Distant Associations

I am always playing with words mentally, amusing myself inside my head. Sometimes I will share those thoughts during interactions with others, usually for humorous or absurdist impact. Recently, I decided to turn a double meaning into a poem that I randomly sent my wife as a midday message.

When I say,

"You bore me,"

I don't mean that

I find you

dull and unstimulating;

I mean that you

have twisted your way

deep inside me,

have created for yourself

a hollow passage

straight into my core,

have penetrated

my secret layers,

have access to

my hidden self.

She enjoyed it.

Last post I shared my list of favorite books I read last year. I shared it with ChatGPT in our conversation about this blog and many other things. I asked for an analysis of my reading, and it concluded the description of themes with:

This reader is drawn to books that unsettle naïve certainty, train attention, and expand moral imagination by revealing hidden layers of reality — whether sensory, social, cognitive, or structural. They favor works that balance intellect with empathy, resist reductionism, and treat understanding itself as an ethical practice. Reading is not consumption or self-affirmation, but a disciplined way of seeing more clearly, more generously, and more humbly.

I know the tool is intentionally flattering to encourage more interaction, is a type of mirror meant to support your thoughts and ideas; even so, I can't help but feel affirmed by that description, that I am succeeding in being who I want to be.

Reading is a way of seeing more clearly, more generously, and more humbly.

Deep trust and good humor are signs of spiritual wisdom. . . . 

The kind of laughter modeled by Jesus, the Buddha, and Zeus is rooted in humble acknowledgment of our limitations. We laugh because we can live comfortably not knowing everything.

 — Thomas Moore, Original Self: Living with Paradox and Originality

I work in a relatively large library building in a relatively large county library system, which means I work in different locations, staff many different public service desks, and work on many shared computers. Something I've noticed is that I seem to have preferences outside the norm for a relatively small display and distant monitor position. I've found I can't think when the screen is too close to my face and dominates my view; it overwhelms me and makes me feel claustrophobic. Every time I sit down at a shared station, I have to move the monitor further back from my seat--often as far back as the desk allows. Then I change each browser default to 90% zoom and similarly adjust other settings. I like a wide view of much content and good access to my peripheral vision and surroundings rather than a view that is large and close, focused on only a bit of content isolated from context. I like to be able to take in a lot all at once.

Similarly, I dislike a desk set-up or a computer station that faces a wall. I need my face oriented toward the open room, not away from it, or at least toward a window instead of a wall. When I walk into a room, I instinctively try to sit in a back corner so I can see everything and as little as possible is behind me. I like to be on the edges of groups of people, not surrounded in the middle. Based on comparing notes with colleagues about monitoring activity in library buildings, attending to children in other rooms, and similar, I've noticed I seem to have greater awareness of happenings in the corners of my eyes and of background sounds. I seem to be better at attending to both my immediate focus and my general surroundings, a broad, dispersed focus of attention rather than a narrow, exclusive one. I don't seem to just be better at it, but I find it more necessary. I can't stand it when the surroundings and background are cut off; I feel stymied.

Additionally, I'm one of those people who gets twitchy if you stop me to talk in the middle of a doorway or aisle or otherwise block access to physical spaces someone else might need. People who leave their shopping carts in the way of others, those who walk in the middle of the driving lane, those who have overly loud conversations, and similar--those who appear to have no awareness of or concern for their impact on others--annoy me to no end. I always have an itch of awareness for how I am sharing physical space with others and how I fit into the larger context.

I'm not claiming to be better at the general act of attending than others, simply noting a difference I've picked up on in comparison. I don't know if it's better or worse. I will admit to liking this about myself. It makes me feel good to have this extended awareness. It makes me feel I'm not simply an oblivious, self-contained individual but a part of and connected to the whole. No one and nothing exists in isolation. We all impact each other. That awareness is always high in my mind.

Imagining, I've come to understand, is crucial for conflict resolution. When faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges, it is our ability to envision possibilities beyond the immediate and the obvious that paves the way for solutions. Imagination allows us to step outside of entrenched positions and explore new perspectives, to conceive of compromises that were previously invisible. In those moments of heated debate or silent tension, it is the imaginative mind that can visualize a reality where both sides find common ground, a landscape of understanding and harmony that has never yet existed. By daring to dream of what could be rather than resigning ourselves to what is, we unlock the potential for true and lasting resolution by bridging divides and forging new paths where none seemed possible.

This is where books come in. If imagination is the rocket then books are the rocket fuel. They supercharge the mind and help it see beyond what it can conceive on its own.

 — From the introduction to Into the Uncut Grass by Trevor Noah, a gentle fable about adventures, perspectives, decisions, and conflict resolution.

I've developed a hobby of woodcarving and spent many spare hours the past few weeks creating a dice tower from a tree limb that fell in our yard.

I'm tickled at how well it came out. Soon after I started, a friend who has been cleaning out her basement happened to gift me her grown son's old woodburning tool from his youth--something I haven't used since I was a youth--and that helped the tower turn out even better than I imagined.

According to an old tradition in both the East and the West, when a human being has crafted some object beautifully and properly, a spirit will be so enticed by it that it will take up residence in that thing. . . . But not every object qualifies, because apparently the spirits can distinguish between the genuine and the bogus.

Look around your home and decide which objects are most likely to have charmed a spirit. Which spirits dwell in your environment? Are they encouraged to remain? Which objects are of no interest to passing angels? We might define religion as the art of making and maintaining a material world of such beauty and propriety that it will be the desired home of every kind of spirit.

 — Thomas Moore, Original Self: Living with Paradox and Originality

I have no idea how it impacted my creativity, but I know I am a far better person for having been married to an immigrant from a dissimilar culture for 15 years.

Are Immigrants More Creative?

An awful lot of brilliant minds blossomed in alien soil. That is especially true of the U.S., where foreign-born residents account for only 13 percent of the population but hold nearly a third of all patents and a quarter of all Nobel Prizes awarded to Americans.

Those are some pretty convincing numbers — suggesting that immigrants contribute disproportionately to creative and innovative output.

