Non-Fiction – Page 3 – A Bevy of Books

my apples and their tomatoes

I picked up Apples & Oranges: My Brother & Me, Lost and Found by Marie Brenner because it implied that it could answer the question of how you get along with people with opposing ideologies, i.e. your rabidly Republican uncle who thinks your gay friends should be shot, or your disgustingly liberal cousin who thinks that all the rich people should be placed in work camps. You have to see them on holidays, you genuinely like them as people, but how do you get around these sometimes-insurmountable obstacles to polite conversation?

Well, the book had no answers. And I don’t blame the author, I blame the idiots who created the sales pitch and tag lines and whatnot. What the author was writing was a very personal book about trying to be close to her brother as an adult, after years of aggravation and fighting. Yes, they had differing political views, but that was not the core of their disconnect, it was merely another symptom, a hot-button to blame for the anger and lack of communication. Brenner does a decent job of exploring their childhood and their extended family relations, trying to figure out exactly where the pattern originated and maybe find a clue as to how to overcome it.

I thought the book was good, but not great. Brenner is a journalist and can clearly write a good sentence, but I didn’t think the book was all that interesting. I love memoirs, but this one didn’t hold my interest. It seemed like the kind of book that was therapy for the author rather than something meaningful to be shared with readers. On the plus side, I now have a favorite kind of apple – Honeycrisp.

Living in Portland means that I live in apple country. And being a conscious shopper, I try to buy local as much as possible. I am also trying to eat healthier – more fresh fruits and vegetables, for example. The problem is, I’m not a big fan of apples, at least not the uncooked kind (give me a baked apple pie with caramel and ice cream and I’m yours forever). In A&O, the brother grows specialty fruits – mostly apples and pears (much of the book takes place in Washington state). Learning about the fruit-growing business was one of the ways that Brenner reconnected with her brother. So there was a lot of talk about apples, and he often rhapsodized about the Honeycrisp, so I picked one up at New Seasons on my next shopping trip. To my surprise, it was significantly different than your basic Granny Smith or Red Delicious – and yummy. Who says reading isn’t good for ya?

What have you spent 10,000 hours doing?

I wrote a fan post to Malcolm Gladwell a few weeks ago after reading Blink, so it should be no surprise to any of you that I picked up another of his books, Outliers – this one about successful people and how they did not get that way alone. As with Blink, this book was filled with much food for thought – and that is exactly why I am now officially a Malcolm Gladwell groupie. He looks at everything from the birth dates of leading hockey players to the rice patties of Southeast Asia to the garment district in New York City during the Depression to show that time and place had as much to do with success as a particular person’s individual skills.

What he’s NOT saying is that people like Bill Gates aren’t talented, hard-working and motivated. What he is saying is that things like where you live, who your parents are and what you spend your time doing count as much as individual effort. Mr. Microsoft wasn’t just bright and skilled in math, he went to a school that had one of the earliest on-demand computers in the country, and virtually unlimited access to that computer where he could practice his programming skills. Without that, he may have become Bill Gates, regular joe.

The part I remember most about Outliers is the 10,000 hours theory. According to many different sources referencing many different skills, 10,000 hours of practice is what it takes to become a master at something – whether it be playing the violin, programming a computer or playing hockey. Ever since I read that chapter, I’ve been thinking about those 10,000 hours.

While I was reading it, I immediately thought of what I’d spent my 10,000 hours on – reading! Now, of course, I always knew that the reason I was good at English and analyzing literature was because I spent so much time reading, but this is ‘knowing’ in a different way. If 10,000 hours of practice is the amount of time it takes to master a skill – well, I hit that a long time ago – before I got to college. Obviously, I am an expert at reading because I love it – but I also had a big sister who taught me to read before kindergarten, and parents who encouraged reading, took me to the library when we couldn’t afford books, and never told me to put the book down and do something else.

I’m not here to make judgments, but I think – for some people at least – a re-framing of the definition of talent/expertise would be valuable. How do you get to be a professional ball player? – 10,000 hours of practice. That is a finite – if rather large – goal a person can chip away at. I find myself wanting to impress this knowledge upon my son somehow – not in a ‘what are you wasting your life on’ kind of way, but more of a ‘you can choose what you will be a master of – what is it that you will choose?’ And if what you want to be a master of is wasting time on the internet – well, at least you should be consciously choosing it! I wouldn’t be surprised if web-searching wasn’t something you could be employed for in the future. So maybe we should be less uptight about all that time our children waste on the weird things that interest them – those things could turn out to be something incredible if they are willing to put the time in.

