Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding by
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History by Katherine Ashenburg
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan
The Hungry Gene: The Inside Story of the Obesity Industry by Ellen Ruppel
Shell
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman
The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson
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Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding
by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
4 stars, no audio book
Somewhere in Africa, more than a million years ago, a line of apes began to
rear their young differently than their Great Ape ancestors. From this new
form of care came new ways of engaging and understanding each other. How
such singular human capacities evolved, and how they have kept us alive for
thousands of generations, is the mystery revealed in this bold and
wide-ranging new vision of human emotional evolution.
Mothers and Others finds the key in the primatologically unique length of
human childhood. If the young were to survive in a world of scarce food,
they needed to be cared for, not only by their mothers but also by siblings,
aunts, fathers, friends—and, with any luck, grandmothers. Out of this
complicated and contingent form of childrearing, Sarah Hrdy argues, came the
human capacity for understanding others. Mothers and others teach us who
will care, and who will not.
From its opening vision of “apes on a plane”; to descriptions of baby care
among marmosets, chimpanzees, wolves, and lions; to explanations about why
men in hunter-gatherer societies hunt together (hint: it’s called the
Showing-Off Hypothesis), Mothers and Others is compellingly readable. But it
is also an intricately knit argument that ever since the Pleistocene, it has
taken a village to raise children—and how that gave our ancient ancestors
the first push on the path toward becoming emotionally modern human beings.
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The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History
by Katherine Ashenburg
4 1/2 stars, no audio book
From Publishers Weekly
According to Ashenburg (The Mourner's Dance), the Western notion of
cleanliness is a complex cultural creation that is constantly evolving, from
Homer's well-washed Odysseus, who bathes before and after each of his
colorful journeys, to Shaw's Eliza Doolittle, who screams in terror during
her first hot bath. The ancient Romans considered cleanliness a social
virtue, and Jews practiced ritual purity laws involving immersion in water.
Abandoning Jewish practice, early Christians viewed bathing as a form of
hedonism; they embraced saints like Godric, who, to mortify the flesh,
walked from England to Jerusalem without washing or changing his clothes.
Yet the Crusaders imported communal Turkish baths to medieval Europe. From
the 14th to 18th centuries, kings and peasants shunned water because they
thought it spread bubonic plague, and Louis XIV cleaned up by donning a
fresh linen shirt. Americans, writes Ashenburg, were as filthy as their
European cousins before the Civil War, but the Union's success in
controlling disease through hygiene convinced its citizens that cleanliness
was progressive and patriotic. Brimming with lively anecdotes, this
well-researched, smartly paced and endearing history of Western cleanliness
holds a welcome mirror up to our intimate selves, revealing deep-seated
desires and fears spanning 2000-plus years. 82 b&w illus. (Nov. 15)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School—This is a fascinating examination of the changing notions
of what it means to be clean, and how those concepts fit into the worldview
of different societies. The book is especially valuable for exploring the
daily lives of people in past societies, but also for providing perspective
on our attitudes toward ourselves, our bodies, and our world. It begins with
the communal baths of the Greeks and Romans and explores the religious and
ritual aspects of bathing, including Christian baptism. The public bath
returned with the Crusaders, who brought the custom back to Europe in the
form of the Turkish bath. With the plague and fears of communicable
diseases, people avoided water-which they feared made the body vulnerable-in
favor of linen cloth, which could be changed regularly, in lieu of bathing.
Fear of immersing the body in water continued into the 20th century.