Creativity research offers an explanation: Psychologists have shown that bigger creative insights result from distant associations — connections between ideas drawn from widely different experiences or domains of knowledge. Associations between similar conceptual material also spark creative insights, but those tend to yield the ordinary, incremental kind that improve on what already exists. It’s the distant associations that lead to radical, breakthrough innovation. Weiner makes a similar argument based on recent research, citing studies showing that “schema violations” lead to greater “cognitive flexibility,” which in turn is linked to creativity. . . . 

They found that travel abroad has no effect on creativity. But the people who had lived in another country scored higher on a creativity test. What’s more, the people who’d lived overseas longer scored higher. . . . 

They found a clear pattern: The more time these designers had spent living abroad, the more original their work tended to be. . . . 

Being in a long-term romantic relationship with someone from another culture did affect creativity. The same was true of friendship — close cross-cultural friendships predicted greater creativity, while superficial acquaintances did not. The lesson is that creativity comes from deeper connections, not superficial contact. When you really get to know someone, you start to see the world through their eyes — and it’s not always the way that you imagined.

Deep cultural engagement benefits creativity everywhere, not only in the United States. . . . 

Deep cultural engagement — the kind that fosters creativity — takes time. Immigrants can enhance the creativity of the Americans they live and work with, but only if they form close relationships. If they remain isolated among people from their own country, speaking their own language, the creative benefits never spread. The key is the depth of a relationship, not mere proximity.

There’s another body of research suggesting that the universities that immigrants work for produce more scientific breakthroughs and spin off more businesses. It’s hard to design rock-solid causal studies, but leaders of the top universities certainly believe in the importance of having immigrants working there. It’s not because they’re woke; it’s because they want to generate the innovations that improve the U.S. economy.

Creativity research strongly suggests that having relationships with people from other countries enhances your creativity. The lesson for everyone is: If you want to be more creative, seek out difference — and engage with it deeply. Get to know people from other cultures, and go beyond surface interactions. This is what drives the cognitive connections that lead to more surprising creative ideas. Meet people very different from you. Travel to a very different place and consider staying a while. Read magazines that you’ve never looked at before. Date someone from another culture. Fill your mind with variety.

Living abroad may be the most direct route to greater creativity, but even if you can’t do that, you can learn from creativity research: Creativity flourishes when your mind is open to worlds beyond your own.

Creativity flourishes when your mind is open to worlds beyond your own.

My wife gave me the book Consolations II: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words by David Whyte for Christmas, and I've started slowly reading through it. Here are a couple of excerpts:

Anguish is not debilitation: anguish fully felt, is a sign that we are fully awake at last, through our own pain, to all the heartbreaking losses and goodbyes involved in the drama of a human life, anguish tells us we are getting ready to embrace, or are even now, against our will, willing to embrace, what until now could never be embraced, that is: our ability to live fully in this body despite its never ending griefs and wounds, as others live, and have always lived, half helplessly, half trying to help, in the greater body of the suffering world.

-----

The cure for anxiety is found in learning to forget the self that first felt the fateful need to worry.

I shared extensively from Whyte's first Consolations book a couple of years ago in my post Living Well Is Being Infinitely Kind and Forgiving.

In The Ecosystem of Us, I wrote about the book Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World by Kristin Ohlson. Ohlson argues in the book that we see the natural world as competitive because that's what we've gone looking for. If we switch our perspective, though, to looking for cooperation, we can find just as much evidence to support a view that nature and evolution are a story of mutualisms, of diverse, complex, cooperative, polycultural ecosystems where lifeforms depend upon and help each other, stronger together. Cooperation is as much the norm as competition, if only we can see it.

The Moral Authority Of Animals

Research has emerged showing that animals can be moral beings, too. In a world where power is misused, public morality has become slippery and dishonesty lurches sickeningly through public speech, animals can offer vital lessons for human ethics, political wisdom and social health.

Some animals display a sense of right and wrong . . . 

Fairness matters to dwarf mongooses, too. In the daytime, while they forage in groups, one must stand guard to watch out for predators. They take turns in this sentinel role. In the evening, when they all groom each other, those who spent more time on guard duty get more grooming: Fair’s fair. Dwarf mongooses also care about justice. If one has been mean during the day, perhaps shoving another away from food, the other mongooses take note and groom that one less.

Many animals mete out punishment for perceived wrongs, including some big cats, canids and primates. A troupe of baboons was reportedly near a mountain road in Saudi Arabia in 2000 when one was hit and killed by a car. The whole group gathered in grief and fury, watching every vehicle that went by for three days until the car that had killed their friend passed again on that stretch of road. They chucked rocks, forcing the car to stop, then shattered the windscreen. The driver, fearing for his life, had to flee. Tigers too have been known to enact revenge, specifically targeting those who have provoked them.

Canids know that honesty matters. . . . 

Honesty, justice, fairness and the moral behavior shown by the police dog are part of the ethics that make societies healthy. Even in small ways, ethics matter. The word “etiquette” means “little ethics.” This is not some dainty and spurious curlicue of arbitrary human behavior, but rather a demonstration of respect for others, important for social health. We humans are not the only animals to embrace it. . . . 

Many Indigenous philosophies consider that we humans are the “younger brothers of creation,” including animals, and that they have lessons to teach us. For millennia before we showed up on the scene, social animals — those living in societies and cooperating for survival — had been creating cultures imbued with ethics. . . . 

Human societies, while often quite different from one to the next, generally have a shared ethos similar to that of wolves: Look after the young; protect the tribe; consider the needs of the sick, injured or old; and value the cooperation of others who may not be kin (friends, in other words). It is biomimicry applied to the ethical world. Wolves were doing it first, and we aped them. . . . 

The wisdom of folktales aligns with the perception of Indigenous philosophy to tell us: Look to the animals for morality. . . . 

Healthy societies need healthy politics and animals can be good role models. Some may operate their own kinds of referendums, taking amenable account of each other’s wishes. Red deer will move off after a period of resting or feeding when 62% of the adults get to their feet. When African buffaloes make a collective decision to move, only the females’ votes count, expressed by standing, gazing in the direction they want to take, then lying down again. They watch each other, and when enough females want to move, they do.

