It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree
A.J. Jacobs, 2017
Simon & Schuster
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476734491
Summary
A.J. Jacobs undergoes a hilarious, heartfelt quest to understand what constitutes family — where it begins and how far it goes — and attempts to untangle the true meaning of the "Family of Humankind.
A.J. Jacobs has received some strange emails over the years, but this note was perhaps the strangest: "You don’t know me, but I’m your eighth cousin. And we have over 80,000 relatives of yours in our database."
That’s enough family members to fill Madison Square Garden four times over. Who are these people, A.J. wondered, and how do I find them? So began Jacobs’s three-year adventure to help build the biggest family tree in history.
Jacobs’s journey would take him to all seven continents. He drank beer with a US president, found himself singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and unearthed genetic links to Hollywood actresses and real-life scoundrels. After all, we can choose our friends, but not our family.
Now Jacobs upends, in ways both meaningful and hilarious, our understanding of genetics and genealogy, tradition and tribalism, identity and connection. It’s All Relative is a fascinating look at the bonds that connect us all. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 20, 1968
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—Brown University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Arnold Stephen "A. J." Jacobs Jr. is an American journalist, author, and lecturer best known for writing about his lifestyle experiments. He is the editor at large for Esquire and has worked for Entertainment Weekly.
Early life
Jacobs was born in New York City to Arnold Jacobs Sr., a lawyer, and Ellen Kheel. He has one sister, Beryl Jacobs. He was educated at The Dalton School and Brown University.
Career
Jacobs has said that he sees his life as a series of experiments in which he immerses himself in a project or lifestyle, for better or worse, then writes about what he learned. The genre is often called immersion journalism or "stunt journalism."
In one of these experiments ("stunts") Jacobs read all 32 volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica. He wrote about it in his humorous book, The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World (2004). In the book, he also chronicles his personal life along with various endeavors like joining Mensa. The book spent eight weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list. NPR's Weekend Edition ran a series of segments featuring the unusual facts Jacobs learned in each letter. The book received positive reviews in the New York Times, Time magazine, and USA Today. Joe Queenan, however, panned it in his New York Times book review. Queenan called the book "corny, juvenile, smug, tired" and "interminable" and characterized Jacobs as "a prime example of that curiously modern innovation: the pedigreed simpleton." Four months later, Jacobs responded in an essay entitled "I Am Not a Jackass."
In 2005 Jacobs out-sourced his life to India such that personal assistants would do everything for him from answering his e-mails, reading his children good-night stories, and arguing with his wife. Jacobs wrote about it in an Esquire article called "My Outsourced Life" (2005). The article was excerpted in The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss. Jacobs also talked about his outsourcing experiences on a Moth storytelling podcast.
In another experiment Jacobs wrote an article for Esquire called "I Think You're Fat" (2007), about the experiment he conducted with Radical Honesty, a lifestyle of total truth-telling promoted by Virginia therapist Brad Blanton, whom Jacobs interviewed for the article.
Jacobs' book The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible (2007) chronicles his experiment to live for one year according to all the moral codes expressed in the Bible, including stoning adulterers, blowing a shofar at the beginning of every month, and refraining from trimming the corners of his facial hair (which he followed by not trimming his facial hair at all). The book spent 11 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and Jacobs gave a TED talk about what he learned during the project. In May 2017, CBS Television picked up a TV series based on the book. It was renamed By the Book for television.
The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment (2009) is a series of first person essays about his experiences with various guides for human behavior.
Jacobs is also author of The Two Kings: Elvis and Jesus (1994), an irreverent comedic comparison of Elvis Presley and Jesus; and America Off-Line (1996). He also writes for mental floss, a trivia magazine.
In 2012 he released Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection in which he explores different ways humans can bring their bodies to peak health, from diet to exercise. He wrote the book while walking on a treadmill. Jacobs gave a related TED talk about this health quest entitled "How Healthy Living Nearly Killed Me."
