Unfamiliar Fishes
Sarah Vowell, 2011
Penguin Group USA
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594485640
Summary
From the bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates, an examination of Hawaii, the place where Manifest Destiny got a sunburn.
Many think of 1776 as the defining year of American history, when we became a nation devoted to the pursuit of happiness through self- government. In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as defining, when, in an orgy of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded first Cuba, then the Philippines, becoming an international superpower practically overnight.
Among the developments in these outposts of 1898, Vowell considers the Americanization of Hawaii the most intriguing. From the arrival of New England missionaries in 1820, their goal to Christianize the local heathen, to the coup d'etat of the missionaries' sons in 1893, which overthrew the Hawaiian queen, the events leading up to American annexation feature a cast of beguiling, and often appealing or tragic, characters: whalers who fired cannons at the Bible-thumpers denying them their God-given right to whores, an incestuous princess pulled between her new god and her brother-husband, sugar barons, lepers, con men, Theodore Roosevelt, and the last Hawaiian queen, a songwriter whose sentimental ode "Aloha 'Oe" serenaded the first Hawaiian president of the United States during his 2009 inaugural parade.
With her trademark smart-alecky insights and reporting, Vowell lights out to discover the off, emblematic, and exceptional history of the fiftieth state, and in so doing finds America, warts and all. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 27, 1969
• Where—Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA
• Education—B.A., Montana State University; M.A.,
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Sarah Jane Vowell is an American author, journalist, essayist and social commentator. Often referred to as a "social observer," Vowell has written six nonfiction books on American history and culture, and was a contributing editor for the radio program This American Life on Public Radio International from 1996–2008, where she produced numerous commentaries and documentaries and toured the country in many of the program’s live shows. She was also the voice of Violet in the animated film The Incredibles.
Vowell was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma and moved to Bozeman, Montana with her family when she was 11. She has a fraternal twin sister, Amy. She earned a B.A. from Montana State University in 1993 in Modern Languages and Literatures and an M.A. in Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996. Vowell received the Music Journalism Award in 1996.
Writings
Vowell is a New York Times’ bestselling author of six nonfiction books on American history and culture. Her 2011 book, Unfamiliar Fishes, reviews the growing influence of American missionaries in Hawaii in the 1800s and the subsequent takeover of Hawaii's property and politics by American sugar plantation owners, eventually resulting in a coup d'état, restricted voting rights for nonwhites, and annexation by the United States. A particular focus is on 1898, when the U.S. "annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded Cuba, and then the Philippines, becoming a meddling, self-serving, militaristic international superpower practically overnight." [from the dust jacket] The title of the book is an allusion to a quotation from the aged David Malo, who had been the first Native Hawaiian ordained to preach and Hawaii's first superintendent of schools:
If a big wave comes in, large and unfamiliar fishes will come from the dark ocean, and when they see the small fishes of the shallows they will eat them up. The white man's ships have arrived with clever men from the big countries. They know our people are few in number and our country is small, they will devour us. [pp. 138-139]
Vowell's earlier book, The Wordy Shipmates (2008), examines the New England Puritans and their journey to and impact on America. She studies John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon “A Model of Christian Charity”—and the bloody story that resulted from American exceptionalism. And she also traces the relationship of Winthrop, Massachusetts’ first governor, and Roger Williams, the Calvinist minister who founded Rhode Island—an unlikely friendship that was emblematic of the polar extremes of the American foundation. Throughout, she reveals how American history can show up in the most unexpected places in modern American culture, often in unexpected ways.
Her book Assassination Vacation (2005) describes a road trip to tourist sites devoted to the murders of presidents Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. Vowell examines what these acts of political violence reveal about American national character and contemporary society.
She is also the author of two essay collections, The Partly Cloudy Patriot (2002) and Take the Cannoli (2000). Her first book Radio On: A Listener's Diary (1997), is her year-long diary of listening to the radio in 1995.
Her writing has been published in the Village Voice, Esquire, GQ, Spin, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the SF Weekly, and she has been a regular contributor to the online magazine Salon. She was one of the original contributors to McSweeney’s, also participating in many of the quarterly’s readings and shows.
In 2005, Vowell served as a guest columnist for the New York Times during several weeks in July, briefly filling in for Maureen Dowd. Vowell also served as a guest columnist in February 2006, and again in April 2006.
In 2008, Vowell contributed an essay about Montana to the book State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America.
Appearances, voice and acting
Vowell has appeared on television shows such as Nightline, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Late Show with David Letterman. She also appeared several times on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
In April 2006, Vowell served as the keynote speaker at the 27th Annual Kentucky Women Writers Conference. In August and September 2006, she toured the United States as part of the Revenge Of The Book Eaters national tour, which benefits the children's literacy centers 826NYC, 826CHI, 826 Valencia, 826LA, 826 Michigan, and 826 Seattle.
Vowell also provided commentary in Robert Wuhl's 2005 Assume the Position HBO specials.
Vowell's first book, which had radio as its central subject, caught the attention of This American Life host Ira Glass, and it led to Vowell's becoming a frequent contributor to the show. Many of Vowell's essays have had their genesis as segments on the show.
In 2004, Vowell provided the voice of Violet Parr, the shy teenager in the Brad Bird-directed Pixar animated film The Incredibles and reprised her role for the various related video games and Disney on Ice presentations featuring The Incredibles. The makers of The Incredibles discovered Vowell from episode 81 – "Guns" of This American Life, where she and her father fire a homemade cannon. Pixar made a test animation for Violet using audio from that sequence, which is included on the DVD version of The Incredibles. She also wrote and was featured in "Vowellet: An Essay by Sarah Vowell" included on the DVD version of I, where she reflects on the differences between being super hero Violet and being an author of history books on the subject of assassinated presidents, and what it means to her nephew Owen.
