are minor quibbles and frankly for a debut author may reflect just as much on the development process and editing they received to get to this point as the author’s original intent. It’s hard to know in this industry. But there’s nothing egregious; the book is a joy to read.
I would absolutely read this again, and I hope the author continues to write. ...more
Miller’s written a book that combines elements of memoir (the story of her own journey into parenthood) alongside academic research (modified for popuMiller’s written a book that combines elements of memoir (the story of her own journey into parenthood) alongside academic research (modified for popular consumption). Her central thesis is that the physiological and social data demonstrate an aptitude for what we colloquially identify as “spirituality” exists among humans, and that those with demonstrably greater resources in this area show higher resistance to negative forces such as depression. Miller hypothesizes that spirituality enhances a person’s ability to perceive meaning—in otherwise, to assemble positive narratives out of the series of events in their lives, and from these narratives derive the sense that there is community, caring, and purpose underlying their existence and their relationships.
Her writing is engaging, and her stories are well-crafted. While I’m not qualified to assess her research in detail, I am qualified enough to determine that her methodologies, practices, and publications fall within the realm of acceptable academic research standards for her field, and her studies appear well-designed from my non-specialist perspective.
Recommended for those interested in the ongoing secular/sacred dialogue, the history of science and religion, psychology and religion, and self help. ...more
A classic in the development of the psychology of trauma. It’s important to remember that Miller’s original German title used “begabten” which was traA classic in the development of the psychology of trauma. It’s important to remember that Miller’s original German title used “begabten” which was translated as “gifted.” While accurate, the terms have distinctive tones in German and English respectively. In German, the emphasis is on a sense of apt ability rather than a sort of innate academic prowess. The point is that Miller is focusing not on academic success, but rather a specific ability. Her central thesis is that children (implicitly all) are “abilified” for emotional sensitivity, and that particularly in people where this innate ability for sensitivity is amplified or particularly sharp, this sensitivity can be dulled and even broken via traumatic response to the (potentially inevitable) events of the child’s true needs being overwritten by the parents’ narrative needs with which they have invested their child.
Is the book perfect and balanced? No. Is it worth reading? If you are interested in trauma, or in parenting, or in the work of caring—yes, absolutely.
Food for thought: “The true opposite of depression is neither gaiety nor absence of pain, but vitality--the freedom to experience spontaneous feelings.” (61)
To not fear one’s own emotional processing as the opposite of depression points to the heart of Miller’s trauma theory: that living life in freedom from the constructed critic (the inner judge/thought police/inner critic/etc) is the path of authenticity, and that as such the path will have both pleasure and pain, but the individual’s ability to wholly experience (and thus engage) their natural emotional responses and accept that experience allows for the kind of unmediated connection to the self that strips depression of its innate isolating effects....more
Inter generational living through the eyes of a nine year old narrator writing to her absent father. Themes of rebirth, death, mental illness, trauma,Inter generational living through the eyes of a nine year old narrator writing to her absent father. Themes of rebirth, death, mental illness, trauma, and thriving are all wrapped in a quick, sharp prose with impeccable timing: the humor underneath all is less about being funny than it is about choosing survival over death, even when death is inevitable. ...more
Beautiful little jewel-gem; a gift edition of Saunders’s convocation address given at Syracuse University. The logic: what he regrets most are failureBeautiful little jewel-gem; a gift edition of Saunders’s convocation address given at Syracuse University. The logic: what he regrets most are failures of kindness. It’s easy to put aside kindness saying we’ll get to it when we have time, and to get caught up in the illusion that we have to accomplish something else—anything else—first. But in the end, we do better when we recognize our growth trajectory is always already that of love.
“Find out what makes you kinder, what opens you up and brings out the most loving, generous, and unafraid version of you--and go after those things as if nothing else matters.
Because, actually, nothing else does.
Do all the other things of course, the ambitious things ... but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness. Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial. That luminous part of you that exists beyond your personality--your soul, if you will--is as bright and shining as any that has ever been. ... Clear away everything that keeps you separate from this secret, luminous place. Believe that it exists, come to know it better, nurture it, share its fruits tirelessly.”...more
An intro to anti-fat bias in western culture as systematic structure to the embodied experience for people in all bodies. Written from the perspectiveAn intro to anti-fat bias in western culture as systematic structure to the embodied experience for people in all bodies. Written from the perspective of set point theory. Points for consistent efforts at intersectionality in terms of race, gender, socioeconomics, and at times culture.
The book does not need to be read straight through, though it can be. I haven’t done the work to evaluate her sources, and it’s not my field, but there are sources, and it’s clear Gordon is thoughtfully engaged in this discursive space. Things always get murky with medical journalism, but the real value here isn’t so much who is right or wrong but rather in Gordon’s ability to raise questions, interrogate commonly held assumptions, opinions, and facts, and this open up and produce a space for ongoing dialogue and debate.
Verdict: well worth reading and thinking about if you have a body, or interact with others who have bodies....more
Loading...
