Becca

Remember your favorite chemistry teacher? The one who always anthropormorphized chemical compounds and added drama and flavor to their lectures? This book is a lot like that.

Okay, fine, chemistry is a substantial part of my livelihood, so maybe I have more fond chemistry-based memories than then average person. Nonetheless, The Disappearing Spoon should be as enticing to those who never took a science class outside of distribution requirements as well as those of us whose favorite class was organic chemistry.

To be honest, I was pretty nervous about this book; as a biochemist, it makes me a little uncomfortable to admit that there's anything interesting outside of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen (and a touch of phosphorus and sulfur.) But Kean's writing is the definition of compulsively readable.

Drama is brought by the often argumentative, usually eccentric and always genius scientists who founded the principals of modern chemistry. In addition, each chapter is riddled with historical anecdotes staring a particular element or two. But the real richness of the book comes from Kean's ease with the science itself, describing valence shells, chemical bonds, radioactivity, fusion and fission in accurate, accessible and extremely lively ways.

By far the Keys to the Demon Prison is the strongest book in the Fablehaven series. In it, Mull corrects many of his earlier mistakes, by creating nuanced and interesting characters on all sides. He highlights shifting alliances and the difficulties arising from allying with those currently convenient. Of particular note is the comparison that Mull draws between Seth and the Sphinx in the early part of the book.

The plot is also entertaining, with even more creative settings and creatures. Some of the flaws that plagued the early books, such as villain monologuing, plot that turns out to be largely unnecessary, and repetition of exposition to each character in turn, are still present in Keys to the Demon Prison, but in attenuated form. Mull also tries to actually highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each character, rather than play on gender norms as was the case in early books.

This was the year of Mary Roach for me: I had always been hesitant about her books - Bonk seemed to flippant, Stiff irreverant and she was altogether too popular - always a sign that a pop science author doesn't know what she or he is talking about.

So I picked up Packing for Mars because one of my friends was insistent that Mary Roach was actually a great author, and by the title it seemed the least likely to offend, and, to be perfectly honest, there needs to be a new law of physics to describe the force that over time pulls me in to any book on astronomy.

To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement. Roach is clearly a scientific writer, rather than a scientist, which is a niche in need of more authors: she writes with a fluidity that is lacking in some popular science books written by scientists, but more than that, she functions in this odd way as an audience surrogate - bringing with her the curiosity (sometimes scatological) of her readers and commenting along the way about her anticipation for meetings, her rationale for her questions and a description of how she finds out the information that she shares. It is a unique authorial voice and one that I enjoyed thoroughly.
The content itself is a complete exploration into the NASA space program - short on hoopla and long on (sometimes scatological) details. Roach is complete, explaining, for instance, every type of food tried, the nutritional assessments, texture and composition of astronaut food, followed up by how it is actually eaten, including concerns about the ability to swallow in space, and which were substantiated and which were not.

Yes, she is a little long on the scatology, but I think that bothers me more than it does the average reader. And while there is a heavy dose of humor, it is mostly witty and tongue-in-cheek, more than gross-out humor. I've been converted: Long live Mary Roach!

I was hoping for a fun romp through the crazy fad diets of the last several hundred years. This exists for the first couple of chapters, but it really quite short on each diet. Nevertheless, this part is pretty interesting and a good discussion of dieting culture: “most Americans truly had no clue how to eat anymore”

And then, a rant about obesity in America, with no reference to the fact that it could be related to that one, extremely insightful quote. Or to the fact that yoyo dieting leaves most people heavier than they started, which Yager even discusses, but does not in anyway connect to her hundred page rant about obesity. (By the way, in case you're living on the moon, obesity is a problem in America, and this is somehow thought to be novel enough to be worth several chapters.)

And then I got even more frustrated as the last three chapters where Yager is completely credulous about organic food and says crazy stuff like organic food is inherently healthier, eating organic will make Americans more conscious about their food choices and that modern Americans don't diet anymore and that the obesity problem is going to be solved as Americans choose to eat organic. Seriously, talk about living on the moon, or at least in her non-food desert, upper middle class, Whole Foods-going bubble.

And then she hit a nerve when she tied in the hemolytic uremic syndrome outbreak of 2009 into “Americans not being aware enough of food” and being too willing to buy “cheap food.” I personally took care of several patients during the outbreak and to blame their illness on their (smart, caring, insightful and upper-middle class) parents who apparently are at fault for buying hamburger meat really rankled.