Vowell provided commentary in "Murder at the Fair: The Assassination of President McKinley", which is part of the History Channel miniseries, 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America.
She is featured prominently in the They Might Be Giants documentary Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns). She also participated on the DVD commentary for the movie, along with the film's director and They Might Be Giants' John Linnell and John Flansburgh.
In September 2006, Vowell appeared as a minor character in the ABC drama Six Degrees. She appeared on an episode of HBO's Bored to Death, as an interviewer in a bar. In 2010, Vowell appeared briefly in the film Please Give, as a shopper.
On November 17, 2011, Vowell joined The Daily Show as the new Senior Historical Context Correspondent.
Personal life
Vowell is part Cherokee (about 1/8 on her mother’s side and 1/16 on her father’s side). According to Vowell, “Being at least a little Cherokee in northeastern Oklahoma is about as rare and remarkable as being a Michael Jordan fan in Chicago.” She retraced the path of the forced removal of the Cherokee from the southeastern United States to Oklahoma known as the Trail of Tears with her twin sister Amy. This American Life chronicled her story on July 3, 1998, devoting the entire hour to Sarah's work.
Vowell is the president of the board of 826NYC, a nonprofit tutoring and writing center for students aged 6–18 in Brooklyn. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Its scintillating cast includes dour missionaries, genital-worshiping heathens, Teddy Roosevelt, incestuous royalty, a nutty Mormon, a much-too-merry monarch, President Obama, sugar barons, an imprisoned queen and Vowell herself, in a kind of 50th-state variety show. It’s a fun book...[a] playful, provocative, stand-up approach to history.
Kaui Hart Hemmings - New York Times Book Review
[Vowell's] prose is conversational but clever, her anecdotes quirky yet highly crafted.... It's the kind of writing performed so well on National Public Radio, journalism as human interest, history as found poetry, monologue casting a spell of public intimacy...this is a book aimed at a wide audience, and Vowell tells a good tale. Forgive her journalistic excesses, consider her shrewd observations, and enjoy her comic turns of phrase. If you feel compelled after reading to journey to the Bishop Museum or devour the journals of Captain Cook or see some real hula, so much the better.
Allegra Goodman - Washington Post
Sarah Vowell is for my money, the best essayist/radio commentator/sit-down comic and pointy headed history geek in the business.
Seattle Times
Recounting the brief, remarkable history of a unified and independent Hawaii, Vowell, a public radio star and bestselling author (The Wordy Shipmates), retraces the impact of New England missionaries who began arriving in the early 1800s to remake the island paradise into a version of New England. In her usual wry tone, Vowell brings out the ironies of their efforts: while the missionaries tried to prevent prostitution with seamen and the resulting deadly diseases, the natives believed it was the missionaries who would kill them: "they will pray us all to death." Along the way, and with the best of intentions, the missionaries eradicated an environmentally friendly, laid-back native culture (although the Hawaiians did have taboos against women sharing a table with men, upon penalty of death, and a reverence for "royal incest"). Freely admitting her own prejudices, Vowell gives contemporary relevance to the past as she weaves in, for instance, Obama's boyhood memories. Outrageous and wise-cracking, educational but never dry, this book is a thought-provoking and entertaining glimpse into the U.S.'s most unusual state and its unanticipated twists on the familiar story of Americanization.
Publishers Weekly
(Audio version.) Displaying her trademark wry, smart-alecky style, author/historian Vowell (contributing editor, NPR's This American Life; The Wordy Shipmates) tells the story of the Americanization of the formerly independent nation of Hawaii, beginning in the early 1820s with the New England missionaries who remade the island paradise to conform to their own culture. The diverse characters about whom she writes include an incestuous princess torn between her new god and her brother-husband, sugar barons, lepers, con men, Theodore Roosevelt, and the last Hawaiian queen. Unfortunately, listeners' enjoyment of this otherwise compelling material is diminished by Vowell's staccato, monotone reading of it, and brief cameos by various entertainment industry personalities are not enough to recommend it over the print version. —Dale Farris, Groves, TX
Library Journal
[A] quick, idiosyncratic account of Hawaii from the time Capt. James Cook was dispatched to the then–Sandwich Islands to the end of the 19th century, when the United States annexed the islands. The author [is] especially sharp in her considerations of the baleful effect of imposed religion as missionaries tried to turn happy Polynesians into dour Yankees.... The author presents the views of the islanders as well as the invaders, as she delves into journals and narratives and takes field trips with local guides. Her characteristic light touch is evident throughout. Lively history and astute sociology make a sprightly chronicle of a gorgeous archipelago and its people.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Unfamiliar Fishes:
1. How does Sarah Vowell portray the missionaries and their efforts to convert Hawaiians to Christianity? Was their intervention into Hawaiian culture for the better or worse?
2. What about the whalers who appeared later? Vowell describes their clash with the missionaries as "representing opposing sides of America's schizophrenic divide—Bible-thumping prudes and sailors on leave." Is that an adequate description? Was that kind of "divide" endemic only to America...or did it exist elsewhere? Does Vowell's "schizophrenic divide" exist today?
3. Talk about this statement by Vowell in her book:
In America, on the ordinate plane of faith versus reason, the x axis of faith intersects with the y axis of reason at the zero point of 'I don't give a damn what you think.'"
What exactly does Vowell mean? Is this a fair assessment of the age-old argument of faith vs. reason? Does it hold true even today...or has the discussion changed?
4. Vowell writes that the missionaries "sort of kind of had a point. If Kalakaua had taken better care of his charge...then his enemies would have been unable to swaddle themselves...in the mantle of...1776." To what extent, then, does Vowell see Hawaii's history a result of poor governance by its ruling class? Or was its annexation by America inevitable given its location and geography.
5. Were you shocked...intrigued...or amused by some of the indigenous practices of incest, genital worship, and the taboos against women?
6. What do you think of Sarah Vowell's tone, which many find refreshingly funny and others find forced and tiresome. How would you describe her narrative voice?
