Michael Mullins

A headlong plunge into this clash of ideals, this history of the fight for the American soul drives recent events into perspective. Just how far have we actually evolved in the hundred-and-fifty-plus years since the ending of the Civil War? Every glance at the news has to make us question our own collective enlightenment, our wokeness. Even if Catton were not such a good writer, this book would be well worth the reader's time because of its relevance. But Catton can write. Those — myself included — unfamiliar with the intricacies of Civil War tactics and maneuvering need not be put off. The true value here lies in the sweep of the narrative.

Read in a gulp, Catton's history was most valuable in providing an understanding of the countervailing forces which very nearly cleaved the country in two. There are no heroes here, and in this was the greatest surprise for me. While the evils of slavery and the necessity of destroying the institution are obvious, much less so is the character of the southerner. For what did he fight? The answer is not obvious and was not made so by the end of the book. This is at least part of the point. The reasons for the war are ultimately as varied as the people which participated. More than anything, it is the humanity of all involved which comes through on these pages.

As with many things, my relationship to this book is complicated at best. Over the course of a few of his books on literary theory, Pressfield's voice grinds consistently in that ‘aw-shucks' gear which I associate with the 1940's or 50‘s. But the problem is greater than just tone. At heart, is a philosophy. Actually two. And here is where the complications arise.

From the book, about 16% of the way in:

The Gita is not like the Old or New Testament or any Buddhist or Confucian or Native American scripture I have read. It advocates killing. “Slay the enemy without mercy,” Krishna instructs the great warrior Arjuna. “You will not be killing them, for I have slain them all already.”

A master of the art of war has said, ‘I do not dare to be the host (to commence the war); I prefer to be the guest (to act on the defensive). I do not dare to advance an inch; I prefer to retire a foot.' This is called marshalling the ranks where there are no ranks; baring the arms (to fight) where there are no arms to bare; grasping the weapon where there is no weapon to grasp; advancing against the enemy where there is no enemy.There is no calamity greater than lightly engaging in war. To do that is near losing (the gentleness) which is so precious. Thus it is that when opposing weapons are (actually) crossed, he who deplores (the situation) conquers.

Now arms, however beautiful, are instruments of evil omen, hateful, it may be said, to all creatures. Therefore they who have the Tao do not like to employ them.[...]He who has killed multitudes of men should weep for them with the bitterest grief; and the victor in battle has his place (rightly) according to those rites.

Wherever a host is stationed, briars and thorns spring up. In the sequence of great armies there are sure to be bad years.

Agatha goes here... Agatha goes there...

Agatha goes absolutely nowhere. Bouncing from one to another of a series of forgettable characters, from the Cotswolds to London, there and back again... a Habit Story. Not until the seventy-five percent marker do we encounter anything resembling an endearing, memorable character in the form of a small tabby. Yes there is some trifle of a plot revolving — hardly a spoiler this, given the title and genre — around a murder. But I just could not summon the ability to care. Perhaps it's the bland, clotted cream world in which Agatha finds herself, but it seemed to me more a picaresque, badly-paced series of events than anything whole and structured, something providing a unity. Maybe Aristotle was onto something. This series seems popular so perhaps I'll give it month or so and try another one, hoping that the author is slow in starting. Alas, things do not bode well for Ms. Raisin.

We read books with many different facilities: our intellect, imaginations, past learning, powers of deduction, powers of debate... We reread books often with at least one more facility: our memories. Books reread are colored by the past, colors growing more vibrant and nostalgic when the distance between reading and rereading is measured in decades. The Ralph S. Mouse books form a bold memory in my imagination. These were my favorite books as a child. My greatest impression now is the belief that there's nothing here that doesn't hold up. A kid picking up the books today cold relate completely to the plucky little mouse and his red motorcycle.