From 2011 to 2012, Jacobs wrote the "Extreme Health" column for Esquire magazine, covering such topics as high-intensity interval training and the quantified self. Since 2012, he has written the "Modern Problems" advice column for mental floss magazine. The column compares modern day life to the horrors of the past.
Starting in May, 2013, Jacobs has written a weekly advice column for Esquire.com called "My Huddled Masses." The column is crowd sourced to Jacobs’s 100,000 Facebook followers, who give etiquette and love advice. He also writes the regular feature "Obituaries" for Esquire, which consists of satirical death notices for cultural trends, such as American hegemony.
As of 2015 Jacobs was working on a project called the Global Family Reunion, where he aims to connect as many people as possible to the global family tree at Geni.com and WikiTree. He hosted the Global Family Reunion, planned to be largest family reunion in history on June 6, 2015, at the New York Hall of Science.
On December 5, 2016, Gimlet Media announced Jacobs as the host of Twice Removed, a podcast focused on genealogy. The project also inspired his book, It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree (2017).
Personal
Jacobs is married to Julie Schoenberg and has three sons. He is a cousin to pop singer Michael Jackson by thirty-three generations. The family lives in New York City, New York.
Jacobs is a member of Giving What We Can and pledges 10% of lifelong earnings to charity. He donates to the Against Malaria Foundation and other effective altruism organizations. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/25/2017.)
Book Reviews
Whether he’s posing as a celebrity, outsourcing his chores, or adhering strictly to the Bible, we love reading about the wacky lifestyle experiments of author A.J. Jacobs
Entertainment Weekly
[Jacobs] infuses humor throughout the book but relies too heavily on the same gimmick of his unexpected relations (he’s 14 steps removed from Joseph Stalin, and George H.W. Bush is his second cousin’s husband’s eighth cousin three times removed). The result is a somewhat amusing and educational account of the science and culture of families.
Publishers Weekly
[T]he author becomes fascinated with genealogy.… Written with Jacobs's signature humor and warmth, this is a fun, if slightly scattershot, adventure that will interest many. … [E]ngrossing, funny, and optimistic. —Jennifer Stout, Virginia Commonwealth Univ. Lib., Richmond
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Whimsical but also full of solid journalism and eye-opening revelations about the history of humanity, the book is a real treat.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Whether the author is being ruminative or rollicking, he is consistently thought-provoking in his "adventure in helping to build the World Family Tree," and his natural gift for humor lightens the mood of even the most serious discussion. A delightful, easy-to-read, informative book.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for It's All Relative … then take off on your own:
1. What did you find most surprising in A.J. Jacob's It's All Relative?
2. Talk about some of these issues that Jacobs raises in his book:
♦ Why males seem to dominate family trees;
♦ The impact of American slavery on family history;
♦ The difficulties of working with the Mormon archive;
♦ The reliability of DNA testing as a genealogical tool;
♦ How nonhuman creatures fit into the story of our genealogy;
♦ The Biblical creation story of Adam and Eve as the beginning of the human race;
♦ How Neanderthals and homo sapiens are related.
3. Talk about the issues surrounding privacy when it comes to our personal genetics. How concerned is Jacobs and how deeply does he cover this subject? How concerned are you?
4. What do you find particularly entertaining, even humorous, about Jacob's book. In other words, what made you laugh?
5. Have you initiated your own genealogical search for your family history? If so, what have been your results so far?
6. Have you taken away any particular message after reading It's All Relative? Is there a chance for greater respect among different populations? Or do you sense that tribal identities and strife will win out?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Library Book
Susan Orlean, 2018
Simon & Schuster
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476740188
Summary
On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library.
As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, "Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.’"
The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more.
Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?
Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.
In The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives—delving into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity.
Furthermore, Orlean brings each department of the library to vivid life through on-the-ground reporting, she studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself, and she reflects on her own experiences in libraries. Lastly, Orlean reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago.