7. What is the significance of the book's title, "Unfamiliar Fishes"?
8. What was "Manifest Destiny"? How does it tie into the belief in American exceptionalism?
9. Grover Cleveland called the Hawaiian affair "a miserable business" and said he was ashamed. His successors as president, William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, were delighted. Where does your opinion fall—do you believe the United States had the right to Americanize and annex the Hawaiian Islands?
10. What have you learned about Hawaii after reading Unfamiliar Fishes? What surprised you most?
11. Are there any heroes in this story of the Hawaiian Islands? Any villains? Is the history of the Islands a tragic story...a redemptive one...or something else?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
Gabrielle Hamilton, 2011
Random House
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812980882
Summary
Winner, 2012 James Beard Foundation Award for Writing & Literature
I wanted the lettuce and eggs at room temperature...the butter-and-sugar sandwiches we ate after school for snack...the marrow bones my mother made us eat as kids that I grew to crave as an adult.... There would be no ‘conceptual’ or ‘intellectual’ food, just the salty, sweet, starchy, brothy, crispy things that one craves when one is actually hungry. In ecstatic farewell to my years of corporate catering, we would never serve anything but a martini in a martini glass. Preferably gin.
Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent twenty fierce, hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life. Above all she sought family, particularly the thrill and the magnificence of the one from her childhood that, in her adult years, eluded her. Hamilton’s ease and comfort in a kitchen were instilled in her at an early age when her parents hosted grand parties, often for more than one hundred friends and neighbors. The smells of spit-roasted lamb, apple wood smoke, and rosemary garlic marinade became as necessary to her as her own skin.
Blood, Bones & Butter follows an unconventional journey through the many kitchens Hamilton has inhabited through the years: the rural kitchen of her childhood, where her adored mother stood over the six-burner with an oily wooden spoon in hand; the kitchens of France, Greece, and Turkey, where she was often fed by complete strangers and learned the essence of hospitality; the soulless catering factories that helped pay the rent; Hamilton’s own kitchen at Prune, with its many unexpected challenges; and the kitchen of her Italian mother-in-law, who serves as the link between Hamilton’s idyllic past and her own future family—the result of a difficult and prickly marriage that nonetheless yields rich and lasting dividends.
Blood, Bones & Butter is an unflinching and lyrical work. Gabrielle Hamilton’s story is told with uncommon honesty, grit, humor, and passion. By turns epic and intimate, it marks the debut of a tremendous literary talent.. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Gabrielle Hamilton is the chef/owner of Prune restaurant in New York’s East Village. She received an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Michigan, and her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, GQ, Bon Appétit, Saveur, and Food & Wine. Hamilton has also authored the 8-week Chef Column in The New York Times, and her work has been anthologized in six volumes of Best Food Writing. She has appeared on The Martha Stewart Show and the Food Network, among other television. She lives in Manhattan with her two sons. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Though Ms. Hamilton's brilliantly written new memoir, Blood, Bones & Butter, is rhapsodic about food — in every variety, from the humble egg-on-a-roll sandwich served by Greek delis in New York to more esoteric things like 'fried zucchini agrodolce with fresh mint and hot chili flakes’—the book is hardly just for foodies. Ms. Hamilton, who has an M.F.A. in fiction writing from the University of Michigan, is as evocative writing about people and places as she is at writing about cooking, and her memoir does as dazzling a job of summoning her lost childhood as Mary Karr's "Liars' Club" and Andre Aciman’s "Out of Egypt" did with theirs.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
[L]uminous…Hamilton quickly proves that her decade-in-the-making work can live up to the extraordinary "best memoir by a chef ever" hype. That quote, by the way, is from the previous title holder, Anthony Bourdain...Hamilton...shares two of Bourdain's traits: a wicked, sometimes obscene sense of humor and a past checkered with drug use and crime. But as he admits in his jacket testimonial, she's the superior writer by a mile. To read Blood, Bones & Butter is to marvel at Hamilton's masterly facility with language.
Joe Yonan - Washington Post
Hamilton’s writing about food is so vivid it could make you half-crazed with hunger, leaving you in front of the open fridge with a cold chicken leg in one hand and the book in the other.
Boston Globe
Blood, Bones & Butter, more than any book I know, captures the essence of contemporary cool when it comes to food. This is what you'd read if you came here from another country (or from another decade) and wanted to know what people valued in dining.... Her vision is so aptly and evocatively written that it's hard not to succumb to its rough-hewn glamour. So preferable to the corporatized alternatives most Americans are stuck with—in both city and country alike—which is one reason for the book's almost certain success. And if Blood, Bones & Butter isn't made into a movie in the next 12 days, I will eat stilted food in sterile dining rooms for a week.
Time.com
(Starred review.) Owner and chef of New York's Prune restaurant, Hamilton also happens to be a trained writer (M.F.A., University of Michigan) and fashions an addictive memoir of her unorthodox trajectory to becoming a chef. The youngest of five siblings born to a French mother who cooked "tails, claws, and marrow-filled bones" in a good skirt, high heels, and apron, and an artist father who made the sets for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus, Hamilton spent her early years in a vast old house on the rural Pennsylvania–New Jersey border. With the divorce of her parents when she was an adolescent, the author was largely left to her own devices, working at odd jobs in restaurants. Peeling potatoes and scraping plates-"And that, just like that, is how a whole life can start." At age 16, in 1981, she got a job waiting tables at New York's Lone Star Cafe, and when caught stealing another waitress's check, she was nearly charged with grand larceny. After years of working as a "grunt" freelance caterer and going back to school to learn to write (inspired by a National Book Foundation conference she was catering), Hamilton unexpectedly started up her no-nonsense, comfort-food Prune in a charming space in the East Village in 1999. Hamilton can be refreshingly thorny (especially when it comes to her reluctance to embrace the "foodie" world), yet she is also as frank and unpretentious as her menu-and speaks openly about marrying an Italian man (despite being a lesbian), mostly to cook with his priceless Old World mother in Italy.