In his book “Honeybee Democracy,” Thomas Seeley describes honeybees’ intricate decision-making processes for finding a new hive or leading fellow bees to feeding sites for nectar and pollen. The decisions depend on good research and on each bee communicating as truthfully as possible. . . . 

The accusation of anthropomorphism loathes the attribution of human traits or emotions to non-humans, but our characteristics and intentions are so very often held in common with other animals.

Our emotions are fundamentally theirs, as are our ways of expressing them. Love is warm, close and cuddling. Anger is a hot, violent rush of blood. Fear is a chilling freeze. Humans share so much with other animals — humor, language, culture, friendship, spirituality, art, politics, mother-love and a sense of home.

After a while, it feels silly to claim as “human” characteristics that are so manifestly shared with other creatures. . . . 

Animals can offer social medicine by their mere physical presence. When people stroke a cat, their oxytocin levels rise. When they interact with their dogs, the levels of oxytocin in both the human and the dog can nearly double. This is good not just for the individual, but for society. American neuroscientist Paul Zak calls oxytocin the “moral molecule” because it motivates people to treat others with compassion.

Cooperation is self-interest. Creating--being an integral part of--a strong, bonded, highly functional social group is more important than individual excellence. You thrive more as an individual when you are better at cooperating with those around you.

Intrinsic motivation trumps extrinsic.

Reading Is a Vice

. . . The problem with these kinds of arguments isn’t that they are wrong; it’s that they don’t actually persuade anyone to read more, because they misunderstand why people become readers in the first place. Telling someone to love literature because reading is good for society is like telling someone to believe in God because religion is good for society. It’s a utilitarian argument for what should be a personal passion.

It would be better to describe reading not as a public duty but as a private pleasure, sometimes even a vice. This would be a more effective way to attract young people, and it also happens to be true. When literature was considered transgressive, moralists couldn’t get people to stop buying and reading dangerous books. Now that books are considered virtuous and edifying, moralists can’t persuade anyone to pick one up. . . . 

Being a reader means cultivating a relationship with the world that, by most standards, can seem pointless and counterproductive. Reading is not profitable; it doesn’t teach you any transferable skills or offer any networking opportunities. On the contrary, it is an antisocial activity in the most concrete sense: To do it you have to be alone, or else pretend you’re alone by tuning out other people. Reading teaches you to be more interested in what’s going on inside your head than in the real world. . . . 

If we want to keep reading from going extinct, then the best thing we could do is tell young people what so many great writers readily admit: Literature doesn’t make you a better citizen or a more successful person. A passion for reading can even make life more difficult. And you don’t cultivate a passion for the sake of democracy. You do it for the thrill of staying up late to read under the covers by flashlight, unable to stop and hoping no one finds out.

Still . . . 

Imagining is crucial for conflict resolution, and if imagination is the rocket then books are the rocket fuel. They supercharge the mind and help it see beyond what it can conceive on its own.

 — Trevor Noah, Into the Uncut Grass

I referenced ChatGPT's concluding paragraph from it's description of the 2025 favorites reading list, but really I love the entire analysis.

From the titles and descriptions in the post, this reader tends toward wide-ranging, thoughtful, idea-rich selections, including:

1. Exploratory & Wide in Scope

This suggests a curiosity not limited to comfort reads, but rather:

• Books that expand understanding of the world
• Works that invite empathy with different experiences
• Nonfiction that deepens cognitive or philosophical awareness

2. Balance Between Fiction & Nonfiction

This mix reflects a mind that:

• Enjoys narrative storytelling
• Wants intellectual challenge
• Appreciates nonfiction that reveals how the world works
• Looks for books that deepen empathy and understanding

3. Windows Over Mirrors

This dual motive — both reinforcement of tastes and broadening perspective — reveals a balanced intellectual curiosity rather than purely ideological reading.

Reading Habits

1. Thoughtful Curation Over Volume

• Looking for insights rather than just entertainment
• Thinking about how books affect them, not just what they are

2. Reflective Engagement

• how the book affected the reader intellectually
• what the theme meant to them
• where they positioned the book in a broader context

3. Contextual Awareness

Their selections and descriptions suggest they:

• anticipate dimension and consequence in reading
• choose books as mind-stretchers
• reflect socially and ethically about what the books reveal
• value reading as a tool for understanding the world, not merely consuming stories

Looking across the books you highlighted, several strong, recurring themes emerge. What’s interesting is that they don’t cluster by genre so much as by preoccupation. Different kinds of books are doing related work.

---

1. How reality is perceived — and misperceived

This is the most consistent through-line.

Several of your favorites are explicitly about how humans experience the world differently than we assume:

• An Immense World (Ed Yong) — radically different sensory realities

• Reality Is Not What It Seems (Carlo Rovelli) — physics challenging commonsense intuitions

• Why the World Isn’t Fair (Yuval Levin–adjacent genre, though more popular) — mismatches between expectation and structure

• Even fiction like Nicked and The Bletchley Riddle plays with hidden systems, unseen forces, codes beneath surfaces

Theme:

Reality is stranger, more layered, and more perspectival than our default assumptions allow.

This fits very cleanly with your long-standing interest in:

• embodiment

• epistemic humility

• prisms, windows, refraction

• distrust of overly tidy explanations

You’re drawn to books that destabilize naïve realism without collapsing into relativism.

---

2. Attention as a moral and cognitive act

Another pattern: these books reward paying attention, and many are about attention itself.

• An Immense World is fundamentally a book about learning to attend beyond human norms

• This Brilliant Darkness is literally about seeing strangers — resisting abstraction

• Youth fiction selections emphasize noticing, decoding, piecing together clues

• Your descriptions consistently emphasize what the book trains the reader to notice

Theme:

Attention is not neutral; it is ethical.

This resonates with your blog’s broader moral stance: that dehumanization, injustice, and error often arise not from malice but from failure to see.

