February / March Books:

Thrive- Dan Buettner

The social psychology of positive psychology... Is it possible to socially engineer a happier society? This book explores a few cases studies of the world's "happiest places" - Cities and towns in Costa Rica, Singapore, Mexico, Denmark, and San Luis Obispo CA to explore what the people and their local governments are doing right to encourage and maintain the greatest happiness and life satisfaction for their people. An interesting addition to the positive psych canon, and I'll likely reference it a lot in my next writing project.

Life- Keith Richards
After coming off Dylan's indulgent "Chronicles vol. 1" I was a little doubtful, but then found myself extremely engaged and fascinated- not just with the life of vice, but the music, the historical aspects of the book. Learning about post-war England and then the slowly changing world in the 1960s, understanding the roots of rock and roll in African American Blues and other historically black traditions that were co-opted, and then just hearing the good old gossip and degeneracy of Keith and The Stones was a real kick. Fun, fascinating stuff.

Let The Great World Spin - Collum McAnn

Straight up, this is the only book I can think of where each chapter was worse than the preceding one. Starts out incredibly promising with great characters and the plot and writing go downhill from there. One of those "everything is interconnected" multigenerational stories (that are usually in the form of Hollywood movies about LA, cf: Short Cuts, Magnolia, Crash), I so wanted to like this book, especially after the lead-off, and then just found myself struggling to get to the end. I see why people like it, but I'd be happy to debate anyone on its larger merits.

Spark- John Ratey

John Ratey (Ned Hallowell's old ADD writing partner) on the benefits of exercise for: depression, anxiety, substance abuse, hormonal issues, concentration, and more. Basically takes the reader through the research while offering up case studies and practical how-to's, as well as solid scientific underpinnings to why and how exercise changes the brain. I suppose really all one needs to read is the first chapter which lays it out- its gets a little repetitive, but still, as a mental health practitioner I always appreciate learning of other treatments for mental illness besides drugs and psychotherapy. The most important thing I learned in all the redundancies were that pushing yourself is very important- a few sprints during a cardio workout are important, as well strength training being added in, and exercise that requires brain power and fine motor work (yoga, tennis, etc)...

January Books

Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami

I LOVED Wind-up Bird Chronicles, both as a book and a piece of literature, and this was recommended by some as even better. I enjoyed it, and found it thought provoking, though not nearly to the degree that I like Wind-up Bird, which had a lot more depth and nuance to it. The plot was hard to engage with, although I was pretty taken by the second half and thoroughly enjoyed it, in spite of it being a distant second.

Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

Not sure if I'm necessarily the ideal target audience for this, I do like to think of myself as pretty tolerant, pluralist, and interested in a lot of spiritual traditions. But I did feel like I learned a lot about religions I knew little about, their common overlaps, and I like how inspired he was by seeing pluralism in action in India, past and present. I also appreciated that he called out scientists and secular humanists to join the respectful dialog as well, encouraging mutual respect between religions and science.

Chronicles, vol. 1: Bob Dylan

I'm a Dylan fan- not a hyper-obsessed Dylan fan to be sure, but I enjoy and appreciate songwriting and creativity. This book though... I dont know, part of the problem may have been that I did the audiobook, which had an insufferable reader who would drop his g's and try to sound like Dylan, but even that aside the metaphors were flimsy and overdone- disappointing for such an amazing writer, and the tone so affectedly reeking of the most self-indulgent of Dylan's self-invention, and the narrative just so... boring, that it was hard to get into. Furthermore, and I don't know if I'm the first to make this observation about the book, but I think what I really was interested in was an biography of Robert Zimmerman, and what I got was an embroidered memoir of Bob Dylan.

White Teeth- Zadie Smith

Granted, this book was good, and had all the elements of a good book- intergenerational immigrant family drama, well drawn characters, humor and warmth, sophisticated ideas about race, gender, ethnicity, religion and identity with a subplot about genetic ethics that offers a modern take on these questions, and yet... I just couldnt get into it. As much as I liked it and appreciated the ideas, it felt like a bit of a chore to pick up, figure out which characters I was reading about, and push through a little further. It has all the elements of a good book, a great book even, but for my taste, not enough elements of a good read.

Beautiful Boy - David Sheff

I've been meaning to read this book for a while now, and keep putting it off. Its now been almost ten years sober for me, a young man who surely put my parents through hell when I was using, and a recent conversation with a devastated parent kind of pushed me toward finally reading this book, as shitty as it might make me feel. And yeah, I don't feel good thinking about times in my life, but it feels important, personally and professionally, to examine a little bit of the perspective of those who love someone who is an active addict. From the start of the book I was hooked. Sheff is a great writer, and his opening description of a relapse and moving from there toward the motivation to write before delving into the story of his son from birth on could have been a cheesy way to start, but turned out to be immensely powerful in really capturing the horror of watching someone turn into the golem that addiction makes them. It treads the standard addiction memoir ground, though again from a fresh perspective, and integrates science and stats in ways that feel helpful, not pedantic, all the while conveying the hopeless confusion and hellish ups and downs of living with someone in active addiction. Can't recommend this enough. Anyone with an interest in addiction, and certainly anyone in mental health should read this.

