Where the Deer and the Antelope Play by Nick Offerman - Book Review #328

 

Yes.  THAT Nick Offerman.

I was surprised by this book.  I was expecting an up front humour of the human condition.

What I got instead was a thoughtful look at our mixed up, crazy, complicated and nuanced world.  

The primary point of the book is to explore how we cannot continue living, as a society, the way that we have.  This will ruffle many feathers.  But feathers must be ruffled to create lift and move us forward.

Wow! That metaphor was a stretch, eh?

The book is broken into three parts, a hike with some friends, time spent on an English sheep farm (or is it a ranch?), and a cross-country camping trip with his wife.

Through these experiences Offerman offers insight into how so many people are getting things right, by respecting the land and the ecology.  How others are fixing the errors of the past.  How he was inspired, and in turn trying to inspire others to do better. 

I was reminded of Bill Bryson's excellent book A Walk in the Woods.  Both authors have a mastery of the English language.  Bryson's used with his excellent dry wit.  Offerman wrestles the language to the ground and bends it to his will.  He is a muscular linguist.

I was lucky to have enjoyed the stories in audio book format.  Nick Offerman reading his own work was a sublime experience. 

100 Things We've Lost to the Internet by Pamela Paul - Book Review #327

 

The author is the editor of the New York Times Book Review.

A lot of what is on the list is obvious, telephone booths, land lines, paper books, and cameras.

But she not only delves into what is lost and how it has changed but how personal each technology and interaction was.  

Some things have been gained while others are missed.

I found the book balanced and humane.

Would I go back?  No way.  I like living in the future.  Most of my everyday experience today is what I dreamed about when I was young. 

This book helped me remember where we've come from without feeling sad about it.

It's just an exploration of how things have changed in the span of half a human lifetime.  This kind of reflection is important to be aware of since all of the innovations in the book have crept up slowly.  It's easy not to notice.

Thank goodness there are people out there who do notice and take the time to share it with us.

Life & Death on the Bugaboo Spire - BC Magazine

I subscribe to British Columbia Magazine.  I live in Alberta.  I wish we had a magazine like this.

I also subscribe to their newsletter where they link to previous stories in the magazine.  That's how I came across this one.

I do enjoy a good adventure.  When it's real, I wonder why people do the things they do?  Take the risks they take?  This is why I am well and truly an armchair traveler. 

This true account of being trapped on a BC mountain peak during a storm sent chills down my back.

Excellent writing.

Better yet, if you enjoyed this piece, it's part of a larger collection, Tales of B.C. by Daniel Wood. 

Insane Mode by Hamish Mckenzie - Book Review #322

 

How Elon Musk's Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution to End the Age of Oil

In the fast-paced world of technology, a book like this one can age quickly in so much as knowing that more has progressed since the publication date.  This could easily be updated every couple of years.

Still, it was a terrific read and made me appreciate just how complicated the industry is.

Getting into the automobile industry is hard enough (understatement, it's next to impossible) but to try and change the foundation of that industry is madness. 

Steve Jobs may have wanted to "dent the universe," Elon Musk is taking a crowbar to it.  With his passion and determination, he has managed to create a paradigm shift not only in the automobile industry, but to change how the entire human race operates, which will in turn save us from global climate change.

He is the catalyst to help us enter the electric age.  What?  There is electricity everywhere!  Sure, but it is nearly all powered by the burning of fossil fuels.  We are still very much in the combustion age. 

Honestly, I felt reassured that the electrification of transportation, and how society operates, is now unstoppable.  We will have economic, technical, and social advancements in the next couple of decades much like the post World War Two years.

Reading this book won't bring you up to the current state of the industry, it cannot do that, but it gave me an appreciation of the complexity and the activity that is underway, out of public view and in countries that are not in Europe or North America.

Highly recommended. 