Ashenburg, who uses interesting quotes from contemporaries to illustrate her
history, speculates that in the future, when water shortages dictate new
concepts of cleanliness, our own day may be seen as an age of excessive
bathing and deodorizing.—Tom Holmes, King Middle School, Berkeley, CA
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In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
by Michael Pollan
4 1/2 stars, audio book
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Pollan provides another shocking yet essential treatise on
the industrialized Western diet and its detrimental effects on our bodies
and culture. Here he lays siege to the food industry and scientists'
attempts to reduce food and the cultural practices of eating into bite-size
concepts known as nutrients, and contemplates the follies of doing so. As an
increasing number of Americans are overfed and undernourished, Pollan makes
a strong argument for serious reconsideration of our eating habits and casts
a suspicious eye on the food industry and its more pernicious and misleading
practices. Listeners will undoubtedly find themselves reconsidering their
own eating habits. Scott Brick, who narrated Pollan's The Omnivore's
Dilemma, carries forward the same tone and consistency, thus creating a
narrative continuity between the two books. Brick renders the text with an
expert's skill, delivering well-timed pauses and accurate emphasis. He
executes Pollan's asides and sarcasm with an uncanny ability that makes
listening infinitely better than reading. So compelling is his tone,
listeners may have trouble discerning whether Brick's conviction or talent
drives his powerful performance.
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The Hungry Gene: The Inside Story of the Obesity Industry
by Ellen Ruppel Shell
4 1/2 stars, no audio book
From Publishers Weekly
More than 1.1 billion people worldwide are overweight or obese. How and why
did the world get so fat? Shell, a journalist and codirector of the Program
in Science Journalism at Boston University, explores the issue from many
angles including the roles of genetics, pharmaceutical companies, the food
industry and social class. She charts the growth in scientific research on
obesity and obesity treatments in the last decade (from stomach stapling to
the notoriously dangerous drug Fen-Phen), explaining the biology of
metabolism that makes it so difficult to circumvent the body's appetite.
Shell also explores the lifestyle culprits behind obesity, traveling to
Micronesia to document the residents of the island of Kosrae, whose average
life span has plummeted in recent years due to the introduction of high-fat
Western food. Though she lucidly explains the physiology of fat, Shell fills
the book with chatty profiles of patients and doctors ("Rudy Leibel is a
small man and trim... He has a degree in English literature, and a weakness
for poetry") and her prose reads like that of a glossy magazine. There is
also much in the book that may be familiar to readers; the spotlights on new
obesity treatments are compelling, but it will come as no surprise that too
much high-fat, calorie-dense food and too little exercise trigger obesity.
On the other hand, given that Big-Tobacco-style class-action lawsuits
against fast food companies are under consideration, some may find Shell's
arguments for the regulation of junk-food TV advertising, among other
measures, timely and provocative.
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The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
by Alain de Botton
4 stars, audio book
Amazon.com Review
Book Description
We spend most of our waking lives at work—in occupations often chosen by our
unthinking younger selves. And yet we rarely ask ourselves how we got there
or what our occupations mean to us.
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work is an exploration of the joys and perils
of the modern workplace, beautifully evoking what other people wake up to do
each day—and night—to make the frenzied contemporary world function. With a
philosophical eye and his signature combination of wit and wisdom, Alain de
Botton leads us on a journey around a deliberately eclectic range of
occupations, from rocket science to biscuit manufacture, accountancy to
art—in search of what make jobs either fulfilling or soul-destroying.
Along the way he tries to answer some of the most urgent questions we can
ask about work: Why do we do it? What makes it pleasurable? What is its
meaning? And why do we daily exhaust not only ourselves but also the planet?
Characteristically lucid, witty and inventive, Alain de Botton’s “song for
occupations” is a celebration and exploration of an aspect of life which is
all too often ignored and a book that shines a revealing light on the
essential meaning of work in our lives.
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Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto
by Chuck Klosterman
4 stars, audio book
Amazon.com Review
There's quite a bit of intelligent analysis and thought-provoking insight
packed into the pages of Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs,
which is a little surprising considering how darn stupid most of
Klosterman's subject matter actually is. Klosterman, one of the few members
of the so-called "Generation X" to proudly embrace that label and the
stereotypical image of disaffected slackers that often accompanies it, takes
the reader on a witty and highly entertaining tour through portions of pop
culture not usually subjected to analysis and presents his thoughts on Saved
by the Bell, Billy Joel, amateur porn, MTV's The Real World, and much more.