Publishers Weekly
The book’s subtitle should arouse interest. How was the author’s education inadvertent? What is the reason she was reluctant to become a chef? All will become clear upon completion of the final page of this lusty, rollicking, engaging-from-page-one memoir of the chef-owner of Prune restaurant in New York’s East Village.... Add this to the shelf of chef memoirs but also recommend it to readers with a penchant for forthright, well-written memoirs in general. —Brad Hooper
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. What does food mean to the author? How did your particular attitude toward food develop?
2. What challenges do writers and chefs share? Are they unique to those professions?
3. What saved the author from a life of substance abuse and crime?
4. Gabrielle Hamilton’s mother-in-law is a central figure in her book. Why did she become so important for her? Do you have someone equally important in your own life?
5. Being invited by Misty Callies to prep for a large dinner party and, later, to work at her restaurant were milestones for Gabrielle Hamilton. Why were these experiences significant for her?
6. Gabrielle Hamilton writes about her ambivalence in wedding her husband. Why do you think she married him? Have you ever felt similarly about your own relationships?
7. Getting one’s needs met is a recurring theme. How do you think Gabrielle Hamilton feels about this and how has it influenced her journey?
8. Is Blood, Bones & Butter a funny book?
9. Many have commented on the “honesty” of the book, suggesting that such candor and intimacy are uncommon. Are readers mostly responding to the way Gabrielle Hamilton writes about her own family or does that “honesty” manifest elsewhere? What is her point or objective in being so forthcoming? Do you think you would be so upfront in your own memoir?
10. Did you like/not like the ending and why?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake: A Memoir
Anna Quindlen, 2012
Random House
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812981667
Summary
In this irresistible memoir, the New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Anna Quindlen writes about looking back and ahead—and celebrating it all—as she considers marriage, girlfriends, our mothers, faith, loss, all the stuff in our closets, and more.
As she did in her beloved New York Times columns, and in A Short Guide to a Happy Life, Quindlen says for us here what we may wish we could have said ourselves. Using her past, present, and future to explore what matters most to women at different ages, Quindlen talks about. . .
Marriage: “A safety net of small white lies can be the bedrock of a successful marriage. You wouldn’t believe how cheaply I can do a kitchen renovation.”
Girlfriends: “Ask any woman how she makes it through the day, and she may mention her calendar, her to-do lists, her babysitter. But if you push her on how she really makes it through her day, she will mention her girlfriends. Sometimes I will see a photo of an actress in an unflattering dress or a blouse too young for her or with a heavy-handed makeup job, and I mutter, ‘She must not have any girlfriends.’ ”
Stuff: “Here’s what it comes down to, really: there is now so much stuff in my head, so many years, so many memories, that it’s taken the place of primacy away from the things in the bedrooms, on the porch. My doctor says that, contrary to conventional wisdom, she doesn’t believe our memories flag because of a drop in estrogen but because of how crowded it is in the drawers of our minds. Between the stuff at work and the stuff at home, the appointments and the news and the gossip and the rest, the past and the present and the plans for the future, the filing cabinets in our heads are not only full, they’re overflowing.”
Our bodies: “I’ve finally recognized my body for what it is: a personality-delivery system, designed expressly to carry my character from place to place, now and in the years to come. It’s like a car, and while I like a red convertible or even a Bentley as well as the next person, what I really need are four tires and an engine.”
Parenting: “Being a parent is not transactional. We do not get what we give. It is the ultimate pay-it-forward endeavor: We are good parents not so they will be loving enough to stay with us but so they will be strong enough to leave us.”
From childhood memories to manic motherhood to middle age, Quindlen uses the events of her own life to illuminate our own. Along with the downsides of age, she says, can come wisdom, a perspective on life that makes it satisfying and even joyful. Candid, funny, moving, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake is filled with the sharp insights and revealing observations that have long confirmed Quindlen’s status as America’s laureate of real life. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 8, 1952
• Where—Philadelphia, PA, USA
• Education—B.A., Barnard College
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize for her New York Times column
• Currently—New York, New York
Anna Quindlen could have settled onto a nice, lofty career plateau in the early 1990s, when she had won a Pulitzer Prize for her New York Times column; but she took an unconventional turn, and achieved a richer result.
Quindlen, the third woman to hold a place among the New York Times' Op-Ed columnists, had already published two successful collections of her work when she decided to leave the paper in 1995. But it was the two novels she had produced that led her to seek a future beyond her column.
Quindlen had a warm, if not entirely uncritical, reception as a novelist. Her first book, Object Lessons, focused on an Irish American family in suburban New York in the 1960s. It was a bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book of 1991, but was also criticized for not being as engaging as it could have been. One True Thing, Quindlen's exploration of an ambitious daughter's journey home to take care of her terminally ill mother, was stronger still—a heartbreaker that was made into a movie starring Meryl Streep. But Quindlen's fiction clearly benefited from her decision to leave the Times. Three years after that controversial departure, she earned her best reviews yet with Black and Blue, a chronicle of escape from domestic abuse.
Quindlen's novels are thoughtful explorations centering on women who may not start out strong, but who ultimately find some core within themselves as a result of what happens in the story. Her nonfiction meditations—particularly A Short Guide to a Happy Life and her collection of "Life in the 30s" columns, Living Out Loud—often encourage this same transition, urging others to look within themselves and not get caught up in what society would plan for them. It's an approach Quindlen herself has obviously had success with.
Extras
• To those who expressed surprise at Quindlen's apparent switch from columnist to novelist, the author points out that her first love was always fiction. She told fans in a Barnes & Noble.com chat, "I really only went into the newspaper business to support my fiction habit, but then discovered, first of all, that I loved reporting for its own sake and, second, that journalism would be invaluable experience for writing novels."