Along the way, Orlean introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters from libraries past and present—
- Mary Foy, who in 1880 at eighteen years old was named the head of the Los Angeles Public Library at a time when men still dominated the role;
- Dr. C. J. K. Jones, a pastor, citrus farmer, and polymath known as "The Human Encyclopedia" who roamed the library dispensing information;
- Charles Lummis, a wildly eccentric journalist and adventurer who was determined to make the L.A. library one of the best in the world;
- the current staff, who do heroic work every day to ensure that their institution remains a vital part of the city it serves.
Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country.
The book is also a master journalist’s reminder that, perhaps especially in the digital era, libraries are more necessary than ever. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 31, 1955
• Where—Cleveland, Ohio, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Michigan
• Currently—lives in upstate New York
Susan Orlean is an American journalist. She has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992, and has contributed articles to Vogue, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Outside.
Orlean was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated from the University of Michigan. She was then a staff writer at the Portland, Oregon, weekly Willamette Week, and soon began publishing stories in Rolling Stone, Esquire, Vogue, Outside, and Spy.
In 1982 she moved to Boston and became a staff writer for the Boston Phoenix and later a regular contributor to the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. Her first book, Saturday Night, was published in 1990, shortly after she moved to New York and began writing for The New Yorker magazine. She became a New Yorker staff writer in 1992. Orlean was also a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2003.
Orlean is the author of several books, including The Orchid Thief, a profile of Florida orchid grower, breeder, and collector John Laroche. The book formed the basis of Charlie Kaufman's script for the Spike Jonze film Adaptation. Orlean (portrayed by Meryl Streep in an Oscar-nominated role) was, in effect, made into a fictional character; the movie portrayed her as becoming Laroche's lover and partner in a drug production operation, in which orchids were processed into a fictional psychoactive substance.
She also wrote the Women's Outside article, "Life's Swell" (published 1998). The article, a feature on a group of young surfer girls in Maui, was the basis of the film Blue Crush.
In 1999, she co-wrote The Skinny: What Every Skinny Woman Knows About Dieting (And Won't Tell You!) under her married name, Susan Sistrom. Her previously published magazine stories have been compiled in two collections, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Extraordinary People and My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere.
She also served as editor for Best American Essays 2005 and Best American Travel Writing 2007. She contributed the Ohio chapter in "State By State" (2008).
In 2011 she published a biographical history about the dog actor Rin Tin Tin, followed by The Ghost FLower in 2016, and The Library Book in 2018. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/21/2018.)
Book Reviews
Exquisitely written, consistently entertaining.… A loving tribute not just to a place or an institution but to an idea.… What makes The Library Book so enjoyable is the sense of discovery that propels it, the buoyancy when Orlean is surprised or moved by what she finds.… Her depiction of the Central Library fire on April 29, 1986, is so rich with specifics that it’s like a blast of heat erupting from the page.… The Library Book is about the fire and the mystery of how it started—but in some ways that’s the least of it. It’s also a history of libraries, and of a particular library, as well as the personal story of Orlean and her mother, who was losing her memory to dementia while Orlean was retrieving her own memories by writing this book.
Jennifer Szalai - New York Times
Moving.… A constant pleasure to read.… Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book.… Orlean, a longtime New Yorker writer, has been captivating us with human stories for decades, and her latest book is a wide-ranging, deeply personal, and terrifically engaging investigation of humanity’s bulwark against oblivion: the library.… As a narrator, Orlean moves like fire herself, with a pyrotechnic style that smolders for a time over some ancient bibliographic tragedy, leaps to the latest technique in book restoration, and then illuminates the story of a wildly eccentric librarian. Along the way, we learn how libraries have evolved, responded to depressions and wars, and generally thrived despite a constant struggle for funds. Over the holidays, every booklover in America is going to give or get this book.… You can’t help but finish The Library Book and feel grateful that these marvelous places belong to us all.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Vivid.… Compelling.… Ms. Orlean interweaves a memoir of her life in books, a whodunit, a history of Los Angeles, and a meditation on the rise and fall and rise of civic life in the United States.… By turns taut and sinuous, intimate and epic, Ms. Orlean’s account evokes the rhythms of a life spent in libraries… bringing to life a place and an institution that represents the very best of America: capacious, chaotic, tolerant and even hopeful, with faith in mobility of every kind, even, or perhaps especially, in the face of adversity.