You seem especially interested in books that:

• slow the reader down

• widen the perceptual field

• cultivate care through awareness rather than exhortation

---

3. Systems over villains

Notably absent from your favorites: books that frame the world primarily in terms of heroes vs. villains.

Instead, many of these books emphasize:

• structures

• systems

• constraints

• unintended consequences

Even when injustice or suffering is present, the explanatory mode is rarely “bad people did bad things.” It’s more often:

• systems misaligned with human needs

• limits of perception

• complexity exceeding intention

Theme:

Understanding requires structural thinking, not just moral judgment.

This aligns closely with your earlier interest in:

• trust vs distrust

• cooperation

• institutional dynamics

• skepticism of simplistic blame narratives

---

4. Bridges between intellect and empathy

Another subtle but important theme: your favorites tend to link thinking and feeling, rather than privileging one.

• Science books are praised not just for information but for wonder

• Social books emphasize dignity, individuality, and lived experience

• Fiction choices are thoughtful rather than escapist, often oriented toward meaning or understanding rather than thrill alone

You repeatedly value books that:

• educate without flattening

• inform without numbing

• evoke empathy without sentimentality

Theme:

Understanding the world should enlarge compassion, not replace it.

This echoes your own concern about analysis crowding out presence — something you’ve named explicitly elsewhere.

---

5. Windows rather than mirrors — but with deliberate balance

You explicitly frame the year as “windows,” and the list supports that — but with an important caveat.

These are not random windows. They are selected windows:

• into cognition

• into other minds

• into hidden structures

• into unfamiliar experiences that still speak to your concerns

So the theme is not novelty for novelty’s sake, but:

Seeking difference that meaningfully refracts familiar questions.

That suggests a reader who:

• values challenge

• but wants challenge to be integrative, not alienating

• is less interested in being shocked than in being reoriented

---

6. A quiet resistance to reductionism

Across genres, your favorites resist:

• oversimplified explanations

• purely economic or mechanistic accounts

• totalizing theories

Even the popular nonfiction you highlight is praised when it:

• acknowledges limits

• foregrounds complexity

• invites curiosity rather than closure

Theme:

Any explanation that claims to be “the whole story” is suspect.

This may be the deepest unifying thread — and it ties directly back to your metaphor of prisms, refraction, partial light.

---

Pulling it together: the thematic constellation

If I had to summarize the emergent themes in one paragraph:

This reader is drawn to books that unsettle naïve certainty, train attention, and expand moral imagination by revealing hidden layers of reality — whether sensory, social, cognitive, or structural. They favor works that balance intellect with empathy, resist reductionism, and treat understanding itself as an ethical practice. Reading is not consumption or self-affirmation, but a disciplined way of seeing more clearly, more generously, and more humbly.

Reading is a way of seeing more clearly, more generously, and more humbly.

I particularly love the list of themes near the end. It seems a worthy list of values to strive for. Since it's early January and I haven't mentioned the idea of new year resolutions recently, perhaps I'll adopt these as my long-term goals to continue to work on:

• Notice how reality is perceived — and misperceived
• Be intentional about attention as a moral and cognitive act
• Focus on seeing systems over villains
• Find bridges between intellect and empathy
• Look to others for windows rather than mirrors
• Practice a quiet resistance to reductionism

I can but hope to be worthy of these aspirations.

Windows: My Year in Books

The way out of the dehumanizing effects of modern capitalism and industrialism is not to change the system but to read good books.

 — Thomas Moore, Original Self: Living with Paradox and Originality

A few years back, in The Antidote of Mirrors and Windows, I shared the following metaphor as a way to think about books and stories:

Windows and Mirrors. In the library we like to talk about how books function as windows and as mirrors.

A book that is a mirror is one that you see yourself in. It’s comfortable and familiar and it makes you feel seen. It validates you, because it is someone else sharing experiences you know and feelings you have, and in doing so affirming that you are not alone. It makes you feel connected to the story, to the storyteller, and to others who also recognize themselves in that book. And, when it’s a really good mirror, it helps you realize new things about yourself. It finds words for things you know but haven’t yet figured out how to express. It helps you see dimensions of yourself you didn’t know were there, or to see them in new ways. The right book helps you see yourself more fully and accurately.

A book that is a window is one that helps you see outside of yourself. It relates experiences you’ve never known, feelings you’ve never dealt with, perspectives you’ve never considered. It takes you somewhere else, gives you an opportunity to know life as someone you’ve never been. A window is for new information and new insight. It teaches empathy for difference, connection with others. A good one makes you bigger because it takes you outside of yourself in ways that, when you return, you bring some of the outside back with you. The right book helps you see the rest of the world, and those who live in it, more fully, more accurately, and with more understanding, appreciation, and love.

I'm thinking about that right now because, as I was compiling my annual list of favorite reading experiences for the end of the year, it struck me that many of them serve as windows for me. They are mirrors still in terms of being in my preferred writing styles and in feeding my confirmation biases on interests and topics, but for the most part I read them for exposure to new experiences and ideas. I'm pretty sure I would not be able to say the same for most years. My 2025 reading journey was more exploratory than most.

Favorite Books I Read in 2025

Read, not published, in 2025, though on the recent side for the most part. "When people write reviews, they are really writing a kind of memoir--here's what MY experience was eating at this restaurant or getting my hair cut at this barbershop." - John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed.

Nicked

Anderson, M. T.

(Adult Fiction) M.T. Anderson doesn't simply tell stories. He conveys language, eras, settings, personalities, and worlds. He creates characters to embody the stories and let's them tell the stories in their own particular vernacular and style. This is one such book. In the middle of the middle ages, in southern Italy, a mild, inexperienced, and sequestered monk mentions he had a dream and finds himself suddenly swept up in political schemes, religious manipulations, and an international heist. He is drafted to join a deceitful expedition, along with a host miscreants and irredeemable sorts, to cross the ocean to the coast of western Asia and steal the bones of St. Nicholas. It quickly turns into a wild and rollicking misadventure full of unexpected turns, disastrous moments, and hilarious improvisation. The unlikeliest of adventures, made all the more amazing by the fact that Anderson's tale is based on actual events--"My primary sources for the novel were the two stunningly detailed contemporary accounts of the theft," he writes in the afterword. It is an incredible historical adventure conveyed with that particular M.T. Anderson accuracy and flair. Delightful.

