Book Review (Rucksack): Originals

Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

Written by Adam Grant in in 2016

The Raccoon: Psychologist Adam Grant tackles the myths surrounding creativity and success, outlining the actual habits and mindsets that allow entrepreneurs and other “originals” to affect change.  Citing multiple studies and historical examples in each chapter, Originals teaches us how quantity creates quality, why procrastination is often helpful, and how younger siblings end up taking more risks. Through these revelations and numerous others, Grants changes how one views and interacts with the world.

UNMASKED: Fans of Malcolm Gladwell know what to expect: a book that latches onto an idea--in Grant’s case, what distinguishes creative people from conformists--and runs with it, finding every possible application of the concept in both science and society until the reader is thoroughly convinced that this one thing drives our entire world. Even if only one chapter of Originals resonates with you, your entire worldview may still change as a result.

Of course, one would be hard-pressed to not find something impactful in every chapter. Originals reads as a collection of smaller books, each containing an introductory anecdote, outline, and 3-4 subsections with their own research, stories, and key takeaways. While Grant includes an “Actions for Impact” guide at the very end, reiterating the book’s concepts as specific and concrete habits, the ideas are presented so effectively the first time that this section is largely unnecessary. That being said, it proves useful when one inevitably decides to revisit the work.

Strengths:

• Originals does not extrapolate; Grant only speaks to the ideas directly proven by the data.
• Every anecdote feels personal, as if one was speaking to each subject--Carmen Medina, Jackie Robinson, and Martin Luther King Jr., among others--at a bar. Along with supporting Grant’s theme, each story holds as much detail and meaning than a chapter from a biography would.
• The scope of Originals is just right. Grant does not pretend that a sprinkle of risk balancing and strategic nonconformity will reverse climate change or establish a colony on Mars, nor does he shy away from claiming that these tactics played a major role in the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the success of the Serbian Otpor! movement. In short, Originals is ambitious but not all-encompassing or dogmatic.

Although I have tried, as Grant suggested, to play my own devil’s advocate, I cannot find anything wrong with this book.

Rating: 20/20 younger-sibling comedians

Ideal Setting: Read this whenever you are worried that every good idea has already been taken. Originality is a mindset and a habit, and one that is needed now more than ever.

Book Review (Canon): Emergency Contact

Emergency Contact

Written by Mary H.K. Choi in 2018

The Raccoon: Choi’s debut novel brings us inside the heads of Penny, a college freshman and aspiring writer, and Sam, a college dropout saving up to become a filmmaker.  After Penny helps Sam through a panic attack, the two agree to become each other’s “emergency contact,” and their budding phone friendship sheds light on what it actually means to grow up.

UNMASKED: Emergency Contact is not the book that my generation deserves, but the one that it needs. The novel is a slow-burn romance which burns so slowly that there is time for actual plot and character development unrelated to Penny and Sam dating, but rather helping them reach the stage of their lives when they can have a real relationship. Moreover, the themes tackled in the novel are widely meaningful, rather than just meaning the world to the characters.

That being said, Emergency Contact is still a YA novel.  One cannot deny that the romance is predictable (including the additional male love interest), no character ever truly hits rock bottom, and one moment of honest communication completely solves a harsh, long-term problem.  What makes Choi’s work stand out is that she does not rely on these tropes to carry the story, and the novel stays compelling through a mix of humor and realistic, tough decisions.

Strengths:

• The menu of options Penny creates in her head whenever she faces a stressful situation are consistently hilarious.
• Penny and Sam are written very differently; it is possible to open to any random page and immediately know who is narrating.

Weaknesses:

• With references to current phenomenons such as SoulCycle and Hamilton, Emergency Contact will likely not age well.

Rating: 18/20 outfits

Ideal Setting: Read this whenever you begin to worry that you are addicted to your phone.  I mean, you probably still are, but that doesn’t mean you should completely reject it as a way to open up to people.

Book Review (Rucksack): Sapiens

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Written by Yuval Noah Harari in 2011

The Raccoon: As the title promises, Harari traces the history of homo sapiens from our earliest days alongside Neanderthals to developments in the next few decades that may change the definition of “human” again, all in under 500 pages.  Organized conceptually rather than chronologically, the book vastly increases one’s understanding of society as a whole. As long as you are willing to work through its dense pages, Sapiens is a must-read and undoubtedly the most useful and informative book of our time.

