More Reasons to Read

When I first started this blog, I wrote an entry on why I read.  Here are two more reasons to read:

First, in an eloquent editorial in The New York Times, Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto, explains that:  

"Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings." 

Apparently, science backs it up:

"Dr. Oatley and Dr. Mar, in collaboration with several other scientists, reported in two studies, published in 2006 and 2009, that individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and see the world from their perspective." 

And a second reason to read, from The Marriage Plot:

"It wasn't only that this writing seemed beautiful to Madeleine.  It wasn't only that these opening sentences of Barthes' made immediate sense.  It wasn't only the relief at recognizing that here, finally, was a book she might write her final paper on.  What made Madeleine sit up in bed was something closer to the reason she read books in the first place and had always loved them.  Here was a sign that she wasn't alone.  Here was an articulation of what she had been so far mutely feeling."

(As an aside, Bel Canto is highly recommended.)

Look at the Books

From The Marriage Plot, on being judged by your book collection:

There was, in short,  this mid-size but still portable library representing pretty much everything Madeleine had read in college, a collection of texts, seemingly chosen at random, whose focus slowly narrowed, like a personality test, a sophisticated one you couldn't trick by anticipating the implications of its questions and finally got so lost in that your only recourse was to answer the simple truth.  And then you waited for the result, hoping for "Artistic," or "Passionate," thinking you could live with "Sensitive," secretly fearing "Narcissistic" and "Domestic," but finally being presented with an outcome that cut both ways and made you feel different depending on the day, the hour, or the guy you happened to be dating: "Incurably Romantic."

Dear Tina Fey

I have a new girl crush.  Thanks for Bossypants.

On playing SNL's sketch about the Vice Presidential debates in 2008:

... I thought the speeches that Jim Downey wrote for Jason Sudeikis as Joe Biden were brilliant.  Especially the stuff where Biden is trying to prove that he's not some Washington elite by talking about how he's from Scranton, Pennsylvania, "the most godforsaken place on earth."  I thought that was ingenious, because not only was the ad hominen attack on Scranton a hilarious comedy left turn, it also exemplified what the election had become.  Instead of talking about issues, everybody was trying to prove how "down-home" they were.  "I'm just like you" was the subtext of every speech. 

Politics and prostitution have to be the only jobs where inexperience is considered a virtue.  In what other profession would you brag about not knowing stuff?  "I'm not one of those fancy Harvard heart surgeons.  I'm just an unlicensed plumber with a dream and I'd like to cut your chest open."  The crowd cheers.

The Jane Austen Book Club

I didn't like the book, but I did like this passage:

Sylvia thought how all parents wanted an impossible life for their children -- happy beginning, happy middle, happy ending.  No plot of any kind.  What uninteresting people would result if parents got their way.

Tone at the Top

As most of you know, while based in London, I focused on anticorruption compliance work.  In helping companies craft anticorruption policies and procedures, we often discuss the essentials behind a good program.  For example, you should regularly have training sessions for your employees, so they understand what types of payments are illegal.  You should periodically audit your company's records, to make sure that there aren't any suspicious payments.  And you should set an appropriate "tone at the top."

"Tone at the top" refers to the message that top-level officers and board directors are conveying.  After all, there's no point in instituting an anticorruption policy if your CEO winks at your sales agents and tells them to "do whatever it takes" to secure a contract with a government official.

I've been thinking about how "tone at the top" applies to governments.  Specifically, I just finished reading The Dark Side by Jane Meyer, which examines how the U.S. government handled suspected terrorists after 9/11.

One of the things that struck me was how the message from the top administration trickled down to lower levels:

"At the same time, the [former CIA] operative said, the pressure from the White House, and in particular from Vice President Cheney, was intense.  Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were over at the CIA so often, a special reading room was set aside for them.  "They were pushing us: Get information! Do NOT let us get hit again!"  In Cheney's single-minded focus, he searched the CIA's archives to see what worked in the past.  He was particularly impressed with the Vietnam War-era Phoenix Program.  Critics, including military historians, have described it as a program of state-sanctioned torture and murder."