• Quindlen joined Newsweek as a columnist in 1999. She began her career at the New York Post in 1974, jumping to the New York Times in 1977.
• Quindlen's prowess as a columnist and prescriber of advice has made her a popular pick for commencement addresses, a sideline that ultimately inspired her 2000 title A Short Guide to a Happy Life Quindlen's message tends to be a combination of stopping to smell the flowers and being true to yourself. Quindlen told students at Mount Holyoke in 1999, "Begin to say no to the Greek chorus that thinks it knows the parameters of a happy life when all it knows is the homogenization of human experience. Listen to that small voice from inside you, that tells you to go another way. George Eliot wrote, 'It is never too late to be what you might have been.' It is never too early, either. And it will make all the difference in the world."
• Studying fiction at Barnard with the literary critic Elizabeth Hardwick, Quindlen's senior thesis was a collection of stories, one of which she sold to Seventeen magazine. (From Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Quindlen is too good a writer to be falling back on cliches and old sampler sayings like: “Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like no one’s looking.” Where Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake succeeds is in Quindlen's warm yet pithy discussions about feminism, aging, the uselessness of stuff and the importance of girlfriends—"the joists that hold up the house of our existence."
Yvonne Zipp - Washington Post
Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake serves up generous portions of her wise, commonsensical, irresistibly quotable take on life in the 50s—and beyond. And here's the icing: Her view of late middle age is so enthusiastic, some might accuse her of flirting with smugness.
Heller McAlpin - NPR
Before she published six best-selling novels (e.g., Every Last One); wrote her million-copy best seller, A Short Guide to the Happy Life; and won a Pulitzer Prize for her New York Times column "Public and Private," Quindlen attracted eager readers with her Times column "Life in the 30s." Now she's in her fifties and ready to talk about women's lives as a whole.
Library Journal
Like having an older, wiser sister or favorite aunt over for a cup of tea, Quindlen's (Every Last One, 2010, etc.) latest book is full of the counsel and ruminations many of us wish we could learn young.... A graceful look at growing older from a wise and accomplished writer--sure to appeal to her many fans, women over 50 and readers of Nora Ephron and similar authors.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the opening lines of the book, Anna Quindlen says about the arc of her life: “First I was who I was. Then I didn’t know who I was. Then I invented someone, and became her.” Looking back over your own life, do you identify with Quindlen’s experience? Do you think you’ve “invented” yourself as you’ve grown older, or become who you always were? And how would you differentiate between the two?
2. Anna Quindlen loves everything about books—from the musty smell of old bookstores, to the excuse reading provides to be alone. Books, she writes, “make us feel as though we’re connected, as though the thoughts and feelings we believe are singular and sometimes nutty are shared by others, that we are all more alike than different.” What do you most love about books? Be specific: Is it the entertainment, the escape, the sense of connection? Something else entirely?
3. Anna writes hilariously about the small white lies—the cost of a kitchen renovation, for example—that can keep a marriage healthy. Do you agree? If so, fess up: Which of your innocent fibs do you think has spared your relationship the most grief?
4. Anna tells her children that “the single most important decision they will make…[is] who they will marry.” Do you agree? Why or why not?
5. Anna calls girlfriends “the joists that hold up the house of our existence,” and believes that they become more and more important to us as we grow older. Have you found this to be true? If so, why do you think that’s the case? What do you think close girlfriends offer that a spouse cannot?
6. The difference between male friendships and female friendships, Anna writes, is that “all male phone conversations were designed to make plans,” while phone calls between girlfriends “were intended to deconstruct the world.” What other differences between male and female friendships does Anna illuminate in the chapter “Girlfriends”? What other differences and/or similarities do you think exist between male friendships and female friendships?
7. In the chapter “Older”, Anna writes: “Perhaps if we think of life as a job, most of us finally feel that after fifty we’ve gotten good at it.” Do you think you’ve gotten good at life? What aspects do you think you could improve? And better yet, which have you nailed?
8. “One of the amazing, and frightening things about growing older,” Anna writes, is that you become aware of “how many times it could have gone a different way, the mistakes that you averted, not because you were wise, perhaps, but because you were lucky.” Can you think of an example in your own life, of when you might have gone another way? How might things have been different? Are you grateful you ended up on the path you’re on?
9. Anna writes about our attitude toward aging and our looks: “Women were once permitted a mourning period for their youthful faces; it was called middle age. Now we don’t even have that. Instead we have the science of embalming disguised as grooming.” How does she think that our society’s love of youth, and youthful looks, affect the way women lead their lives? Do you agree?
10. At her age, Anna writes, she’s stopped trying to figure out why she does what she does. “I fear heights, love liver and onions, prefer big dogs over small ones, work best between the hours of ten and two. Who knows why? Who cares?” What are some of the quirks you’ve stopped fighting, the eccentricities you’ve come to embrace in yourself? In your friends, your family?
11. “Those little stories we tell ourselves,” Anna writes, “make us what we are, and, too often, what we’re not. … I can’t cook. I’m not smart. I’m a bad driver. I’m no jock.” Anna recounts her own story of overcoming one of these “little stories,” and doing something she once thought impossible: a headstand. Do you have “little stories you tell yourself” about who you are, and what you can do? Are there times when you, or a friend or family member, have overcome one of these “mythic” obstacles and done something you thought impossible?
12. Anna calls her body a “personality-delivery system.” She doesn’t require a “hood ornament”—what she really needs “are four tires and an engine.” Do you find this notion comforting? Or do you feel appearance is more important than that? Discuss.
13. Anna draws some meaningful distinctions between parenting young children and parenting young adults. As she puts it, “It is one thing to tell a ten-year-old she cannot watch an R-rated movie; it is another to watch her, at age 30, preparing to marry a man you are not convinced will make her happy.” What do you think are some of the biggest challenges in parenting young and older children? Some of the greatest joys? What has parenting taught you about yourself?
