read it - Kate Degelau-Pierce

This book is a brain worm

What’s it about?
Station Eleven is three stories in one. It follows the lives of three people, before, during, and after a plague – the Georgia Flu – kills 99% of the people on earth. (Georgia the former Soviet Republic, not Georgia the state.) The pre-plague storyline follows an actor as he gets famous, and one of his wives. The during-the-plague story follows the paramedic who tries to save the actor who has a heart attack on stage the night the plague breaks out. The post-plague story follows the child actor who was on stage with the actor that night. It takes place 20 years after the Collapse (as it’s known in the book).

Why should you read it?
I can’t stop thinking about Station Eleven. I finished it almost a week ago, and the characters are with me. I think about Miranda, who wanted to be an artist; I think about Clark, with his museum; I think about the Frenchman stranded in Michigan starting a newspaper; I think about the lack of entertainment and information; I think about how tough Kirsten is; I think about Jeevan stockpiling food as fast as he can; I cannot stop thinking about becoming a survivalist – what if a flu came that killed people in 24 hours. How fast would it spread? Could I survive? What would life be like afterwards? How would we all react? There’s a scene where a person finds a group of people living in an airport. He starts crying, they ask him why. “Because I thought I was the only one.” It breaks my heart thinking about it. If I could give a copy of Station Eleven to everyone I know, I would. It’s that good.

A Modern Superhero

What’s it about?
Tigerman is about war and superheroes and what if the Iraq and Afghanistan wars bred a superhero from the British troops? What on earth would he be like? Why would he be created? What does that say about Western society? Plot-wise, there’s a soldier, suffering from PTSD-lite, who’s been stationed on a make-believe island near Yemen that is about to environmentally self-destruct. There’s an attack on a local cafe, and a boy asks the soldier to avenge the cafe owner. How does he do that under the nose of a local UN force, and what are the ramifications?

Why should you read it?
Because Nick Harkaway is a pretty awesome author. He’s got the right amount of swagger and touch for narrating international politics. (John le Carre is, literally, his father. It runs in the family.) His stories are funny and touching and in this book he has a sentence where he uses the f-word as every major part of speech. I laughed out loud a number of times. Recommended.

Unreliable narrator

What’s it about?
We Were Liars is a young adult book in the tradition of I Am the Cheese, where the narrator is as unsure of what’s going on as you are. Cadence comes from an upperclass New England family; they own their own island off Martha’s Vineyard. The family’s grandfather enjoys playing his three daughters off each other, making each of them compete for their slice of the family fortune. Something happens during Cadence’s 15th summer on the island. You’re never sure what exactly because Cadence has no memory of most of the summer. The book stays with Cadence as she recovers from whatever it was that happened.

Why should you read it?
I liked the feeling of suspense that We Were Liars used to show how uneasy everyone was and how truly messed up Cadence is. Cadence and the mystery are appropriately enigmatic. And you end up both sympathizing with the family and appalled by them. It was a quick read (which was good, given how quickly I needed to return the book to the library). Overall, I recommend it.

We’re doomed.

What’s it about?
The Sixth Extinction is about evolution and extinction. It has a good overview of the history of both evolution and extinction – people didn’t believe that animals could go extinct before the French Revolution. There’s a history of the other five major extinction events in the earth’s past, even though we don’t know much about them – other than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. She then looks at the current rates of extinction, which are much closer to the rates during the other major extinction events rather than the typical background rate. There’s also a small, amusing bit about how rats are going to take over the world if humans die.

Why should you read it?
The world is getting warmer because there are higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. So what? Well, The Sixth Extinction answers that question. The oceans acidify. Many – possibly most – animals won’t be able to live. Animals and plants will need to shift where they live and grow, but because people have taken up so much of the land, it’s hard for them to find new places to be. She does a great job of both showing how awesome the world is and making you despair over its future.

It’s a fantasy book. Don’t tell.

What’s it about?
The Bone Clocks is about Holly, a girl who runs away from home when she’s fifteen. She’s gone for a weekend, but in that weekend her life changes. At the end of the book, she’s raising a granddaughter on the west coast of Ireland as civilization falls. She plays lots of roles and has lots of jobs in the interim, but she keeps running into a person named Marinus. There are fantasy elements in the book, and the story isn’t always told from Holly’s point of view. In some ways, it’s about ensuring that life goes on as the world falls apart.

Why should you read it?
Aside from the fact that it was long-listed for a Booker Prize (if you’re into that sort of thing)? It’s a compelling story. So often highbrow books are experiments in style or something else that makes them hard to read. The Bone Clocks isn’t that book. It’s a solid, well-told story about a woman navigating her family and her life in a fantasy setting. I’m happy this one hasn’t been shunted off in genre land and is getting the attention it deserves.