It also puts new spin on those ‘mid-life’ career changes that used to be such a big deal (though increasingly, anyone who hasn’t changed careers 3 times by mid-life is an anachronism). But if you hadn’t hit 10,000 hours on something by your early 20s (when you had to hit the workforce), you may well have done it by your mid-40s and ‘suddenly’ have a new skill to market.

Maybe I’m making more of this than there is, but, as you can see, Gladwell’s got me thinking in new and interesting ways. And this is just one facet of a book full of insights like this!

Yes, I am a big fan of analysis and the human experience – why do you ask? Pardon me, I must get back to working on my second 10,000 hours of reading – or is it my third? Feel free to tell me what you spent your 10,000 on.

What to read about what to eat

Many of you already know that I started paying close attention to what I eat a few years ago – and have become steadily more informed and therefore more picky about what I put in my mouth (take that one any way you like). It started (of course!) with a $3 book, written in 1979 called (I believe) Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Nutrition, which has since disappeared from my collection. Then I gave up beef because I had a craving I couldn’t get rid of. Then I read Fast Food Nation. And on and on. I told my son I would have to stop reading or I wouldn’t eat anything at all. Thankfully, there are farmer’s markets, cool organic grocery for mindful eaters – such as New Seasons and Natural Pantry – and a growing awareness in the world, so I haven’t starved just yet.

I bring all this up because I read another book on the human-food relationship, this one called The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, the author of In Defense of Food and other books, and the co-writer of the film Food, Inc with Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation). What first surprised me about the book was the dilemma referred to in the title.

In Pollan’s mind, the current U. S. omnivore’s dilemma is too many choices and not enough history. He’s not supporting the industrialization of the food supply – and he gives economic, gastric and nutritional reasons why – but he puts the current situation of fad diets and flip-flopping nutritional advice into a historical context.

Being an omnivore allowed us to flourish in difficult times, since we could eat so many different things. But now the availability of so many different things all the time creates a different kind of obstacle. Culture has always assisted us in making food choices, and it is the absence of a stable, universal culture in the U.S, coupled with the economical success our country enjoys, that make us vulnerable to the crazy food fads and yo-yoing advice on what to eat – much of that advice profit-driven, not health-driven at all.

I really liked the fact that Pollan is not on a fanatical crusade to indict the industrial food complex and those who eat from it. He approaches his research like a journalist and uses his personal experiences for description, not to sensationalize. He does not confuse exposition with indoctrination. He doesn’t assume that his perspective is universal – he shares his experience and allows you to draw your own conclusions. He works through the economic calculations with the reader before he shares the results of those equations. And it’s only those kinds of details that he takes as facts to be applied universally. Numbers are not subjective. And if he includes expenses or other factors you don’t consider important or germane, you can see them and re-work the equations for yourself (not that there’s a math test or anything…).

What you get is a treatise on four different food chains – the industrial complex, the organic industrial complex, local and personal. He puts together four meals, following each item from its origin to his plate, and takes you along with him. This includes his very first hunt, mushroom gathering, a sustainable farm, the new large-scale organic operations, and the typical corn plant and slaughterhouse cow. I’ve read a lot on this subject, and I’ve never seen anything this comprehensive, even-handed and enjoyable to read.

Read the book – it’s good for you.

Who doesn’t like getting naked?

David Sedaris is one crazy man, and I mean that in the best way. I collect crazy people. I only wish that I could add him to my stable of friends instead of just my bookshelf. The David Sedaris I know from his memoir, naked, is the kind of friend you want to hang out with (though probably not live with or depend on in any significant way). He is not afraid to reveal the most embarrassing details of his life – past and present – and possibly even invent more so as to be even more entertaining. His self-deprecating manner belies his ego and together make the David we read about a hilarious character in a mundane world. No subject is off-limits. Incest, poor job skills, immigrant grandparents, facial tics, cancer – none of these topics fails to get a laugh in his capable hands.

For those who have issues with that big, fat line between the Truth and everything else, this may not be your kind of memoir. I don’t mean to say that Sedaris is a liar (see: James Frey making up whole sections of his supposed true story of addiction and recovery), but that he relates his past in the way that he experienced it – full of imagined realities and the recurring wish that his life was other than it was.

