toggle_fow's reviews
1003 reviews

This book used a narrative style that reminded me a lot of Chapman's love language books: the short explanation of the concept in general, and then two or three little stories about "John and Marcy" told to exemplify the concept. It's very easy to digest, easy to understand, and for how short and brief this book is, I think it manages to get across quite a few complex concepts.

The core message (that misunderstandings are more likely to be due to difference in style than real ill will, and that while communication styles may be different none of them are morally superior) is a good one. Although it did somewhat depress me. As a person who CAN. NOT. continue talking if I'm being talked over or interrupted, I'm pretty sure I'm never going to be able to pull off the magical transformation one of her example guys did, by just plunging in and becoming one with the gleeful yelling match. And I do still feel like the "but you have to get me something for my birthday that shows you Know Me Really Well without any input from me because if you need me to give you a birthday list you must not truly care/know me" person is needy and unrealistic and should chill.

In that vein, a lot of this book felt like putting a microscope to a problem that by its very nature is hopeless to fix. Intellectually interesting, but leaving you nothing to do afterward but throw up your hands and accept your doom. Hoping all things about people's motives while trying to be conscious of different cultural communication expectations has left me paranoid and jumping at shadow metamessages. I end up paralyzed into doing what I would have done anyway, and hoping everyone has grace for me and my screw-ups. I wish there was an answer for this, but I don't think there is one, and it's not in this book at any rate.

I mentioned how brief That's Not What I Meant is. In this version, it's barely over 200 pages. Partially constrained by its need to be small enough and simple enough to be accessible, and partially constrained by the nature of socio-linguistics as among the softest of soft sciences, this book is pretty essentialist. That's mostly unavoidable, and I think for what it is, That's Not What I Meant does a decent job at nuance and disclaimer. But it is definitely essentialist in the way that my entry-level Crosscultural Communications class was pretty essentialist. You learn all the stuff about "high context" and "low context" cultures first off, so that later you can study how they stand up or break down when applied to real life.

Some of Tannen's chapters remind me of the sweeping generalizations in my CCC textbook, especially her chapters about male and female communication. The temptation with pop psychology/sociology/personality tests/linguistics is to construct some kind of airtight worldview, artificially forcing everyone into the boxes transcribed by the book. As long as you can avoid that and take broad theoretical constructs for what they are -- approximations with value only inasmuch as they are useful -- then this book has some fascinating insights to share.

Today I learned that somewhere in between "history" and "tumblr post" there's this thing called "narrative nonfiction."

Also, I learned that I loathe narrative nonfiction.

Before I go on, caveats:

1. I did waffle between 2 and 3 stars, so take it as a 2.5 maybe.
2. I love the Marquis de Lafayette more than my own life, and this book did have some good Lafayette content so that was enjoyable.

So. First of all. The style and voice. A quick skim of Sarah Vowell reviews will mostly give you the word "irreverent." A lot of people "like her voice," apparently. This is the first Vowell book I've read, and I started it expecting a historical book in the style of every other historical book ever. Thus ambushed, I was taken aback by the author's "voice," which I almost felt that I recognized. There was a haunting echo of those tumblr posts. You know the ones.

At the beginning this playful, I'm-so-funny, informal prose just rubbed me the wrong way. Using words like "preggers" to describe Lafayette's wife? Gross. I thought I was going to hate the entire book. But, hey. I like those tumblr posts, most of the time. I adapted to Vowell's style unexpectedly quickly, and she is funny sometimes. If this short-lived discomfort had been my only problem, I would have rated Lafayette in the Somewhat United States much higher.

Unfortunately, I've also got this problem called Not Enough Lafayette. You think this book is about Lafayette, right? That's an understandable assumption, in my opinion. Not so. Really, it's just an account of the Revolutionary War using Lafayette as the prism through which we view the events of the war. There is a short account of his earlier life, and some brief, sketchy allusions to his sadder later years, but mostly once Cornwallis surrenders it's like, And then the war ended and Lafayette went home to France. The End.

Personally, as a Lafayette enthusiast who picked up this book because it displays Lafayette's name prominently on the cover because it is supposedly about Lafayette. . . I expect more. Even during the war years (i.e. the entire book) Lafayette only pops into the narrative for short visits. This book is as equally about George Washington as it is about Lafayette, if you measure by the percentage of prose dedicated to each. Unsatisfactory.