Tweak - Nic Sheff

The foil to "Beautiful Boy" this addiction memoir written by the meth-addicted son described in "Beautiful Boy." Well, it suffers from all the problems and perks of a good addiction memoir- addictive to read with some solid debauchery and despair followed by some really astute insights into addiction and recovery, with writing that was mediocre to poor, although the guy wrote the thing half when he was using and have when he was barely sober, and all when he was very very young, so given those constraints and complaints aside, its pretty impressive.

The Power of Less: Leo Babuata

The guy who does "Zen Habits" blog did this book about productivity and personal organization, that may well be the best book on that topic I've read. Simple, straightforward concrete advice about how to organize yourself, set and achieve goals, beat procrastination and be happier at work and home. I think a lot of the material in here isnt new, but is presented well and may well be going into my next book. Definitely recommend this book if you are looking for help organizing your life and getting things done!

The Four Agreements: Don Miguel Ruiz

Bizarre, circularly hypnotic writing style and some very odd metaphor choices in this quickie self-help book from the 90's. Damn I read a lot of these things, this one was recommended by a patient. Some solid ideas about being careful with how you speak, not taking anything personally, and the level of self-respect you have being parallel to how much you will tolerate in others, but overall didnt really speak to me. Interesting uses of Mesoamerican mythology to frame the ideas, I'm guessing this is sort of marketing toward Latinos or people with an interest in Native American traditions and ideas.

After the Ecstacy, The Laundry - Jack Kornfield

Silly title aside, this book is really amazing. Like, in my opinion, all of Jack Kornfield's books about Buddhism and spirituality. This one is based on conversations with spiritual leaders and their struggles with trying to be perfect and spiritual in the face of life in all its complexity and imperfection. Not that I'm a great spiritual leader, but as a therapist it can often feel tremendously difficult to tolerate people's projections on me that I am wise, knowledgable, or have my life together when I know my own perfections and can feel like a fraud. Chock full of wonderful quotes and anecdotes, folk tales from around the world, it was both inspiring and engaging.

November/December Books

Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao: Junot Diaz

Really effective, surprising and engaging book that I just loved. Turns the tired tropes of the first-generation immigrant narrative on their heads with humor and grace, and is a pure pleasure to read. This, the multigenerational story of an Dominican family surviving the dictatorship of Trujillo, then the new traumas of immigration and family dynamics. Overflowing, at times overwhelming, with its sex and violence, but never gratuitously. Can't recommend this one highly enough. And so good it got me to re-read...

Drown: Junot Diaz

Yeah, amazing short stories by Diaz, some better than others, but still an amazing short story collection about Dominican families in New York and New Jersey.

Goodbye Columbus:

The Human Stain - Philip Roth

Yep, the Philip Roth kick continues ever onward. I found this dragged a little more than American Pastoral which I read last month, although I still enjoyed it. The more Roth I read though, the more his own unhappiness, bitterness and misogyny starts to leak through. Still, an interesting study of identity, identity politics, sexuality, academia and the second half of the twentieth century.

Goodbye Columbus - Philip Roth

After the few darker Roth novels I read this year, this love story novella was a breath of fresh air. Capturing the conflicts of class and the confines of the era's conformity (1950's/60's America), this was a wonderful adolescent love story of passion and heartbrake. Star-crossed lovers I suppose, but not a tragedy in the classic sense. Surprisingly sweet for Mr. Roth, but I suppose it was his first book...

Portnoy's Complaint - Philip Roth

Are we sensing a theme this fall?

Okay, so I really enjoyed this, and found it fascinating as it is so damn famous, and wow, there really is a lot of masturbation in this book. Funny probably to read it so late after publication, and I can understand its impact at the time, and though hilarious at times, it didn't do a ton for me reading it now. In fact, it kind of made me feel icky in the way that reading Bret Easton Ellis will make me feel like taking a shower in bleach after I read one of his books. Further, it really continued to reveal to me the depths of Roth's bitterness and anger toward the world. My thought process "Wow, he really hates shiksa women... oh, I guess actually he just really hates women in general and is a misogynist... oh, now I can see that he just really really hates people."

Shopclass as Soulcraft - Matthew Crawford
A meditation/manifesto on the value of certain manual labor- craftsmanship to be most specific, over being an intellectual or physical cog in the larger production/consumption machine. Crawford himself is a PhD who became a motorcycle mechanic, and speaks of the joys, creative stimulation and good income that comes from craftsmanship, not to mention the self-esteem and self-efficacyt that emerges from problem solving work. Sure, he gets a little moralistic and rigid at times, but overall a solid critique of what we currently call capitalism and its soul-destroying nature in the American corporate version of it. In a lot of ways, he's speaking to and for the very same ideology of a book like "Fight Club," just in a less angry voice, and without the more problematic gender politics of that book. I'd highly recommend this to anyone in education, or in mental health for that matter, as it does tell us something about why our world as we know it is so unsatisfying.