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier - Book Report #318

 I've been reading the book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier.  In it he made a chilling observation; how the consumption of news is no longer a shared experience.  In the pre-social media times folks would get their news from television, radio or newspapers.  Everybody got the same message.

Picture this, we are in a large room with dozens of people, or a football game, it doesn't matter, if everybody was looking at their phones at the same time, all looking at the news feed on Facebook, not one feed would be the same!  The algorithms choose what is presented to each individual, tailored to their browning history.

You can see how this could cause confusion among folks, because nobody is getting the same story.  Social media, being what it is, is not not held to the same standards as traditional journalism and therefore has the ability to muddy the waters of trust.

The trouble with algorithms is that they are not working for US, they are working for the social media companies.  They are designed to keep us "engaged" and to stay on their platforms for as long as possible.  These algorithms don't care HOW they keep us scrolling and they all eventually learn that negative stories are more powerful "engagement" tools than positive ones.

By law, traditional broadcast media must present fact-checked and balanced stories.  Do they sometimes get it wrong?  Absolutely!  They are run by humans after all.  But humans are guided by a moral imperative (some more than others to be sure) and we have structures of checks and balances to keep people who are reporting and broadcasting the news accountable.   The black boxes that feed us the news on social media platforms have no such morals and have a different goal than the reporting of the best version of the truth available at the time.

Lanier is a compelling writer and has a sense of humor about the predicament we find ourselves in today.  

Recommended.  It'll make you think about what you're doing with your phone. 

The Diray of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell - Book Review #317

I purchased this book from a lovely new book store, Daisy Chain Book Co. in The High Street on 102 Ave and 125 Street, here in Edmonton.

It was rather fun to buy a book about running a used bookstore from a used bookstore.

Shaun Bythell is a bookseller in Wigtown, Scotland  who took pen to paper and began writing a diary about his life in the shop.  It is filled with quirky characters; the employed, residents of the town, other shopkeepers, postal employees and customers.  All ring the bell over the door and enter his observations.

Bythell has a warm and yet weary take on humanity.  I can certainly relate to often wishing I could function without the encumbrance of other people.  And yet, there is love in his words.  He is a part of the community and he is just as exasperating as everybody else around him.  There is a self-deprecating undercurrent to his observations.

It's an easy book to dip into as each entry is about a page long.  People come and go from the narrative and it's nice when some pop up again.  I found his book buying trips to be very interesting.

The epilogue was heartbreakingly beautiful.  It is life.

Highly, highly recommended.

 

North to the Orient by Anne Morrow Lindbergh - Book Report #316

How refreshing this book was from the previous book review!

It was beautifully written, honest and romantic.  In the 1930's flight was still very much in its infancy, the realm of adventurers.

I loved the gentleness of her writing and how she and her famous husband, Charles, were surveying routes to China for the planned commercial aviation business.

The flight went from the east coast of the USA, up to Churchill on the Hudson's Bay, across the high north of Canada and Alaska to the Kamchatka peninsula, Japan and finally China.  All of this in a two-person float plane with barley any infrastructure or radio communication.  Amazing.

For an 86 year-old book it read very well.

I was especially taken by how Ms. Lindbergh rankled at the expectations of the media.  Being a woman they were only concerned about what she was wearing and what she packed for lunch.  It's nice to see how her pioneering worked to promote and push forward social equality.

I highly recommend this book.  I restored my faith in humanity and in story telling.

A History of Canada in Ten Maps by Adam Shoalts - Book Report #314

 Epic Stories of Charting a Mysterious Land

Canadians like to think our history is boring and generally peaceful.  But the truth is much more insidious than that and our long history of violence, oppression and disregard for the Indigenous people of this land was hard to learn. 

Adam Shoalts is an Explorer in Residence at the Royal Canadian Geographical Society his previous books blend Canadian history with his own adventures into the blank parts of our map.  This was a bit of a departure for him in that the maps were not his own but those of our history.

