Social Ecology in the Digital Age | Daniel Stokols

TITLE / Social Ecology in the Digitial Age: Solving Complex Problems in a Globalized World

AUTHOR / Daniel Stokols

PUBLISHER / Elsevier Science Publishing Co.

DATE OF PUBLICATION / January, 2018

NO. OF PAGES / 406 

STARRED RATING / ★★★

These days, the news can be hard to stomach: racial tensions, poverty, pollution and global warming. War. At times it seems like there are so many problems in the world that we do not even know where to begin looking for solutions.

Enter Dan Stokol's new book, Social Ecology in the Digital Age.

Dan Stokols is a Research Professor and Chancellor's Professor Emeritus in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. He's worked in the fields of social ecology, environmental and ecological psychology, public health, and transdisciplinary team science. And in Social Ecology in the Digitial Age, Stokols offers up social ecology as a method of identifying, explaining, and facing the challenges of the 21st century head-on.

Broadly defined, social ecology is the study of environmental contexts and how these contexts affect the behavior and well-being of the populations which inhabit those environments. Here's one example: how does the neighborhood in which someone lives affect his behavior? Does it affect what kind of education or work he can get? Does his environment make him more prone to poverty or violence?

According to Stokols, the goal of social ecology is to resolve complex societal problems through ecological analysis, interdisciplinary scholarship, and community problem-solving. It can be used to not only identify and predict the potential health, behavioral, social, and sustainability outcomes of a certain environment but also to modify that environment to lessen the potential for things like mental and physical illness, poverty, unequal access to educational and economic resources, and interpersonal violence. In other words, the study of social ecology may be precisely what we need in order to develop more comprehensive solutions to the many problems we face today.

I think this book and its subject will appeal to readers from many fields, urban planning, public policy, public health, and sustainability, to name a few. If you are a student interested in a multi-disciplinary approach to solving the world's many problems, I anticipate you will find Social Ecology an insightful and engaging introduction to the field.

But if, like me, you are a less scientifically-minded reader, never fear.

For the most part, Social Ecology reads like an introductory textbook. It's got italicized words and phrases to indicate importance and each chapter is broken down into clear explanations of the basic concepts of social ecology. And yet it is still accessible, primarily because Stokols anchors the book in his own journey within the field. He illustrates concepts not only with experiments and case studies but also with personal anecdotes. In these moments the tone becomes more conversational, allowing the reader a quick breather before Stokols dives back into a discussion of the core principles of human environments or the dimensions of contextual representations.

This isn't just any old textbook. Rather, Social Ecology feels strikingly relevant, offering up a good introduction to the theory as well as clear examples of how the theory can actually be applied to real-life situations.

In sum, what Stokols delivers in Social Ecology is four decades worth of scholarly experience, distilled into a single, hopeful message: there is a way to handle the global challenges of the 21st century. Whether you are a student, scholar, or simply a curious reader, I think you'll leave Social Ecology with a new understanding of the ways we interact with our environments and how, in turn, our environments influence the way we interact with each other.



Disclaimer: I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. I was not paid to review or feature this book and this review is my 100% honest opinion. This is not a sponsored post.

Days Without End | Sebastian Barry

TITLE / Days Without End

AUTHOR / Sebastian Barry

PUBLISHER / Viking

DATE OF PUBLICATION / January 24, 2017

NO. OF PAGES / 259

STARRED RATING / ★★★★

Under the Tuscan Sun | Frances Mayes

TITLE / Under the Tuscan Sun

AUTHOR / Frances Mayes

PUBLISHER / Broadway Books

DATE OF PUBLICATION / September 2, 1997

NO. OF PAGES / 299

STARRED RATING / ★★★




"Where you are is who you are. The further inside you the place moves, the more your identity is intertwined with it. Never casual, the choice of place is the choice of something you crave."

I first saw the film Under the Tuscan Sun when I was around 11 or 12 years old, about five years before I took my first trip overseas to visit Italy with my high school choir. I absolutely fell in love with the film, with the romance of buying an old, crumbling house in some foreign country with the intention of quite literally building a new life for yourself from the ground up. I was enamored with the people Frances encountered, with the food, with the atmosphere of it all. And I would be completely lying if I said that I wasn't expecting just as much from the book, if not more.