Jane Kamenski - Wall Street Journal
[Orlean's] mother’s dementia has made her acutely aware of how memories are doomed to be forgotten unless they’re recorded. This is a persuasive reminder of the importance of libraries, whose… historical treasures [are] built with the common good in mind.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) On April 29, 1986, the Los Angeles Public Library went up in a blaze that would be the worst library fire in America's history, destroying more than 400,000 books. Who set the fire, and why?… New Yorker staff writer Orlean decides to seek answers.
Library Journal
Mesmerizing.… A riveting mix of true crime, history, biography.… Probing, prismatic, witty, dramatic,… Orlean’s chronicle celebrates libraries as sanctuaries, community centers, and open universities run by people of commitment, compassion, creativity, and resilience.
Booklist
[E]ngaging.… [Orleans writes] about [librarians'] jobs and responsibilities, how libraries were a "solace in the Depression," and the ongoing problems librarians face dealing with the homeless.… Bibliophiles will love this fact-filled, bookish journey.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What has your relationship with libraries been throughout your life? Can you share some library memories from childhood to adulthood?
2. Were you at all familiar with the Los Angeles library fire? Or any library fire?
3. How would you describe the fire’s impact on the community? How about the community’s rebuilding efforts?
4. In chapter 5, Orlean writes that books "take on a kind of human vitality." What role do books play in your life and home, and do you anthropomorphize them? Have you ever wrestled with the idea of giving books away or otherwise disowning them?
5. What is your impression of John Szabo? How does his career inform and shape your understanding of what librarians do?
6. Libraries today are more than just a building filled with books. How has your local branch evolved? Are you able to chart these changes and gauge their success within the community?
7. The Library Book confronts the issue of street people patronizing the library. Is this an issue in your hometown? How do you feel about the L.A. library’s involvement, handling of the issue, and the notion of inclusion?
8. Andrew Carnegie is perhaps the most famous supporter and benefactor of libraries. Can you name a modern equivalent who is using his or her largesse to underwrite public works? Is it more important for the public sector to have big benefactors or overall community support?
9. What was your initial impression of Harry Peak? Did it change throughout the investigation?
10. What was your reaction to the Mary Jones and Charles Lummis saga? Can you cite any similar examples from history or the present?
11. Each of the head librarians discussed in The Library Book brought certain qualities to the position. What ideas and initiatives did you like? Did you disagree with any?
12. The Library Book chronicles the history of the Los Angeles Public Library from its origins to the present day. How were the library’s ups and downs reflective of the city’s ups and down? Are libraries a fair barometer to judge the mood of a city or town?
13. Chapter 30 discusses a range of initiatives undertaken by international libraries and librarians. Do you have a favorite example that you would like to see replicated at your local library?
(Questions issued by the publishers.)
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
Yuval Noah Harari, 2017
HarperCollins
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062464316
Summary
Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.
Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style — thorough, yet riveting — famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges.
For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda.
What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda?
As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century — from overcoming death to creating artificial life.
It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.
With the same insight and clarity that made Sapiens an international hit and a New York Times bestseller, Harari maps out our future. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 24, 1976
• Where—Israel
• Education—Ph.D., Oxford University
• Awards—Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality (twice);
Moncado Award for Military History
• Currently—lives near Jerusalem, Israel
Yuval Noah Harari is the author of the international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. He lectures at the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Harari originally specialized in medieval history and military history, completing his doctorate at the University of Oxford (Jesus College) in 2002 and publishing numerous books and articles, including Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry, 1100-1550; The Ultimate Experience: Battlefield Revelations and the Making of Modern War Culture, 1450-2000; "The Concept of 'Decisive Battles' in World History"; and "Armchairs, Coffee and Authority: Eye-witnesses and Flesh-witnesses Speak about War, 1100-2000."
He now specializes in World History and macro-historical processes. His research focuses on macro-historical questions such as:
—What is the relation between history and biology?
—What is the essential difference between Homo sapiens and other animals?