Sway- Ori & Rahm Brafman

Yep -the standard book I love to read, pop social psychology stuff. However, this one had two sections I would recommend be mandatory reading for anyone becoming a therapist- one on theories behind the bullshit rise in bipolar diagnosis (and not a corresponding rise in suicide and bipolar behaviors at the epidemiological level) and another on the depressing/fascinating neurobiology of greed- yep, making money gives people the same rush in the reward centers of the brain as cocaine, and leads to similarly immoral behavior. And we wonder why ethics crumble in the face of money...

The Invisible Gorilla: Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons

Do people know about the Invisible Gorilla study? Now a classic of psych 101 (but not when I took it 15 years ago!). Amazing experiment about attention, "inattentional blindness" and how we are deceived by perception. The book covers that, and then branches out into more generally how to not draw conclusions from data. It would be great for an intro psych course, also explaining why recent grads of med school overdiagnose pathologies (pay attention fellow early career shrinks!), explains the most egregious attribution errors in scientific research and how we stumble into them and how to avoid such pitfalls of trusting intuition over hard-headed analysis, and takes a few swpes at malcolm gladwell along the way. Anyone teaching psych 101 or with a passing interest in psychology, check this one out.

The Dharma Bums: Jack Kerouac

So, I'm revisiting a lot of books I should have read while in college, when I... had some different priorities. The point is, I'm a little older and wiser now than at the peak time I probably would have enjoyed some books more. Which is to say- although there was a lot to like about The Dharma Bums, its sort of a fundamentally adolescent book, and although there is nothing wrong with that, I just would have liked it more when I was younger or in a different place in my life. Would I recommend it? Yes, but more as a document/artifact that a pleasure read or anything enlightening about Buddhism or as literature. All told though, it was a fun read, and I do understand why its so beloved.

The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Christopher Germer

* * * * *
When I was in grad school for psychology, I very nearly wrote my dissertation on the history of self-help books, before writing about meditation with kids and teens. (a much better choice) I still have a place in my heart for self-help books, crappy and otherwise, and their anthropological value. I went crazy with some recent classics not so much in the self-help, but self-improvement realm recently:

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie

Um, wow- I get why this is a classic. Its really really good and helpful tips on succesfully living in the world of people, whether you are a business person or parent or just someone who has to interact with people. Also unrelentingly positive, and articulates so many basic principles from Ancient Eastern and Western thought, or that could easily be articulated in today's positive psychology. Good stuff. I'm going to start throwing it a my shy and anxious patients.

48 Laws of Power - David Greene
Hot on the heals of Dale Carnegie I decided to check out the polar opposite self-improvement book, partly out of sheer anthropological curiousity about this Machiavellian update and apparent hip-hop bible. Verdict? This book is seriously godawful, not because of the amorality, but the atrociously hammy writing, and embarrassingly, hilariously enormous oversights where it directly contradicts itself (ie, court attention at all costs- any publicity is good publicity, and guard your reputation its priceless). Anyway, again, why did I read this? I guess it was a moderately amusing glimpse of what second-rate wanna-be MBA types fancy to be intellectual reading and keep prominently on their faux-mahoganey shelves. I kept imagining the Christopher Moltisanti's lackeys from the Sopranos.

How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less- Nicholas Boothman
Yet another book in the self-improvement anthropological study this month, this one an apparent classic in the annals of "neuro-linguistic-programming." Kind of ridiculous in its purported science of following people's speech, body language and other preferences to communicate more effectively, it was kind of interesting, if kind of bullshit. It is however, a great title for a book.

10 Qualities of Charismatic People: Tony Alessandro

Yeah, I don't know, really just more of the same as these other three books above...

September/October Books

Wow, I don't know what's happened to my attention span lately, but I was unable to finish no less than three books in the past few months- very unlike me. It also shows either a decreasing attention span, or perhaps an increasing maturity that I no longer put up with books that bore me. The first was "The Black Swan" (no, not the basis Aaronovsky movie) the non-fiction by Nicholas Nasir Taleb- the thesis of which is that big, history changing events are basically unpredictable, and we try to explain them in hindsight, but this is pointless. Well, okay, but I'm not sure how we can stretch that out to an entire book Mr. Taleb, besides citing examples like the recent market crash or 9/11 over and over again, and saying that these things are unpredictable, but somehow you can predict them- either as a high priced consultant or for the price of a hardcover book. The other I just couldnt get into (sorry Aaron), was the sci-fi contemporary classic Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson. I get Sci-Fi, I like sci-fi, I appreciate that it creates a space for interesting ideas to test themselves and play out against a backdrop of the implausable or inconceivable, but I just didnt feel like I was seeing anything new or any important confirmation about human nature that I didnt see beforehand, which is why I read literature. So what have I read recently? Also finished though kinda hated (mostly out of boredom) "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle. I was just bored, bored, bored and then annoyed- and this from a guy reads a LOT of self-help books and can usually understand what people find appealing about them.

Ranting aside, some things I did like in recent months:

Surviving the Dragon: Arjia Rinpoche

Fascinating, depressing look at Tibet during the cultural revolution as the communists seized power and sent in the red brigades to overthrow the existing order through attempting to erase culture, torture individuals to testify against each other and generally begin the cultural and literal genocide against the Tibetan people and culture. The book is written by a lama who became a collaborator with the Chinese, then fled from Tibet to tell his story. Really well worth reading for anyone with an interest in the Tibet issue or even just 20th century China.

