Yeah Yeah behavioral economics has been around for a couple decades. But it's NEW to me! I listened to The Undoing Project about the friendship between psychologists Danny Kahneman and Amos Tversky and there were times when I wished I was reading it because the concepts are something I needed to see and mull over. All the while alarm bells are ringing in my head about how I can apply these concepts to my own job and work. Why does cross-discipline happen so slowly or so happenstance? In any event, these two amazing brilliant people somehow had the good fortune (for us) to meet at Hebrew University in the early 70s/late 60s and change how we understand how people make decisions. Until Kahneman and Tversky, everyone assumed that people are rational creatures who make decisions loosely aligned to statistical probabilities and sound logic. But guess what?! We're not. We're crazy emotional beings who make decisions against logic and failing to account for this was causing economists to miss wildly in predictions. So behavioral economics comes along and takes Kahneman and Tversky's theories and findings and blows apart all the traditional thinking about decision making and now it's a whole field and gah when can I get in on this and where can I find out more? I love the story of two brilliant people creating very lovely mind expanding theories based on the combined strengths of the group. This was well written (of course it was it's Michael Lewis FGS). And while the science could get a little heavy it was still accessible. Loved this book and the way it made my brain want more.
4/5 Stars.
YES!!! After a slightly less than stellar last edition I was so ready for this one to be awesome and it was amazing! Ploughshares Summer 2018 and was edited by Jill McCorkle who admitted in her introduction that she didn't have an overall theme in mind but said she liked "to be pulled in for a ride where I'm not quite sure where I'm going but feel confident that the driver does know and will indeed deliver me to the right place." And she totally nailed it with this collection. There were a lot of stories that brought humor out of some very dark places. So here were some of my favorites:Belle Boggs - In the Shadow of Man: This story is told from the POV of a dad who has arrived to his daughter's progressive school to find she hasn't yet returned from a field trip. What starts as parent irritation quickly descends into the spiraling panic of a separation that lasts longer than it should. I probably over-identified with the feelings and the story made me so nervous I repeatedly kept myself from advancing to the end to find out the ending. Ashley Crews - Day One: An aunt who has been given custody of her nephew. Slowly the reason for her husband being in jail is teased out and it's so much worse than I initially thought. But the way the Aunt and nephew learn to heal each other is really the bright spot of an otherwise devastating story.Lee Clay Johnson - Four Walls Around Me to Hold My Life: Yikes, this story pulled down the ennui of rural America and held on to it until the whole world was permeated with a nihilistic sense of futility. BUT it was done soooo well. A man and his girlfriend fight. He tries to drown his sorrows at a bar and then at a strip club. It doesn't go well. Louise Marburg - Minor Thefts: Oh boy, this one brought on my teenage parental divorce feelings. Emma's parents are getting divorced and her parents are making weird choices, and she's seeking out some love of her own which is not going well. I got a little angsty reading it and remembering how I felt at the same age. So here's where Jill McCorkle is spot on, because these stories just dropped me right into the feeling of the stories.Dan McDermott - Ramtha: Talk about finding humor in dark places. A teenager's mom gets into a cult and moves him out to the compound where the leader of the cult, Ramtha, rules. Yikes, but also hilarious.Serene Taleb-Agha - A Hiker's Guide to Damascus: I loved this non-fiction story about the days Taleb-Agha joined a hiking group in Damascus after living in America. It was a really timely piece both about Syria and the United States. So again, this collection was so good and I liked them so much. I can't wait to send this to my sister so she can read them and then I can relive them again in talking about them with her.
5/5 Stars.
Poor Eleanor Flood has spent the last ten years of her life fighting her own inertia. She's moved to Seattle with her famous hand-surgeon husband Joe, and is less than busy raising their 9-year-old son, Timby. Once upon a New York, Eleanor was the animation director of a popular TV show called Looper Wash. But since then she's sort of lost her way. But on this day, the day covered in this delightful book, she promises upon waking that Today Will Be Different. She will be present in her conversations with people, she will spend time with Timby, she will initiate sex with Joe. So of course her plan goes off the rails early when she is about to meet up with someone for lunch when she gets a call from Timby's school saying he has a stomach ache and needs to be picked up. Between Eleanor's awkwardness and inability to recognize/remember faces/names, a lot starts to go wrong. Joe, who is supposed to be a work is not. Her lunch date with friend Sydney Madsen turns out to be a lunch date with a former Looper Wash intern, Spencer Martel. Eleanor is forced to face the reality of her life and her wasted potential and talent. So the day does turn out to be different, just not in any of the ways Eleanor imagined. The thing I enjoy about Maria Semple's work, is that although the characters can be a bit out there, there are some real life gems in the way she creates conflict for the main characters - in this story between Eleanor and her sister Ivy. And Semple isn't afraid to not wrap up those conflicts in a neat bow. I appreciate that, because it's not true to life.
4/5 Stars.