—Is there justice in history?
—Does history have a direction?
—Did people become happier as history unfolded?
His most recent book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind surveys the entire length of human history, from the evolution of Homo sapiens in the Stone Age up to the political and technological revolutions of the 21st century. It has generated much interest both in the academic community and among the general public and has turned Harari into an instant celebrity. YouTube Video clips of Harari’s Hebrew lectures on the history of the world have been viewed by tens of thousands of Israelis. He is also offers a free online course in English entitled A Brief History of Humankind. More than 100,000 people throughout the world have already taken this course.
Harari twice won the Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality, in 2009 and 2012. In 2011 he won the Society for Military History’s Moncado Award for outstanding articles in military history. In 2012 he was elected to the Young Israeli Academy of Sciences.
He lives with his husband in moshav Mesilat Zion near Jerusalem. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/11/2015.)
Book Reviews
[E]ssential reading for those who think about the future. The algorithms that Harari describes are not trying to imitate humans; they are trying to become human, and possibly exceed our abilities.
Siddhartha Mukherjee - New York Times Book Review
I enjoyed reading about these topics not from another futurist but from a historian, contextualizing our current ways of thinking amid humanity’s long march — especially … with Harari’s ability to capsulize big ideas memorably and mingle them with a light, dry humor.… Harari offers not just history lessons but a meta-history lesson.
Washington Post
Thrilling to watch such a talented author trample so freely across so many disciplines … Harrari’s skill lies in the way he tilts the prism in all these fields and looks at the world in different ways, providing fresh angles on what we thought we knew … scintillating.
Financial Times (UK)
A remarkable book, full of insights and thoughtful reinterpretations of what we thought we knew about ourselves and our history
Guardian (UK)
What elevates Harari above many chroniclers of our age is his exceptional clarity and focus.
Sunday Times (UK)
[A] great book…not only alters the way you see the world after you’ve read it, it also casts the past in a different light. In Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari shows us where mankind is headed in an absolutely clear-sighted & accessible manner.
Mail on Sunday (UK)
Like all great epics, Sapiens demanded a sequel. Homo Deus, in which that likely apocalyptic future is imagined in spooling detail, is that book. It is a highly seductive scenario planner for the numerous ways in which we might overreach ourselves.
Observer (UK)
Harari is an intellectual magpie who has plucked theories and data from many disciplines — including philosophy, theology, computer science and biology — to produce a brilliantly original, thought-provoking and important study of where mankind is heading.
Evening Standard (UK)
[Homo Deus]…provocatively explores what the future may have in store for humans in this deeply troubling book.… Harari paints with a very broad brush throughout, but he raises stimulating questions about both the past and the future.
Publishers Weekly
This work…leaves readers with questions about consciousness and conscience and whether unrestricted data flow will necessarily lead to wisdom. —Wade M. Lee, Univ. of Toledo Lib.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [I]ntellectually provocativel.… [Harari] smoothly tackles thorny issues and leads us through "our current predicament and our possible futures." A relentlessly fascinating book that is sure to become — and deserves to be — a bestseller.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Homo Deus … then take off on your own:
1. Yuval Noal Harari insists that human beings have never had free will. He writes provocatively that "the free individual is just a fictional tale concocted by an assembly of biochemical algorithms." Talk about what he means. Do you agree with him? Why or why not? (By the way, what do you make of the author's concession on page 399 that perhaps we aren't algorithms after all? Does that undercut everything that went before?)
2. Harari makes the case in his book that we are at a point in human history in which famine, disease, and war are no longer the existential threats they once were: we can now manage them and reduce their devastation. Is he correct? And if so, what are the implications of that?
3. Do you agree, as the author posits, that we humans "are in fact trying to upgrade [our]selves into gods." What he does mean — and how, according to the the author, might that spell our doom?
4. We now have the technical ability to select embryos with the most optimal health or to slow down our aging process. Good things … or bad?