From the very earliest maps to the more modern and complete ones he told the story of how Canada became a country.  The importance of our rivers, but more importantly that of the Indigenous nations that helped the Europeans along, was alway central to the pursuit of trying to find the edges of this unknown continent. 

I was disheartened by the violence throughout the entire book.  The conflicts between whites and Indigenous came as no surprise however there was distrust and violence between the Nations themselves.  None was more disturbing to me than the fight between the Dene and the Inuit described by Samuel Hearn in his expedition of the Coppermine River. 

Throughout the book I kept thinking at how deeply flawed humans are.  Our willingness to hurt each other and to distrust those who are not like us is so deeply baked into our DNA that I wonder if we can ever overcome it. 

I am very glad to have read the book.  I learned so much about Canadian exploration history.  Even though it was a gut punch at times it is an important book to help us understand who we are and what kind of country we want to become.  This will not be easy. 

The Adventurer’s Handbook by Mick Conefrey - Book Report #311

 From Surviving an Anaconda Attack

to Finding Your Way Out of the Desert

I loved this book.  The illustrations, the tips & tricks and the history of explorations were all neatly packaged in this small hardcover book.  It was a joy to read.

It is also a terrific guide into the subject of adventure, travel, discovery, endurance, glory and tragedy.  If you are curious about the past and how the world was discovered, mapped and understood, this is the book to reach for.

It is chock-full of brief descriptions of countless expeditions.  You will easily find subjects you are interested in and it will point you in the direction to discover more.  From mountain climbing, desert explorations, ocean sailings of discovery it's all there.  Names, dates, expedition titles all are jumping off points to discover more books or websites that will expand on what is presented by Conefrey.

While reading this book, I often put it down and went outside for some fresh air.

Highly recommended.

Mick Conefrey's website - https://www.mickconefrey.co.uk/

Mick Conefrey

Himalya by Michael Palin - Book Report #310

Once again, with charm, respect and genuine curiosity Palin travels into lands filled with mystery and legend, at least to this Canadian reader.

  

I personally did not engage with this adventure as I had his other travels.  There was a more religion, spirituality and superstition in the groups of people he met than I had interest in.  That says more about me than it does about the people or the narrative.  Spiritualism is just not for me.

That said, there was plenty to be learned at the border crossings and the history of previous occupations, wars and political influence.

My favourite passage of the book summed up the entire experience and perhaps all of his explorations.

 

"The enjoyment of the world is immeasurably enhanced not just by meeting people who think, look, talk and dress differently from yourself, but by having to depend on them. The trio of Bangladeshi fishermen who learnt the arcane art of television filming in a little less than half an hour are only the last of a long list of those who had every reason to think that we were completely mad, but who decided, against all the odds, to be our friends instead."

Michael Palin's website - https://www.themichaelpalin.com/

Michael Palin's travel website - https://www.palinstravels.co.uk/

Michael Palin

The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert - Book Report #309

An Unnatural History

Hold on to your optimism because this book will damage much of the hope for the future you may have.

What I enjoyed most was learning of the history of the sciences we take for granted today.  The very concept of extinction got supporters of the idea laughed out of the room.  To many scientists in the 17th century, every known creature was thought to have always been there.

When a mastodon's skeleton was discovered in the United States, it just proved that a living herd had not yet been found in the wild.  Not that it was evidence of a long-lost species.

Peter Diamandis once said, "The day before something is a breakthrough, it's a crazy idea."

The book is a long list of crazy ideas that have become accepted fact.

By page 19 it is no surprise to learn that the rapid extinction event amphibians are being accelerated by our own human activity and systems.

My constant complaint in these kinds of books is that they are full of destruction & doom and short of constructive hope & solutions.

That said, it's a terrific read.  The history of scientific discovery is especially telling.  Just think about how the very notion of climate change was universally laughed at only 20 years ago.  Not as much now.

