Tricks in Captivity ©

       In a mass media world where books and movies can be downloaded in moments, quality of story still matters to me. 

       Starting in January 2011, I will write brief reviews here of titles that have really broadened my horizons.

FICTION

 

September 26, 2020

"The Baron in the Trees". This is everything for me that "The Overstory" was not: endearing, hopeful, imaginative, historical, and a loving tribute to trees which did not lose its philosophical love of humanity. Written before my time, this novel (and its author!) fell onto my radar only recently, and what a find! Chockful of colorful characters, the plot (outlined perfectly in the Goodreads description) allows for the titular character's journey into adulthood to run a parallel journey through the Age of Enlightenment on to the disappointment of the Napoleonic era. The character's radically altered viewpoint on human life is an obvious metaphor, but it's explored brilliantly as the baron maps out his own lifestyle and beliefs through trial, error, experiential learning, and voracious reading. Where "The Overstory" was like an overstuffed Ph.D. dissertation on every tree in the world, "The Baron in the Trees" is lovingly focused only on the forest canopy of the Italian (Ligurian) Riviera--a canopy so intertwined that the baron can traverse it for days without ever setting foot on the ground, and a canopy intimate enough that we can master it as well. By the end of the novel, that endless canopy is thinned out and encroached--another obvious metaphor and yet reflecting a large number of environmental, historical, philosophical, and economic changes. If this were not a library book to be returned, I would probably have re-read the whole thing immediately to revisit all the nuances and just to enjoy such a beautifully written (and translated) story--best novel I've read in 2020, hands down! (A 1950s novel!) ONE CAVEAT: the 1950s male chauvanistic viewpoint on women as irrational, vain, and cruel lovers is the only unimaginative and pathetic aspect of the novel, but it was a small aspect, thank goodness. And I wish the astonishing mother had received a lot more coverage! She was a fascinating creature.

May 19, 2011

"A Tale of Two Cities".  I have read nearly all the Charles Dickens novels, but this is the one which stands out in my mind because of the extremely dramatic and singular story line.  Most Dickens novels involve a huge cast of colorful characters and vividly detailed scene descriptions which set the tone for picturing (and criticizing) the grim social times Dickens lived in.  "Two Cities", in contrast, has a smaller cast of characters, and focuses on two distinct themes:  (1) how personal bitterness and hatred can turn revolutionaries into the vicious dictators they once opposed and (2) how one lost soul can be inspired to rise above his own weaknesses and limitations to save someone else.  If you got through high school and college without reading this novel, or read it when you were too young to appreciate it, pick it up now!  Few novels have ever matched the unforgettable and uplifting climax of this one.

May 4, 2011

"Utopia".  An astonishing reflection on a hypothetically perfect society discovered in the Americas by European explorers.  If you can slog through the old English and numerous endnotes, you will find a fascinating depiction of a society where greed, pride, and envy are virtually nonexistent and people share the land and toils of their labor in common and in peace.  I say virtually because the author strives mightily to conceive of a perfect society, but ultimately must concede that the best of intentions can always be thwarted by those that don't share the same values-- not to mention a pesky need to conquer new lands to expand agricultural production.  More was a devout Catholic scholar, brilliant attorney, and increasingly influential statesman in the reign of King Henry VIII.  Almost universally admired and popular in his lifetime, he nonetheless struggled to reconcile his religious beliefs with the demands of public service to a king whom he once considered a friend and noble Christian ruler.  (Two biographical notes are included in my 2005 Barnes & Noble edition--one written by his son-in-law not long after More's execution, and the other published by Wayne A. Rebhorn.) 

The telling of "Utopia" is done in a dialogue fashion to allow the readers to draw their own conclusions about the wisdom (or folly) of how Utopians live.  It was astonishing to me to see that 600 years ago More was discussing the idea of women priests and warning against the folly of overtaxing your citizens to pay for constant warfare overseas.  In other respects, his sexism shows through, and there is no denying that before his own execution for not sanctifying the king's remarriage to Ann Boleyn he supported capital punishment against heretics.  All in all, this is a fascinating tale of how a man well aware of mankind's flaws tries to imagine a better way.

January 23, 2011

{any and all novels written by Walker Percy}.  I used to say he was the only modern novelist I liked, and two decades after his death, I'm not sure I even need two hands to count the novels published since then that I actually like. Though his plots are entertaining enough, he is a master of getting inside his characters' heads to explore all their thoughts and feelings from the most ridiculous to the most sublime.  Trained as a medical doctor, Mr. Percy found his true calling in exploring the human need for inner healing--with plenty of sugar and laughs to make the medicine go down.  No author has influenced my writing more.