5. What frightens you most about the future? Do you see the possibility of humanity, as Harari imagines, breaking off into securely isolated islands of perfect beings with re-engineered brains and bodies? (Have you seen Westworld?) Or perhaps you envision machines endowed with artificial intelligence taking over our lives, becoming our overlords? (How about 2001 Space Odyssey?)
6. Harari predicts that at some point it will be feasible for a machine not only to reveal a diagnosis but also to explain to us what it means. As Harari writes: "how about receiving the news from an attentive machine that tailors its words to [our] feelings and personality type." Is that appealing? Or does it bother you? Would you rather have a flesh and blood doctor tell you your medical fate, even one with a lousy bedside manner, or a computer with soothing voice and affect?
7. Do you think Harari is an alarmist? Or do his prognostications have merit? Where do you see humanity heading?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
There Will Be No Miracles Here: A Memoir
Casey Gerald, 2018
Penguin Publishing
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780735214200
Summary
The testament of a boy and a generation who came of age as the world came apart—a generation searching for a new way to live.
Casey Gerald comes to our fractured times as a uniquely visionary witness whose life has spanned seemingly unbridgeable divides.
His story begins at the end of the world: Dallas, New Year's Eve 1999, when he gathers with the congregation of his grandfather's black evangelical church to see which of them will be carried off. His beautiful, fragile mother disappears frequently and mysteriously; for a brief idyll, he and his sister live like Boxcar Children on her disability checks.
When Casey—following in the footsteps of his father, a gridiron legend who literally broke his back for the team—is recruited to play football at Yale, he enters a world he's never dreamed of, the anteroom to secret societies and success on Wall Street, in Washington, and beyond.
But even as he attains the inner sanctums of power, Casey sees how the world crushes those who live at its margins. He sees how the elite perpetuate the salvation stories that keep others from rising.
And he sees, most painfully, how his own ascension is part of the scheme.
There Will Be No Miracles Here has the arc of a classic rags-to-riches tale, but it stands the American Dream narrative on its head. If to live as we are is destroying us, it asks, what would it mean to truly live?
Intense, incantatory, shot through with sly humor and quiet fury, There Will Be No Miracles Here inspires us to question—even shatter—and reimagine our most cherished myths. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1987
• Where—Oak Cliff, Texas, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University; M.B.A., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Casey Gerald grew up in Oak Cliff, Texas and went to Yale, where he majored in political science and played varsity football. After receiving an MBA from Harvard Business School, he cofounded MBAs Across America. He has been featured on MSNBC, at TED and SXSW, on the cover of Fast Company, and in The New York Times, Financial Times, and The Guardian, among others (From the publisher.)
See the author's TED talk.
Book Reviews
A deeply spiritual memoir about growing up black, poor, and gay in evangelical Texas; Gerald has become a superstar as a TED talker and MBA powerhouse, but this book is quiet and reflective, a document of fearless humility.
Boston Globe
A memoir of lacerating honesty and self-awareness, a book that lets you feel how badly the author needed to write it.… There Will Be No Miracles Here is a portrait of a man looking for what's real, within and for himself. It's also a testament to the power of written words and the role they play in personal transformation. Reading Gerald's book is to see the author come alive, and to look in wonder at the process.
Dallas Morning News
Stunningly original.… By breaking every rule of the… genre, [Gerald has] created something unique and sublime: a beautiful chronicle of a life as yet unfinished.… [A] shining and sincere miracle of a book.
NPR
[Gerald] take[s] on the important work of exposing the damage done to America, especially its black population, by the failure to confront the myths, half-truths, and lies at the foundation of the success stories that the nation worships.
Atlantic
At first glance, Gerald’s story might read as inspirational: A gay black boy born into poverty goes on to Yale, a Harvard M.B.A., and Wall Street. But this memoir is light on triumph and heavy on fatalism, complicating the bootstrap narrative of his life.
New York Magazine
A formally inventive and lyrical memoir about boyhood, blackness, masculinity, faith, privilege, and the search for self that investigates the idea of the American dream, and how the myth of ascension–including the author’s own—is what can ultimately undo us.
