Walkaway, by Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow has a brilliant and insightful view of the future.  His new novel Walkaway echos some of the themes from his prior novels--maker culture, wide-spread net technology and accompanying surveillance, growing disparities between cultural strata--while creating a future history that might be believable.

In this near-future North America, many people have chosen to become walkaways, turning their backs on default society, living in open and deserted land, creating communal living communities.  It's a culture of abundance, where needs can be met by manufacturing plants and 3D printers fed by scavenged raw materials.  The economy of the walkaways relies on gifts, plenty, and voluntary participation.

Doctorow makes some interesting economic and philosophical points about capitalism, meritocracy, and society.  When the daughter of a very wealthy family decides to walkaway and embraces the walkaway culture, the flip sides of society come into contact and inevitable conflict.  Their family squabble becomes emblematic of and central to a larger global conflict. 

With Doctorow's style and thoughtfulness, there was enough in Walkaway to keep me interested and reading.  But overall, I didn't love the story.  The motives and actions of the big war against the walkaways were not compelling to me.  The manufacturing tech was contrived.  The explicit sex scenes were gratuitous and did not add to the story.  The homosexual coupling and transgenderism seemed out of place, a blatant attempt to push a cultural agenda.

Walkaway is not Doctorow's worst book, but, unlike some of his other fiction, it's not one I think I'd like to read again.

Dragon Teeth, by Michael Crichton

The late Michael Crichton was one of the most prolific and entertaining writers of the 20th century.  He remains the only writer to have the #1 book (Disclosure), #1 movie (Jurassic Park), and #1 TV show (ER) in the same year (1994).  After Crichton's death in 2008, his wife discovered an unpublished novel among his papers: Dragon Teeth.

In a way, Dragon Teeth doesn't fit with the bulk of Crichton's work.  Set in 1876, Crichton centers the story around the famous "Bone Wars" between paleontologists Othniel Marsh and Edwin Cope.  A Yale freshman, William Johnson, sets out with Marsh to experience the West.  He accompanies Marsh on a summer expedition to dig dinosaur bones.  After Marsh abandons him en route, Johnson falls in with Cope, and experiences first-hand the bitter rivalry between the two fossil hunters.  The conflict and some of the events Crichton depicts are real; Johnson and his adventures are fictional.

Johnson, an heir to a Philadelphia family fortune, is out of place in the rough and tumble world of dinosaur bone hunting.  But throw in some Indian attacks, gunfights in Deadwood, ambushes along the trail, and buddying up with the famous gunfighter Wyatt Earp, Johnson is a changed man.  While the setting seems out of character for Crichton (actually, The Great Train Robbery was an early bestseller for him . . .), the story is familiar: a team sets out on a scientific expedition, things go terribly wrong, a few people die, and the hero has to rely on new-found skills to survive and protect the scientific discoveries.

Dragon Teeth was a real pleasure to read.  Crichton ratchets up the interest level to a high point, then maintains it to a satisfying conclusion.  The blending of real characters, places, and events with fictional characters keeps things interesting.  It's too real to be totally made up, but not so wacky that it couldn't have been real.  For Crichton fans, this is a must-read, but any reader looking for a fun story will enjoy Dragon Teeth.


Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Trump's War, by Michael Savage

Without a hint of irony, Michael Savage writes that he had a huge hand in Donald Trump's getting elected.  Trump was on Savage's radio show, and Trump "heeded the advice I gave him and now his is the president of the United States."  Who can measure the influence of radio host?  It's really impossible, but there's no question Savage was rallying the troops for Trump, so it's not a stretch to conclude that at least some of his listeners pulled the lever for Trump as a result of Savage's influence.

You might think a book called Trump's War: His Battle for America, published so quickly after Trump's election, would be nothing but a cheerleading celebration of Trump.  Admittedly, Savage does some of that; his various uncomplimentary nicknames and descriptions of Obama and Hillary leave no question in anyone's mind how he feels about the Democrat leaders.  While he does laud Trump for some of his positions and early actions, his larger purpose is to hold Trump accountable.

We have already seen how political pressures and reality have forced Trump to moderate his positions in some cases.  Are we going to build a wall?  A fence?  Nothing?  Are we going to repeal Obamacare?  Replace it with something just as bad?  Are we going to defund Planned Parenthood?  On some of these issues, whether he wanted to or not, Trump has wavered from the key campaign promises that got him elected.