UNMASKED: The following quote is annoyingly long despite my removal of several internal sentences.  For better or worse, Harari cannot be quoted out of context; he deals in strong passages rather than stand-out phrases.  Moreover, I want to illustrate here how the author builds ideas, which he typically does over the course of several pages.

“...the human brain has been adapted to store and process only particular types of information. In order to survive, ancient hunter-gatherers had to remember the shapes, qualities and behaviour patterns of thousands of plant and animal species. …[they] also had to bear in mind the opinions and relations of several dozen band members…

“But when particularly complex societies began to appear… a completely new type of information became vital--numbers. Foragers were never obliged to handle large amounts of mathematical data… So human brains did not adapt to storing and processing numbers. Yet in order to maintain a large kingdom, mathematical data was vital. It was never enough to legislate laws and tell stories about guardian gods. One also had to collect taxes…

“This mental limitation severely constrained the size and complexity of human collectives. …For thousands of years after the Agricultural Revolution, human social networks remained relatively small and simple.

“The first to overcome the problem were the ancient Sumerians… some unknown Sumerian geniuses invented a system for storing and processing information outside their brains, one that was custom-built to handle large amounts of mathematical data…

“The data-processing system invented by the Sumerians is called ‘writing.’”

I remember learning in sixth grade that the early Sumerian civilization created the first writing system.  Yet, in all of the years following, I never thought to ask how or why this milestone was completed.  This, I believe, is what elevates Sapiens from a historical text to a mind-altering encyclopedia.  Harari truly begins from a blank slate, delineating every concept from the ground up. Even love and war are treated on par with the Internet; Harari outlines their evolution as emergent properties of human biology and practical necessity rather than assuming that they existed automatically.

To read Sapiens is to witness the rise of humanity in all its glory (and horror), to answer the questions you never knew to ask, and, finally, to see objectively where society is headed based on every cultural and demographic trend.  This is Us.

Strengths:

• Every claim is well-cited; the list of sources makes up the last eighth of the book.
• The author never suggests that Western, Eastern, or Native American civilization, nor any particular religion or ideology, is in any way better than its counterparts. Furthermore, he dives into the praises and criticisms of each one.
• It is impossible to quote or reference Sapiens and not sound smart.

While Harari occasionally appears biased against humans, for acts of cruelty to other humans, other animals, and the planet, I cannot find anything wrong with this book.

Rating: 20/20 self-made gods

Ideal Setting: Drop everything and read this right now.  Kickstart a new Cognitive Revolution in your mind. And a new Agricultural Revolution, just for fun.

CANDY BOX: Questions, Not Answers

An Open Letter to Yuval Noah Harari:

Some time ago I went with my six-year-old nephew Matan to hunt for Pokémon. As we walked down the street, Matan kept looking at his smartphone, which enabled him to spot Pokémon all around us. I didn’t see any Pokémon at all, because I didn’t carry a smartphone. Then we saw two others kids on the street who were hunting the same Pokémon, and we almost got into a fight with them. It struck me how similar the situation was to the conflict between Jews and Muslims about the holy city of Jerusalem. When you look at the objective reality of Jerusalem, all you see are stones and buildings. There is no holiness anywhere. But when you look through the medium of smartbooks (such as the Bible and the Qur’an), you see holy places and angels everywhere.  -You, in an article published on theguardian.com

David and Goliath

I find your writing deeply disturbing.  I have read a handful of your articles and am currently making my way through Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, and your ideas have only become offensive the further I go along.

At least you acknowledge this in Sapiens, after dismissing the notion of human rights.

“It’s likely that more than a few readers squirmed in their chairs while reading the preceding paragraphs.”  

Clearly, you empathize with how--

“Most of us today are educated to react in such a way.”

Professor Harari, many contemporary authors demand a level of open-mindedness or even participation from their readers.  You, however, repeatedly reach beyond this, bluntly forcing your readers to question and reject ideas central to their identities if they want to successfully move forward in your work.  It is heartless, arrogant…

And yet there is a notable absence of something in your writing.  You do not attempt to rebuild the bridges you demolish in “the right way.”  What makes you more kind and constructive than any other author is that you refrain from preaching.  You delineate the mechanics of our world and then leave the readers with full agency for what to do with your information.