Switch - Chip & Dan Heath

Very cool book about affecting behavior change on the individual and group levels. I have no idea why these kinds of pop sociology/social psychology books fascinate me lately, but they do. A great shout-out to my family friend Jerry Sternin also made this fun, as well as a unique explanation of solution-focused therapy and how it operates. Metaphors used throughout are easy to understand, and many I actually have already integrated into my work as a therapist - like "the elephant and the rider" as short term decision making vs. long term decision making, and how to fool yourself into better behavior (ie, saving money, eating healthy, etc). In the end, they also nicely explain that you cant force behavior change, but there are factors that are the same in all behavior change- looking for exceptions to the rule/problem, building those, making it as easy as possibly systemically for change, enlisting the "primitive brain" in helping us, etc. And, in January, you can actually read some applications that inspired me from this book in an article about sticking with new years resolutions that I will be quoted in in Good Housekeeping.

Freedom- Jonathon Franzen

As my friend Dan succinctly put it in his gmail status: Corrections > Freedom > Most Books. That about sums it up. I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed this book, was reading it before work even. Sentence for sentence, it was perhaps better written than The Corrections. That said, I did feel it covered a whole lot of territory that The Corrections (possibly my favorite book ever) didn't cover, and was not quite as fun or efficient. The intertwined plots each went on slightly too long, as did the book as a whole, and I never laughed aloud as I did with The Corrections. The tone veered from mild satire into a Tom Wolfe-esque bizarre narrative devices, which also felt tonally inconsistent in spite of some unforgettable lines and poignantly revealing and truthful moments that hit like a punch in the gut. All told, I'd still highly recommend for a balance of pleasurable and thought provoking.

American Pastoral - Phillip Roth

This was recommended highly by Dan after we were discussing Freedom, as another upper-middle-class American family angst drama, and it is one I've been meaning to read for a long time. And yes, it was good, really good- well written, nuanced, terrifying, hilarious, many things, but somehow didnt quite capture my interest in quite the way that Freedom did, even as it explored similar themes. Still, a truly great book, much deserving of its excellent reputation and praise.

Palestine -Joe Sacco

Wow, friend Ben O recommended this, as a pure example of the amazing things that one CAN do with a comic/cartoon. Its a graphic novel travel memoir of his time in Palestine in the early 90's and offers some really interesting perspectives on the Palestine/Israel issue and history and complexity on both sides that rarely gets explored in the tiny narratives that we encounter in the media. Depressing, to be sure, but I'd still highly recommend this for a more human-scale understanding of the issue. And although critics fault him for examining only one perspective, I like that as Sacco himself points out he's not trying to tell two sides, he just is presenting one.

The Accidental Billionaires- Ben Mezrich

As Ben B points out "Oh, Ben Mezrich is writing another book about overprivileged Ivy-leaguers behaving badly?" Well, yes. This is the book that The Social Network movie was based on, and true to Mezrich's form, its both entertaining and impossible to put down, in spite of the fact that the writing is atrociously littered with hyperbole and cliche. Still, a fun read if you want a little more backstory on the lurid history of Facebook.

Bonk - Mary Roach

Sorta ended up being exactly what I expected and thus wasnt exactly "disappointed" because I had such low expectations. A snarkily written, double-entendre ridden pop history of sex and science from ancient times through the present. Some great anecdotes and fun facts to be sure, but ultimately even a topic like this one didn't have quite enough going for it to keep the irritating writing at bay.

The Devil and Sherlock Holmes - David Grann

Okay, so basically this is just a compilation of his articles from the New Yorker for the past few years, and capitalizing on the success of Lost City of Z and the infamous story about the Texas death penalty arson case. And I've read all these pieces before, but damn I forgot what a phenomenal writer he is and that he's written many of my favorite pieces in recent memory- the giant squid piece, the Aryan brotherhood piece, the French con man who pretends to be a missing child in Texas, and the crazy Polish novelist-murderer piece. Yeah this is good stuff, even on a second read. What makes the New Yorker great, and an heir to the great writing of William Finnegan.

Also fewer books this month in part due to my recent obsession with listening to Marc Maron's WTF podcast which I highly recommend. (And yes, I also finally caved in and started listening to Radiolab, allowing the quality of its substance to generally overriding its extremely irritating stlye) Favorite captivating recent episodes of WTF include Louis CK, Judd Apatow, Maz Jobrani, Adam McKay, and Maria Bamford, and. Other ones with big stars are also really interesting- Robin Williams, Ben Stiller and others. I'd highly recommend it for anyone with an interest in the creative process, as its instructive and fun to hear about the creative process (and unbelievably hard work) of so many interesting talented people, and a pleasure to briefly feel like an insider in the crazy world of standup comedy. PLus Marc Maron is a great character himself, a recovering alcoholic whose resentments, insecurities and neurosis frame each interview while also leaking into and informing them, and in a self-aware but not self-pitying way.