Outrunning the Blerch

What’s it about?
If you read The Oatmeal, you know that he is funny and likes to explain things. The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances is an expansion on his strip of the same name. It’s about how out of shape he used to be, stories about particular runs he’s taken, and, of course, the Blerch. The Blerch is the embodiment of the little voice inside you that tells you to be lazy. To not try. To not go for that run because that would be hard and wouldn’t you rather sit on the couch? His goal is to outrun the Blerch.

Why should you read it?
Well, because it’s funny. Because you enjoy running. Because the Blerch is a great embodiment of all the times the voice in your head has said “why not watch one more television show?” or “why not put off cleaning your house?” It applies to everything, not just running. It’s just that with running, you can actually, physically, try to get away from it. It is either a motivating book, or just a funny one. Either way, you get to decide.

Eat your broccoli

What’s it about?
Plot-wise, A Brief History of Seven Killings is about Jamaica in the 1970s. It wasn’t a happy place. Two parties wanted to control the government. The CIA worried that the country would become communist, like Cuba. Gangs were aligned with both parties, full of not very nice people. The CIA was giving them guns. And Bob Marley was putting together a peace concert. There was a shooting at Marley’s home two days before the concert. This book posits what happened in the lead-up and in the fall-out to that shooting. Subject-wise, the book illustrates power relationships, what it’s like to live in a third-world country, how the CIA’s meddling in said countries screwed things up, and tries to pick apart why people do what they do.

Why should you read it?
An actual conversation with a friend yesterday:

me: Did you like Wolf Hall?
her: No.
me: Oh. Then you’ll hate this one.

Because, despite the differences between 1970’s Jamaica and Tudor England, the books are largely about the same things: power, how do people get power, how do they keep power. It is dense and not at all brief. It’s also very violent. It, at one point, made me wish I had an English degree so I could properly analyze it. It’s good and important and educational but it is not entertaining. And that’s ok. I’m glad I read it.

Clickbait headline: why is this book so inspiring?

What’s it about?
Lessons of Hope is a gossipy semi-memoir of the NYC’s education chancellor in the 2000s. Joel Klein details his struggles with the powerful NYC teachers union, the reforms they undertook and why, and a bit about what it was like working for Michael Bloomberg. They nudged towards teacher accountability and constantly created smaller schools, sometimes even housing multiple schools in the same building. The other main initiative was creating strong principals who were allowed to be fully in charge of their schools. It was a very interesting read.

Why should you read it?
NYC is a special case. It’s bigger than other districts and has more needs to fill. Not all of the remedies will work for all school districts. But Klein’s passion and energy for better schools serving the children comes through loud and clear and is infectious. He emphasizes the need to prioritize the less well-off students. Children of upper-middle and upper class parents will be fine; poorer students don’t have that luxury. At one point he says, “You have to measure what the school brings to the children, not what the children bring to the school.” It’s easy to do well by bright, well-off children. It’s harder to do well by poorer children; that’s where schools can really make a difference. So: I like Lessons of Hope because of his passion and focus.

How to market your idea

What’s it about?
Made to Stick is a book about how to get people to remember your idea. The authors presume that the idea is about your company or your cause or a product you make or your marketing message. They posit that there are six things you need to make your idea sticky (e.g., get people to remember it): simplicity, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and it has to tell a story. They give examples and go into detail about what each criteria means.

Why should you read it?
This is actually a re-read. That’s right, Made to Stick is a business book I went back and read again. I’ve been doing a lot of communications work in my volunteer causes – email newsletters, websites, the like – and I wanted to refresh my memory on their criteria to guide me through some of my own writing and presentation. How should we talk about fully funding public education? How should we ask people for money? How should we portray our programs? I remembered it being helpful, but I needed a refresh. I’d recommend it to anyone who’s marketing a small business or organization.

A Spare Scandinavian Winter

What’s it about?
Black Seconds is a mystery. At first, it might just be a disappearance. A young girl has left to ride her bike to the store for a magazine and some candy and never comes home. But as time goes on, it becomes more. It becomes about mistakes and her family and a particular friend she’s made who maybe isn’t entirely right in the head.

Why should you read it?
Black Seconds sounds like it should be about something horrible, but it really isn’t. Or maybe it is, and you just don’t realize it because Karin Fossum’s spare writing treats all her characters with dignity and respect. No one is a caricature, no one’s exaggerated to make a point. It’s very stereotypically Scandinavian – Fossum is Norse, and the book takes place in small-town Norway. I quite enjoyed it.