Contrast this with Neal Shusterman, whose new novel Thunderhead I am reading in tandem with Sapiens.  Although the post-work, AI-governed world of Thunderhead (coincidentally also the topic of your Pokemon article) tries to deal in shades of grey, Shusterman forces clear ethical messages into the plot: all human governments become corrupt, and anyone who enjoys killing is evil.

Why does this matter?  Thunderhead is certainly a more entertaining read--and less likely to incite violent arguments--than Sapiens.  Moreover, it is not necessarily damaging for a person to read only books that preach, as long as the lessons vary from author to author.

The issue is that authors who preach clearly want their work to influence others.  In fact, the aim of most writing, whether informational or fictional, is to communicate a message.  Unfortunately for these authors, Sapiens highlights an important truth: messages by themselves do not lead to change.  A human being will not change her beliefs unless she is first open to the idea that she may not know everything.

Professor Harari, your callous dismissal of all religion is invaluable because you open up your reader to the idea that her worldview is incomplete.  You are not forcing a message down her throat; you are forcing her to think.  As I read Sapiens, I regularly have to stop and decide whether I agree or disagree with your beliefs, because you simply state them as objective facts, present the evidence, and run with them.  I am required to come up with arguments just to make it through a chapter.

The intense level of participation and lack of preaching present in Sapiens make it one of the only books capable of creating both personal and societal change, no matter how hard Thunderhead and its companions may try.  Consequently, although your writing sickens me, I must thank you.  Your bold choices have the potential to create an educated and enlightened public, which is all any society really needs to fix its problems.

Sincerely,

Jonah

Book Review (Canon): Welcome to Night Vale

Welcome to Night Vale

Written by Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink in 2015

The Raccoon: In a small town where the dog park is only open to mysterious hooded figures, the highway is filled with ghost cars and government surveillance vans, and angels--that the City Council insists do not exist--help with household chores, perpetual teenager Jackie Fierro and PTA mom Diane Crayton still manage to find their lives turned upside down after they each receive a cryptic slip of paper.  Welcome to Night Vale, based on the podcast of the same name, uses wild surrealism to address the human insecurities and issues that even the best dramas tend to gloss over.

UNMASKED: Welcome to Night Vale the podcast deserves a 19/20.  Cranor and Fink’s writing, brought to life by voice actor Cecil Baldwin, is hauntingly sublime; the listener is drawn into the unique world of Night Vale and left at the end of every episode with a feeling akin to anatidaephobia.  Cecil’s narration capitalizes on fear of the unknown.  In the same way that the clawing and growling behind the door in a movie are scarier than the monster itself, the podcast’s lack of explanation as to why librarians need to be avoided at all costs and how a boy transitions from Eagle Scout to Blood Pact Scout ensure that the concepts remain lodged in the back of one’s mind and under the kitchen sink.

Writers typically use novels when they wish to illustrate detailed scenes and capture the nuances of dialogue. Unfortunately, these features are a terrible match for Welcome to Night Vale.  Although the plot is suspenseful and varied, and the characters are profoundly relatable, the novel simply casts too much light on a world intricately designed to be vague and shadowed.  Is it still Night Vale without the night or the veil?

Strengths:

• A chapter describing Diane’s relationship with her shape-shifting son perfectly captures the challenges of raising any teenage son. A clever quirk of Welcome to Night Vale is that it sidesteps forced metaphors by making the exaggerated and surreal a natural part of the setting.
• The novel’s ridiculous notion of research and the scientific method (“None of the scientists noticed her. They were all writing busily on clipboards and wearing lab coats. This is called ‘doing an experiment.’”), along with a few other other multi-page tangents, actually made me laugh out loud.
• The faceless old woman that lives in Diane’s house is the only character I have ever encountered who successfully adds to a story despite objectively having no relevance to the plot.

Weaknesses:

• While the novel can still be appreciated independently, almost every character and place originated in the podcast, and the novel is much better understood with that background.
• The fact that everything in Night Vale falls in a spectrum from off-putting to unspeakably horrifying ironically leads to a lack of stakes in the novel.  After all, if the characters have survived for this long, why would yet another supernatural event be cause for alarm?

Rating: 16/…

The number between 19 and 21 no longer exists.  The City Council apologizes for the inconvenience but hopes that this decision will foster greater appreciation for all 154 other numbers.

Ideal Setting: Read this whenever you begin to wonder how the universe can be so ordered and mathematical.