It would be easy in dealing with such subject matter to simply pile on some
undergraduate level deconstruction, make a few jokes, and have yourself a
clever little book. But Klosterman goes deeper than that, often employing
his own life spent as a member of the lowbrow target demographic to measure
the cultural impact of his subjects. While the book never quite lives up to
the use of the word "manifesto" in the title (it's really more of a survey
mixed with elements of memoir), there is much here to entertain and
illuminate, particularly passages on the psychoses and motivations of
breakfast cereal mascots, the difference between Celtic fans and Laker fans,
and The Empire Strikes Back. Sections on a Guns n' Roses tribute band, The
Sims, and soccer feel more like magazine pieces included to fill space than
part of a cohesive whole. But when you're talking about a book based on a
section of cultural history so reliant on a lack of attention span, even the
incongruities feel somehow appropriate.
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The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
4 1/2 stars, audio book
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Filkins, a New York Times prize–winning reporter, is widely
regarded as among the finest war correspondents of this generation. His
richly textured book is based on his work in Afghanistan and Iraq since
1998. It begins with a Taliban-staged execution in Kabul. It ends with
Filkins musing on the names in a WWI British cemetery in Baghdad. In
between, the work is a vivid kaleidoscope of vig-nettes. Individually, the
strength of each story is its immediacy; together they portray a theater of
the absurd, in which Filkins, an extraordinarily brave man, moves as both
participant and observer. Filkins does not editorialize—a welcome change
from the punditry that shapes most writing from these war zones. This book
also differs essentially from traditional war correspondence because of its
universal empathy, feelings enhanced by Filkins's spare prose. Saudi women
in Kabul airport, clad in burqas and stylish shoes, bemoan their husbands'
devotion to jihad. An Iraqi casually says to his friend, Let's go kill some
Americans. A marine is shot dead escorting Filkins on a photo opportunity.
Iraqi soldiers are disconcerted when he appears in running shorts (They
looked at [my legs] in horror, as if I were naked). Carl von Clausewitz said
war is a chameleon. In vividly illustrating the varied ways people in
Afghanistan and iraq have been affected by ongoing war, Filkins demonstrates
that truth in prose.
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Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson
3 1/2 stars, audio book
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In the digital marketplace, the most effective price is no
price at all, argues Anderson (The Long Tail). He illustrates how savvy
businesses are raking it in with indirect routes from product to revenue
with such models as cross-subsidies (giving away a DVR to sell cable
service) and freemiums (offering Flickr for free while selling the superior
FlickrPro to serious users). New media models have allowed successes like
Obama's campaign billboards on Xbox Live, Webkinz dolls and Radiohead's
name-your-own-price experiment with its latest album. A generational and
global shift is at play—those below 30 won't pay for information, knowing it
will be available somewhere for free, and in China, piracy accounts for
about 95% of music consumption—to the delight of artists and labels, who
profit off free publicity through concerts and merchandising. Anderson
provides a thorough overview of the history of pricing and commerce, the
mental transaction costs that differentiate zero and any other price into
two entirely different markets, the psychology of digital piracy and the
open-source war between Microsoft and Linux. As in Anderson's previous book,
the thought-provoking material is matched by a delivery that is nothing
short of scintillating. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All
rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Although Chris Anderson puts forward an intriguing argument in this
cheerful, optimistic book, many critics remained unconvinced. They praised
his engaging writing style, his amusing examples and anecdotes, and his
clear explanations of complicated concepts and technologies, but they still
questioned his conclusions. In addition to Anderson's own admission that
YouTube -- one of his chief examples -- has been a financial black hole for
Google, reviewers cited their own examples of industries that seem to run
counter to Free's generalizations, such as broadcast television's fiscal
struggles in the face of premium cable's expansion. Though some trends seem
to point in the direction of Free, the jury remains out for the present.