Well, that was a huge chore. Shulevitz ostensible set out to explore the history of Shabbat and whether it still has meaning in the modern age. I would still read the heck out of that book, if anyone would like to write it.

But not Shulevitz. I will never read anything she writes ever again. I've read a lot of bad books, but rarely finished a book with such a strong antipathy for an author. It's not just Shulevitz's writing style, although there's certainly a lot to complain about there:
the prose is disorganized and often self-contradictory (some examples: in one portion Christians celebrating Sabbath on Sunday were considered anti-Shabbat, and in another the same activity is considered Sabbatizing; Christians don't celebrate a Sabbath in the Roman world because it's too hard when you're a minority group, but in the previous chapter, being a minority group is given as a reason that Jews persisted in celebrating Shabbat); the topic selection is eclectic enough to be completely dismissive of the reader – pages of quoting Wordsworth because he once wrote a poem in which a single line references the Sabbath? An entire section on the author's experience in a talmud study group with no discussion of Shabbat at all? Why not, I guess...
*the completely undeserved authoritative tone. At one point Shulevitz quotes several rabbis saying one thing and then follows that up with “but I think [the complete opposite]”, without any reason, then continues on as though her point of view is clearly the correct one. In another, following several pages of quotes from the New Testament about Jesus breaking the Sabbath she says “Obviously, the historic Jesus observed Shabbat.” Really, obviously? We'll just take it as a given that Jesus was shomer shabbat in face of all available evidence because...Shulevitz says so?

But also, the slim autobiographical sections displayed the same personality. In writing about her mother becoming a rabbi in her 50's (P.S. I would totally read that autobiography), Shulevitz relays that because no congregation would accept a female rabbi, her mother became a hospital chaplain. She then dismisses reports that her mother got extremely good feedback on her bedside manner by saying “my mother never had patience for the sick.” Then follows that up with the most offensive statement I've ever read in a modern book: “she was basically a glorified nurse”. Yes, that's right, chaplains? Glorified nurses. As someone who works alongside both chaplains and nurses, I struggled to decide on whose behalf I was more horrified. She then states that the whole situation was so troubling to Shulevitz (Why? Unclear.) that she had to go to psychoanalysis.

As an aside, Shulevitz loves psychoanalysis. She starts the intro by comparing Shabbat to psychoanalysis, because they both are considered antiquated, but are valuable. Or, I mean, psychoanalysis is a completely debunked form of pseudoscience, but whatever. She then spends the first chapter writing about Jewish psychoanalytics, including Freud, and speaks extensively and lovingly about Freud in the conclusion.

More evidence that Shulevitz is exactly as she portrays herself: A hilarious passage in which she says that she was frequently asked if she was going to become a Rabbi, since she knew scripture so well. She appears to have no insight into the fact that her knowledge of scripture, consisting of a single adult Talmud class, is quite lean.

Beyond my antipathy towards Shulevitz, the book was also frustratingly not any one thing. She never even articulates what a standard Shabbat would look like to an Orthodox family, instead strictly equating “Sabbath” with “free time” except for one confused passage where she tries to distinguish different types of Sabbaths, but puts Dickens' Sabbath in as contrasting subtypes “romantic” and “scientific” in different paragraphs. She seems to have done no research at all, which she excuses by calling this book an “autobiography”. And yet, for an autobiography, there's really not much there, either. I know that Shulevitz was raised Jewish and didn't like religion. She went to a Jewish overnight camp, where she felt the least educated in Judaism. Then she went on one date with an orthodox guy. Then she went to the synagogue that was the set for the Melanie Griffith/orthodox movie, because it was the movie set, but kept going back and crying in the back. Then she went to an adult talmud class, where she developed a crush on the rabbi. Then she stopped going to synagogue. Then she started going to synagogue again, because she got married. Now she tries to keep Shabbat, but mostly fails. Her children go to Jewish day school, but don't believe in G-d. That is literally the entirety of the autobiographical information in the book, with no more exploration into why these things have happened or what they mean to her.

I almost gave back a star for the admittedly interesting study of the Sabbatarian sects of Christianity, including the Anabaptist schism and the heaving Judaized Christianity of Transylvania. That was cool and novel to me. But less than 10% of the book, and given her error-prone statements in the parts of the book where I had background knowledge, I just can't trust anything she says.