The temptation with a character like Musk would be to color the man by recent actions, and this is just what Isaacson avoids. Musk's mad dash from left to right, from empathic to near sociopathic, leaves many flummoxed. Heraclitus said that character is destiny, and while I have problems with this particular philosophy (I would argue that action is destiny and than a person can — as many have — overcome character to act well and in accords with greatness), this idea does seem to be playing out right on course for Musk. Upon finishing the book I thought I had an understanding of why Musk does the things he does, and this is about the best cover copy a biography could want. None of this is to say that I agree with Musk's principles or the conclusions he reaches as a result of holding those principles — it simply means that I believe Musk is in fact a man living out his principles. He is a flawed human. Of course. Some of us are more flawed than others and Musk is pretty high on that chart most days. The problem with a society that imbues individuals with this much money, unchecked, is that the wealth comes with commensurate power. As such, Musk's flaws and mistakes are magnified many times over. I've often thought that this was what money actually was: a magnifier. A charitable poor person will be, upon becoming rich, a more charitable person. A poor miser will make an even more miserly rich person. Anger, humility, creativity, loving kindness, sociopathy, saintliness — all of these things become magnified through the lens of an increased bank account. Musk has achieved a wealth to rival entire nation states and so his foibles and his gifts are on display, equally magnified, playing out before us in real time. I don't know how his story is eventually going to play out. Neither do you. I am curious to find out. All or most of Isaacson's subjects are dead by the time he writes their stories, so I'm left to wonder if the author won't be doing a follow up as Musk's game moves into extra innings. What is obvious is that the final chapter has not been written, and that whether it's Isaacson that writes it or someone else, I would not feel confident judging Musk as a net positive or net negative force for human affairs and history based solely on this necessarily incomplete history of the man. What I can say is that Musk will likely continue to be a force acting out and acting upon us all in some form or fashion for the foreseeable future.

It's a good book about people who drink the tainted Kool-Aid of radicalized Christian extremism. Unfortunately it's written by someone also drinking the Kool-Aid, if from a less tainted batch. We just call such a person a Christian. In other words, the problem Alberta is trying to dissect and solve from within Christianity is, in my opinion, a problem inherent in religious belief, only solvable from without. Religion is defined by faith and faith is defined by a belief in something for which there is no basis for that belief. The rest of us call that delusion, and the delusion of Bible-thumping, mouth-frothing Trump supporters is different from run of the mill religious delusion only in degree and not in kind. The notion that people are going to believe they possess the unerring word of God and not eventually fall into an egoic craziness, a trance which leads inexorably to places like Jan. 6 — that notion is itself a delusion. We can roll back time, scanning history, and see example after example of just this sort of thing playing out. When the religious say that absence of proof is not proof of absence (something which is true in a general sense but unhelpful for finding truth) they are opening the door for behavior based not on intelligence and logic, but on hope, a need to feel safe and taken care of (‘saved' in the language of the evangelicals). Nothing is more uncomfortable for a societal animal to continually take illogical action when the group does not support that action. And nothing is more uncomfortable for a group taking such action when the society it's part of doesn't support that action. This is the place we find ourselves and it's the reason that the Religious Right is now so desperately interfering in what is correctly secular politics. To highjack a phrase (somewhat ironically) from David Mamet: they are attempting to correct for a raging internal imbalance. (In the original Mamet was referring to writers, also at the best of times not the sanest lot. But that's a different book, a different review.) ‘Cognitive dissonance' is the general psychological term for all of this. Those suffering will stop at nothing to right the balance. It really is a dissonance of belief. They believe that their actions are logical, and yet they ‘believe' this other thing which is inherently illogical and leads to illogical actions. What's more, they're being reminded of it constantly by the society they live in, either explicitly or by comparison.

This is a book worth reading if you are capable of separating the author's own faith out of the larger story he's telling, the story of the modern extreme radicalization and politicization of Christianity. It is a mistake, however, to think that American Christianity was somehow sane and healthy before this modern variant began to take hold. The core belief system is unstable and unhealthy at the core.