14. The “alchemy of parenthood” is watching “so much scut work”—dinners, sports, school, doctors’ offices—manifest itself in “unique and remarkable human beings.” Why do you think it’s so difficult to see the end product on the horizon—the “Sistine Chapel,” as Anna writes—during the day-to-day routines? Or, do you think there are moments within the daily routines when parents can catch glimpses of the larger thing they are helping to build?
15. In the beginning of Part I, Anna’s daughter asks her what message she would give to her 22-year-old self. Anna has two answers: first, that her younger self should “stop listening to anyone who wanted to smack her down,” and second, that the bad news was that “she knew nothing, really, about anything that mattered. Nothing at all.” Did this advice ring true to you, too? If you were to give a message to your younger self, what would you say?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Charles Duhigg, 2012
Random House
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400069286
Summary
A young woman walks into a laboratory. Over the past two years, she has transformed almost every aspect of her life. She has quit smoking, run a marathon, and been promoted at work. The patterns inside her brain, neurologists discover, have fundamentally changed.
Marketers at Procter & Gamble study videos of people making their beds. They are desperately trying to figure out how to sell a new product called Febreze, on track to be one of the biggest flops in company history. Suddenly, one of them detects a nearly imperceptible pattern—and with a slight shift in advertising, Febreze goes on to earn a billion dollars a year.
An untested CEO takes over one of the largest companies in America. His first order of business is attacking a single pattern among his employees—how they approach worker safety—and soon the firm, Alcoa, becomes the top performer in the Dow Jones.
What do all these people have in common? They achieved success by focusing on the patterns that shape every aspect of our lives.
They succeeded by transforming habits.
In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation.
Along the way we learn why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. We visit laboratories where neuroscientists explore how habits work and where, exactly, they reside in our brains. We discover how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. We go inside Procter & Gamble, Target superstores, Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, NFL locker rooms, and the nation’s largest hospitals and see how implementing so-called keystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference between failure and success, life and death.
At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.
Habits aren’t destiny. As Charles Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1974
• Where—the State of New Mexico, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University; M.B.A,
Harvard University
• Awards—see below
• Currently—lives in Brookly, New York City, New York
Charles Duhigg is a reporter at the New York Times where he writes for the business section. Prior to joining the staff of the Times in 2006, he was a staff writer of the Los Angeles Times. He lives in Brooklyn, New York City and is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School.
He is currently working on a series titled "The iEconomy" about Apple, and the company's influence within the U.S. and abroad. He wrote the series "Toxic Waters, Golden Opportunities," and was part of the team that wrote "The Reckoning."
Duhigg's book about the science of habit formation, titled The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, was published in 2012. An extract was published in the New York Times entitled "How Companies Learn Your Secrets.
Awards
2007 George Polk Award
2007 Heywood Broun Award
2008 Hillman Prize
2008 Gerald Loeb Award
2009 Scripps Howard National Journalism Award
2010 National Academy of Sciences Reporting Award
2010 Society of Environmental Journalists Investigative Reporting Award
Awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers,the Deadline Awards, and the John B. Oakes Awards.
(Author bio from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
I imagine that most people…would love to find an easy way of breaking a bad habit or two. Charles Duhigg…has written an entertaining book to help us do just that, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Duhigg has read hundreds of scientific papers and interviewed many of the scientists who wrote them, and relays interesting findings on habit formation and change from the fields of social psychology, clinical psychology and neuroscience. This is not a self-help book conveying one author's homespun remedies, but a serious look at the science of habit formation and change.
Timothy D. Wilson - New York Times Book Review
Duhigg brings a heaping, much-needed dose of social science and psychology to the subject, explaining the promise and perils of habits via an entertaining ride that touches on everything from marketing to management studies to the civil-rights movement.... A fascinating read.
Newsweek Daily Beast
A fascinating exploration of our pathologically habitual society—we smoke, we incessantly check our BlackBerrys, we chronically choose bad partners, we always (or never) make our beds. Duhigg digs into why we are this way, and how we can change, both as individuals and institutionally.
The Daily
According to Duhigg (investigative reporter, New York Times), if people can understand how behaviors became habits, they can restructure those patterns in more constructive ways. He presents information on habit formation and change from academic studies, interviews with scientists and executives, and research conducted in dozens of companies. Three sections deal with the neurology of habit formation in individuals, the habits of successful companies and organizations, and the habits of societies and tough ethical issues. Duhigg offers a fascinating analysis'.
Library Journal
With a light touch and utterly believable characters, Close’s...appealing debut manages to capture the humor, heartache and cautious optimism of her protagonists.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Why was E.P. described as “a man who would upend much of what we know about habits”? What did researchers learn from him?
2. What ability do patients with basal ganglia damage lose?
3. Thinking back to the example of McDonald’s restaurants presented on page 26 in the book, how does this company use cues and rewards to trigger habit loops in its customers?
4. What cues and rewards can you identify when you’ve been to fast food restaurants? What about other settings, like movie theaters, or clothing stores?
5. Using the graph on page 19 as a guide, diagram your own habit loop for entering a password on your email account or your pin number at the ATM. Identify the cue, routine, and reward for this habit.
6. Can you diagram the habit loop for when you go into the cafeteria, or have a meal at home?
7. Do you think it was ethical for psychologists to study E.P.? Was he able to consent to research onducted on his memory and habits? Explain why (or why not) the benefits of this research outweigh the negative effects it may have had on his life.
8. On page 21 the author writes, “Habits are often as much a curse as a benefit.” What are examples of habits that are beneficial or detrimental in your own life?
9. The author writes that it is possible to reawaken a habit, and that habits never disappear, but are changed by new cues, routines, or rewards. Describe a habit of yours that has been changed or replaced. Do you agree or disagree that this habit can be reawakened? Why? What would it take to reawaken your habit?