Reading The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, my overwhelming feeling was how very Holmesian the book felt. Each chapter dealt with a different mystery (excepting the earliest chapters, which instead were Precious' back story.) However, the whole book was in chronological order and themes and techniques that occurred earlier would recur in later stories – very evocative of Doyle's classic mystery works.

So the layout, was an initial draw for me. What kept me reading was the theme; most of the mysteries in this installation revolve around the relationships between women and men – dating, affairs, familial relationships, etc. McCall Smith paints Precious as somewhat of a feminist (a “modern woman”), while contrasting her with the mores of the more traditional people in her town. At times, I felt that the narrative swung the other way – depicting men as scoundrels and cheaters, which I felt was unnecessary.

Much has been made of McCall Smith's portrayal of Botswana, and this is where the book truly shines. I had no small amount of trepidation about reading a book with an African female protaganist written by a white man, but it turned out to be unfounded. McCall Smith depicts Botswana aptly, with no hint of Orientalism. It is clear from the outset that McCall Smith loves Subsaharan Africa, and his portrayal of such is fair, not veering into noble savages on one extreme, or war-torn, abject poverty on the other. In addition, McCall Smith takes care to show the reader Botswana itself, with the politics and history, rather than a generic “Africa” setting. This delicacy and honesty is what truly promotes the book from a three star rating to a four.

This was another book that did not live up to the premise of its (totally awesome) title. In fact, I found it so boring that I've apparently put off reviewing for two weeks.

What I expected was an exploration of polygamy, emotions, and the idea of being lonely when surrounded by people. Maybe also, being a Jewish woman from the eastern half of the country, and therefore having very little exposure to Mormons and known to FLDS, I have a bizarre fascination with them.

What I got was a quality author acting like he could get away with the most basic of midlife crisis plots by adding a couple extra wives. With four wives and a potential fifth, a mistress, a mob boss, an anarchist bomber and 20-somthing children, you'd think that at least some of the supporting characters would have something in the way of character development. Unfortunately, it was mostly a bumbling, completely unsympathetic putz of a main character and the son cast in his own image with no characterization of the remaining cast.

On the other hand, Udall's use of nuclear experimentation as a foil for interpersonal dynamics worked beautifully (if not a little on the wordplay side of things.)

I will try to find the words to fully capture the love that I have for “Cutting for Stone.” I have kept Verghese on my list of clinical superheroes ever since I read his memoir, “In My Own Country;” however, I had been hesitant to read “Cutting for Stone” because, in my experience, physician penned memoirs lead only to disappointment. Verghese; however, is as much a master writer as he is a master clinician. Although “Cutting for Stone” is a medical story (highlights include attribution to his characters the first living donor liver transplant, the discovery of caffeine for apnea of prematurity and others), it is not foremost a story about medicine. Instead it is an semi-coming of age epic about how people form connections to each other, push others away in the pursuit of perfection and ultimately about self-actualization through realization of human bond.

Despite such lofty ambitions, Verghese never lets idealism or heavy-handedness overpower the fact that “Cutting for Stone” is indeed a novel. His characters shine - each individuals, each with amazing strengths - the cunning Ghosh, the brilliant, fierce Hema, the sharp, quick-witted Genet and the genius but alien Shiva and the loyal, logical Marion - his language is evocative and beautiful and his settings are picture-perfectly described.

A review of “Cutting for Stone” would be incomplete without at least a glancing mention of it's treatment of medical education. What struck me the most was Verghese's characterization of the martyrdom that residency entails as being a defense mechanism. His depiction of the selflessness with which residents treat patients as being a form of indulgence was a little uncomfortably honest. That being said, what “Cutting for Stone” will be exalted for in years to come is the decency with which it treats international medicine graduates. The treatment of such graduates by American medical students is borderline racist, with training programs being judged harshly on the number of such trainees enrolled. It is common for IMGs to be treated with disdain, and Verghese's candor in describing the differences that they experience when they train compared to the training environment faced by American graduates will not soon be forgotten.