The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory is an example of books that need to be written. (They need to be read as well, but the functional illiteracy of the American public is beyond the scope of things being discussed here.) These books need to be written from without, though. With Albert I fear we have a case of the fox guarding the henhouse. Secularism needs to take a serious look at the accumulative power of the religious in our modern, secular, pluralist society. Secularism then needs to take steps to corral and diminish that power until it no longer poses the threat that it currently does.

Read it twice, and on the second reading I found myself equally charmed but also disappointed. It hardly begins before it's over. A fictionalized Queen Elizabeth stumbling unexpectedly into the labyrinth of literature, becoming a bookish Queen, causing problems for those who seek to keep her comfortably in her own lane. This book could have been so much more, the book that exists just the starter's pistol for a long exploration of the monarchy, the history she saw and created, veering away from the simple interest of literature into . . . what? A million possibilities appear, the simple opening dominoeing, consequences befalling consequences, wars perhaps breaking out as a result, beheadings in the Middle East, regimes toppled. Rushdie, after all, failed to contain the drama and the absurdity to the page. The Crown isn't popular accidentally. What a great feast of a novel this could have been. And maybe will be. Probably not by Bennett as he is only 7 or so years shy of the Queen at the age of her death, a death which still feels surprisingly untimely — but by someone. It's the type of novel I'm not sure we really get anymore.

Anyway. Read it if you haven't. Bennett is, as previously stated, charming, if a little on the surface.

If anywhere the idea applies that in order to suck the life out of something all you have to do is overanalyze it, then it is here. When I approached the book initially — intrigued by its title — I was hoping for a reflection of what I believe New TV to be about: an extension of the novel as form. Many of the series of this new era, both good and bad, are nothing more than dramatized novels: they exist in large form, over at least dozens of hours, and contain stories which arc and which all, more or less, come together under a ur-story, the spine of the work. Deadwood, Breaking Bad, House of Cards (both the UK and US versions), and The Sopranos represent perhaps the best of the lot. It is serial storytelling, as apposed to episodic. Others — House pops most readily to mind — are a combination of the serial and the episodic, still important perhaps for the larger story, told over seasons rather than minutes.


It is to this aspect that I was hoping the book would address itself. Instead, we are offered an inane psycho–spiritual analysis of the series, using Lost's many literary allusions, direct or implied, as lenses through which to view the show. OK, this would have been an intriguing aspect in the context of a larger book, but half that would have been fine, thank you all the same. Hell, half of half that would have been too much. Ironically, the approach that the author has taken to the work leaves the book itself feeling very episodic. There is no cohesion, mere endless and exhaustive (exhausting) analysis. A reader of the book which had never experienced the series would likely find something else to watch after putting the book down.


In the end, “Lost” is not Dostoevsky. Whatever pretense to depth the series offers is just that, pretense. Saying so isn't a slight. The series writers knew what they were doing. They were telling a fun story, but doing so with the courage to extend themselves over a very long expanse of time. This is the novelist's courage, the reason that the novel as form is still relevant today. A book which addressed itself to this aspect could have been a fascinating read. Unfortunately, this is not that book.

I realize that mine is the only rating on this book so far and that I should explain why I ranked it so low. Mostly, this seems less like a unified book and more like a collection of lists, borrowed ideas and repetition. Some of the information is correct, some is just wrong: the admonishment not to fast, that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and that one should eat a little throughout the day — all these concepts are questionable at best and much disputed by modern research. The core idea here, of course, is mindful eating. As an approach to food, mindful eating could not be more important. So those two stars are for the central idea.

If Zoe Silva reads this, I would like to say that the start of a good book is here, but it needs to be organized around a central plan, repetition removed and please, please, please have it proofread, not just for typos but for a writing style which sometimes dips into incomprehensibility.

But do write the book that this book should have been. We need mindfulness in all aspects of our live right now, in eating most of all.