More Recently Read and Reviewed Books: June Through August

Connected - James Fowler and Nicholas Christiakis
Amazing pop-social-psychology book about the power of social networks (no, just just online social networks) and the ways behaviors and health issues like obesity and smoking are essentially contagious, and full of fun facts like that if one person two degrees of separation away from your circle of friends quits smoking, you are more likely to, etc. Also cites those research studies about longevity and social life, happiness and social life. There are also great and fascinating pieces that are relevant to anyone in public health or thinking about marketing and even voting and activism.

Click - The Magic of Instant Connections
A little bit along the same lines as “Connected,” and a lot about the power of social forces in shaping us, and the influence that we can have in shaping social experiences. A lot about what makes people get along and ally with each other (proximity, exposure, environment, vulnerability etc- surprise, surprise), but some fun ideas about how to build effective teams and in-groups and practical thoughts for relationships in business, medicine, teaching, psychotherapy, and even dating.

Empire of Blue Water - Stephen Talty
I would have thought a book about pirates would be a little more exciting. Still, all told this was pretty good, though exhaustive and occasionally dry story of Captain Morgan. I particularly enjoyed the multiple references to places I’ve travelled in Latin America (ie, the Bolivian Silver mines of Potosi, the repeatedly sacked ports of Cartagena and Granada, and the ruins of Panama Viejo). Also fascinating for the sociology of Pirate values and ethics, and the book’s thesis that it was the British use of long-leash privateers that essentially brought down the Spanish Empire.

Authentic Happiness: Martin Seligman
Call me corny, but I love my scientific self-help books (cf: Tal Ben-Shahar and others). Seligman is the godfather of positive psychology, and this book is a great in-depth exploration of the big hits in positive psychology research, but better yet really breaks down research theory and ideas into practical actions. I wish I’d read the chapter on families before I’d written my book about kids, and I definitely plan to look to his chapter on happiness at work for the next book I write. Highly recommend this one.

Imperial Bedrooms: Brett Easton Ellis
Oh Brett Easton Ellis. I really loved the idea for this book- a semi-sequel to “Less Than Zero” as told by the “real” Clay, not the novelized Clay of Less Than Zero. Sounds great right? Well, it is a great idea, but then so not-well executed it couldnt help but disappoint. I felt similarly about the manic self-awareness of Lunar Park, which at least had better sex scenes. Also, really Ellis? 26.95 for what amounts to a long short story, not even qualifying as a novella. Oh well. At least the Ellis completist can read it in an afternoon.

A High Wind in Jamaica - Richard Hughes
Wow- this book was really good, unexpected and different from almost anything I've ever read. Plotwise, a bunch of 19th century children are kidnapped by pirates, and the book recounts the bizarre and often terrifying events with a detached, almost cheery tone. And what it does incredibly well is capture the psychology of childhood, childhood perspectives and relationships in a way that is similar to but different from Lord of the Flies. Definitely worth checking out for it's uniqueness especially for anyone with an interest in studying childhood.

The Magicians - Lev Grossman
If you were ever a Narnia fanboy as I was, then grew into a jaded and cynical McInerney/Ellis reader, only to become earnest and sentimental again in your thirties well... this is the book for you. Yeah, I couldn’t put down this charmingly written, impossible to dislike book that is so much better than the matchbook description of “Harry Potter goes to college and finds sex, drugs and rock n’ roll.” This made those Chinese traffic jams seem too short as I blazed through it on my travels this summer. Can’t wait to read the sequel next summer on the beach.

Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami
Been meaning to read this for a long time, and finally got it started while travelling and finished a few days ago. Wow, completely fascinating and made me wish I had a deeper understanding of Japanese culture to somehow contextualize and digest all that was happening in this dream-like novel. Fundamentally, it was beautifully written, with fascinating characters, scenes that were hilarious and utterly disturbing and the whole thing deeply thought provoking about human nature, fate, war, and so many things. I don’t think any description I try to do would ever do justice, but I highly highly recommend it. Like Blood Meridian, I really wish I had a book group to discuss it with.

Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
Oh my god- Have you actually read this? I’ve literally NEVER read as violent and disturbing a book, (partly because its all based on historical fact). The first few hundred pages seemed like an atrocity on every page in this rambling, beautiful story of the early settlement and conquest of the American Southwest. All in all, haunting and powerful, chliched descripters I know, but this book, even if I didn’t always enjoy reading every page, I’m very glad that I read it and experienced it, and it certainly forever changed my understanding of our country’s founding mythologies.


Fortune Cookie Chronicles - Jennifer 8 Lee
Amusing, if occasionally overly detailed account and history of Chinese food in America, and investigation of “authentic” Chinese-American food. Some really great anecdotes and history, combined with a few too many chapters on the history of the fortune cookie. Foodie fans and those with cultural interest will likely enjoy, but even I found it a bit slow at times, in spite of the great subject matter.


Another Bullshit Night in Suck City - Nick Flynn
Another one that’s been collecting dust on my shelf and I’ve been meaning to pick up and read after reading excerpts in the New Yorker years ago. Finally got the chance to tear through this on the plane to China. It was solid- not amazing, but very very good. This memoir follows the main character and his father at different stages in their lives as both descent into alcoholism, addiction and homelessness, and the son’s gradual recovery and work at a homeless shelter where his father occasionally stays. Amazing stories, decently written. By far one of the best in the pack of mediocrity that is the recovery memoir genre.

Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost
Super amusing travelogue in the “this-foreign-country-is-so-crazy” genre of travel writing, making it a wee bit patronizing, but overall amusing writing and some stellar factoids and stats for the reader about modern China. And, having just visited, I can say that what the book describes is -mostly- true, though clearly the author exaggerated a bit here and there and didn't always fully hold up though in terms of how accurate/realistic it was. Still, a fun one before travelling to China.

The Big Short - Michael Lewis
Maddening account of the behaviors of various quant financial guys who invented the credit default swap and other instruments of financial mass destruction. Not a whole lot of new territory for those who have followed “planet money” and the story with some depth, but as usual Lewis writes a colorfully engaging and informative account how things went so wrong. Worth checking out, even if you have just a passing interest in the financial crisis.

Predictably Irrational - Dan Arielly
Yes, my favorite genre- the quirky, semi-scientific popular nonfiction book that explains how the world works in unexpected ways (cf: Dan Goleman, Malcolm Gladwell, et al.). The best tidbits are facts about how we are hardwired with bugs in our cognition like overvalueing things that are “free” (ie, shipping on amazon with a 25$ purchase), facts about procrastination, and how emotion and sexual arousal change our attitudes and behaviors, and the power of expectations and “priming” on decision making and perception. Fascinating stuff. To me anyway.

A Few Chengdu's and Chengdon'ts, Pandas and Bamboo

So I've not written about the food much or in a while. Typically, the snack food is strange to us- chips flavored like pork, beef, chicken, 'piquancy,' blueberry or corn (I tried the corn ones- they didnt taste like corn, but they did taste like the corn flavored candy I had, which, Amelia and Ben, sadly did not taste like candy corn). Then there are things like vacuum packed pig snouts, chicken feet, etc, and other odds and ends we don't generally eat back in the states, though I admire the Chinese ability to use the whole animal. Anyway, Szechuan Provence is of course world renowned for its food and we've had some very good and very spicy meals here. Restaurants typically showcase the freshness of their offerings with beautiful displays of fresh vegetables and greens that would make a locavore foodie swoon, next to the somewhat more depressing overfilled tanks of catfish, bullfrogs, turtles, eels, snails and "young dragons" (The amazing Mandarin to English translation of crayfish). These they happily slaughter for you and toss into the hotpot- an interesting dish itself, extremely spicy (la) but tempered by so-called Szechuan numbing spice (ma), which makes the tongue kind of vibrate, and then heaped into bowls of scallion, peanut, cilantro and chilis. Delish. You wash this all down with walnut milk, which also cuts the spice somewhat. Unfortunately, the meat cuts at hotpots are usually offal, so we perused a menu of duck tongues, sheeps blood, pork gristle, etc etc that someone had painstakingly translated, (see photo) and our waitress in belabored English very cheerfully informed us that the black tripe was very fresh today. Ermmm, we'll just stick with squid and fatty pork I guess. In general, the locals are typically very surprised to see the likes of lao wai such as ourselves in their restaurants, and helpfully offer to take us into the kitchen to pick out whatever we want cooked/slaughtered/hacked up/deep fried/"explode fried" - (the also awesome literal translation of stir-fried), smoked, stewed or whatever. The menus are also typically hundreds of items, which can be a bit overwhelming, and confusing to peruse and prioritize (strange flavor pork or fish flavor pork... with eggplant or with peppers... the permutations predictably go on and on...) Everything is also served very much on the bone, even tiny bits of chicken, which requires significant amounts of delicate chewing and spitting. No big deal to the Chinese, who have plates of spat-out bones piled high on the plates next to them by the end of the meal, except at fancier places where the staff regularly whisks away your plate of bones and gives you a fresh plate. Which reminds me- the things you've heard about the Chinese and spitting is absolutely true. Everyone from wrinkled and stooped old men to well heeled young professional women to infants seems in a constant state of hawking and spitting phlegm everywhere from bus stations floors to sidewalks- its just no big deal here. Is it the wretchedly polluted air, the fact that everyone smokes? Who knows, but we had a cab driver spit out the window the other day not realizing his window was rolled up, and with no shame at all just wiped it clean with his sleeve. Cultural differences, I know, I know, I'm not trying to suggest anyone is a barbarian or anything, but its just, well, different- to be eating a meal in stereo surround sound of the constant refrain of phlegm spitting. And I've no doubt committed numerous faux-pas in the course of the past month- the least of which has been my absolute ignorance of the language, probably furthering ignorance of my own boorish behavior, or else the Chinese are too patient and polite to bother mentioning anything to me, so I'm not trying to judge...