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us

Yong, Ed

(Adult Nonfiction) A delightful book that explores the many different types, forms, and varieties of senses that exist among the many different creatures of the world. All the diverse ways that animals can see, hear, taste, smell, and touch that we can't. Extreme examples for every sense--hearing at high frequencies and at low, at high volumes and low, etc.--how each sense has developed in different ways for different circumstances and uses. Yong is an informative, accessible, and entertaining writer, and his book is both endlessly fascinating and full of wonder. It leaves readers with new appreciation for both their own sensations, perceptions, and experiences of the world and how unique and distinct the experience of every other creature. No two creatures experience reality in quite the same way, and that's amazing.

Before Takeoff

Alsaid, Adi

(Teen Fiction) An unexpected delight. I found the lighthearted narrative voice charming and loved spending time in its company. It's conversational, personable, and personal. It spends the largest part of its time relating the perspective of James, a smaller but significant portion giving us insight through Michelle's eyes, bounces around into the heads of various other characters, and every so often speaks directly to readers; usually with foreboding warnings of ill to come. Because for all the lightheartedness of the narration, the story it tells includes some real horror and tragedy. Not only darkness, but some is definitely there. For, ultimately, this is a story about humanity, about human existence in an unpredictable, unexplainable, absurd world. In an amplified, accelerated microcosm. James and Michelle are stuck in an airport waiting for delayed flights to depart, when something kind of weird happens. Then the weirdness escalates. To share specifics would delve into spoilers, so I'll simply say that eventually the airport seems to become its own pocket universe, cut off from the outside world, where the laws of physics, cause-and-effect, and normalcy are broken. The social contract breaks among the airport's occupants, too; the bonds of normalcy and consideration and compassion. People react in different ways, some forming tribes among the anarchy. James and Michelle find each other. Through it all, the narrator provides commentary, insight, and perspective, shedding light on different human reactions and tendencies. How do you deal with the fact that life is scary and confusing? How do you find meaning and happiness in the midst of it? This book reminds me in many ways of the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's surreal and magical realism and romance, with just a bit of social commentary and philosophy thrown in; almost glib in its lighthearted representation of tragedy and horror. It's an odd, inventive, and unique mix that I'm sure doesn't work for everyone. And yet it, somehow, feels accurate to me; it captures some essence of truth in a way that makes me feel happy. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

Why the World Isn't Fair

Harari, Yuval N.

(Youth Nonfiction) Marvelous storytelling. Harari takes a long, complex, convoluted idea about the nature of human societies and turns it into an accessible, engaging narrative covering the span of human history since the Agricultural Revolution. It is a clear, concise, compelling narrative. So, the book's title asks why the world isn't fair. Its answer, in brief: Agriculture and harmful Stories. The creation of agriculture roughly 10,000 years ago led to changes in humans and the way we interact with the world and each other, which in turn led to collective, shared stories that are beneficial for some and harmful for others. In between was a long, cumulative chain of what Harari calls "unintended consequences." (The 10 Plagues of Agriculture, from the book's most prominent graphic: Unbalanced Diet, Hard Work, Drought, Flood, Pests, Plant Disease, Animal Disease, Human Disease, War, Slavery.) On and on to the world we know today. All of it enabled, both the good and the bad, by the ability of humans to have society-wide shared beliefs. Power comes from stories, both the power to harm and the power to heal. That's the story this book tells. It is a powerful story. Both depressing and hopeful; you can't fix a problem unless to you understand the causes of the problem, so much of the book is about how the world has become so unfair--but the end is about how to use that insight to be able to make the world more fair. Powerful and compelling.

This Brilliant Darkness: A Book of Strangers

Sharlet, Jeff

(Adult Nonfiction) The subtitle of this book is "A Book of Strangers," but I don't think that's accurate. I think a more apt name for what Sharlet has accomplished here is the title of a book--and movement--by Valerie Kaur: "See No Strangers." Because this book is about Sharlet taking time for those society often shuns to the exile of being unwanted, condemned to a status of permanent stranger, of Sharlet taking the time to really see them. Not as strangers, but as people. He takes a moment to tell their stories, documents his interactions with them, makes them the protagonists of this collection of reported moments. The people featured in this book are those that Game of Thrones might call "broken and sullied." People working the night shift at 24-hour stops along the road; fellow customers; an older woman who has spent her life bouncing around the adult social services system; underground, recently outlawed LGBTQ community members in Russia; those who threaten and beat them; a long middle section about the death and life of an undocumented immigrant living on the street in Skid Row in L.A. who was shot by police. Random encounters and pursued, journalistic ones. Working people, addicts, homeless, the mentally ill. Sharlet doesn't tune them out as background noise the way the vast majority of us do--he gives them his time, attention, and compassion and, in this book, shares their humanity. This is a quietly powerful, understated book that presents--and demonstrates--humanity.

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi: A Novel

Chakraborty, S. A.

(Adult Fiction) A wonderful, historical, atmospheric setting, engaging characters, adventure and intrigue aplenty, magic, myth, and legend, and excellent storytelling. All the ingredients needed for an excellently fun book. - Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean's most notorious pirates, she's survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural. But when she's tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she's offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade's kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family's future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God's will. Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there's more to this job, and the girl's disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there's always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power . . . and the price might be your very soul.

Death of the Author

Okorafor, Nnedi

(Adult Fiction) This is a novel about a novel in which a novel saves the world, about the power of stories. This is a story about the complexities of relationships, of independence and interdependence. This tale is about Artificial Intelligence, disabilities, physical augmentation, and what it means to be human. This book is about an individual at the intersection of tribes and cultures, pressed and pulled by all of them, torn by expectations. This tells a story about family, consideration for others and the collective good, and the needs of individuality. This is a book about love and identity. This is marvelous storytelling.