Savage breaks down some of the policy challenges that Trump is already facing or will face and lays out a plan of action.  His solutions make sense, at least to someone with a conservative bent.  He's not a hard-line conservative though.  He's sympathetic to a minimum wage and reasonable level of regulations on business.

Even though Trump has been beaten down by Democrats (of course), the press (of course), and plenty of Republicans (unfortunately), he has managed to accomplish some of his stated goals.  If he will heed Savage's advice from Trump's War, perhaps Savage can help him successfully accomplish more.

Within Walking Distance, by Philip Langdon

In my suburban Texas neighborhood, to get to the closest restaurant is a mile walk on a street with no sidewalk.  The nearest grocery store is closer to two miles.  Don't get me wrong; I like our quiet street, the lake across the street, and the woods behind us.  But it sure would be nice to have some shopping and dining options within a few minute's walk from my front door.

That is the dream that Philip Langdon writes about in Within Walking Distance: Creating Livable Communities for All.  Better said, that is the reality that he writes about, leading people like me to dream about living in a walkable neighborhood.  Langdon gives a detailed case study of 6 walkable communities around the United States, examining what makes them unique and what other communities might learn to become more walkable.

He defines the reference point of walkability as follows: "Building a city or town at the scale of the pedestrian meant that any able-bodied person could navigate the full range of local businesses, homes, institutions, and attractions without relying on anything more than his or her own power."  That's the ideal, and some of the homes in some of the neighborhoods he surveyed fit this description. 

Walkability is a wonderful ideal, and can be a factor for many people looking to relocate.  While the communities he profiles--and countless others--are walkable, Langdon doesn't sufficiently address some of the questions and barriers that prevent neighborhoods from being walkable.  Each of his profiled communities arguably have factors that predispose them to being or becoming walkable: proximity to a major city center and the jobs found there, proximity to a major university, a location that draws tourism and seasonal residents, or ethnic roots that presume deep community ties.

It also seemed that he communities he describes are destination locations.  While residential space is there, specialty stores, restaurants, street fairs and other entertainment, open-air markets, parks and the like draw many non-residents.  So, yes, it's walkable for the residents, but the viability of the area depends on attracting non-residents to patronize local establishments.  I don't see this as a problem, but I think it's worth pointing out that the walkable communities Langdon describes and promotes are not necessarily self-sustaining communities.  They are surrounded by more common suburban tracts or dispersed homes, whose residents hop in their cars to go to a walkable neighborhood for shopping, dining, entertainment, or recreation.

What would it take for my neighborhood and others like it to become walkable?  Lots of little stores and restaurants popping up in close proximity to one another.  Why doesn't that happen?  Because little stores and restaurants tucked away in walkable neighborhoods have great difficulty making a profit.  Does it happen?  Yes, happily, sometimes they survive.  But the reality is larger stores and restaurants on prominent thoroughfares draw more traffic and make more money.  Economies of scale are hard realities.

One other thing: with the population density of a walkable neighborhood, homes tend to be much smaller and much more expensive.  In my city, I can live in a $200,000, 1875 sq. foot home and drive everywhere, or I can move downtown to some more walkable neighborhoods and pay that for a one bedroom with 1/3 the square feet.  I am not willing to make that trade off.

I enjoyed reading about the neighborhoods in Within Walking Distance.  Someday if I don't have kids at home and have a lot more money, living in a neighborhood like that would be nice.  For now, it's a model for a select demographic.  Thankfully we live in a country that is diverse enough geographically and economically that highly concentrated, walkable neighborhoods can exist alongside their more spacious, less densely populated neighbors, sometimes in the same city.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness, by Paula Poundstone

Paula Poundstone is a stand-up comedian who I know from her appearances on NPR's Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me! quiz show.  For several years, she conducted her own investigation into happiness.  She developed an informal measure of happiness.  A "small amount of happiness could be a 'hep.' . . . If you're lucky enough to amass four of those, you've got yourself a whole 'balou' of happiness."  (These measures are named after her cats.)

In The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness, she experiments with a variety of activities to test the level of happiness she can achieve.  Her adventures and foibles are, as you might expect, more entertaining than particularly insightful.  She tries exercise: "While doing push-ups I don't worry much about the state of the world so much.  It's hard to be concerned about war in the Middle East while you can't breathe."  She tries computers: "Someday science will prove that a phone call is about a hundred times more efficient for a back-and-forth exchange than e-mail."  She tries social media: "Leave it to computers to destroy the meaning of one of the most valuable words in the human language." (This refers, of course, to "friendship" on social media.")