The author holds a myopic view of books and writing, disdaining anything which isn't lowbrow. This note grinds away persistently underneath the text, constantly irritating. He has staked out his little enclave of interesting books and defends it, never aware that he is confusing anything elevated and challenging with pretentiousness. Somehow if one likes Stephen King or James Patterson this precludes a love of Tolstoy or Vollmann. Or so the author implies. What saves the book (and confuses the reader) is the obvious intelligence of the author and his ability to write well, the stuff of the very books he derides. Despite it all, Michael Allen is an interesting writer. I just wish he saw a little more.

A successful, creative comedian/actor mistaking randomness for creativity. Let me be clear, my estimation of this book is not some puritan knee-jerk reaction to base material — I have no such prejudice — but simply a reader responding to the lack of structure or vision in the material. A memoir by any other name does not a memoir make: many forget that a memoir not written explicitly and carefully for an audience is just a diary or journal written in retrospect. Better writers than Oswalt have forgotten this. I recently read Venice Observed by Mary McCarthy, an esteemed writer apparently. She likewise failed to connect the reader with the material. You could make a convincing argument that this is the primary job of all writers. Fail at this and nothing else matters. The comparison between McCarthy and Oswalt is an interesting one, I think. The writing style and subject matter could be no further apart, and yet both authors fail in very much the same way. Random memories are just that, your random memories. If you expect a reader to care you need to make those memories the reader's, vicariously, so that the reader can invest. Oswalt tells us he understands this on some level. About half way through the book, the origin of the book's title is made clear. He says:

But for me, and my circle of high school friends, it came down to Zombies, Spaceships, or Wastelands. These were the three doors out of the Vestibule of Adolescence, and each opened onto a dark, echoing hallway. The corridors twisted and intertwined, like a DNA helix. Maybe those paths were a rough reflection of the DNA we were born with, which made us more likely to cherish and pursue one corridor over another.

I'm going to try to explain each of these categories (and will probably fail). And then I'll figure out where I came out, on the other end, once the cards were played. I think this chapter is more for me than for you.

To the extent that this paradigm of classifying people into such categories is valid, I cleanly fall into the INTP category. In my experience, the Myers-Briggs model is at best a paradigm with which to think about oneself and one's place in the grander scheme. Among those who adopt this paradigm, there is an overwhelming tendency to actual believe the labels, taking them on as identities. I.E. “I am an INTP.” Nothing in nature exists that is an INTP. We can look around and see humans, male and female (and those in between). We can see animals and plants and rocks. Try though you might, you will never find an INTP in nature.

It's very easy to see how destructive such an approach has the potential of becoming. “If I'm an INTP, then I'm this way ... I prefer these things ... these are my strengths.” This is a way for people to naturally seek out stability in what can feel like an existence of shifting sands. I think books like this have can do as much harm as good. With that said, if you can approach the whole thing as just a concept and not take it on as a worldview, this book is intelligent if a little scattered. It is, however, too certain of its conclusions by half. I believe the author makes the mistake of extrapolating his experience of identifying as an INTP into something universally applicable. Even though Meyers-Briggs overwhelmingly classifies me — right down the center line — as an INTP, on nearly every page he makes assertions which are foreign to my experience. If this happened here and there, I would chalk it up to the diversity of experience, but the preponderance of these assertions shakes the book completely out of the realm of relatability for me, presumably a key target of the book. At one point near the end the author inserts mention of ‘old soul' and ‘average-aged soul' INTPs, meaning that some INTPs will start out much more developed than the typical INTP, further along in the evolution he lays out in the book. This really does address the major fault not only with this book but with whole paradigm on which it's built.

The more I see Meyers-Briggs bandied about, the less convinced I am of its value and the more destructive I think it may be. I think instead if we simply developed society in a way which made room for obvious core differences among people then the need for having such a system would be obviated. People read these descriptions of personality, relate to them, and then take them on as identities. The reason this happens is largely because they feel alienated. In a society which assumed a wide range of natural personalities and which allowed and encouraged exploration of these differences, there would be very little reason for people to try to fit themselves into these little, typological boxes. The cost of doing so seems to high to me, regardless of the comfort of feeling understood and validated brought on by ‘knowing your type.'