The Flavia de Luce books are just SO cute. Is it weird that I find an 11 year old would-be toxicologist and her investigation of murder mysteries adorable? For all the kids who grew up wanting to be detectives with best friends who were obsessed with botanical toxins (spoiler: that's me) there's something really satisfying and really nostalgic about reading Flavia's stories. The spooky Punch and Judy vignette recalled my favorite childhood books, especially The Magicians of Caprona, by Diana Wynne Jones and Mr. Punch, by Neil Gaiman.

I continue to find Flavia a totally plausible child protagonist, and I continue to be completely charmed by seeing the world from her point-of-view (my favorite: her sincere outrage at not being treated with collegiate equality by the police inspector.) Yeah, the mystery is a little thin and the ending is SUPER rushed, but that's not really the reason I read these books.

Although at times the narrative ran dry (and certainly much longer than necessary). The characters were slightly flat and the most compelling (and pivotal) characters were left out except for brief cameos (Dilys Kite and Will Burroughs). However, Ghostwatch was redeemed by its excellent, well-researched historical asides. Without question, the several pages devoted to the history of European glassmaking and the techniques necessary for glassware were the strongest and most interesting in the book. The appendices containing Newton's notes on how to do everything from mix a dye appropriate for painting dead bodies to how to catch fish should not be missed.

Perhaps the books would have been better served if the speculation plot and last-minute conspiracy were removed and we were left with a solid historical exploration of Newton and his contemporary Cambridge. Nevertheless, Ghostwatch was entertaining and certainly piqued my interest.

Dr. Gawande's reputation proceeded him, meaning that much of the medical community had already read the NEJM article on the same topic, considered how it applied to subfields of medicine, personal practices, etc. and the reforms espoused had largely been adopted, at least by the American medical community by the time of publication.

Nonetheless, Dr. Gawande's journey to discover why checklists matter, the subtle ways in which they matter and the fields that have instituted them was an interesting, if slightly shallow read.

I usually am pretty opposed to short stories. They tail off just as things get interesting. But Kelly Link is different. Kelly Link doesn't really write stories – short or otherwise – her work is something completely different. She operates outside of the usual logic of narrative. Although, to be fair, perhaps my favorite of her works is the most conventional: The Specialists Hat, which I've read in other collections, is just so undeniably spooky. The atmosphere of dread is palpable, and Link sets it up perfectly, you read it thinking that everything might just turn out fine (even though I've read it before) and she gets you just at the last moment.

Her other works in this collection are more atmospheric riddles than stories, per se, but she does them well, with rich atmospheres and a sense of a consistent mythology just beyond the reader's grasp. There's just something really nice about reading someone who's doing something no one else is.

I'm still not quite sure how I feel about this book & the ending. It was very strange and very unexpected. Overall, a lot of the characterizations that were being built up were never really explained. There weren't any actual loose end; however, the conclusion felt pretty unsatisfying.

In any event, The Keys to the Kingdom books stand alone very poorly; by the seventh book every character, item and place has significance from earlier on in the book and there is no summarization of previous events. I would recommend re-reading the entire series before starting this.

I'm still processing how I felt about this book. Don't mistake five stars to signify enjoyment, rather it's respect: Gillian Flynn is doing something different. As far as I can tell, she's doing something different and creative and she's the best in her genre. I've never experienced anything quite like it.

Do I like it? I mean, I guess. I mean, kind of. I mean, I definitely wouldn't torture myself by rereading this book. I found it compulsive reading. Literally – I would try to put it down, but I would keep thinking about it, about the characters, about the atmosphere, until I just had to pick it up and read more. It was the most disturbing thing I've ever read. You know how, when you're a tween/young teenager, and you and your friends tell gross out stories, because you've realized that the world can be dark and you're trying to figure out the boundaries? This book reads like this. Think of the most disturbing thing you can possibly think of, and that's this book.

On the one hand, that takes all the suspense out of the book, because you know the twist and turn to literally every mystery. On the other, there is all this tension as you read thinking: “Flynn cannot possibly be going there, right?” I was mostly relieved when Camille and Amma went home to Chicago, because I thought: thank goodness I was wrong and Adora was the killer, not Amma. And then I was a little disturbed that I came up with a more morbid ending than Flynn did. And then the final twist happened. And then the teeth went into the dollhouse, which was even more gruesome than I could have imagined

But honestly, I don't read anything just for the gross-out factor, psychological horror or the other type, so there's another reason that I stuck with this book, besides that it made me feel physically ill the way no other novel has succeeded. And that is, Flynn has something really interesting to say about female villains. Sharp Objects is an apt title – Flynn explores the weapons that women, socialized out of traditional violence, use against themselves and each other and the deep damage that everyone involved sustains as a result. There are literal sharp objects: the knives that Camille uses to cut, girls who scratch with their nails, women and girls who bit, scissors that one of the victims once used to stab someone; and infinite metaphorical sharp objects.

