by Michael Schur

Michael Schur is a television comedy writer, and boy does he think he’s funny. He needs to footnote nearly every page with jokes. So, just go with the flow.

This is a fun-filled romp through ethics as philosophized through the ages. We go from Aristotle to Kant to brief divergences into the Existentialists and Ayn Rand; the utilitarians and Peter Singer; the African concept of “ubuntu”; and kind of a letdown of a final chapter on saying you’re sorry and a rambling letter to his two children.

I certainly laughed out loud several times every single reading. But I did not learn how to be perfect.

by Nicola Griffith

This was a fun Arthurian read. I was not expecting the gender-bending. I love a strong heroine.

by Vaclav Smil

Numbers fill almost every paragraph of this book, and it was honestly hard not to glaze over a lot. This is the fault of myself and not the book; a book like this is all about numbers, as it’s about facts, how the world “really” works, after all.

The “four pillars of modern civilization” for Smil are: cement, steel, plastics, and ammonia. Overall this book is about that material, tangible, real-world “stuff” of civilization; and Smil casts snarky asides at every opportunity towards microprocessors, smartphones, AI, and anything else that isn’t “stuff.” We need the “stuff”, continuously, and in abundance, and the non-stuff isn’t going to save us.

You might recognize cement, steel, and plastic as literal building blocks of civilization; but just in case you can’t see how ammonia fits into the top four, it’s due to importance as fertilizer. And abundant synthetic fertilizer was a crucial input to Earth’s population boom. Simply put, “nearly 4 billion people would not have been alive without synthetic ammonia.” More existentially important than silicon wafers, to be sure.

Cement? “Yet another [!] astounding statistic is that the world now consumes in one year more cement than it did during the entire first half of the 20th century.”

And as for fossil fuels, and hopes for our conversion to renewable sources of energy? “Until all energies used to extract and process these materials come from renewable conversions, modern civilization will remain fundamentally dependent on the fossil fuels used in [their] production.” It’s the oil and natural gas that get us all this steel, cement, plastic, and ammonia. Electric cars are great. But renewable electricity is not going to be able to perform the herculean job that fossil fuels do today in terms of producing the material that makes our world go round.

Smil is neither an optimist nor a pessimist, but a scientist, and it comes through. It is refreshing to read someone who neither is gung ho about how we’re gonna solve everything, nor ready to lay down and die. He thinks we’ll muddle through. But here he cuts through the “muddle” of misleading information that comes from both optimists and pessimists.

by Ibram X. Kendi

Book club pick. I dunno, I’m afraid to say anything.

by Edward Lee

Chef Edward Lee travels the country, eats food, and apparently wastes food, as the humongous amounts of food he reports ordering at restaurants cannot possibly be eaten by him. I just can’t believe he eats all that. And he doesn’t bring a traveling companion save in one chapter.

He visits New Orleans, Clarksdale, Montgomery, Indiana, and lots of other places. The chapters generally provide some introduction, some talk about the logistics of travel, interviews with chefs, and eating, and conclusion.

The most memorable was his chapter of visiting Detroit, a city with a large Muslim population, during Ramadan. He decides to try the sunup-to-sundown fasting. Yet he sticks to his plan of visiting restaurants and talking to chefs and ordering a ton of food – and photographing it and talking about it – just not eating it. I was intrigued why someone would torture himself that way. When sundown is moments away, and he orders a big meal at a restaurant that he can actually eat immediately, a fellow faster frowns at him. He tells him he should break his fast with something humble; the fast is about showing solidarity with the poor, so it would be more fitting to order something humble. Besides (here it comes) all that heavy food you just ordered would just make you sick if you ate it right away.

I wasn’t particularly grabbed by any other chapters. Lee seems likeable enough. I couldn’t help comparing it to EAT A PEACH by David Chang, another Korean chef memoirist. But unlike Chang, Lee is not into writing about his restaurants, or even himself, very much. They are very different books.

by Gretchen Rubin

A sequel to THE HAPPINESS PROJECT. Gretchen Rubin once again undertakes methodical, highly planned projects, or ‘resolutions’, to increase her levels of happiness. It’s hard for me not to relate to Gretchen, even though she does have kids. She’s a redhead. She twirls her hair. “Whenever possible,” she reads while she eats. She “dislike[s] talking on the phone.” There’s all that damn methodicalness. But maybe best of all, she flat-out refuses to try meditation.

She states up front that this is going to be HER happiness project; what works for her won’t work for everyone, but there’s still value in documenting her own personal journey, which can be a template or jumping-off point for readers whose mileage varies. OK, but she still gets way too deep in the weeds occasionally. I totally skipped the email exchanges with her sister about some collaboration they were going to do – I think it was a young adult mystery book? Why do I need to read all their emails about it? Suffice to say that collaboration was a source of happiness. And this weird project of building a little diorama in their kitchen cupboard also needed editing.