In a similar vein, honestly my biggest issue with this book: Too Much Sarah.

I feel like I'm on a first name basis with Sarah now, since I've heard so much about her. I'm familiar with a posse of her friends, and their views on topics as random as Thomas Edison and Quakerism. I've heard about her educational background. Sarah's family members. Her modern-day political views. The scholastic interests of her teenage nephew. Her ten zillion mildly topical field trips taken while researching this book, all described and dwelt upon in loving memoir-worthy, philosophical detail.

Do you know how many of these things I know about Doris Kearns Goodwin? Or David McCullough? Or even Ron Chernow? NONE, OBVIOUSLY. BECAUSE HISTORIANS DON'T SPEND ENTIRE CHAPTERS OF THEIR HISTORICAL BOOKS TALKING ABOUT THEMSELVES. And that, friends, is how I like it. Frankly, I don't give a one (1) frick about Sarah, and I resent all the time I was forced to spend reading about her in order to dredge out precious Lafayette-centered anecdotes.

You're all invited to the vigil I'll be holding for all my brain cells that are now unavailable to store Lafayette facts, because they're taken up with Sarah Vowell facts. RIP.

Probably, for some people, this kind of thing serves to humanize and enliven boring, dry historical details? I can definitely imagine there being people out there who would find this kind of human interest New Yorker-y memoir-ism to be a refreshing break among painfully detailed 500-page history tomes. Unfortunately, those people aren't me.

Honestly, if you want to hear about the American Revolution as it would probably be verbally narrated to you over brunch by a humorous, well-informed (though slightly self-absorbed and biased) friend, then you would probably like this book. It's not a bad book. It's just incredibly not my thing.

I will henceforth try to make better life choices, one of which will be to scrupulously avoid "narrative nonfiction."

It is impossible to overestimate the potential for evil inside ordinary humanity.

I was hoping this book had some magic bullet that would suddenly unlock the unknown secret to happiness. Unfortunately, it has no magic bullet. It has all the things my mom tried to tell me -- the things I always rolled my eyes at. However, as is often true for some reason, this book's advice is easier to listen to than that of one's mom.

Some things missed the mark for me. I am haunted by the need for perfection, but I am the common, garden variety "Paralyzed Lazy Perfectionist" in contrast to Nataly Kogan's "Can't Stop Won't Stop Perfectionist" so some of her issues weren't quite as relatable to me. Most of the points, though, were right on the mark.

Some highlights of my mom's classic advice, made more palatable from the mouth of a stranger:

• Let go of the idea that perfection is attainable.

• Basking in the joy of little ordinary good things is the foundation of happiness: not the huge, milestone achievements that you think will make you happy.

• Daily, practiced gratefulness for what goes right is the only way to combat the brain's instinctive tendency to predominantly focus on and notice all the bad.

• Choosing to see the good isn't self-delusional. It is exercising your free choice to define whether to write your life story in lines of suffering or happiness.

There is quite a bit more, and several hard-hitting quotes I would include, except it's not politic to include quotes of not-yet-published books. The only point where I regressed to my teenage self and rolled my eyes so hard I could see my own brain was at the "You don't have to. You GET to!" part. I guess I'm just not mature enough to swallow that one yet. Sorry Mom.

This book is full of information. It covers the societal transition to the modern "extrovert ideal" our schools and workplaces seem geared to now. It dives into neuroscience, correlating something called "high reactivity" and something else called "sensitivity" to introversion. It spends a lot of time examining the mechanics of what it is to be an introvert in today's social climate.

This is all interesting in a "huh I never knew that" documentary sort of way. A decent amount of it will probably resonate with introverts, especially the parts talking about group dynamics and the efficacy of working alone. Introverts in general, especially the ones who read books about themselves, seem to have a tendency toward the defensive self-righteousness of a bitter minority; there's an amount of that here, but not all that much honestly, which is nice.

My hope for this book was that it would show me ways to maximize my strengths and minimize my weaknesses. The tagline is "the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking" right? I was eager to discover what powers I should be taking advantage of and what strategies I should employ. Unfortunately, there wasn't a whole lot of that type of practical, applied content here. There was a chapter on how to nurture introverted children, and a chapter on faking extroversion (not even really how to, more like "you have to do it, but don't do it TOO much") and that was about the limit.