Flynn had said in interviews that [b:Gone Girl|21480930|Gone Girl|Gillian Flynn|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1406511734s/21480930.jpg|13306276] was the book in which she explored feminism by exploring female villains, but I didn't buy it when I read Gone Girl: Amy was too stereotypically evil and stereotypically female and I felt like it was derivative. But in Sharp Objects, Flynn clearly succeeds

It's January, and I'm already off my fiction/non-fiction schedule, but it's OK: I have an excuse! I have writing a major grant and I need something warm, comforting and relaxing to support me through and I've been saving Enchanted Glass for just such an occasion. Enchanted Glass is the last book that Diana Wynne Jones wrote before she died, and DWJ is, of course, my favorite.

In the process of reading this, I ended up enumerating all of the DWJ books and plots to one of my friends, which I think helped me appreciate EG – it has several of the key themes of her life's work: Andrew's memories of childhood are fuzzy; many adult authority figures are untrustworthy – not that they don't believe in magic, but that they're straight malevolent; people are embodiments of mythical or fictional characters (in this case, Oberon – cleverly calling himself “O. Brown”, Titania, Mab and Puck.) It's nostalgic and it certainly filled the niche I was looking for.

On the downside, it felt raw to me. Plotlines drop, which I can't remember from any other DWJ book; there are some very jumpy parts and the beginning drags somewhat. Fans of DWJ will overlook it, but objectively, unfortunately, it's not that good.

This was one of those books that I wanted to love. It was a book about how narrative shapes one's identity and the identities that are forced upon us to perform, the identities we envision for ourselves and the distance between these idealized selves and the way in which we're perceived. Or, at least that was the book I wanted it to be.

In reality, this book was more like an Austen novel: focused on British women and their prospects. Which, I mean, is fine, if you like that sort of thing.

I guess I'm also not enough of a historical fiction lover. The creepiness with which Charles Dodgson was portrayed made my skin crawl. I half wanted to shake the book and say: “You know he was a real person, right? You can't just make up whatever you want about him.” I think the way that Dodgson (and JM Barie) tend to be portrayed in retrospective fictional pieces as sketchy pedophiles says a lot of really negative things about our society and without getting into a feminist rant, it was hard to read this book without internally getting into a snit over it.

Credit where credit is due: I hate books written in the present tense AND I went into this book expecting a forensic mystery.

That being said, the pacing was terrible, the book was so overstuffed that at one point, in the middle of discussing a crime scene we get step by step details of the main character cooking a risotto and the most minute of characters (characters who were mentioned on less than two pages) were given names and personalities. The ending was the most trite thing imaginable and several plot holes were left unfilled.

By far, the best thing about this book was the forensics – full of luminol and superglue fuming; however, forensics took a far back seat to the life details of every minor character.

Gladwell's writing is captivating and insightful as always; however, What the Dog Saw lacks a unifying theme, in contrast to Gladwell's early books. Since one of Gladwell's strengths is the connection of different entities on the basis of shared phenomena, this lack prevents What The Dog Saw from being a true masterpiece. Nevertheless, an enjoyable read.

I was really excited about Blackout: a new Connie Willis novel set in the Doomsday Book/To Say Nothing of the Dog world, focused on Willis' favorite period in history: the Blitz.

And Blackout is good. It focuses on the stories of three main historians as they travel to different parts of England during 1940 and encounter time travel hitches. Along the way, there are typical Willis flares – cute, yet annoying children; lovable & brave young women with lots of pluck; comedies of errors and confused details; despair redeemed only by having friends to cling to. Her characters are lovable, her comedy is gold, her prose is affecting. It is pure Willis.

And yet. It feels sacrilegious, and maybe I'll go back and revise the three stars once All Clear comes out, but I just didn't love Blackout. The pacing felt a little slow, like I was reading the same day in the life over and over. I resent having to buy two books to get one story and Blackout ended just as it was getting to the point in the plot that I wanted to read. The whole thing feels like a historical set up for a great scifi story, rather than the story itself.