January 15, 2011

"The Hero With a Thousand Faces". This is NON-fiction, but I include it in the Fiction category because it's a classic explanation of the HERO figure in storytelling.  Why does Hollywood keep telling the same stories over and over again?  Because every generation needs its own version(s) of the great, inspirational hero who must leave family and home on a quest....This seminal book, itself, got updated in the 1980s when Bill Moyers interviewed Joseph Campbell at the Skywalker Ranch, after the George Lucas "Star Wars" franchise had thoroughly modernized the classic hero story.  (See "The Power of Myth", Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, 1988.)  We all want heroes...and always will. 

"To Kill a Mockingbird".   If you somehow escaped reading this in high school, read it!  An absolute masterpiece about the true nature of justice.  (And one of the few outstanding novels that actually led to an outstanding Hollywood movie version.)

"War and Peace".   Still my favorite novel of all time, this epic novel effortlessly meshes deep philosophical inquiry with riveting character study. War, peace, love, hate, God, despair:  everything of importance contributes to this beautifully written and mesmerizing Russian novel.

May 19, 2011

May 19, 2011

May 19, 2011

NON-FICTION

March 20, 2021

"Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale"


Recommended reading for all serious environmentalists! Mind-blowing trip into the world of the three Rs: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle! The emphasis in this book is on Re-use, and, boy, does Minter ever deliver. If you are shocked to learn that China exports clothing to the U.S., which gets discarded and sent to India for conversion, then exported back to the U.S. as high-quality wiping rags, you may want to read this book! If you are shocked to learn that donations to Goodwill in Arizona are purchased for re-sale in Mexico on a daily basis, you may want to read this book! And while millions and millions of us dutifully recycle our paper, thousands of tons of furniture get sent to U.S. landfills every year. This book made me want to drop everything I was doing immediately and open a plant where discarded furniture could be repaired, refinished, or stripped of varnish and converted to firewood. Or sponsor genius visas to get these brilliant Ghanaians to set up shop in the U.S. in order to share their expertise in refurbishing electronics. Seriously deficient in technical or entrepreneurial skills, I can only hope others are inspired by this book to do likewise. In the meantime, I feel better about owning a mismatched set of mostly secondhand furniture...and having read this as a shared book checked out from the library! (And isn't the latter a semi-tragedy? How to choose between environmentally responsible book choices and purchasing books in order to support authors! That would be a completely different essay....)

May 30, 2020

"How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future". 

 Excellent historical context for parallels in other countries to the devil's bargain that Republicans made with Trump and why it's blowing up in their faces as it did in those other countries. They played with fire, and unfortunately we all got burned. Read this and you will understand why the new group Republicans for the Rule of Law had to be created (as embarrassing as that is) and why it might be too late UNLESS a whole lot more people understand that this is not about "conservative" or "liberal" policies: it's about whether the U.S. is losing its institutions and democracy.

October 23, 2017

"On Tyranny:  Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century", Timothy Snyder (2017).  My first book in three years that I absolutely had to stop and write up here!  Anybody who cares about the rapid decline in human rights and outright attacks on the U.S. Bill of Rights MUST read this book!  Yes, fascism creeps in when average citizens, like frogs in a pot of water, ignore the temperature's rising degree-by-degree until it's too late.

Lesson one:  Do not obey in advance.

Look how quickly ESPN & Jerry Jones caved to recent Donald Trump demands: they were afraid that his public criticisms would lead to direct attacks on their organizations.  They only served to weaken themselves by bowing to his edict infringing on First Amendment rights of their own employees.

Lesson two: Defend Institutions.

What have you done this week to defend an institution under attack by Donald Trump and his cronies?  (This month?  This year, at least?)

How did Jeff Sessions and Jared Kushner lie repeatedly about contacts with Russian operatives, yet not lose security clearances that would have been yanked from Democrats?  Are you a paid subscriber to Washington Post or New York Times, two of the few remaining newspapers funding important investigative journalism?  (If you rely only on "free" news, like Facebook or Wikileaks, who is paying for those stories?)  Why has Donald Trump refused to take non-partisan judicial nominee evaluations from American Bar Association, and insisted on personally interviewing candidates for the NYC U.S. Attorney position which would have jurisdiction over Trump Tower crime investigation?  Did you stay silent when Donald Trump encouraged police officers to rough up suspects?  (Do you understand that any and every U.S. citizen "suspect" is presumed innocent until proven guilty?)

Do not let ANY government attack and corrupt bedrock institutions without defending those institutions!  At least choose one.

Lesson five:  Remember professional ethics.