The Bletchley Riddle

Sepetys, Ruta and Sheinkin, Steve

(Youth Fiction) A gripping tale of war, family, spies, espionage, riddles, and code breaking told masterfully. Suspense, mystery, historical accuracy, realism, and propulsive plotting and pacing. Deserves the widest of audiences. - Summer, 1940. Nineteen-year-old Jakob Novis and his quirky younger sister Lizzie share a love of riddles and puzzles. And now they're living inside of one. The quarrelsome siblings find themselves amidst one of the greatest secrets of World War II - Britain's eccentric codebreaking factory at Bletchley Park. As Jakob joins Bletchley's top minds to crack the Nazi's Enigma cipher, fourteen-year-old Lizzie embarks on a mission to solve the mysterious disappearance of their mother. The Battle of Britain rages and Hitler's invasion creeps closer. And at the same time, baffling messages and codes arrive on their doorstep while a menacing inspector lurks outside the gates of the Bletchley mansion. Are the messages truly for them, or are they a trap? Could the riddles of Enigma and their mother's disappearance be somehow connected? Jakob and Lizzie must find a way to work together as they race to decipher clues which unravel a shocking puzzle that presents the ultimate challenge: How long must a secret be kept?

Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity

Rovelli, Carlo

(Adult Nonfiction) A fascinating, clear, and concise explanation of our current mathematical understanding of existence--without using math. Or, at least, Rovelli's current understanding, as he makes clear this is what makes the most sense to him as a leading scientist based on the evidence available, and that there are others who draw different conclusions from that same evidence. Regardless, it was revelatory to me and, most important, understandable. The book explains concepts and ideas without getting technical so that readers come to understand the thoughts and logic and theories, even without being able to apply them with math and equations. I found reading it fascinating, entertaining, and exciting. It's a whole new way to conceptualize the world. This book was a pleasure to read.

A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

Berlin, Lucia

(Adult Fiction) Never have I more appreciated the short story form nor more enjoyed a short story collection. Berlin is an amazing writer, and here portrays so much humanity in all its beauty and ugliness with compassion and acceptance; so powerfully captures the human experience. Her writing is vivid, fleshy, and sensual; poignant, authentic, and true. The stories are labeled fiction, but they are clearly autobiographical and tell fragments of a life that was varied, rich, traumatic, joyous, and overflowing with experiences. They tell of life lived in many parts of the Western Hemisphere, from north to south. Of living with privilege. Of living in squalor. The highs and lows of addiction. Love and passion. The clash of cultures and economic classes. Religion. Rehabilitation, jail, homelessness; hard jobs, easy wealth, parenting, education; abortion, illness, bodily functions. Love and passion. So much passion, for all aspects of life. Truly compelling, savory, and satisfying reading.

Pick the Lock

King, A. S.

(Teen Fiction) Wow. This book's short description includes the detail that Jane's father confines Jane's mother in a series of pneumatic tubes, tightly controlling her ability to interact with the family. "Confined to pneumatic tubes" may seem like a metaphorical description of a situation, but my guess is King would say that it is literally expressing a lived experience, whether factually accurate or not. For all its fantastical elements and unexpected turns, this story is real. It is one version of the story of growing up in a house of psychological torture and abuse, of what that does to children, spouses, and families. And of the societal structures and systems in place that permit it to continue to happen. This book is real. And it is wow.

Glorious Exploits: A Novel

Lennon, Ferdia

(Adult Fiction) A heartrending tale of tragedy and joy told with an irreverently animated and humorous voice. Lampo is a wry and sarcastic unemployed man-child in ancient Syracuse, sharing events right after their city has repelled an invading force from Athens. He and his best mate, both potters by trade, have a particular passion for stories and theater--and no particular love for violence or aggression. They decide upon the most outlandish scheme imaginable: force some of the Athenian prisoners of war, imprisoned in the city's quarry pit, to perform Euripides so they can finally become directors. Improbable events lead to a rich sponsor for material support, and soon it seems possible their mad idea might come to fruition. Though, of course, not without much conflict and struggle. Most of their compatriots want to see the Athenians suffer for killing loved ones, not celebrated on a stage. Lampo also finds himself falling in love with the enslaved barmaid at their favorite hangout and vows to buy, free, and marry her despite having no possibility of ever obtaining enough money to do so. The circumstances grow more twisted--and entertaining--from there. This is a gritty yet madcap narrative that, at its heart, is all about the power of stories and storytelling.

Road Home

Ogle, Rex

(Teen Biography) Ogle's third and final book about his traumatic youth. After escaping the abusive home of his mother and stepfather, 17-year-old Rex is ready to start college from his dad's house. But then his dad learns Rex is gay and kicks him out. Feeling he has nowhere to turn, Rex ends up living on the streets of New Orleans. This book describes his emotional turmoil and desolation, the realities of hunger and weather and being an outcast, and a number of experiences with violence and assault. It ends with his finding a way out and the hope that he has gone from that desperate situation to a successful and happy life. It's a tough read, but not a bleak one. Moving and compassionate.

Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love

Sedivy, Julie

(Adult Nonfiction) What a delight! Informative, entertaining, beautiful, and profound. Sedivy uses her own life to frame a meditation on human interaction with language over the course of a lifetime, how language is learned and acquired in childhood, used and confused in adulthood, and lost and transformed with age and misfortune. She delves deeply into science and sociology without even a whiff of the dry, technical language often associated with academic writing. Sedivy is a wonder with imagery and metaphor and word combinations that are full of energy and life. Her passion for language is embodied in every sentence she writes. Starting with her wildly multilingual childhood and moving through her life to her current, near-elderly state having new trouble recalling words, discerning speech in noisy environments, and facing the fear of a stroke that damages the linguistic part of her brain, Sedivy covers a wealth of topics, including her professional work as a linguist, the differences between written and spoken language, poetry, sign language, and so much more. Chapters can vary in style, such as the reflection on her youth composed as a letter to her mother and the one titled "How to Be a Success!" that debunks many myths in that realm. This is a great book for: anyone, such as educators and parents, who helps children acquire language and literacy; anyone who wants insight into better language for interacting with others; anyone who worries about language loss with age; anyone who writes; and anyone who loves reading. Highly recommended.