It is deeply uncomfortable to bear witness to someone else's untreated mental health disorder. The good(?) news is that Bruni acknowledges that he was bulimic during the period of his life that included bingeing and purging. The bad news is that Bruni does not acknowledge that he is equally unhealthy during the periods in which he matches binges with periods of extreme restriction, amphetamines and excessive exercise. His overvalued ideas about weight are similarly unquestioned, so there are literally hundreds of pages about how he can't date/be photographed/meet his friends, etc. because he's too fat. From the time he starts telling us he's fat (infancy, page 6) until about page 180, it's not even true – he's at most 5-10 pounds overweight on a 5'10” frame. It's clear by the time he actually gets fat that it's a self-inflicted condition from thirty years of yoyo dieting.

Things get better over two-thirds of the way through the book, when he actually becomes the NY times food editor (although the much ballyhooed association between that position and his weight loss is actually off by a couple of years) because his inside view on the food industry is fascinating. But that wasn't enough to save either the book, or really Bruni himself, who notes that he still binge eats occasionally (and here binge eating means literally that, not just an overindulgence), and in his mid-forties seems to have never had a serious romantic relationship or a strong commitment to anything beyond food and weight loss.

More books I only completed because I was stuck on an airplane – and for this one, I was out of all other books and my laptop was out of power, so really, what else can one do?

Jemisin has this trick of writing books that harness the tropes of speculative fiction, such that if you try to describe one of her books it sounds like a generic fantasy novel. However, within that she manages to not just invert or subvert the cliches, but actually build something entirely new, while maintaining enough of an homage to classic fantasy that it feels thrilling the way your first introduction to SF/F was. What can I say about the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms to really capture that? The setting of Sky was refreshing, the Arameri truly cruel & the characters nuanced.

Oh dear. I have casually enjoyed Dan Brown's other tomes; however, The Lost Symbol didn't even have that brain candy charm. Tense scenes were frequently interrupted by several page long asides of dubious relevance. The so-called science was hilariously awful and the end of the book suspense revolved in part around the fear that someone would exsanguinate through a “medical needle” placed in a vein in the antecubital fossa (i.e. venipuncture.) Luckily, that part was so ill-paced that the character was saved before I had to waste too much time screaming about how infeasible it was to be killed by an IV.

The core plot – many important men in Washington are Free Masons, a group that has left hidden symbols all over Washington DC and celebrates human life – was far less intriguing than Brown's other books.

Overall – this was in SORE need of an editor and a fact checker.

The first thing I noticed about this book was how beautiful it was. But it is a truly gorgeous book – matte spring green cover, a women in mosiacs, and it smelled exactly like a treasured, well-made & well-loved book does. The matte cover is a pleasure to hold and touch.

Yes, it's amazingly petty, but the multisensory experience was apropos for a book that is so immersive. Watrous' detailed characters, evocative prose & well-researched setting left the mark of a truly good book – when my reading was interrupted, I would look up stunned to find myself not in Japan. Characters are certainly a highlight of the book – memorable, but not caricatures.

Watrous denies that it is a memoir, but it clearly draws from autobiographical influences, from the physical description of Marina to her name (Marina v. Malena) and the location & occupation in Japan. In the P.S. interviews included in this copy, Watrous states that this If You Follow Me is not the story of her life, because lives do not have plots. Honestly, that's not much of an argument; If You Follow Me has little in the way of traditional plot, although it does have narrative arcs. Instead, the novel is comprised predominately of linked incidents. This adds to the charm & uniqueness of the novel. The lack of cookie cutter rising action, climax, falling action, or even central plot is what helps If You Follow Me be so atmospheric. Marina's embarrassment is palpable because the reader knows what it's like to be so acutely embarrassed and unable to get over it, despite knowing that it will pass. The narrative arcs keep it from feeling like just a “day in the life,” and add a sense of completion at the end of the novel. The combination of the two techniques is a terrific blend.

Language is clearly another strength of Watrous – the English, both broken and fluent, is clever. Watrous uses her characters who do not speak English fluently as an excuse to invite phrases and use words in novel ways. She uses Japanese to express constructs not possible in English.