Poets & Writers
[A] compulsively readable memoir… about coming into the light of reality in a world filled with deceit and loss, love and hope.… Gerald’s staccato prose and peripatetic storytelling combine the cadences of the Bible with an urgency reminiscent of James Baldwin.
BookPage
A wide-ranging, hard-to-define memoir of family, identity, and belonging.
Library Journal
(Starred review) Gerald pulls no punches in telling his extraordinary story, which he relates with unsparing truth, no small amount of feeling, and a complete lack of sentimentality.… Richly layered writing on poverty, progress, race, belief, and the… American Dream.
Booklist
(Starred review) A memoir of a religious, gay black man coming to terms with his own nuanced achievement of the American dream.… Hardly a by-the-numbers memoir, this is a powerful book marked by the author's… insightful storytelling.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for THERE WILL BE NO MIRACLES HERE … then take off on your own:
1. What are the influences in Casey Gerald's early life that shaped the kind of man who would come to write There Will Be No Miracles Here? Consider his mother's disappearance, his father's struggle with addiction, and his grandfather as leader of a megachurch.
2. Why was the idea of perfection so important to Casey? He feels he should have been more nonconforming, that he should have resisted expectations. What does he mean, and why does he believe in the importance of nonconformity? What do you think?
3. Talk about the meaning of book's title and its relationship to the first pages. Gerald's memoir opens with his 12-year-old-self praying: "Lord, please take me with You when You come." In what way was Gerald's faith shaken when his savior didn't come for him?
4. Follow-up to Question 3: Consider the title once again: how does its meaning continue to follow Gerald during the next decade or so of his life: Yale, Lehman Brothers, Harvard?
5. How did Gerald experience Yale University as black 18-year-old?
6. How does Gerald define the American Dream? By all measures, it would seem that he himself has achieved the pinnacle of the dream. Yet he rejects its truth. Why?
7. Why did Gerald write this memoir—for what purpose—to point out injustices, to propose solutions, to urge reform, to help others, or to examine his own sense of self?
8. Gerald says it would be easier to have a mother die rather than disappear. Where you shocked, or do you understand why he might make such a statement?
9. Gerald was "just a boy defined by his circumstances," as he writes. He continues…
Perhaps we all are …but why do we lie about it? Why don’t we want to believe it? Is it that it shames us to admit how limited our power is, how much we can submit—have submitted—to the things we did not choose?
What is your response to that question? Are we the sum of our circumstances? Or are we "the captains of our fate"?
10. Watch Casey Gerard's TED talk. How does compare with his memoir? How do the two, the talk and the book, complement one another?
https://www.ted.com/talks/casey_gerald_the_gospel_of_doubt
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir
Nicole Chung, 2018
Catapult Books
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781936787975
Summary
What does it mean to lose your roots—within your culture, within your family—and what happens when you find them?
Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth.
She believed that her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hope of giving her a better life, that forever feeling slightly out of place was her fate as a transracial adoptee.
But as Nicole grew up—facing prejudice her adoptive family couldn’t see, finding her identity as an Asian American and as a writer, becoming ever more curious about where she came from—she wondered if the story she’d been told was the whole truth.
With warmth, candor, and startling insight, Nicole Chung tells of her search for the people who gave her up, which coincided with the birth of her own child.
All You Can Ever Know is a profound, moving chronicle of surprising connections and the repercussions of unearthing painful family secrets—vital reading for anyone who has ever struggled to figure out where they belong. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1981
• Where—Seattle, Washington, USA
• Education—B.A. and M.A.
• Currently—lives in the Washington, DC, area
Nicole Chung is a writer, editor, and the author of the memoir All You Can Ever Know, published in 2018. She was born in Seattle in 1981 to Korean parents who put her up for adoption after she spent months on life support. She was raised in a small town outside of Portland, Oregon, by adoptive white Catholic parents.
In her mid-20s Chung took a nonfiction class and started writing essays. She later worked as the managing editor for The Toast from 2014 until the site closed in 2016, after which she became the editor-in-chief of Catapult magazine.
She has also written for the New York Times, GQ, Longreads, BuzzFeed, Hazlitt, and Shondaland, among other publications.