Do you recall that first weekend when a "Muslim ban" when into effect?  Many of us were shocked to learn that airport immigration officials were separating children from parents, handcuffing the elderly for several hours a time, and actually refusing to comply with judicial orders brought in to stop them.  Only the concerted efforts of concerned Congressmen, reporters, attorneys, and other citizens mobilizing quickly was able to stop that unbelievably rapid descent into police state tactics--tactics unleashed on people who had boarded planes to the U.S. with valid passports and visas for entry!  Do NOT forget your professional ethics!  We just saw a massive financial settlement paid by the accredited psychologists who designed and oversaw the CIA's torture program--an absolute betrayal of their professional ethics.  If you are working in a profession with standards and norms, possibly even vows to uphold the Constitution of the United States, do NOT forget them in a time of crisis!  It is precisely those times of emotional upheaval that we must not give in to fleeting panic and abandon principles we have previously believed in and upheld.

Lesson eight:  Stand out.

Full disclosure:  I have the kind of "low-powered career" where I do not face consequences for speaking up about injustices.  Nonetheless, I am stunned and amazed at the number of people I know, Democrat and Republican alike, who are sitting back waiting for somebody else to fix this mess.  Just like the saying I am paraphrasing from Nazi Germany:  "First they came for the Jews, and I said nothing, because I was not a Jew.  Then they came for the gypsies and handicapped, and I said nothing, because I was not a gypsy or handicapped.... Finally they came for me, but nobody was left to speak up."  I see people going on with their lives, following sports, trying new food recipes, Tweeting about silly television shows--who have absolutely no "time" or inclination to go to a single protest, write a single letter to the editor, make a single phone call to a Senator, donate a single dollar to the nonprofits battling Trump Administration abuses in court.  I cannot speak for people who actually would suffer immediate loss of a job for sticking their necks out, but I know tons of people who would not.  They grumble, but do nothing.  

I saw a Tweet a few months back which said something like:  "if you ever wonder what you would have done in Nazi Germany or during the 1960s Civil Rights movement in the U.S., you are doing it now."

We have been repeatedly told, "If you see something, say something"--about suspicious packages.  What about suspicious government actions?  If you genuinely fear speaking up, PLEASE, at the very least, make financial contributions to charities, nonprofits, and other institutions who ARE speaking up. 

And support investigative journalists!  Be quick to share their carefully vetted stories, and very slow to share explosive stories from uncertain sources.

Please read this entire book:  he says this all more eloquently than I can!  (And it's not very long, I promise!) 

September 21, 2014

"The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap".  This haunting book has stayed with me...and stayed with me....I can rarely pick up the newspaper or see stories on the internet without thinking about this book.  You will understand what happened in Ferguson after reading this book, and you will understand why we keep seeing Wall Street financial institutions' paying record-breaking fines without any of their officers' going to jail.  

One drawback of this book is that Taibbi did not include interviews with Justice Department officials about his scathing indictment of their agency.  Did he try?  He never said they refused to speak on the record with him.  But it's hard to read this book without cringing at how far we have strayed from the concepts of SERVE AND PROTECT.

I'm writing this after a White House security breach 9/19/2014, when a lot of people are asking, how did that trespasser get so far?  But I'm actually thankful they did not simply shoot him, which they could have done--and which happens constantly in our modern "security" state.

January 24, 2014

"The Square".  This is a 2013 Oscar-nominated documentary by Jehane Noujaim about the Egyptian revolutionaries occupying Tahir Square from 2011-2013.  This film allows the viewer to see, hear, and feel the Arab Spring in an intimate and personal manner.

The film is absolutely mesmerizing and heartbreaking, as we see the high costs paid when dreamers challenge a police state.  You will come away from this film with a better understanding of how the military's surprise ouster of Hosni Mubarek led to the installation of a Muslim Brotherhood president without majority popular support.  

The weaknesses of this film are twofold.  First, very few women are interviewed, and there is absolutely no discussion of why we see mostly men at the public protests.  The sexual molestation and violent rapes that took place repeatedly in Tahir Square are never mentioned, and this is a glaring omission for anybody who has tried to make sense of that revolution.  Because the filmmaker does not adress that issue, the viewer is left wondering where/who the guilty parties are, and why the heroes of this story never say anything about it.

The second weakness is the lack of deeper political analysis, starting with the over-simplification of how the Muslim Brotherhood came to power.  If you are looking for an explanation of Morsi's time in office, particularly his controversial work on the Constitution and his attempts to take power away from the judiciary and military, you will not find it here.  You will also not find any type of historical or political analysis of U.S. involvement.