The line between truth and fiction is porous and often impossible to find — and really unimportant here. Sedaris seems to write memoirs in order to reveal a truth so universal that we all know it while we spend our lives trying to escape it. Namely – we are all crazy and misunderstood, but somehow loved all the same. Families are dysfunctional and damaging but still the thing that made us into the incredibly unique and hum-drum individuals we are today and will become tomorrow.

I took a Creative Non-fiction writing course last summer, and Sedaris was one of the authors we read examples from. I liked what I read, so his name was added to the ‘maybe’ list. I saw his Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim at the library and loved it. I got naked at Borders, along with bonk. So you all know what was on my mind that day….

Sedaris is often lumped in with Augusten Burroughs, both funny, gay male memoirists. And while I enjoyed Running with Scissors by Burroughs, Sedaris is more to my tastes. I think the quality of observation in Sedaris’s writing is thorough and expressive, whereas Burroughs is closer to internal monologue than analytic exposition. Which is a lot of big words to say that Sedaris has more to say about his life (or imagined life), while Burroughs seems to just describe it –though he does that in an entertaining and skillful manner. Anyone unaware of my penchant for analysis has not been paying attention.

So next time you have an evening with no friends to entertain you, curl up with with my buddy, Dave, and exercise your mind and your abs at the same time. Cocktails optional.

Fangirl post: Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

I think I have always been a fan of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. I can remember being in sixth grade and finding out that President Reagan had nominated a woman as Supreme Court Justice. We must have talked about it at school, because the memory is attached to my classroom (shout-out to Mr. Brown’s sixth grade, Iditarod Elementary!). She’s been a fabulous role model and has written some wonderful decisions that make clear (to me at least) how the law protects individuals from government intervention. I recently read two books of hers – Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest (with her brother H. Alan Day) and The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice.

I saw Justice O’Connor on Charlie Rose years ago (I believe in support of Lazy B) and was so impressed with her class and poise. Rose – hardly a pushy interviewer – had asked her to comment on her fellow justices (Clarence Thomas, in particular – a rather mild question regarding his lack of decision writing during his tenure on the Court) and she told him, very calmly and politely, that she would not discuss her colleagues. When he asked another question similar to the first, she just sat – dignified and attentive – waiting for the next question. Not sullen, not defensive, not angry or even irritated. She had already answered him and was very comfortable sitting in silence until he asked a new question worth answering. It was so cool! My respect for her leaped higher.

I tend to be a passionate defender of women’s rights and the feminist perspective. Justice O’Connor is a calm, reasoned defender of the inherent rights in all persons, defended in this country by the Constitution and the three branches of government created by that fabulous document. I get riled up about women getting paid less and treated as sex objects; she deliberates quietly about what the Bill of Rights says, how men and women have used the Rule of Law to defend themselves against unjust actions. When I read what she’s written, I remember that what provokes my – often emotional – response can also be defended by citing law and reason. I’m glad she’s around to do it for us, because I certainly do not have that kind of poise and equanimity.

That interview was 7 years ago, but I just finally read Lazy B, as well as The Majesty of the Law. Neither of these books is terribly exciting or plot-driven. Lazy B – written with her brother – is the story of their childhood on a ranch which cut across the border between Arizona and New Mexico. Lazy B reads more like an essay or a biography – but not of a person, but rather a place and way of life. It follows the lives of the people who lived and worked that ranch – their parents, cowhands and others – and how a great deal of self-confidence and self-sufficiency was necessary to keep it running profitably. Anyone interested in ranching life in the Southwest during the first half of this century would enjoy it, as well as those who were interested in Justice O’Connor’s early life. Anyone looking for juicy details about O’Connor (or her family) will be disappointed. She brings the same sense of decorum to the book as she does to other aspects of her demeanor.

The Majesty of the Law is what to read if you are looking for insight into the mind of O’Connor. Again, not a personal or exciting book, but filled with what influenced her in the past and interests her now regarding the law in the U.S. and beyond. She looks at the creation of the Supreme Court and its authority, how the Court has changed, and influential Justices over the last 200 years. She also discusses her views on way to improve the current system (revamp the jury system, reintroduce ethics into the legal profession) and the spread of the Rule of Law throughout the world. All of this with a thoroughly reasoned approach that makes it clear that she has facts, figures, history and law to back up her conclusions.

I wonder if she was chosen as Supreme Court Justice because of her grace, or being a Supreme Court Justice caused her to become so refined. Either way, it makes me sad that she no longer sits with those who are looking out for us.