Which brings me nicely to my first point: this memoir and the film are two completely different things. And while I found this a bit disappointing and disorienting at first, I can quite confidently say now that I am very glad that this was the case. For starters, it was easy enough to separate the book and movie in my mind and, most importantly, it meant that any frustrations I had with the book didn't affect my love of the film. In the film, Frances is a writer reeling from a sudden divorce who takes solitary refuge in the Tuscan countryside. In reality and in the memoir, Frances is a frequent traveler, an already established lover of Italy, and while her first marriage did fall apart, she buys the crumbling Bramasole estate with her then boyfriend Ed. In this case, the art of the film was inspired by life but did not mirror it exactly.

Now for my second point: Under the Tuscan Sun differs from other memoirs I've read in that there's no real "plot." Generally speaking, the memoir has a rough, chronological structure, but the narrative takes a wandering path at a slow pace. Rather than driving hard and fast towards some grand point or life lesson, Mayes leads readers through her meandering thoughts and memories as though we were touring her garden. She picks up side stories and digressions along the way, something that had many of the Goodreads reviewers at their wit's end.

Maybe these reviewers were fans of the film and were hoping for a bit more dramatic action, but as for me, I actually found this narrative style quite enjoyable. It became the perfect evening read. Mayes doesn't require much concentration and her lovely descriptions of life in the Tuscan countryside have a similar effect to a mug of tea and a warm blanket on a chilly night. And as she warns readers herself towards the beginning of the book, Under the Tuscan Sun was meant as a free form journal and record of sorts and I, for one, think it reads exactly as such.

My final point may actually be more of a warning: this isn't necessarily travel-writing for those who have never been to Italy before. Although Mayes does describe the quaintness of the Italian countryside very well, Under the Tuscan is not a book about traveling or experiencing the sights and sounds of Italy. It's a memoir about renovating a house and starting a new chapter of life. It's about deciding to take a leap of faith and all of the rewards that may follow.

By no means is this a perfect book. It's not groundbreaking, in any sense of the word. Mayes does ramble at times and I can't say I was inspired to read every single word with the greatest intensity of concentration. In fact, I found her tendency to throw in Italian words here and there fairly annoying by the end of it all. However, if you are looking for a quiet, beautifully descriptive read about the magic of creating something with your own two hands, Under the Tuscan Sun might be just the book for you.

About Under the Tuscan Sun | About Frances Mayes

Disclaimer: I received this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for an honest review. I was not paid to review or feature this book and this review is my 100% honest opinion. This is not a sponsored post.

Crazy Rich Asians | Kevin Kwan

TITLE / Crazy Rich Asians

AUTHOR / Kevin Kwan

PUBLISHER / Anchor

DATE OF PUBLICATION / May 20, 2014

NO. OF PAGES / 527

STARRED RATING / ★★★.5

Born a Crime | Trevor Noah

TITLE / Born a Crime

AUTHOR / Trevor Noah

PUBLISHER / Doubleday Canada

DATE OF PUBLICATION / November 15, 2016

NO. OF PAGES / 304

STARRED RATING / ★★★★.5

I listened to Born a Crime on audiobook over the course of a single work week and, boy, was that a mistake. Trevor Noah had me chuckling on more than one occasion and trying to smother my laughs into ill-timed snorts.

This shouldn't have been a surprise to me. I've recently discovered Noah's stand up comedy and, between that and his razor-sharp wit on The Daily Show, have become a real fan of his. I enjoy that he's not only able to see below the surface of the world around him but that he is also able to find the humor in it all. So when I learned that he had written a memoir of his time growing up mixed-race in South Africa, I had to pick it up.

Of course, if you're not a fan of Noah's stand up or only know him within the context of The Daily Show, you might be wondering why on earth you should read his memoir. I can give you a couple of reasons.

First of all, I have never felt so transported by a piece of nonfiction in my life. Noah paints a really vivid, vibrant, and visceral portrait of South Africa. I could really visualize the street corners he hung out on, the streets and alleys he ran through to escape from trouble. From the township to the multitude of languages, if Born a Crime is a love letter to Noah's mother, it's also a love letter to South Africa.