The book does not touch on this but, I feel this is the biggest scientific, economic and social opportunity humanity has ever had.  We have the chance to reinvent everything!  

So far, our world has stumbled into the future, today we can plan it.  Reimagine it.  Improve it.  Best of all, the world is full of those crazy ideas that just might work.  Oh, my!  We could be at the inflection point where humanity realizes it's true potential.

Elizabeth Kolbert's website - http://elizabethkolbert.com/

Elizabeth Kolbert

The Year of Less by Cait Flanders - Book Report #306

How I stopped shopping, gave away

 my belongings, and discovered life is worth more

 than anything you can buy in a store.

It's a common problem in our cozy First World:  we have too much.

Too much stuff, too much clutter, too many calories and, too many demands on our time.

There are loads of self-help books out there help us to simplify our lives.

This one was a little different.  I was expecting the nuts and bolts of simplifying, hoping to find a few tips and inspiration.  What I got was the struggle the author went through to achieve her goals, not how she did them.  It showed the strategies she employed to keep herself on track and it explored how she motivated herself to continue even when events in her personal life could easily have derailed her.

This was very helpful.  To be shown how the conversations you have with others, how challenges in life, be it professional or personal, have the ability to make your well laid out plans more difficult, was refreshing and familiar.  I did like how she tracked her progress on a calendar, it's something I use everyday; seeing the successful days pile up as I cross them off in bold, black Sharpie is satisfying.

I like to think of the book as a personal growth memoir rather than a self-help book.  Cait Flanders offered plenty of inspiration but she also gave lots of room to make her experience something I could modify and make my own.

It was a warm and charming book.  I was rooting for her the whole time.

Cait Flanders' Website - https://caitflanders.com/

Cait Flanders

Peak Everything by Richard Heinberg - Book Review #305

Narrated by Edward Dalmas

To be honest I felt like there was no hope for humanity after hearing this book.

The world is a big giant mess, I already knew this.  It's why I picked it up.

I've said it before, with a lot of these books they are heavy on problems and light on solutions.  Heinberg simply made me feel like everything was hopeless and I just wanted to give up.

But as the eternal optimist, Peter Diamandis, often says - "The world's biggest problems are the world's biggest market opportunities."  Keep that in mind.

A book like Peak Everything will shine the light on the problems.  It will be up to you to decide which ones you'd like to tackle and to go out to find the solutions yourself.

To be fair, Heinberg does have some solutions, but they mostly revolve about returning to an agrarian life.  Who knows, maybe he's right.

Do I recommend it?  Sure.  Why not?  Just be warned that it's a very one-sided read.

Richard Heinberg's website - https://richardheinberg.com/

Richard Heinberg

Sea Sick by Alanna Mitchell - Book Review #304

I found this book most illuminating and upsetting.

Being landlocked in Alberta I seldom think about the oceans.  I had never considered how our local agriculture can damage the oceans.  But fertilizer, pesticide, and herbicide runoff make it from the rivers to the oceans creating lasting damage to the ocean environment.  Just Google Gulf of Mexico dead zone to get an understanding of how everybody touches the oceans.

Overfishing is nothing new, we've heard about it for decades.  Just think of the shutting of the Atlantic cod fishery in eastern Canada.

The die-off of coral is much more serious than I knew about.

Most alarming is learning how the oceans play their part in the problem of CO2 rise.  I had no idea that the waters of the world absorb the gas, which sounds like a good thing, right?  But once carbon dioxide is dissolved in water it reacts with it, lowering the pH levels and making the water more acidic which has dire consequences on marine life, from the bottom of the food chain all the way to the top and to humans on the land.

I am so thankful I found the book.  It reinforced my desire to reduce my impact on the world.

Every little thing we do as individuals may seem inconsequential but others see what we do.  Somebody may see you picking up a bit of litter and it may inspire that person to do the same or to switch from a single-use item to a reusable one.