I like how she handles the most common criticisms leveled at her.

• “You really must meditate if you’re going to say anything about happiness.” Response: “Hmm.”
• Paraphrasing here: But you can’t aim directly at happiness; you have to simply do things that will cultivate happiness as a side effect. Response: How is that different than aiming directly at it? What concrete things are you doing to cultivate happiness as a side effect? How are they different than things you’d do to try to be happy directly? This is a really good point, once you start to think about it.
• And paraphrasing here: ugh, all those tasks you set for yourself! All those resolutions! Sounds so tiring! Happiness doesn’t come from being busy. Busyness is a distraction. Response: Works for me!

Her ultimate mantra, after all, is to be herself. Which isn’t a bad mantra. I wonder if she’s considered meditating on it.

by Raymond Chandler

A classic from 1939, made into a Bogart/Bacall movie in 1946, featuring private detective Philip Marlowe. I had never read one of these in my life. It was a real hoot. Philip Marlowe’s always got the deadpan response, whether he’s facing down a hot tomato or a Luger. Then the plot got too convoluted for me.

by Adam Platt

I really bought this based on the title. Adam Platt, with whom I was not familiar, is/was restaurant critic for New York (not The New Yorker) magazine. This is something of a food-focused memoir. We learn a little about his strange parents and stranger upbringing in Asian countries, then a little about his career in journalism and becoming a NYC restaurant critic. It’s somewhat repetitive. He uses the word “dyspeptic” to describe himself way too many times. There aren’t too many really stand-out moments. A chapter where he decides to bring five 4-year-olds to the fanciest restaurant in town is unusually lively and engaging, but it’s an exception.

by Peter Singer

This is an oldish book (2009) I picked up; it’s a bit dated, and I’ve heard all of Singer’s arguments before, but I guess I just like hearing them.

Singer’s out to get everyone to give more of their resources to the poorest of the poor. If you wouldn’t pass by a child drowning in a pond, how can you not give a small sum of money to save a child’s life across the world?

He attempts to refute all the common reasons we have for not giving more. He emphasizes the goal is not to guilt people, but to create a culture where more giving becomes the norm.

One thing that surprised me, until I remembered how old the book was – he says that of course we don’t want to just give people money. That fosters dependence and doesn’t change the institutions that keep them poor. I think he has since changed his tune, since his website, https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/, now lists Give Directly as a recommended charity. Give Directly flat out gives money to people. That’s all they do. That’s why I love them. I am fully convinced that giving poor people money is the best way to go. They don’t become dependent. They improve their circumstances. They often start or improve their businesses. And that is how they can begin to change their own institutions.

by Kati Marton

“WIr schaffen das.”

“We can handle it” is the translation given here. It is what Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a news conference about how Germany was going to handle the surging refugee crisis in 2015. I remember hearing this. In my memory, which may not be perfect, the question was particularly what was going to happen if the rest of Europe did not step up to the challenge. The emphasis was on the “Wir,” “we”, meaning Germany. If the rest of Europe did not step up, well, Germany would handle it. Germany would do what was right. And they did. This is when I first considered Merkel a personal hero.

“The fact that one million refugees had been allowed into Germany was, of course, the headline of 2015. However, an equally startling figure…: six million to seven million Germans helped them.”

“For Germany’s self-image – and how the rest of the world regards the former Third Reich – Angela Merkel’s regugee policy has been transformational. Nothing short of astonishing is the fact that the country responsible for the Holocaust is now regarded as the world’s moral center.”

This book is really a gem. It never devolves into a boring litany of Germany political mundanity (“first the Socialist Democrats formed a coalition with the Democratic Socialists who in turn…”). It has a somewhat chronological arc without being strictly chronological; after some straightforward early life biography, the book is divided into chapters which showcase different aspects of Merkel’s chancellorship: a chapter on the refugee crisis; one each on her relationships with W. Bush, Obama, and Trump; one on Ukraine (written alas before the latest invasion); etc. It really sustains interest.

Merkel has a doctorate in physics, as does her husband (who avoids all media attention and just likes to do his physics in peace). She honestly doesn’t seem to have gone into politics for any reason other than to get things done. She does her own shopping. The most lovable photo is captioned thus:

“Shortly after her heartfelt warning to the nation regarding the looming Covid pandemic, the chancellor was seen shopping in her neighborhood grocery store. Note that there are more bottles of wine in her cart than rolls of toilet paper. Merkel beseeched her countrymen not to hoard.”

Hero!