Nothing eye-opening, but a worthy effort.
No, it’s not that kind of sex writing—which is probably for the best.
The second annual volume in this series is actually a serious compilation of nonfiction pieces originally published in American and British print and online publications. Their tone ranges from abstract to extremely personal, illuminating to embarrassing. The engagingly quirky mishmash of topics begins with “The Big Oooooohh!,” by Jonathan Margolis, who concludes that “the golden age of the orgasm may yet arrive,” followed by Katha Pollitt’s appreciative obituary of the fearless, infuriatingly contradictory feminist shocktrooper and anti-porn advocate Andrea Dworkin. About half the pieces seem worthy of inclusion—a great average for a magazine or website, but somewhat low for a “best of” book. Among the serious articles is David France’s standout “The Invention of Patient Zero,” which plots in sharp detail the chain of misinformation that led to the AIDS “superbug” panic. There isn’t much that’s off-limits, as evidenced by Sarah Klein’s pedestrian but still fascinating piece on designer vaginal surgery, “Does This Make My Labia Look Fat?” The more controversial entries here are a pair of first-person defenses of the writer’s particular kink: Sebastian Horsely explains his preference for sleeping with prostitutes, in “The Brothel Keeper,” while Polly Peachum’s “Violence in the Garden” attempts to make people understand how she can live in a completely subservient slave-master relationship and still call herself a feminist. It’s not the subject matter that sinks these two, but rather the self-congratulatory tone and limited talent of the writers. Not many big names here, which may explain why the editor bothered with Dave Barry’s throwaway column, “Sex, Guys, and Fruitflies”; fellow bestseller Augusten Burroughs shows to better advantage with the gutter poetry of “Last Rites,” which concludes the book.
Nothing eye-opening, but a worthy effort.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2005
ISBN: 1-56025-772-5
Page Count: 286
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2005
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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