Which brings me to my second point: this is a book that examines post-apartheid South Africa from the inside. As much as this is Noah's coming of age story, it is impossible to separate the man and comedian he becomes from the racial, social, and political world he grew up in. As a fan of his work, I found it incredibly interesting to see the experiences from which he has gained his sometimes uncanny ability to cut through the crap and see the real heart of the issue.

As someone who is mixed-race myself, I was also really intrigued to realize that certain aspects of the mixed-race experience are universal. Although Noah's stories were obviously set against the backdrop of the extreme racial divide created by apartheid, some of the stories he told could have been lifted from my own life.

And finally, if you still need a push, read this because Trevor Noah is one heck of a storyteller. Each life episode is structured like a bit from one of his standup sets: they start off anecdotally, pull in some interesting cultural facts, and crescendo to an emotional high towards the end. Not all of the stories Noah shares are funny, but all of them ring with a real genuine sincerity and respect for experiences and characters he shares.

The only reason I have denied this book just half a star is that, sometimes, the organization of the memoir seemed a tad random. Rather than following a strict chronological structure, Noah jumps around to different moments of his life and this does occasionally get confusing. And yet, after reading the extremely poignant ending, I couldn't imagine the book structured any other way.

Now, I'm not the only one saying great things about Born a Crime. Just this last weekend Noah picked up two NAACP awards for the book. And if you're not yet convinced that this is a memoir worth reading, I guess there is little else I can say except, once more, read it. Seriously, read it and I promise you'll have no regrets.

The Buddha in the Attic | Julie Otsuka

TITLE / The Buddha in the Attic

AUTHOR / Julie Otsuka

PUBLISHER / Anchor

DATE OF PUBLICATION / March 20, 2012

NO. OF PAGES / 129

STARRED RATING / ★★★★

The Girl on the Train | Paula Hawkins

TITLE / The Girl on the Train

AUTHOR / Paula Hawkins

PUBLISHER / Riverhead

DATE OF PUBLICATION / July 13, 2016

NO. OF PAGES / 336

STARRED RATING / ★★

Avenue of Spies | Alex Kershaw

TITLE / Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris

AUTHOR / Alex Kershaw

PUBLISHER / Broadway Books

DATE OF PUBLICATION / August 2, 2016 (originally published August 2015)

NO. OF PAGES / 320

STARRED RATING / ★★★



It was June 1940 when German tanks rolled into Paris and occupied the City of Light. Those who hadn't managed to get out in time hunkered down for what was to be a reign of violence, terror, and suspicion. In Avenue of Spies, Alex Kershaw brings us the story of Sumner Jackson, an American doctor stuck in Paris with his family as some of the highest ranking Nazi officers flooded into one of the most beautiful and culturally significant cities in the world. As he struggled to keep his hospital open, Sumner found himself entangled with the French resistance and soon became a major player in covert opposition to the Nazi occupation.

This is the perfect book for the history buff who is more interested in how the everyday person experienced some of history's biggest moments. Kershaw tells the story of Paris as a hub of violence, political turmoil, and espionage through several figures involved in the French Resistance to Nazi occupation. Those figures include French politicians, British spies, and American volunteers like Doctor Sumner and his family. It is incredibly easy reading, with short chapters that read like documentary commentary and illuminate a very interesting and lesser-known aspect of the fight for Paris during World War II.

So you might be wondering, then why did I only give this three stars? Well, I have to apologize to Mr. Kershaw because the fault I find with the book has nothing to do with his writing. The problem was the way the publisher chose to pitch it: as the experience of the Jackson family and their foray into wartime espionage.

Don't get me wrong, Kershaw does spend more time following the Jacksons than any other figures included in the book. He continues to check in with the different family members throughout the book, which helps to create a frame of reference for the reader. And yet I would argue that the book is really less about the Jacksons and more of a portrait of Paris during one of the darkest moments in its history. The entirety of the French Resistance figures more into the book than the acts of just the Jackson family alone.

Sadly, I felt a bit betrayed by the cover copy and promotional materials. I was expecting - and looking forward - to read a detailed account of how one family experienced the occupation of Paris. And while what I got instead was very interesting and illuminating, it wasn't what I was promised.