In All You Can Ever Know Chung's writes about her own life story as well as that of her birth sister, whom she met after reestablishing contact with their birth parents. The memoir is structured around Chung's efforts during her first pregnancy to reconstruct the story of her own origins, including searching for her birth family, contacting them, then discovering a history of abuse, divorce, and deception.
Chung lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her husband and two daughters. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/22/2018.)
Book Reviews
Chung’s search for her biological roots …has to be one of this year’s finest books, let alone memoirs.…Chung has literary chops to spare and they’re on full display in descriptions of her need, pain and bravery.
Bethanne Patrick - Washington Post
A Korean American adopted by white parents in Oregon, Chung writes movingly of her search to find her birth parents; her personal quest leads not only to her own story, but also to meditations on race, parenthood, and the construction of identity.
Kate Tuttle - Boston Globe
What gives All You Can Ever Know its power is the emotional honesty in every line, essential to the telling of a story so personal.… All You Can Ever Know, sometimes painfully and always beautifully, explores what it means to be adopted, to be a different race from the family you grew up in, and to later create a family of your own.
Seattle Times
In this much-anticipated memoir, Chung brings her clear and thoughtful prose to the task of untangling the legacy of her adoption to white parents in Oregon. Transracial adoption …looks far more complicated under Chung’s kind but implacably honest gaze.
Huffington Post
(Starred review) [A] stunning memoir.… Chung’s writing is vibrant and provocative as she explores her complicated feelings about her transracial adoption (which she "loved and hated in equal measure") and the importance of knowing where one comes from.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) This touching memoir explores issues of identity, racism, motherhood, and sisterhood with eloquence and grace. Highly recommended.
Library Journal
[An] insightful memoir.… Chung's clear, direct approach to her experience, which includes the birth of her daughter as well as her investigation of her family, reveals her sharp intelligence and willingness to examine difficult emotions.
Booklist
Highly compelling… [and a] poignant depiction of the irreducibly complex nature of human motives and family ties. A profound, searching memoir about "finding the courage to question what I'd always been told."
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The book opens with "The story my mother told me about them was always the same" (3)—how do stories and storytelling shape the author’s view of herself and her life?
2. Chung writes about not telling anyone that she is looking for her birth parents and that "long after the papers are signed, and the original familial bonds are severed, adoption has a way of isolating the adoptee" (63). What role does isolation take in Chung’s journey? What impact does her race and ethnicity have on these feelings of isolation?
3. Throughout her memoir, Chung openly asks questions to herself and others in equal measure. By the end of the memoir, do you feel as if she has answered the questions she asks? Does she need to?
4. Chung’s search for her birth parents coincides with her first pregnancy, and her first meeting with her birth father lines up with her second. How do these events happening at the same time inform one anoth-er? How does it affect how she views them?
5. Chung’s adoptive parents have what she sees as "an enviable sort of nonchalance about my adoption," but she writes that she "couldn’t turn other people’s nosiness into a joke, and [she] couldn’t make them regret it, either" (34). What do you think was behind her adoptive parents’ responses and their attitude about the adoption? How did these things impact Chung’s perception of herself?
6. What are some of the mainstream ideas and narratives about adoption that Chung pushes back on? Where and how does she complicate the choices and events that tend to get simplified, particularly regarding adoptees of color?
7. After corresponding with her birth family, Chung is left to confront the fact that the story she was told about her birth parents was not entirely accurate. How does she process this new information? What shifts does she make after being presented with it?
8. Chung writes, "The peace I’d so badly wanted to give my birth parents, all along, was never my power to give" (150). Who does have the power to give her birth parents peace? Why do you think they feel the way they do about the adoption, despite knowing that Chung became who she is because of it?
9. How does Chung’s journey influence her ideas surrounding motherhood and becoming a mother? As she builds a relationship with her sister and birth father, do these ideas change?
10. How does being Korean American with white adoptive parents in a predominately white town affect Chung’s understanding of her racial and ethnic identity? How does this perception shift as she gets older? How does it change as she raises her own biological children?