Because of those two weaknesses, the film makes the protagonists seem myopic and overly idealistic.  Nevertheless, you will root for these protagonists enthusiastically, and this astonishing piece of work will command your attention until the very last song. 

September 11, 2011

"Collapse".  This is Jared Diamond's follow-up to the revolutionary book, "Guns, Germs, and Steel" (reviewed earlier).  Here, Diamond takes a second look at environmental determinism to analyze why some societies survive and some fail.  He painstakingly probes the details of ancient, medieval, and modern societies to see which communities and nations reached a sustainable equilibrium in their ecosystem and which did not.  For example, what caused Anasazi and Mayan civilizations to collapse?  (Hint:  water changes.)  What did the British spectacularly misunderstand in Australia?  (Hint:  the soil was mediocre at best.)  Why have Inuit survived in Greenland, but Europeans have never been able to make a go of it?  (Hint:  the Inuit don't try to farm there.)  That third example demonstrates the real purpose of his book, which is to analyze how human societies can study their environment and make the best possible choices for living in it.   Modern nations have access to analytical tools and information their ancestors did not, but the real challenge remains cultural paradigm shifts and social leadership to achieve long-term goals.  On a day when the media is saturated with remembrances of 9/11, I can't help but wonder when our American priorities will actually shift to ensuring future generations have safe food, clean water, and breathable air, or will we just keep building more and more planes to drop bombs.

 August 29, 2011

"Dirt! The Movie".  This is a paradigm-shifting documentary sounding an extremely loud warning that we cannot take soil for granted any longer on this planet.  Beautifully filmed in many parts of the world, the movie begins and ends with a straightforward message about how, in the known universe, Earth is the only planet with a "living, breathing skin called dirt".  The problem is, we are poisoning it, leaching it, monoculturing it, eroding it--losing it in every possible way.  Unlike some environmental documentaries, this film leaves the viewer with hope because there actually are many solutions possible if we are willing to implement them.  One of them is something that individuals can do:  composting.  The other solutions will require larger changes in forestry, agriculture, and mining.

May 28, 2011

"The Corporation".  This is a radically powerful documentary about the rise of corporate commercial power in the modern era.  Released several years ago, the alarm bell sounded by this film was, alas, not loud enough to prevent the Supreme Court's shameful decision in Citizens United that corporations have a free speech right to spend as much money as they like in political ads.  (So while an individual HUMAN being can only spend $2,500 on a campaign contribution, if we join together in a corporation, we can spend as much as we like in "speech".  This is great news for organizations like Sierra Club and Human Rights Watch!  OR IS IT?  Can non-profit enterprises ever raise their voices loudly enough to compete with the sound barrier-shattering booms emanating from for-profit enterprises?  Just think about recent analysis showing that lobbyists concerned about climate change are outnumbered 20-1 in Washington by lobbyists paid to deny climate change and continue subsidies for Big Oil and Big Coal--not to mention the Halliburton Loophole for natural gas extraction to proceed with total exemption from the Clean Water Act!)  Getting back to the documentary, this is a must-see movie for anybody who truly wants to understand the perversity which is modern corporate law and how desperately we need to amend it (since the Supreme Court majority could care less).  Government by the people and for the people is NO MATCH for corporations spending like crazy to control Congress AND agency actions (e.g., pharmaceutical regulations, environmental regulations).  As a lawyer, I will say that this movie gets it right.  If you agree, I urge you to check out Progressives United, Russ Feingold's organization working to fight Citizens United.

February 27, 2011

"The Beauty Myth".  It seems fitting to highlight this book on Oscar-worship day, when actresses who portrayed somewhat normal and usually not glamorous women in their nominated films are pressured to starve themselves to wear skin-tight neglige-like gowns on the red carpet and adorn themselves with gaudy (and probably "blood") diamonds from designers jewelers who mandate bodyguards to watch the jewels (not the billboard mannekins sporting them around, who are easily replaced).  This book revolutionized the way I analyzed expectations placed on women in modern society, and twenty years later, nothing has improved.  The bottom line was, and still is, for women to succeed professionally, they better be attractive--but not too attractive.  Why?  Because if they're ugly or homely or overweight or badly dressed or unfeminine, they will be reviled no matter what their accomplishments...but if they are too sexy, too beautiful, too glamorous, they will not be taken seriously at all.  What does that add up to?  A narrow line the modern professional woman is expected to walk.  Witness master stylist Sarah Palin, who wore spike heels to exude sexuality but librarian glasses and pulled-back hair to signal her seriousness.  Would anybody still be talking about her if she let her hair go gray?  No, of course not.  What if she had foregone the glasses, barrette, and suits, and campaigned instead in plunging necklines, hoop earrings, and loose hair?  She would have fallen off the political radar screen.  As for Naomi Wolf, you can find her on the internet photographed with thick, flowing, hippie-style movie star hair, "natural look" make-up, and big (but exotic) earrings--because she learned the lesson well that female content is still judged by female packaging, and it's hard to look just pretty and just smart enough.