Practice

Brown, Rosalind

(Adult Fiction) You might not think an entire book about fighting distraction--the course of one day, from waking to sleep, inside the head of an Oxford student trying to focus on writing an essay about Shakespeare's Sonnets, intentionally isolated in her room--would be engaging and entertaining, but this one is. Marvelously so. Brown's writing is lovely. Equally intellectual and sensual, focused both on the world of the mind and the intrusions of the body. Sometimes overwrought and hyperbolic as Annabel might want it to be, other times beautifully capturing everyday moments with simple language. To Annabel, literature and literary thoughts are on a pedestal, and those who engage with them almost holy; otherworldly and ethereal. Yet the opening page ends with a description of her leaving the bed to urinate; other bodily functions are described, perhaps most of all her sexual ones. Annabel is at odds with herself, her romantic notions against her fully human urges. Most of all, Brown's story is highly relatable to anyone who has ever tried and failed to focus, hounded by interior and exterior distraction, feeling a great thought is right there, tickling, taunting, just out of reach. Yet the associative subconscious continues to work, and hope remains. It seems a book about almost nothing, yet each time I opened it to read further I was joyful.

Fake Chinese Sounds

Tsong, Jing Jing

(Youth Graphic Fiction) An excellent story of a middle grade girl navigating American life as a Chinese immigrant and her efforts to figure out how to meld the two cultures into her identity. Very everyday, slice of life and relatable; not preachy; sometimes poignant, but understated and not dramatic. It's a personal and personable story. - Between homework, studying, and Chinese school, M Y+ng's summer is shaping up to be a boring one. Her only bright spots are practice with her soccer team, the Divas, and the time spent with her n i nai, who is visiting from Taiwan. Although M Y+ng's Mandarin isn't the best and N i Nai doesn't speak English, they find other ways to connect, like cooking guMti  together and doing tai chi in the mornings. By the end of the summer, M Y+ng is sad to see N i Nai go-she's the comƯplete opposite of M Y+ng serious professor mother-but excited to start fifth grade. Until new kid Sid starts making her the butt of racist jokes. Her best friend, Kirra, says to ignore him, but does everyone else's silence about the harassment mean they're also ignoring Sid . . . or her? As Sid's bullying fuels M Y+ng's feelings of invisibility, she must learn to reclaim her identity and her voice.

Is a River Alive?

Macfarlane, Robert

(Adult Nonfiction) It has become fairly common knowledge that, in most countries, corporations are granted legal personhood, with the same protections, rights, and responsibilities as individual people. Less well-known is the recent movement to secure rivers (and other aspects of the natural world) legal personhood, to consider rivers a form of life with all the legal protections and ramifications of those afforded to people and corporations. Numerous nations now have laws officially granting such status to particular river bodies, and the list is growing. This movement, in a sense, is the topic of this book. Macfarlane is not a legal analyst, however, but a nature writer. And in this book he does not focus on delving into the particulars of legal cases and their political ramifications. Instead, he explores the values and philosophical underpinnings behind those cases. And, most of all, he tells the stories of journeys he undertook to explore three different rivers around the world and of the people working to see those rivers respected and protected. It is passionate and personal, lyrical and profound. It is meant to share ideas and worldviews with readers, to persuade through immersion into experiences. It is moving and compelling. This is a delightful book to read.

Spy Ring

Durst, Sarah Beth

(Youth Fiction) An engaging and exciting story of two kids following clues on a treasure hunt through history. It reminds me of the Nicolas Cage movie National Treasure, except presenting established facts and theories--with clear explanations about which is which and why--about George Washington's Culper spy ring during the U.S. Revolutionary War. Thoroughly fun, top-notch storytelling. Highly recommended. - With codewords and secret signals perfected, best friends Rachel and Joon are ready to spend their summer practicing spycraft, especially if they can uncover secrets like the one Joon's parents have been keeping, that his family is about to move out of town. When eavesdropping leads them to a ring rumored to have belonged to Anna "Nancy" Smith Strong, according to local Long Island legend, the only female member of George Washington's famed Culper Spy Ring, they think they've hit the jackpot. Then they discover Nancy left a coded message in the ring! Decoding her message leads to another cryptic clue, and then another, and soon Rachel and Joon are racing to decipher a series of puzzles that must surely lead to hidden treasure! But can they solve the final mystery before Joon's moving day? And just what did the centuries-old spy hide away, and why?

The MANIAC

Labatut, Benjamín

(Adult Fiction) A uniquely fascinating and stimulating book. One that presupposes that great genius is inherently unstable, then creates fictionalized details of the lives of a few great thinkers to illustrate the point. Human genius, in this case, involved in the creation of machine genius. A short opening section focuses on Paul Ehrenfest in the early twentieth century; a long middle section on John von Neumann a handful of decades later; and a final section about the recent development of Artificial Intelligences capable of defeating the world's best players of the complex game of Go. Each of the early figures developed ideas that have helped lead to our current situation, and the story Labatut tells of each is compelling, thoughtful, and dramatic. While not a reliable history lesson, it makes for excellent reading.

Visual Thinking: The Hidden Gifts of People Who Think in Pictures, Patterns, and Abstractions

Grandin, Temple

(Adult Nonfiction) In this book, Temple Grandin makes a compelling case for acknowledging and nurturing visual thinkers. A majority of us are verbal thinkers. Our thoughts are given form by words, we understand instructions, ourselves, and the world best through language. Visual thinkers' brains work differently; they think in pictures. Words and language are helpful tools, but not natural to how they process and understand. These are not exclusive, binary modes of thinking, of course; they exist on a continuum and everyone uses some measure of both verbal and visual thinking. Grandin, as someone with autism, is at the far end of the visual spectrum and thus understands it better than most. She also differentiates between two types of visual thinking: object visualizers and spatial visualizers. For someone who claims limited verbal ability, Grandin is skilled with language and writes an excellent book. Aside from establishing the fact of visual thinking, the main thrust of the book is advocating for wider acceptance of visual thinkers and more development of their natural skills. It is an engaging, accessible, and convincing book.

Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World

Lynskey, Dorian

(Adult Nonfiction) An insightful, fascinating, and engaging look that sense of apocalyptic angst that pervades human cultures. Because humans are highly prone to chronocentrism, a belief that the current moment in time is more significant than any other, a bias towards the present as unique, special, and momentous, we are highly prone to feeling the dangers we face are uniquely significant and dangerous. It always feels like the end of the world is just around the corner. In a convergence of history, science, and culture, this book looks at the all the popular stories that have captured, reflected, and encouraged that feeling over time. Though he delves a bit into earlier times and other places, most of the book focuses on the past few centuries--through to the present--in Europe and the U.S. He explores books, plays, movies, music, news, and more, mostly science fiction, and their relationships with the science of their day. There's a comfort in seeing how wrong so many people have been for so long about the immediacy of disaster; it's a wonderful exercise in perspective. Though there remains a sense of dread about the fact that even if the fears of the past have yet to come to pass, they remain among the ever accumulating list of potential possibilities. While far from delightful reading, it is nevertheless a wonderful book.

The Light Pirate

Brooks-Dalton, Lily

(Adult Fiction) A story of a lifetime of change. It begins with Wanda's birth in a Florida Hurricane and ends with elderly Wanda ready let go of life in a tree house community surrounded by water, a Florida reclaimed by swamp and ocean due to global warming and sea level rise. She has lived the entirety of her life in the same location while that location has drastically transformed. The book tells the story of that change, but much more it tells the story of Wanda and the people in her life living through the change. Their hopes, dreams, thoughts, reactions, grief. It's an internal, introspective story of emotion. Beautifully written. Aching, brutal, bittersweet, and, in the end, accepting and hopeful. Lovely.

The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems

Smith, Patricia

(Poetry) Powerful, powerful words. Fiery spells of passion, of love and pain and fury. Of identity and strength, of despair and resolve. Lamentations and celebrations. Vulnerability and hope. And so much power and fire. - The Intentions of Thunder gathers, for the first time, the essential work from across Patricia Smith's decorated career. Here, Smith's poems, affixed with her remarkable gift of insight, present a rapturous ode to life. With careful yet vaulting movement, these poems traverse the redeeming landscape of pain, confront the frightening revelations of history, and disclose the joyous possibilities of the future. The result is a profound testament to the necessity of poetry--all the careful witness, embodied experience, and bristling pleasure that it bestows--and of Smith's necessary voice.

The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself: Racial Myths and Our American Narratives

Mura, David

(Adult Nonfiction) An amazingly clear and cogent examination of the perspectives of white American identity--and a deconstruction of them--as communicated in literature, history, and current events. Complex ideas articulated lucidly in a series of essays that complement each other, layer and reinforce the main point with a multitude of examples. That main point being: the white American perspective, as conveyed in countless implicit background narratives, is blind to race and racism. Willfully so. And rejects minority viewpoints that might say otherwise. In many ways this book is a work of literary criticism, examining the racial perspectives captured in pieces of writing. But Mura includes film and other storytelling media besides literature, then puts those stories in dialogue with U.S. history and current events. Chapter titles run along the lines of "Racial Absence and Racial Presence in Jonathan Franzen and ZZ Packer," "The Killing of Philando Castile and the Negation of Black Innocence," "Lincoln Was a Great American, Lincoln Was a Racist," and "Psychotherapy and a New National Narrative." Mura is an academic and his writing definitely has an academic bent, but his thoughts never isolate themselves to an academic tower, as he always moves into everyday, relatable ramifications. Rarely have I seen racial dynamics articulated so well. I can see how this book might be a hard one to sell as appealing, but it is powerful, important, and valuable. Most highly recommended.

Perfect Victims: And the Politics of Appeal

El-Kurd, Mohammed

(Adult Nonfiction) This is a passionate and powerful plea articulated by a young Palestinian poet and journalist who has grown up in war-torn Jerusalem, his family having been forced to give half their house to Jewish settlers from New York. El-Kurd's writing is both personal and academic, focusing on one general argument: that institutional and internalized racism have dehumanized Palestinians in the eyes of the world--and in how we--and they--engage in conversation about the conflict. He is not arguing issues, policies, or politics, but the essence of the narrative that frames the entire conflict, the way "the West" conceives, talks about, and reports on the conflict. He wants Palestinians to be accepted and respected as fully deserving, understandable, sympathetically humans. Whether readers agree or disagree with El-Kurd's politics--or are relatively neutral--in this book he provides an essential perspective that deserves to be carefully read, digested, and understood. Not for readers to have their feelings, opinions, or politics changed, but simply to understand. Because that is what he is asking for.

Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution

Rovelli, Carlo

(Adult Nonfiction) Exhilarating and mind-blowing. Brimming with succinctly, coherently, and poetically described big, exciting ideas. Quantum mechanics described in conceptual terms, without the math or, well, mechanics, in dialogue with philosophy and how we conceive of reality. To give you a taste, the beginning of Part One. Title: "A Strangely Beautiful Interior." Subtitle: "How a young German physicist arrived at an idea that was very strange indeed, but described the world remarkably well--and the great confusion that followed. First section heading: "The Absurd Idea of the Young Heisenberg: Observables." Rovelli knows the basic ideas of quantum mechanics are strange and seemingly absurd, at odds with what we have been taught is common sense and the basic workings of things, and brilliantly manages to convey them in a sensible, digestible way. This is a brief and highly enjoyable meditation on a series of absurd ideas.

Most of your life will not be extraordinary. Most of your life will be simple things, done regularly. If you are only going to be happy when you're on vacation, after a lush payday, after a big career win, you're going to spend most of your life really dissatisfied. You either learn to love the day as it is, or you don't learn to love life at all.

When I start thinking about the nature of reality and realize that every philosophical or religious paradigm is just a subjective human opinion and, in truth, the origin and purpose of consciousness is not only unknown, but unknowable, and the only proper response to existence is radical humility and surrender to the mystery.