With such a mixed bag, with the foundations of the book so in question, there's very little I can offer in way of conclusion except to say buyer beware.

Well, 3 stars for anything which promotes fasting with even moderate intelligence. Ponce de León didn't find the fountain of youth of course, but we have the next best thing. Best of all it requires literally doing nothing — specifically doing nothing with food. Just stop. There are nuances to everything and devils to all details, though, and Bryant promotes calorie counting in this book, an approach that is, to my mind, antithetical to fasting. It leads me to believe that however great the author's research, his understanding of intermittent fasting is incomplete, and his understanding of nutrition out of date. Given the proper environment, the appetite can perfectly regulate itself. This is one of the primary benefits of IF. Doing without food resets the body to a healthy relationship to food. What's more, calorie counting itself, whether fasting is included or not, has been proven ineffective. Calorie counts for almost all foods are way off and vary greatly. Beyond that there is the understanding that calories in/calories out is just bad science. The biological processes which comprise digestion are astoundingly complex and not at all quantifiable from such a binary and simplistic perspective. The long and short of it is that the body will tend to increase metabolism with more calories and decrease it with less. It's only the ingestion of excess calories continually over time that contribute to obesity, and even here it's only a sliver of the story. See “Nature Wants Us to Be Fat” by Richard Johnson for a more sophisticated understanding of weight loss.

Intermittent fasting absolutely works and represents perhaps the most natural, perfect way of eating, something in line with how we've evolved to deal with food. This isn't a bad book on the subject; it's just not a particularly good one. As with most things, your best bet is to read many books and not latch onto any one particular theory, at least not until your education is more complete.

This has to be my favorite book on writing and I've read it at least three times in as many years. Victoria Nelson lays out the anatomy of the blocked writer, inch by inch, the bare corpse split open on the table before us. The three overarching themes of the book are:

(1) the tension between authenticity and ambition

(2) the truly complex nature of the beast; there is not one block but many, their shapes varied and causes many

(3) a block is not a curse but a blessing, a message from the creative self, whence the writing comes

[Note: I quote at some length from both Floating Twigs: A Boy, a Dog, and the Power of Love by Charles Tabb and from Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart. I don't know if this equates in any way to spoilers, so I will simply say, “Enter at your own risk....”]

I read Floating Twigs on the heels of reading Young Mungo. Although it would be inaccurate to say that the two novels cover roughly the same ground, they certainly both tread similar waters: impoverished childhoods, the rough world of toxic masculinity, violence meted out at the hands of and upon the tender bodies of the young, fear and accusations of molestation, all of it played against a fabric of genuine, masculine love, of men or boys caring for one another. The contrast of encountering these two stories so close together could not have been more stark. Compare:

(An excerpt from Floating Twigs:)

“You're right about that, at least,” said Tommy. He looked at the other boys, and I knew it was the signal to attack me. I wondered what I would look like when they finished with me.With a rush, they were on top of me, pummeling and kicking. Fortunately, we rarely wore shoes in the summer. Still, I felt a sharp pain in my side as a boy kicked me in the ribs. I tasted blood when Carl punched me in the mouth. I could feel the teeth loosen as my cut lip ballooned. My nose felt broken, and one eye was already swelling shut.Finally, the boys parted from their handiwork, moving once again into a circle to consider me the way any animal pack looks at fallen prey. Carl was reaching into my pockets and taking the money, including the dime I had found beside the road on my way to the docks that afternoon. I had thought I was lucky when I found it.I lay there crying as defeat settled on me, but it was more than that. I wondered where I would get money to feed Bones. I couldn't keep taking groceries out of my house. If my parents caught me, they would beat me too, even though that rarely happened, but stealing from my family would surely lead to a severe whipping.