10. Psychologists have learned a great deal about habit and memory from studying individuals who have memory deficits. How are lessons from people like E.P. and H.M. relevant to your life?
11. Make a plan for a new habit you would like to develop. Identify what you can use as a cue, the steps involved in creating a routine and the reward this new habit will deliver.
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Imagine: How Creativity Works
Jonah Lehrer, 2012
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780547386072
Summary
Did you know that the most creative companies have centralized bathrooms? That brainstorming meetings are a terrible idea? That the color blue can help you double your creative output?
From the New York Times best-selling author of How We Decide comes a sparkling and revelatory look at the new science of creativity. Shattering the myth of muses, higher powers, even creative “types,” Jonah Lehrer demonstrates that creativity is not a single gift possessed by the lucky few. It’s a variety of distinct thought processes that we can all learn to use more effectively.
Lehrer reveals the importance of embracing the rut, thinking like a child, daydreaming productively, and adopting an outsider’s perspective (travel helps). He unveils the optimal mix of old and new partners in any creative collaboration, and explains why criticism is essential to the process. Then he zooms out to show how we can make our neighborhoods more vibrant, our companies more productive, and our schools more effective.
You’ll learn about Bob Dylan’s writing habits and the drug addictions of poets. You’ll meet a Manhattan bartender who thinks like a chemist, and an autistic surfer who invented an entirely new surfing move. You’ll see why Elizabethan England experienced a creative explosion, and how Pixar’s office space is designed to spark the next big leap in animation.
Collapsing the layers separating the neuron from the finished symphony, Imagine reveals the deep inventiveness of the human mind, and its essential role in our increasingly complex world. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1981
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.S., Columbia University; Oxford
University as a Rhodes Scholar
• Currently—N/A
Jonah Lehrer is an American author and journalist who writes on the topics of psychology, neuroscience, and the relationship between science and the humanities. Simon Ings has written, "Lehrer fancies himself—and not without reason—as a sort of one-man third culture, healing the rift between sciences and humanities by communicating and contrasting their values in a way that renders them comprehensible to partisans of either camp.
Lehrer graduated from Columbia University in 2003 with a major in neuroscience; while an undergraduate, he examined the biological process of memory in Professor Eric Kandel's Lab. He was also editor of the Columbia Review for two years. He then studied 20th century literature and philosophy at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
He is a contributing editor at Wired, Scientific American Mind, National Public Radio's Radiolab, and has written for the New Yorker, Nature, Seed, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Boston Globe. Jonah Lehrer is also featured in brief informational sessions on the television show Brink, on the science channel. He currently writes the "Head Case" column for the Wall Street Journal.
Jonah Lehrer is the author of three books: Proust Was a Neuroscientist (2007), How We Decide (2010), and Imagine: How Creativity Works (2012).
Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Lehrer's debut book, is a collection of biographical essays on creative figures such as Paul Cezanne, Walt Whitman, Auguste Escoffier, and Marcel Proust. Lehrer argues for an intimate relationship with science and the humanities, and he holds that many discoveries of neuroscience are actually rediscoveries of insights made much earlier by various artists.
In How We Decide, Lehrer argues there are two main parts of the brain involved in decision-making, the rational and the emotional. His thesis has been called into question based on current understanding of neuroscience. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Imagine argues that modern science allows us to identify and harness the many different thought processes from which creativity emerges.... The book’s strength lies in specific examples—detailed stories about 3M, Pixar, Bob Dylan and Don Lee, the computer programmer who became a master mixer of quirky cocktails. These insightful tales make Imagine well worth the read.
Scientific American
Flummoxed by an intractable problem? You probably just need to work harder, right? Actually, try taking a walk instead. Thanks to how we’re hardwired, insight tends to strike suddenly—after we’ve stopped looking. In this entertaining Gladwell-esque plunge into the science of creativity, Jonah Lehrer mingles with a wide cast of characters—inventors, educators, scientists, a Pixar cofounder, an autistic surfing savant—to deconstruct how we accomplish our great feats of imagination. Notable themes emerge: Failure is necessary. The more people you casually rub shoulders with—on and off the job—the more good ideas you’ll have. And societies that unduly restrict citizens’ ability to borrow from the ideas of others—see our broken patent system—do so at their peril.
Mother Jones
Imagine is a great introduction for anyone curious about the nature and dynamics of creativity.
Booklist
In his new book on creativity, Lehrer (How We Decide) presents captivating case studies of innovative minds, companies, and cities while tying in the latest in scientific research. He recounts the sometimes surprising origins of hugely successful inventions, brands, and ideas (e.g., the Swiffer mop, Barbie doll, Pixar animation) and reveals unexpected commonalities in the creative experiences (e.g., the color blue, distractedness, living abroad). The book combines individual case studies with broader psychology to provide new insights into creativity, much like Sheena Iyengar's The Art of Choosing. Many of Lehrer's insights are based on emerging scientific practices and are thus fresh and especially applicable to modern life. He emphasizes innovative companies and experimental approaches to education and includes historical factoids that reveal the backstories of everyday items. Verdict: Lehrer's findings can be used to inform the design of innovative programs or to structure a productive work environment at home or at the office. This book will appeal to educators, business administrators, and readers interested in applied psychology. —Ryan Nayler, Univ. of Toronto Lib., Ont.
Library Journal
Lehrer argues for policy changes to enhance our nation's creativity: immigration reform because immigrants account for a disproportionate number of patent applications in the United States, and patent reform, in order to reward and thereby promote innovation. Lehrer writes with verve, creating an informative, readable book that sparkles with ideas.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What does every creative journey begin with according to Lehrer? What phase, which precedes a breakthrough, do we tend to overlook when we speak of the creative process? 2. What is the major function of each hemisphere of the brain? What role does each side play in the creative process? Which hemisphere is a “connection machine”? What are the three general phases of the creative process?