The chapters examining the ups and downs of trying to function as an introvert in modern society, when loudness is seen as leadership and almost all work is group work, were certainly interesting to read. Like the fact that extroverts are better leaders with passive underlings, whereas introverts make better leaders of groups made up of self-directed, initiative-taking types -- I never knew that before, but it makes sense. Fundamentally, though, I know what it is to be an introvert. It's always nice to get some vindication and fuel for my defensive self-righteousness and all, but a whole book of that seems somewhat extraneous.

I also wasn't terribly impressed with the large amount of time this book spent on high-reactiveness and "sensitivity." The neuroscience of this is fascinating enough, but I wasn't convinced that introvertedness and high-reactiveness were more than somewhat correlated. Certainly they seem related, but focusing so much on both of these things seemed to narrow the scope of the book to only looking at one subset of introverts. I wish this section had been either an aside, much smaller than it was, or that it could have been an entire book of its own; you would have needed almost that much time and effort to examine the actual relationship between being an introvert and being high-reactive.

Whenever you have a spiritual question that other people:

a) get mad at you for asking
b) can't even understand
c) don't answer deep enough

...You can always ask C.S. Lewis.

A few parts of this, such as his description of what he as a theistic evolutionist imagines the Fall was like, and his guesses about the spiritual nature of animals, were pure speculation. Most of this book, though, spins lovely, inevitable sense out of confusion as masterfully as Lewis nearly always does.

Very interesting in a Criminal Minds sort of way. The premise of this book is that you should listen to your intuition, because it is unconsciously cataloging all sorts of things that your logical mind will only realize after the fact. Lots of examples of people who just "knew something was wrong" somehow and got out of the situation, or people who DIDN'T and had something terrible happen to them.

I'm not too terribly sure how useful all this will be when you're walking home and get randomly attacked by a serial killer. After all, de Becker claims that your intuition would warn you anyway whether you read the book or not; if your intuition doesn't warn you, or if it's warning you all the time about things that do turn out to be innocuous, there's not much more hidden in this book that will help you out in that situation.

The Gift of Fear does have a lot to say, though, if you've ever dated/been in a relationship with/tried to get out of a relationship with a dangerous or abusive person. It covers a lot of wise, useful concepts from danger signs of future abuse in people you might date, to how to deal with stalkers, and the best way to leave abusive situations.

Very interesting.

Gladwell's claim is that success is as much a measure of 1) luck and 2) social culture as it is of ability.

At first glance, a lot of this seemed to be the "they succeeded because of their attitude" kind of stereotype-based social science that called back to the "protestant work ethic" of Samuel Huntington. As the book went on, though, his examples and analysis were much more convincing than I expected them to be. It does make you feel kind of helpless, since the book is arguing that if you weren't born in the lucky right era or to the right family you're basically out of luck, but it is absolutely intriguing conceptually.

This book is founded on the dangerous false premise that "we are all God" and is decorated with a heavy, suffocating layer of mysticism. However, its practical advice for a healthy mental approach to life is actually pretty solid, if you can sift through all the woo-woo.

I read these books hoping that someday, someone will tell me something other than: "Yes, you have to do hard things." I don't WANT to do hard things. I want to sit in my pajamas in bed under my 6 weighted blankets eating ice cream and reading and writing stories for the rest of my life. That's ALL. Unfortunately, I have tried this, and it actually leads to depression rather than to happiness, so I had to throw out that approach to life.

As these types of books do, The Happiness Project leans on the author's life, personal reflections, and humor to provide upwards of eighty percent of its content. You learn an awful lot about Gretchen; sometimes I identified with her (the desire for legitimacy) and sometimes I cringed a little bit (her pushiness, and constant unkindness to her husband). Around the fluff, though, there is quite a bit of interesting information and some sadly valid insights about happiness.

A sample:

• It takes 5 positive marital actions to repair the damage of 1 negative one

• Happiness comes from "an atmosphere of growth" -- from learning and overcoming and reaching for goals rather than from achieving goals (I HATE THIS but I know it's true??)

• Women test as having more empathy towards people than men do, but they both test as having the same amount of empathy towards animals

• Some things contribute massively to your overall happiness, but are unpleasant to do or experience

• Quite a bit of happiness is people-centered. Although maintaining relationships can be annoying and involve an awful amount of work, it pays big happiness dividends