I've never wanted to travel to Alaska as badly as I did after reading this book. The Snow Child is set in 1920s Alaska - before statehood and oil booms, when the government wanted desperately for people to go and settle the seemingly untameable land. And so people did. They went, and they failed, and they returned to the lower 48. But this story is about Jack and Mabel, who ran a farm in Pennsylvania until the weight of their grief over losing and then not being able to bear children became too great. Seeking solitude and a fresh start, Jack and Mabel choose to start a homestead in Alaska.But, well, it's not going very well. Mabel is very depressed, and Jack isn't quite prepared for the ruggedness and the work required to tame the land. So one night, after a fresh snowfall, they are filled with a whimsy and a memory of their early days together and build a snowgirl. They dress her in red mittens and hat and paint her lips with cranberry juice. The next morning, the snowgirl is knocked over and they begin to glimpse a girl in the woods.They eventually befriend the girl, Faina, a wild child who is one with the woods. She disappears in the spring and returns in the winter. Based on a old Russian folktale, the story rides the edge of fantasy and reality. The writing is absolutely fantastic and honestly if it were straightforward it would have been just as good. But it's not entirely straightforward and I appreciate the latitude the author gives the reader in deciding the ultimate fate of the characters. Too say too much else would give away the ending and maybe determine too much that is best left to the imagination.
4/5 Stars.
I picked this Kindle version up when I saw something with Wally Lamb's name on it was only $1.99. I've loved Wally Lamb ever since reading I Know This Much is True in college. Given my surprise when I began reading and discovered it was not a book written by him, but a collection of stories from women incarcerated in York Prison in Connecticut, I was pleased to find I actually enjoyed much of the content of this collection. Lamb gives an excellent introduction for I'll Fly Away, delving into why the writing workshops performed in the prison were important and ultimately successful for many of the inmates. It was sad, but not ultimately surprising, to learn that the State of Connecticut sought to recoup money from the women who had made modest profits from having their work published. While the stories are deeply personal tales from the women themselves, all non-fiction reflections of their lives in and out of prison, the whole collection invokes broader themes of domestic abuse and violence, and the punitive v. rehabilitative aims of mass incarceration in America. Do we want those convicted to be punished for their crime, or do we as a society, benefit more from individuals being rehabilitated and unlikely to offend again? (Did I tip my hand with the way I asked that question?). There is something grossly dehumanizing about numbering and locking people away that I think does damage to both captive and jailer. That's not to say that some people are too violent and damaged in a way that means they should not ever be allowed in society again, but the way in which we house and incarcerate large swaths of our population should be examined. Hearing first hand accounts from these women help to keep them from being mere names and numbers in a sea of inmates, and hopefully helps show their human sides, our shared humanity after all, is a great equalizer.
3/5 Stars.
When a light such as Anthony Bourdain is extinguished too early, there's a desire to revisit his work and try to grasp for just a moment a little bit of that lost light. That is what reading Kitchen Confidential is like, two months after his tragic suicide.
Bourdain was a troubled but gifted young adult who grew, truly grew, to be an influential and curious traveler and culinary mind. In Kitchen Confidential, you can see the beginnings of his later works - No Reservations and Parts Unknown. Through his early stories of personal and financial failure and his burgeoning influence as the Chef of Les Halles, it's just possible to see the thread of the force he would become.
To say he's gone too soon is an understatement. It's a loss for the world at large that this voice of understanding and global fellowship is now silent. The things I enjoyed most about his shows, was his unending curiosity of the people and the culture of whatever location he was visiting, and also his gratitude for the hospitality he was shown. He was un-entitled and warm. In Kitchen Confidential, you see hints of that, especially in the chapter detailing his trip to Tokyo, where he confesses to the ultimate travel sin of McDonalds and Starbucks. ("See, this famous chef is just like me when confronted with strange food!")
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and its look at the inside workings of a kitchen. I am saddened all over again at Bourdain's death. But am thankful for the gifts he gave us along the way.
4.5/5 Stars.
I always like spending time with Gabriel Allon, but I wonder just how many missions he has left in him. When The English Spy begins, Gabriel is anxiously awaiting the birth of his twins while restoring the Caravaggio he recovered a couple books ago. But well, in steps Graham Seymour after a Princess Diana type character is blown up on her yacht.At the heart of the bombing is an ex-IRA rebel named Aemon Quinn (remember I listen to these things people so I'm sorry about the spelling). Turns out this is just one of the guys who captured and tortured Christopher Keller when he was an SAS man in Belfast. Aemon Quinn has been working on behalf of belligerent governments ever since. His plot pulls in both Keller and Gabriel.Keller begins his transition back to life as an Englishman and away from his time as a paid assassin. There are a lot of "coincidences" and connections in this book which are a bit of a stretch, but Gabriel still runs a tight ship and a good operation. When he's the chief of the office I don't know how much more action his 60 year old body can take, but I guess I'll find out when I'm finally caught up with Silva's feverish writing pace. All in all, all the beloved characters are in this book and all the elements that make for a good Allon novel. But how much more gas does this favored spy have? Are the books making a turn to start following Keller instead?
3 1/2 / 5 Stars.