Later, Meyer discusses the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo:

Dave Becker, who was chief of the "Interrogation Control Element" in Guantanamo until December 2002, also claimed that the problem began at the top.  His shifting of blame was, of course, self-serving.  But when asked later by investigators with the Department of Defense why he let Qahtani be humiliated and abused, Becker pointed upward in the chain of command.  "Many of the aggressive interrogation techniques," he claimed, were "a direct result of the pressure we felt from Washington to obtain intelligence and the lack of policy guidance being issued from Washington."

There are numerous other examples scattered through the book where individuals explained that they engaged in certain behaviors because of the message that was coming from the White House.  As Meyer points out, to a certain degree, the explanations may be self-serving.  But, it does make me wonder how things would have played out if a different message was coming down from the top (e.g., "We need information, but we also need you to be cognizant of the Geneva Conventions and the importance of treating detainees humanely.")

And, to take it one step further, I wonder if the message would have been different if the administration's top officials had a different background.  As pointed out:

"In a war that would rely as much on exploiting legal loopholes as it did on bullets and bombs, there were few law degrees among the top officials.  Neither the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, nor the National Security Adviser was a lawyer.  In contrast, during the Clinton Administration, all of these posts were held by lawyers, with the exception of the Vice President, and even he had attended law school briefly."

So, had there been more lawyers in the administration's top tier, would the government's response have been more curtailed, and more cognizant of our international obligations in handling detainees?  

On Giving Up

There are actually two reasons for my long hiatus from this blog.  The first is that I relocated once again, and for the last few months, my life has been consumed by the logistical and emotional challenges that come with a trans-Atlantic move.  The second is that I spent almost two months tackling Bolaño's 2666.

Now, 2666 takes time:  the English edition is over 900 pages.  But it also took me so long to finish because, simply put, I hated reading it.  One major plotline involves the rapes and murders of three hundred women in Mexico.  Bolaño goes into intimate/excruciating detail about each of the murders and, as Jonathan Lethem succinctly described it in his New York Times review, "[i]f the word 'unflinching' didn’t exist, I’d invent it to describe these nearly 300 pages."

Yet I kept reading the novel, though I hated every page.  And it made me wonder:  at what point is it appropriate to give up on a book?

I stumbled across a Wall Street Journal article discussing "book guilt": the feeling when you stop reading a book midway, heightened when the book "has been widely praised or is considered a classic."  (In this case, 2666 had received such acclaim that I felt that I should like it, or at least give it the courtesy of finishing it.)  The article offers the following rule of thumb:

Nancy Pearl, who writes the excellent "Book Lust" series, recommends that people 50 years old or younger give a book about 50 pages before deciding to give it up. "If you're over 50, which is when time gets shorter," she continues, "subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before deciding whether or not to quit.

Fifty pages seems a little short to me, especially given that some books - like Cloud Atlas - involve a slow build.  But if not fifty, then how many?  100?  200?  How do you know when - if ever - to quit?

The Best Books of 2011

Apologies for the hiatus!  I've been going through a bit of a life upheaval lately -- another move (!) -- and so I haven't had a chance to sit and properly blog.  I have been reading, though, and more posts will be coming.

But first, though it's now a bit dated, I wanted to recap my favorites from 2011.  It was a year of great reading, but three books stood out: 

1. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell: Hands down, the best book I read last year.  It's nearly impossible to describe the book, other than as a tale of six interconnected stories spanning hundreds of years.  I am slightly nervous about the movie, so I would encourage everyone to read it prior to the movie's release.  As a disclaimer:  It took me about one hundred pages to really get into the book, but when I did, I fell hard.  Have patience.
2. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins:  Pulp fiction at its finest, I found it difficult to put down the books in this trilogy.  A friend noted that he thought the writing was juvenile - and perhaps it is - but it's also utterly addicting.  I thought that one of the more interesting aspects of the trilogy, though, was how it reflected our own society and values, particularly with the focus on reality television.  Panem et circenses. 
3. The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin: Rubin's study into happiness inspired two posts, and lots of self-reflection on what makes people - and me - happy.  Specifically, it provided me with a framework to think about the different factors that influence my happiness (e.g., exercise, relationships), and launched an inner dialogue on how to maximize my happiness within those categories.  Again, a bit late, but I'd suggest it for anyone making New Year's Resolutions. 

And, with that, happy reading in 2012!  xo