This was a weird read. Foer sets off to write a book that is part autobiographical, part about the mnemonist community (competitive memorizers) and part about the science of memory. The third part is by far the weakest – if you've read any other pop science about memory, you've read everything here. The first part is also not that strong: it's mostly Foer hanging around a bunch of mnemonists. And as I quickly learned, mnemonists are not the sort of people I would want to hang out with: self-absorbed, quick to turn things into a lewd reference, under-employed and drunken. But none of that matters, I imagine people mostly come for the act of competitive memorizing.

Foer starts out the book by declaring that people like me don't exist, which was kind of a surreal book start. By people like me, I mean people with naturally strong memories. I've had an unusually strong memory my whole life: when the waiter doubles back to say an ordered dish is out of stock, I can recite the menu verbatim for my dining companions, barely having glanced at it; I work a field that requires memorizing hundreds of rare diseases (many of which I've never actually seen) and the associated features; I spent most of high school memorizing long swathes of poetry for fun (including the entirety of the Wasteland).

Foer's central argument is that everyone has the same memory and that any exceptions are synesthetes who can encode information visually. And that's where I really fell off the rails with him: I'm not a visual processor at all. I remember words. Which, of course, Foer states as impossible. He argues words have to be transformed into visual features to be memorized. For a while, I thought that maybe literally decades of chanting torah and memorizing each vowel sound and trope pattern explained the difference between how my memory works and how he claims the universal memory works, but then I remembered that my father memorizing a thousand digits of pi by remembering the aural patterns. So then I thought maybe as Jews, we've been selected for this by memorizing talmud and torah as a culture, but Foer is also Jewish (and does talk about Torah chanting for his Bar Mitzvah), so who knows.

Why does it matter that this book is aggressively not about me? Because I think it takes something that a small group of mnemonists do and makes it into a universal rule for memorizing: memories have to be visual and obscene. Memorizing a poem or a deck of cards isn't visual or obscene? First memorize an incredibly complex system of how to encode this information as lewd visuals, and then quickly transform one to the other and Bob's your uncle. This seems absurd to me, why not just memorize a poem by...memorizing it? But then I started to think about what I knew about the study of memory, and I know from the educational literature that people remember information that they've needed to transform or encode. I realized it doesn't matter if you transform the deck of cards into lewd visual images, or a rhyming scheme or a patter song, it's engaging with and transforming the content that makes it memorable. Foer considers, but dismisses this, but it's actually a fascinating central point because it's much more universalizable: most people with jobs are not going to spend hours first memorizing schemes that involve pop stars and specific sex acts just in case they need to memorize something else later, but a more flexible, lower upfront cost schema for memorizing is useful. Foer himself talks about how being a mnemonist isn't actually useful in any way – the mnemonists he encounters (and Foer himself) rudely forget people's names, miss appointments and all of the general scourges of daily memory

Two things that I will operationalize from the book: I am convinced that the idea of a spatial memory is useful. I'd read about memory palaces before but never found them useful. Foer's specific guidance to have multiple, each real life places that you have a strong spatial sense of, and to use them to order information by following a path around the space is very useful. The other is the major rule for memorizing numbers, encoding each digit into a phoneme so that a short number, like a credit card number or a phone number, (or a medical record number!) can become a distinctive word.

Richard Powers' writing prowess is a delight. So while I have complaints that strike to the heart of the novel, they seemed trivial in the face of the most powerful prose I've read in a long time. Generosity is one of the tightest novels I've ever read. Every sentence is honed to perfection - imagery, flow, scanning, and purpose in the overall story. His commentary is both timely on the matters of genetic engineering, the growing expanse of the internet and culture globalization and timeless on the matters of what it truly means to be happy and what we should be searching for in life, any way. The research is also impeccable, down to the percentage of the human genome that is patented as of his writing.

The flaws? The first is the title, and overall the theme of “generosity” - I know that Powers is using it for the wordplay potential, in that Genetics and Generosity share a Latin root; however, Congeniality might be a better bang for the same pun-based buck. Nowhere does he show that Thassa is generous, despite her label of “Miss Generosity.” In fact, the primary flaw is that he does not really show Thassa, the congenitally happy woman, to be much of anything at all. So while other characters run about fawning over her, the reader is still struggling to “get it.”

In a lesser writers hands, these flaws would be fatal. In Powers' case it's merely an annoyance, in an otherwise superb novel.