So what else have we been up to? Mostly based out of Cheng-du, which we have increasingly taken to referring to as Cheng-don't (and not to be confused, when you buy your ticket to fly here with Cheng-do or Chang-du, or Chungdu), which apparently means, no irony intended, "perfect metropolis," which is interesting for a city that seems hotter, humider and possibly more hellish than Delhi if thats possible- no wait, its not. But it is insanely polluted, can hardly see a few blocks in the yellow-white air (kind of a lovely pale urine color), but is otherwise your standard megalopolis in the developing world. Entire blocks of concrete open air shops seem dedicated to one product, (our current hotel is on a street which only sells shower heads and gas burners, though we are conveniently located near the gas-pump district- yes, stores that are filled with gas station gas pumps- very odd!), tons of motorbikes and bicycles, though at least half the bicycles are electric bikes, thus hard to understand where all pollution comes from. Weird also that there seem top be Starbucks and ATMs on every corner, (which are amusingly called "Cash Recycling Machines"). Chengu also some charming rebuilt/built from scratch fake old timey neighborhoods (called new ancient style shopping districts) complete with pagodas and little coi ponds that actually have dry ice and make mist and always where you can find a Starbucks. And I will say that this town has some great buses, and it looks like the subway will be opening any day now even as tuktuks bearing wooden cages filled with puppies putter past. Weird how things can both feel behind the Western world and be leapfrogging ahead at the same time.

The few attractions nearby include some giant Buddha statue that we skipped, though we did make time to see the Giant Panda Breeding Research Center, aka the Panda Brothel, which all told was pretty damn cool. I dont know if I ever actually have seen Pandas, and they really ARE quite adorable, both the giant pandas and the smaller red pandas (technically, apparently, a type of raccoon) although NOT cute are the infant pandas which look like DREN, and the infant pandas being the most adorable. Oh yeah, and I totally took this video of one sneezing.

The other activity we decided to do was go off the beaten path and view the so-called Bamboo Sea, a huge expanse / nature preserve of bamboo, with like a million kinds of bamboo or something and where movies like Crouching Tiger's flying scenes were filmed. We expected a minor debacle in getting there as its completely off the western tourist map, and got, well, a moderate debacle. The three hour non-ac busride was closer to six, the only hotel around conveniently inflated their prices, and absolutely not a soul spoke a word of English. Still, what little we got to see was very cool and beautiful, and it was worth getting out of the city for and having a bit of an adventure. The hotel was also positively enormous, perhaps awaiting a future of tourists that will never come, or reflecting a past glory that maybe was, but it was strange to be staying in hotel- no, complex, that was completely empty excep

t for Ben and me, and we were hoping that all work and no play would not make the general manager Mr. Zhou a dull boy. Thankfully, nothing Shining-like went down, and we left peacefully on our 8 am bus, only feeling moderately extorted.

I will also add at this point that our two year old Lonely Planet Southwest China (and the LP Tibet for that matter) have proven repeatedly to be utterly and hopelessly out of date. Neighborhoods that are now rubble. Multiple hostels that no longer exist. Subways where there weren't subways and trains where none had previously existed. Its made for an adventure in some ways, but I really haven't had a guidebook this bad since LP's Colombia book, also completely inaccurate (and according to someone who owned a hostel there, never researched by the author, who just emailed him for advice on sights and places with the promise of a good writeup without even visiting.) So the point I suppose, is that China is changing fast and a very foreign feeling place overall- perhaps the most foreign feeling country Ive been to, which otherwise would have been India, except for the fact that India is the largest English speaking country in the world. Other weird observations- it's strange to be in a country with a one child-rule. There are not so many kids, and you never see families. Though apparently China's population will be almost halved in another 40 years. The strangest thing about adopting/aborting away female children is China's so-called "bachelor bomb" -think about this: 40 million Chinese men who will never marry or have kids.

Anyway, kids, thats it for now. See you all soon, and think of me on my 2 hr, 19.5 hr, and then 1.5 hr flights home tomorrow. China's been amazing, but I'm also really looking forward to seeing you all. Haven't ever really been so ready to be back from a trip.

Grumpy Monks, Monkey Attacks and More on China's Holiest Mountain

Started out the other morning to hike Mt. Emei Shan- one of China's holiest Buddhist mountains. It's about 10,000 ft and a 52k climb. Emei town, at the base of the mountain, is your standard tourist town full of little restaurants and trinket shops and has a lot more fake waterfalls and Christmas lights than most holy sites I've been to in the world. Anyway, first order of business was trying to find the trail head, a task that was not so east given that topographical maps are illegal in China and so the map we had to use- a hand drawn cartoon-like thing that looked like it belonged in the front of a children's fantasynovel and would be better suited to locating the Pevensies in Narnia or tracking Frodo's progress across Middle Earth than it would be for staying on course for a 52k mountain climbing excursion. The names listed on the map- joking monkey tollgate and elephant wading pool (see picture attached) only furthered the sense of the fantastical. But a few hours of searching and we found the correct trail in off to a somewhat late start.

Thousands of years of history and thousands of climbers a year mean that someone, sometime along the way had decided to make the trails all stone steps-which made it interesting to be climbing a mountain by stairs. Ben was helpfully calculating thenumber of empire state buildings we were ascending and descending as we progressed. The mountain is also dotted with temples and pagodas - 72 to be exact, and we were planning on staying in monasteries on the way up. All the monasteries and stone paths created the feeling of being on an Indianna Jones movie set- no not in an Indianna Jones like setting, but set- like. A thin veneer of touristy artifice continued to pervade the whole mountain. But it was beautiful and realtively unspoiled, crews were picking up litter as fast as the Chinese tourists could drop it, and we saw some amazing flora and fauna- we hiked past tea trees, bamboo groves, rhododendron hedges and different biomes the higher we got. Multicolored butterflies floated past and we stepped over weird leaf like slugs

in what was really a rain or cloud forest, though mercifully no rain. And then of course, monkeys- the other fauna.