Getting her house in order, taking dance classes, renting a Lamborghini, volunteering, going to a meditation class, making it a practice to hug people she meets and other experiences contribute to her research.  Most of her stories gave me a hep or two of happiness, but, to be honest, the whole thing got a little tiresome.  Maybe I just don't fully appreciate her humor.  Maybe I just need to take her in small doses.

Woven throughout the book are stories of her life with her children.  She is an adoptive single mom, so there is plenty of craziness and busy-ness in their house.  For parents of children with disabilities, the sections on dealing with teachers, ARD meetings, and transitioning out of the home are particularly instructive and insightful.

I especially appreciated what ended up being one of her conclusive thoughts.  "I've long been familiar with the idea that true happiness is found in helping others, and I've always meant to get around to it."  By volunteering at a nursing home, she found that serving others selflessly produces plenty of "heps" of happiness.  She writes, "People need each other.  Our well-being is tightly tethered to the well-being of people we do not know, most of whom look nothing like ourselves.  Happiness . . . requires engagement."

The Totally Unscientific Study was intermittently funny, seemingly over-long, and occasionally insightful.  But I found no argument with Poundstone's conclusions and her attitude.  It's worth a read for a few heps of happiness.



Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Poetry for Kids: Walt Whitman, edited by Karen Karbiener, illustrated by Kate Evans

Was Walt Whitman the greatest American poet?  I don't know if you can pick a single greatest, but there is no question he is one of the greatest and most influential American poets.  In Poetry for Kids: Walt Whitman, Karen Karbiener has collected selections and excerpts from Whitman's poems, illustrated by Kate Evans, to introduce young readers to Whitman's memorable poetry.

Whitman's 19th century English may be off-putting to 21st century readers, but I don't believe it's inaccessible.  Karbiener helps with the language by providing brief glossaries for each poem, defining words that are more obscure or out of common usage.  Whether a child reads these on her own, or listens as a parent or older reader reads aloud, the beauty and rhythms of Whitman's work will come through.

The spare but colorful illustrations capture the time period of Whitman's writing, and support the poems without upstaging them.  This is a beautiful book which should encourage kids to read and reread Whitman's poetry.

Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

The Secret Knowledge, by David Mamet

For years I--like many others--have enjoyed David Mamet's entertaining and sometimes brilliant movies and plays.  Little did I know that this liberal Jewish writer had a conversion of sorts, becoming a solid conservative thinker.  In his 2011 book The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture, Mamet writes broadly and incisively on culture, politics, education, and economics, displaying a deep conservatism that breaks with his past and upbringing but which, he believes, is crucial to the American experience.

He has contempt for the Left and their version of modern Puritanism.  "The left proceeds, from day to day, in a sort of sad, wistful fury at all the things of life not recognized in its cosmogony.  To them, in an inversion of the truly, historically, Liberal philosophy, everything not permitted is forbidden."  In a form of groupthink, "the Left functions, primarily, through its power as a primitive society or religion, dedicated above all to solidarity, and not only to acceptance but to constant promulgation of its principles, however inchoate, as 'self-evident' and therefore beyond question."

Writing shortly after Obama was elected, I think he hits on a key feature of modern American politics.  The Left marches in lock-step.  Nary a Democrat opposed a word out of Obama's mouth.  By contrast, Trump, who, granted, has plenty of flaws, faces vehement opposition from prominent members of his own party every time he turns around.

One of Mamet's targets is that great bastion of the Left, higher education.  University liberal arts departments have become indoctrination camps, where children of privilege go to learn "to be shrill, and that their indictment, on the economy, on sex, on race, on the environment, though based on no experience other than hearsay, must trump any discourse, let alone opposition."  Far be it from them to learn a useful skill that will help them contribute to society.

He sees his own ungrateful generation (he's a baby boomer, born in 1947) as "destructive of that very world which . . . is a wonderful place to live in, and has given us a great country."  They have been "living off a trust fund; the productivity of our parents, and of the two hundred and more years work of those who preceded them."

Mamet writes broadly but with depth and clarity.  He states that he had never read or listened to any conservative thought until late in his life.  It's interesting to hear his perspective, coming from one who spent most of his life as a liberal, but gaining revelation that moved him toward deeply conservative thinking.  Reading this in the early days of the Trump presidency, I am reminded of the principles which guide us in the voting booth.  Trump obviously was an imperfect candidate and is an imperfect president, but as Mamet lays out the case against the Left, I am once again thankful that a Democrat is not in the White House.