February 14, 2011

"Guns, Germs, and Steel".  A book that truly revolutionized my way of looking at history--ancient, modern, and in the making.  A comprehensive and insightful exploration of the impact that environmental determinism had on early human societies.  Just one example:  people who lived in a geographic region with useful animals for domestication developed much more rapidly than those without because they obtained easier protein supplies, plowing power, protection, faster transportation and/or guard animals.  Did South Pacific tribes practice cannibalism because they were protein-starved?  Did rainfed areas develop floursihing agriculture faster than dry/irrigated areas?  The list of environmental factors that Diamond explores is exhaustive and mesmerizing.  An author with both a breadth and depth of intellectual training rare in academia, Diamond put decades of research and thought into the analysis that produced this phenomenal book.  This book answered a litany of questions my own experiences in the Third World prompted me to ask about culture and development--and made me believe that maybe it actually is possible to figure out what it's all about.

January 23, 2011

"Lost in the Cosmos".  An astonishingly refreshing analysis of why modern people are so screwed up in this country.  (Short answer:  we'd have to be crazy to be happy about the state of things!)  Long before the invention of Facebook, Mr. Percy pointed out such not-so-obvious facts as:  how come when we look at a group photograph including ourselves, we always look for our own face first?  Don't we know what we look like?  A keen observer of the human mind and spirit, you will laugh repeatedly but also realize he truly is miles above the "self-help" authors prancing around with all the answers.  We continue to explore the cosmos, while barely comprehending ourselves.

 "The Chalice and the Blade".  There are books in this world, and then there are BOOKS.  This scholarly masterpiece by Ms. Eisler still influences me two decades after I first read it.  The book takes centuries of evidence "deciphered" by male archaeologists and shows how their male-only interpretation of the archaelogical record missed half the story.  You will never think about early human history--including the development of religious beliefs--the same way again. 

January 15, 2011

"Climate Wars".   Mr. Dyer, a renowned war journalist, examines climate change from the perspective of what it will do to international security.  (Short answer:  wreak havoc.)  While President Bush's White House alternatingly disputed or downplayed climate change for eight years, top security analysts in the military and intelligence communities recognized it for the potential threat it is, and continued to forecast and prepare for dangerous scenarios.  This book discusses likely droughts, floods, famines, as well as the inevitability of mass migrations caused by environmental problems to come.  When you stop to ponder that all of human history has been a story of mass migration, and that only in the past couple of centuries has migration become so politically difficult, you can see why extremely dire refugee situations and violent clashes for survival will only increase.  Though Mr. Dyer does outline possible ways we could still arrest climate change, he agrees with the growing consensus that it's too late to stop it.  We still need to minimize it as much as possible, but we also need to mitigate, adapt, and rethink how humanity will get through this together--if we can.

"Nature's Operating Instructions".  A must-read for budding young scientists (and scientist wannabes, like me!), this book explores celebrated "Bioneers" who have gone back to square one to study and then mimic Nature's own methods for cleaning water, propagating forests, removing toxins, and a myriad of other processes we need to reverse the damage caused by modern pollution.  From coating chain saws with mushroom spores to getting stormwater managers to stop viewing rain as an enemy, this books serves up heaps and heaps of inspiring ideas for putting more thought and less technology into cleaning up our act. It will make you wish you had your very own degraded site to play with, er, restore.

"Nomad".  Although Ms. Ali says at one point in this book that "all" Somali migrants in the Netherlands lied about being political refugees, the raw truth of this memoir is overpowering.  Ms. Ali takes an unflinching look back at the complex sociological factors that have shaped the Somalia of today--a breeding ground of misogyny, violence, and confused reverence for a mythological past that Somalia never had.  This book's explanation of the downward fall of radical Islam suggest a snowball of rigidity and anti-education picking up more and more weight and speed as it continues to careen downward, absorbing or destroying everything in its path.  The most radical element of the book is Ms. Ali's assertion that sexism is the most fundamental and violent threat in the modern world, with radical Islam bearing the full brunt of her fury.  This book made me want to rip veils off Moslem women everywhere I go.  It will dramatically challenge your views on religious tolerance--how can we tolerate intolerance?

May 30, 2020

"How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future". 

May 30, 2020

"How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future".