We approached the so-called joking monkey toll zone, (Tibetan Macaques, technically) so named because its swarming with monkeys (and Chinese tourists), and the monkeys block your path and you have to give them something to get past. For the most part though, they were fat, lazy and sated by the tourists feeding them, so we got our pictures (you can get right up next to them), and progressed onward and upward, away from the monkeys and away from the tourist hordes. Upward we went- the ascent getting more intense, with regular 500 stair ascents with no landings and a few monkeys here and there, or the occasional snack stand offering water, red bull, tomatoes, cucumbers and all manner of fungus. Finally we came to a flattersection, and a monkey stopped in the path in front of me. I rapped my monkey stick on the ground (my bamboo hiking pole that we'd taking to calling our "Hellz Wind Staffs." Nothing, he just stared back at me. "Hey Ben, check out how fearless these monkeys are!" I shouted up, and looked back down he was gone. Suddenly, a weight on my back. Shit. I turned and could barely make out a furball on my backpack. "AAAAGH!" I started spinning backwards in circles, frantically (and very, very awkwardly) swatting at my pack with my bamboo stick. It was all rather slapstick and I must have looked like Chevy Chase in Chinese Vacation if there were such a thing, though I was also having a hard time standing up- not just off balance from the monkey on my back but laughing so hard at the absurdity of it and how I must have looked. He didnt let go either- not until he'd gotten into the backpack and extracted my bag of peanuts I'd been saving for later did he leap off. He stood there staring at me, peanuts in hand. I took a step forward, he bared his teeth and hugged the peanuts closer. I attempted to bare my teeth back, but even though I never had braces, my teeth are not very scary. Okay my simian friend, you've won this round fair and square. Besides, the peanuts here are stale and always dusted with MSG. (as it everything- yes, thats the secret to Szechuan cooking- and they even give you a dish of it with your meal to season your food a little more should you so desire.)

Monkey episode behind us, we pushed onward, on the lookout now for monkeys and food more securely stored in our packs. The fog was coming in thick, and I could barely see Ben ten paces ahead. We found the next monastery by literally walking into it- and it was quite beautiful and dramatic in the fog, the sound of gongs and sweet smell of incense that we couldnt see, pagoda roofs sliding in and out of the fog... very cinematic. We rested for a while but a good sized tour group came up behind us, and we decided to press on to Yuxian, the next monastery seven or eight kilometers up the path.

An hour or so later we arrived at the dramatic clifftop Yuxian temple, where we checked in with a grumpy young monk who kept a slingshot for monkeys tucked into his robe, and mostly sat around smoking cigarettes and watching kung fu movies. (educational movies perhaps? After all, Emei Shan is purportedly where the Shaolin martial arts style originated. And by the way, there is ALWAYS a kung movie drama on TV here!). The views were dramatic, and this place too was literally crawling with monkeys and monkey families, dozens probably that would keep running into the temple, the kitchen, the hallways, and were admittedly quite cute in spite of my newfound monkey paranoia.

A decent night's sleep and an extremely bland monastic breakfast and we were up early for more insane stair ascents through the fog in the quiet of the morning and up to the elephant bathing pool temple, where we paused and looked out over the other mountains- the other temple-topped peaks poked out of the fog like islands floating in the clouds, a really incredible sight like out of an old Asian painting. We paused for some pictures and a break and pressed onward, listening to the sounds of the forest, the streams running and... honking horns? We heard the parking lot just below the summit before we saw the dozens of behemoth buses belching out diesel and letting off seemingly thousands of tourists. It was a similarly dispiriting feeling I had climbing Mt. Washington- up early to hike, only to arrive at a parking lot of folks who'd driven it and were just looking for souvenirs and bumper stickers. We pushed through the crowds to the trail the last few kilometers to the summit, which was clogged with new tourists, those who werent taking the gondola the rest of the way, and the last few steps hindered by demands by schoolgirls that we get in pictures with them- (really should start charging for these!) And ultimately the summit was pretty spectacular, a massive gold Buddha and temple crowning the dramatic peak with some phenomenal views. Lunched at the summit and decided to stay up there as well, and awoke early the next morning for a somewhat disappointingly cloudy sunrise before heading down. And about ten steps down the clouds broke, and I mean, seriously broke- within minutes the stairs were transformed into rushing two inch deep rivers and waterfalls as we scrambled to the lower summit to find a bus in the parking lot we'd been disparaging less than a day before. But boy was that ride home in the rain sweet, even though my clothes are still drying a day later.

So its back in Chengdu now, a few more days in China for Pandas, Bamboo and hopefully some more interesting culinary adventures. Probably one more email before I head home Saturday. Meanwhile, thanks for reading and really looking forward to seeing everyone next week! By the way, great NYTimes article about contemporary Tibet here...