Young Mungo

Mungo was writhing in the dirt, blinking, when soft brown eyes looked down at him and there was a flash of a perfect, dazzling smile. He was a beautiful boy; dazed as he was, Mungo was still winded by his beauty. He had the broad-boned nose of a proud Sheltie and dark eyebrows under thick black hair, parted as neat as any parish priest's. He seemed to be saying something, but Mungo couldn't hear him over the din in his skull. Mungo raised his hand to ask for help. Then the boy's foot rose up high and came down like a hoof on the side of Mungo's head.The white flooded back. It felt like when he sat by himself in the darkness and Jodie turned on the big light, the bare bulb with no lamp-shade, and it burned his skull. The foot came down again and again, trying to sever his head from his body. Mungo could hear the rubbery squeak of the trainer against his face. He could taste the blood from his ear and the salt from his eyes in his mouth and in a delayed reflex he pulled his hands up to cover his face.The stomping took on the rhythm of a happy jig. Mungo couldn't see through the pain. The foot came down again and then travelled the length of his body. Then the beautiful boy walked the length of Mungo. He did it in marching strides, like a cartoon Nazi. He turned above Mungo's head, goose-stepped on his heel and made to walk back down the fallen body. The next foot never fell.Ha-Ha was there, the tomahawk above his head, and he cleaved it down on the beautiful Catholic and the boy fell like a wasted sapling. The side of his brother's face was scarlet. There was a curtain of his own blood falling from a line that stretched from his ear to his mouth. It was already raised and puckered white at the edges, like the torn fat on a rasher of bacon. Ha-Ha tapped Mungo with his toe and then he turned, axe above his head, and started hacking at the forest of Fenians.Mungo lay on the wet ground. He could not lift himself from where he had been stamped into the earth. He would have frozen but for the inferno of his pain. And as the fighting raged above him, he closed his eyes.

Floating Twigs

Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less

The War of Art

Floating Twigs

Floating Twigs

We were passing Helmer's Creek. It wasn't really a creek. It was a man-made canal cut through a low area of Panther Dunes years before I was born. I still don't know why it was there, but I suppose they had their reasons when it was created. A plank footbridge crossed it near where we stood.I wiped the sweat that was gathering on my brow and realized the day was already much too hot. I'd heard the weather report, and the high was expected to top a hundred. It seemed close to that already. The water, the sun shimmering on it, invited me in. It had apparently invited Bones as well. He plunged in, swam across to the other side, huffing through his mouth, then reversed and swam back to where we were. He looked as if he had a big smile on his face, and I marveled that a three-legged dog could swim and not go in circles.“You mind if I go swimming?” I asked.“Suit yourself,” Hank answered.I removed my shoes and shirt and began to wade into the canal, but then I thought better of it. I didn't want my denim shorts to chafe at me all day, which they would if I walked around in them in the hot sun until they dried, and that would take an hour or two. The added heat of the day would make me miserable.I turned to Hank. “You mind if I go skinny-dipping?”He considered my question, shrugged, and said, “Suit yourself.”Stepping up onto the shore, I shucked my shorts and underwear. I'd never been naked in front of Hank before, but he was paying me no attention anyway, and I figured he'd seen his share of naked boys in his life. Besides, I trusted him completely. He deserved my trust more than I deserved to know his history.I waded back into the water and splashed around, cooling off from the heat of the sun that had gripped me moments before. Bones swam around me, seeming to want to play some canine version of tag.After refreshing myself in the canal, I crawled back onto the shore and quickly dressed. I wasn't exactly used to going naked outside, and the feeling was an odd one.I noticed Hank still ignoring me as I dressed.“Sorry if I embarrassed you,” I said.“No, mostly I'm jealous. I'd like to take a dip in this heat myself.”“Why don't you?” I asked.“You're still young,” he said. “I'm old. There's a difference.”I could see his point. As I mentioned, he was probably used to seeing naked boys in his lifetime, but I'd never seen a naked man. I was thankful he didn't take me up on my suggestion.Once I was dressed and we were again on our way in our half-hearted search for Diablo, I pressed Hank for details about the car accident. He refused to give them, though, saying only that the details didn't matter. The fact they were gone was all that did.