Like many of these kinds of books, I found it rather one-sided; there was so much gloom and doom that I kept wanting to just throw my hands up.

On the tenth anniversary of publication, Alanna Mitchell wrote a piece for Canadian Geographic updating readers as to how things have changed in that time.  Both the horror and the hope have expanded.  Read it here:

https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/theres-no-coming-back-why-global-ocean-crisis-threatens-us-all

There were two lines in the book that stood out for me:

Near the end, he leaves me with this, "The scale of the solution has to be to the scale of the problem."

And.

“The problem of the atmosphere and the ocean is a problem of human behaviour.” - Monica Sharma, a physician who works for the United Nations.

Alanna Mitchell's website - https://alannamitchell.com/

Alanna Mitchell

Dissapointment River By Brian Castner - Book Report #303

Finding and Losing the Northwest Passage

I love stories like these.  

This is a real-life, modern-day, canoe journey of the Mackenzie River.  The author decided to follow in the footsteps of Alexander Mackenzie who paddled the river in the hopes of finding an inland Northwest Passage.  "The Mackenzie river is the longest river system in Canada, and includes the second largest drainage basin of any North American river after the Mississippi." (Passage from Wikipedia)

From his starting point at Great Slave Lake all the way to the Arctic Ocean Brian Castner weaves his voyage to that of Mackenzie's.  At certain points in the trip Castner and Mackenzie stood on the same spots, on the same dates, 227 yeas apart.   

Blending history to the modern day by replicating an event, is an effective way to bring history alive and to compare the two worlds.  At times, the author is vividly imagining what Mackenzie and his party went through only to be knocked back into the present by the passing of a speedboat or a container ferry.

In many ways, life has not changed at all in the Canadian north in 1779 Mackenzie was trying to find his fortune, the industry of the day were furs.  Today, oil, gas and mining dominate.

I was thankful for the trip Brian Castner took and glad he chose to write about it.  I was thrilled to shoot the rapids with him from the safety of my couch.  I was happy to learn a bit more about Canadian history and to simply answer the question as to how the river got its modern name.  It is traditionally known as the Deh-Cho by the way.  I was also very happy to learn that no way in hell would I want to take a similar trip.

This was a terrific story.

Brian Castner's website - https://briancastner.com/

The Canal Builders by Julie Greene - Book Review #301

Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal

I enjoyed the angle the author took on this legendary infrastructure project, that of the people who built it and manged the endeavour.

People from all over the world came to work on it but it was also a product of its time - systemic racism, brutal working conditions, undervalued human needs and American hegemony made the reality of the construction an ugly thing.

But this was the reality of the times, it was normal.  It would never stand today.  Which made me wonder, could it even be achieved today?

The book illustrates just how far we've come in our respective societies from that day and how far we still have to go.  Throughout our history there has always been an "us" and a "them."  Nothing has really changed in that respect just the definition of us and them.

Still, this is an important document to the history of the Panama Canal and it's construction.  It focused on people instead of the engineering and I appreciated that.

Julie Green's website - https://history.umd.edu/users/jmg

Audio book narrated by Karen White

Julie Greene

Nudge by Richard H Thaler and Cass R Sunstein - Book Report #297

Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

This was an excellent book about the power of suggestion, default choices and inertia.

The basis for the whole theory of nudging is called Libertarian Paternalism, an oxymoron to me but well enough developed and explained that I bought into it.

Now I see examples of nudges everywhere and it makes me smile.

There is nothing more rewarding to me than reading a book (audiobook in this case) and having it fundamentally change the way I see the world.

Excellent stuff.

Richard H Thaler's Wiki Page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Thaler#External_links

Cass R Sunstein's Wiki Page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Sunstein#External_links

Cass R Sunstein

Richard H Thaler

The Sixth Man by Andre Iguodala and Carvell Wallace - Book Report #291

I am a casual fan of NBA basketball and I’ll admit that I was getting tired of the Golden State Warriors dominating the league for the past five years.