3. The first chapter of Imagine is entitled “Bob Dylan’s Brain,” but what is so significant about Bob Dylan’s brain? What is important about Dylan’s composition of his hit “Like a Rolling Stone” in particular? What does it reveal about creative blocks and the role of the right hemisphere?
4. What lessons can we learn about creativity from Dick Drew’s invention of masking tape? What does it tell us about the impact of interrupting one’s thought process or having a relaxed state of mind? How do these relaxed conditions affect the activity of the right hemisphere and the rhythm of alpha waves in our brain, and how does this ultimately influence our creative output?
5. How does mood affect our ability to have insights? Why does there seem to be a link between major depressive orders and artistic achievement? What scientific explanation does Lehrer give for the close association of bipolar disorder and creativity?
6. What is horizontal sharing and conceptual blending? How does the latter correspond with philosopher David Hume’s thoughts on the essence of imagination? How can we get better at conceptual blending?
7. Discuss the varied effects of alcohol, stimulants, and amphetamines on the creative process, and, more specifically, their impact with respect to our ability to generate insights. What are the effects of color? Of light or time of day? Of architecture? What effect does daydreaming have on our creative process?
8. What is “working memory” and how large of a role does it play in our creative process? What is the major function of the prefrontal cortex? What other parts of the brain does the prefrontal cortex work with most closely? What does Earl Miller’s experiment reveal, however, about the importance of the primitive mid-brain?
9. What are the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s two archetypes of creativity? What does Lehrer say they are called in modern science?
10. The artist Milton Glaser says that “we’re always looking, but we never really see.” What does he mean by this? What does the slogan of Glaser’s studio tell us about creativity? What does he mean when he says that “creativity is a verb”? What does Glaser’s most famous design project reveal about creativity, perseverance, and the refinement of ideas?
11. What is “the unconcealing”? Why is this such an important part of the creative process?
12. What is Lehrer speaking about when he references “letting go”? Which part of our brain is responsible for hindering this? What does this tell us about the constraints that we place on our own creativity? Can these restraints be overcome? What can we learn about this concept from the musician Yo Yo Ma, jazz improvisation, the surfer Clay Marzo, or comedy powerhouse Second City?
13. Are we “biologically destined” to get less creative as we age? What practical advice does mathematician Paul Erdos offer to maximize our creativity? What effect does being an outsider or thinking like an outsider have on our creative development? How can travel influence our creative output? Why does Lehrer say that we “must constantly forget what [we] already know”?
14. What do Professor Ben Jones’s analyses reveal about trends in scientific teamwork? How should we work together, and what are the ideal strategies for group creativity? What does sociologist Brian Uzzi’s study of musicals tell us about teamwork and group creativity?
15. What is the power of Q? How do levels of “social intimacy” affect levels of creative success?
16. What lessons can we learn from Pixar? Consider their refusal to form an independent production company, the architecture of their workspace, and their creative methods. What accounts for their unlikely, repeated success?
17. Although advertising firm partner Alex Osborn’s technique of positive brainstorming is perhaps the most popular creative method, is it the most effective means of fostering creativity? What problems are associated with this method? What does the research of psychologists Keith Sawyer and Charlan Nemeth reveal about the effectiveness of brainstorming? What does it tell us about the effects of debate and criticism on innovation, imagination, and the generation of ideas? What is “plussing,” and why should this be incorporated in critical discussions?
18. Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third places.” What are “third places,” and what role have they played in the history of new ideas?
19. What is urban friction and how does it affect our creativity? What can we learn from the research of author and urban activist Jane Jacobs and her ideas about “knowledge spill-overs”? What does physicist Geoffrey West’s research reveal about urban patterns of productivity? What does West say is “the single most important invention in human history”?
20. Lehrer speaks about the development of the Route 128 area in Massachusetts versus the development of Silicon Valley in California. What can be learned about creativity, exchange, and innovation from a comparison of the two?
21. What accounts for the Israeli technology boom? What does this example tell us about the importance of social circles, information sharing, and face-to-face interaction?
22. According to the research presented in Lehrer’s book, how important is physical proximity between collaborators? What does Lehrer say, then, is the job of the internet and technology?
23. Statistician David Banks says that geniuses arrive in tight, local clusters, but why is this the case?
24. What is the Shakespeare paradox? What can we learn about genius from a consideration of Shakespeare’s background? What cultural factors played the biggest role in facilitating his success, and what can we conclude about the role of culture and external factors in determining creative output?
25. Lehrer says, “For Shakespeare, the act of creation was inseparable from the act of connection.” There are many other examples, however, of this concept of the link between creation and connection provided in the text. Discuss this concept. What kinds of connections are useful or necessary in fostering our creativity?
26. Discuss economist Paul Romer’s claim that ideas are an inexhaustible resource—a “nonrival good.” While ideas may be an inexhaustible resource, Lehrer calls for us to consider how we can “create a multiplier culture.” Is a dense population or geographic area sufficient to multiply our creative output? If not, what else is required?
27. What are meta-ideas and what role do they play in influencing creativity? Discuss some of the examples of important meta-ideas offered in Lehrer’s book. What were the most important meta-ideas of sixteenth-century England, for instance, and how did they influence levels of creative or artistic achievement? What four meta-ideas does Lehrer say we need to embrace today? In the Coda to his book, what does Lehrer claim is the most important meta-idea of all?
28. What does Lehrer’s book reveal about traditional methods of education and their effect on creativity? What lessons are offered through a consideration of schools like the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts and High Tech High? Can creativity be taught? If so, what tactics or methods can schools implement in order to cultivate and support the creativity of their students?
29. Lehrer says that “[w]e need to innovate innovation.” Considering the many lessons and observations offered in this book, what are some of the steps that we can take to accomplish this?
(Questions issued by publisher.)