Young Mungo:

“It was only a wee game,” said Gallowgate. “It just got a little bit out of hand, that's all.”The man was leaning against a beech tree, near to Mungo's discarded clothes. He was smoking and digging the dirt out from under his thumbnail with the gutting knife. The blade caught one of the few rays that snuck through the canopy and glinted menacingly.Mungo's bottom lip started to tremble. He pinched it, pushed his nail into it until it was steadied. “It wasn't a game to me.”“Ah, c'mon. You know what boys are like. Everybody does something lit this. It's all part of growin' up. It's easier than getting a lassie in bother.”Mungo was angry at himself. He couldn't look the man in the face and found himself talking to the river's surface. The raspy voice didn't sound like his own. “Just you wait. Wait till I tell my big brother what you did. He will fuckin' kill you. He has a tomahawk and he'll split your stinkin' skull with it.”Gallowgate knew nothing about the legend of Ha-Ha. He chuckled as he fussed with his neat fringe. “Be a shame to ruin a guid haircut.”Mungo launched his pumice stone, but Gallowgate was too quick for him and dodged it. It clattered off a tree trunk and skittered through the ferns. The understorey swallowed all sound. They were alone again. Gallowgate folded his blade and tucked it away. “Look, it's possible that I went too far. But are ye sure you didnae enjoy it?” He was grinning now, small sharp teeth. “Even jist a wee bit?”Mungo shook his head slowly. “No.”The man sucked in through his teeth. “Fuck, then I'm really sorry, pal.” Gallowgate considered it for a moment, he even seemed a little remorseful. “But ah'm surprised to hear that. Specially after what Mo-Maw telt us about ye.”There was no blood at all left inside him, yet every inch of him felt bloated with a blistering rage. He blanched and flushed at the same time. “Whatever they say I've done – it was never anything like that.”“Z'at so?” Gallowgate looked contrite for a second, but the sharp point of his incisors stuck on his bottom lip and he became an animal again. “But that's no what ah've heard. It's the whole reason ye were sent away wi' us. To sort you out. To make a man out of ye.”“This is how ye make a man out of me?”“Naw. S'pose not,” he said. “But we're doing this out of the kindness of our hearts, taking a wee waif to gawk at the heathery hillside. So don't be ungrateful. Don't be so fuckin' stingy wi' the favours next time.” Gallowgate picked up the boy's underclothes, his T-shirt and boxer shorts. “In Barlinnie ye weren't allowed to wear yer own clothes. Ye were never given the same pair of underwear twice and by God, they never, ever fit right. Even when they had been washed ye could still smell some other fella on them, still feel the hundred fellas that had worn them afore you.” He ran the grey cotton between his fingers, then he pitched Mungo's underwear into the river. “Ye should wash them. We cannae be carryin' on like pure animals.”Mungo had to flounder downstream to catch the discarded clothes. He regarded them, familiar things he had worn a thousand times and wondered who they belonged to now.Gallowgate had become bored watching the boy flail around. He was irritable in his sobriety. “Anyhows, hurry up with that. Auld Chrissy is still gonnae show ye how to catch trout. It'll be a laugh if nothin' else.” Turning back towards the campsite he stopped short and flicked his cigarette dout towards Mungo. “And jist in case ye take a funny notion, ye cannae tell anybody about what happened. Not yer mammy, not yer brother. Ye'll never be a proper man if they knew whit ye did and how much ye liked it.”“I did not like it.” He spoke as clearly as he could manage.“Really?”It was then that something changed for Mungo. This was not something your mammy could kiss away. It was not a bully that your brother could chib with a blade. Nobody could make a pot of soup for it. The shame and the guilt were his to bear. Mungo knew Gallowgate was right. He couldn't tell anyone.“Besides,” said Gallowgate as he disappeared into the ferns, “everybody knows ye're a dirty wee poofter. A filthy little bender. It'd be yer word against mine.”Then he realized the men would do it again.