That team was stacked!

Through all the excitement around Kevin Durant and Steph Curry it was always Andre Iguodala that captured my attention.  There was something about his face...

I don’t read a lot of sports-related books but I found this one fascinating.  I enjoyed learning about Iguodala’s childhood and I was relieved that he had a strong family around him.

Learning about the undercurrent of racism that runs through American culture (and probably all cultures) I found depressing because it confirmed that we humans have not grown nearly enough.

The enormous pressure to perform and what that does to the human body was frightening.

What really upset me most was the treatment players experience from fans and the media.  How ugly people could be is sickening.

Does that sound like I did not enjoy the book?  Far from it.  Through it all, Iguodala’s strength and optimism carried him through his career and this book.

It was a fascinating look inside a game that most of us only encounter through a television screen.  Iguodala simply parted the curtain and showed the reader what the life of an athlete is like.

I was happy to learn that my impression of the man was correct.  He has integrity and cares deeply for the sport he loves.

Highly recommended.  This book is worth buying and lending to friends.

Andre Iguodala’s Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Iguodala

Andre Iguodala

Manhood by Terry Crews - Book Review #290

How to be a better man - 

or just live with one

The first time I became aware of Terry Crews was from his role in Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

But it was his recent tour through Edmonton for the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters on Feb 20, 2018, that he really caught my attention as a person I want to learn more about.

I stumbled upon his book on-line and immediately took it out of the library.

The poor guy had a rough start as a kid and he really was a dummy, as most boys and young men are.  I was just as clueless at those ages so the book resonated with me.

What impressed me most was how his ability to learn from disappointments was hard-wired into his DNA.  A lot of people, maybe even most people, would have turned away from their dreams in the same circumstances.  But he pushed through always trying to improve himself.

If you're familiar with his movies and TV work then you know his voice.  It comes through in his writing and made for enjoyable reading.

It was inspiring to see his life-long struggle to become a better man, to improve himself and then to improve his relationships.

To me, the spirit of the book can be found in two lines;

"I realized that everything is not about good or bad.  It's about what you can learn from it."

Terry Crews is a very brave man for sharing his story complete with its warts, mistakes and embarrassments with the world.

Terry Crews' Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Crews

Terry Crews

Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed by Clive Cussler and Craig Dirgo - Book Report #289

If your a fan of the Dirk Pitt series then you know that Clive Cussler is a looming part of the world he has created.  In the beginning, Pitt and Cussler were similar physically; six feet three inches in height, green eyes and the same general build.  In the books Pitt has not aged in real-time, he is perpetually in his 40’s.

Cussler’s life is just as interesting as his character and his experiences have been woven into the adventures he’s written.  But the opposite has also happened - from his books NUMA has become a real, not-for-profit entity.

Fans are just as curious about the author as the character and that is where this book comes in.  There is a terrific piece where Cussler writes himself into a short story about attending a party in Pitt’s hangar where he wanders throughout the building talking to previous characters from the series.  Alive or dead they are there.  It makes for a unique recap of the series so far.

This book is now 21 years old (Published in 1998) and is ripe for a second volume.

There is also a long interview with the author which I enjoyed.  I knew parts of Cussler’s story but not all of it and I especially liked how he broke into the business and how he negotiated the rights to his early books.

The bulk of the volume is dedicated to recaps of the plots of each book.  There is a list of all the recurring characters and their backgrounds.  Also included is a lengthy section that breaks down each books' characters, ship names, equipment used and locales.

It is a small encyclopedia of all things Dirk Pitt.

The book is not the easiest thing to find but well worth the effort.  I want to thank the Edmonton Public Library’s interlibrary loan system, which provides access to books from other regions if EPL does not have it.  I cannot imagine how much effort goes into providing this service but I am thankful for it.

Recommended.

Clive Cussler, back in the day.

Craig Dirgo