More a litany than an exhaustive inquiry into the evolution of free speech as defined and refined by the Supreme Court of the United States. Such a subject would be just as worthy of a 2500-page tome authored by William T. Vollmann (and what a glory such a thing may be) than what is presented here, which is good but feels abbreviated. It's naturally a huge subject, and a history of the protection of speech extending not just to the American experiment but as it applies throughout world history would have been welcome. My guess is that the ancient Greeks may have a word or two to say. Still, the book is well done and smart. I just wish it were longer.

Easily one of the best books I've read in the past five years. McKibben's facts are in order, but he can also tell a story, and story is one of the things we need in order to change hearts and minds. I think if I was granted to the power to make every conservative (and for that matter every liberal) understand one set of facts, one perspective, it would be the worldview laid out here. Deeply political, deeply felt, deeply if comfortably holistic, the message here is so important that our collective existence hinges on our understanding, and yet I'm not sure how optimistic I am that we will get there in the end.

Sprinkled throughout the book were listed recommended brands, by name, and links to those products. That means that this is no longer a health book but sponsored content, and thus completely and immediately discredited. Who is to say whether claims made in the book were made because the science backs them up or because the claims would lead unsuspecting readers to buy the products listed.

If the authors are going to write a book intended to help people, then they must in future avoid any whiff of partiality when it comes to specific products. Even this doesn't ensure the purity of the information provided. An author who owns a food company or has a stake in such a company, for instance, is pretty much disqualified from writing such a book and having it taken seriously.

People are tired of their health being sacrificed at the altar of capitalism.

This is less the Marie Antoinette diet and more the Karen Wheeler diet. Wheeler starts with a valid premise: the French are slim and relatively healthy (certainly compared to Americans), so we should do what they do, but then she starts ‘improving' things.One of the original books advocating French eating (or at least one of the first I encountered) is [b:The Fat Fallacy : Applying the French Diet to the American Lifestyle 3318694 The Fat Fallacy Applying the French Diet to the American Lifestyle William Clower https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1267932149l/3318694.SX50.jpg 3356447]. Start there if you like. There are dozens of other books along more or less the same line. Where these books say, this is what the French do, do it the same way, then follow those books. Where these books say, yes, but we know better, so instead do this — ignore that advice. All of these books have value, but you have to separate out the increasingly ancient wisdom of how the French eat to how a particular author believes they can improve on this ancient wisdom.All of this is not to say that the French way of eating is the healthiest, but you will lose weight, especially if you can get behind four principles of French eating:1. Eat only the highest quality, most natural ingredients.2. Proper portion sizes are much smaller than you think. Check out what a typical portion size would have been in the 1950s — this is a good guide.3. Eat mindfully, slowly, and without distraction.4. Don't snack. A meal begins. It ends. You're done. We're not cows and we do not need to graze. (Do you really want the bulbous cow to be your model?)There is more to it, fine detail and subtleties, but these four get you to 80%.There's no clear way to rate this book. It's a mixed bag. Further complicating things is the fact that although Marie Antoinette was French, to be sure, she did live in the 18th century. Evolution in the French diet has naturally occurred. To add potential injury to insult, understand that although a person eating a typical American diet will almost certainly improve their health and reduce their size by mimicking the French way of eating, there are healthier ways of eating. Myself, I cycle through a number of paradigms, depending on intuition and current need. If you want to be slimmer, the French have your pass at the ready, but if you want to be healthier you're going to need to maybe start here and then invest in a much more nuanced nutritional education.