About Avenue of Spies | About Alex Kershaw

Disclaimer: I received this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for an honest review. I was not paid to review or feature this book and this review is my 100% honest opinion. This is not a sponsored post.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing | Madeleine Thien

TITLE / Do Not Say We Have Nothing

AUTHOR / Madeleine Thien

PUBLISHER / Granta

DATE OF PUBLICATION / July 7, 2016 (originally published May 31, 2016)

NO. OF PAGES / 480

STARRED RATING / ★★★★.5

Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone | Sequoia Nagamatsu

TITLE / Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone

AUTHOR / Sequoia Nagamatsu

PUBLISHER / Black Lawrence Press

DATE OF PUBLICATION / May 2016

NO. OF PAGES / 175

STARRED RATING / ★★★★

Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own | Kate Bolick

TITLE / Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own

AUTHOR / Kate Bolick

PUBLISHER / Broadway Books

DATE OF PUBLICATION / April 19, 2016 (originally published in 2015)

NO. OF PAGES / 352

STARRED RATING / ★★★★★

When I first pulled the paperback out of the padded yellow envelope that found its way to my doorstep, my mom took one look at the title and let out a little laugh. "Better not read that one in public."

What neither of us realized at the time was that, in this immediate reaction, my mom actually proved Kate Bolick's point.

Spinster is an interesting mashup, part memoir and part sprawling cultural examination of what it means to be a single woman in American society. Bolick traces the evolution of the word "spinster," starting at its most traditional definition (an older, unmarried woman) and continuing through imore modern dating trends. By the end of the book the word is reclaimed and re-presented, not as a woman shunned by society, but as a positive: a growing sisterhood of women who actively interested in a less traditional, more solitary lifestyle.

Bolick structures the book around her own life's chronology, from her time as a young teenager indifferent to her mother's generation to a 20 and then 30-something struggling to find her way through the revered New York publishing scene. To supplement and explain her own experiences, Bolick guides her readers through the lives of five women she considers her "awakeners": columnist Neith Boyce, essayist Maeve Brennan, social visionary and writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and novelist Edith Wharton. These are the women who first sparked Bolick's fascination with "spinsterhood" and to whose writing she turned when trying to figure out her own path in life.

I can only hope that one day Bolick decides to write a full biography of one of these extraordinary women because the life story she spins for each of her awakeners is dynamic and intriguing. Better yet, the select excerpts of their work interspersed throughout the book are meticulously chosen and illustrate Bolick's observations beautifully.

Of course, Bolick herself is also a master with words. Just over ten pages into the book, I was struck by the intense imagery of her prose:

"Each of us is a museum that opens for business the moment we're born, with memory the sole curator. ...And so the curator toils alongside us in the dark, bereft of the information needed to truly understand who we are; the individual is inseparable from context."

Yes, Bolick's subject is fascinating and yes, the way she weaves her own life in with those of her "awakeners" is seamless. But it was the honesty in her written voice and the obvious passion for her subject that kept me turning pages again and again.

Every once and a while, you come across a book that speaks to something in your soul, sparks an interest you didn't know you had, and pulls you in completely. That is what Spinster did for me and I know I do not have enough skill with my own words to describe the masterpiece that Kate Bolick has created. Yes, this can definitely be criticized as a very limited, white, and privileged perspective on what it means to be a single woman. But as one woman's personal journey to understanding that her life can be whatever it is that she wants, Spinster is a skillfully crafted and utterly engrossing success.


About Spinster | About Kate Bolick

Disclaimer: I received this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for an honest review. I was not paid to review or feature this book and this review is my 100% honest opinion. This is not a sponsored post.

The Yoga of Max's Discontent | Karan Bajaj

TITLE / The Yoga of Max's Discontent: A Novel

AUTHOR / Karan Bajaj

PUBLISHER / Riverside Books

DATE OF PUBLICATION / May 3, 2016

NO. OF PAGES / 336

STARRED RATING / ★★★.5

The Vegetarian | Han Kang [Review & Giveaway]

TITLE / The Vegetarian

AUTHOR / Han Kang

TRANSLATOR / Deborah Smith

PUBLISHER / Hogarth

DATE OF PUBLICATION / February 2, 2016 (originally published in S. Korea October 30, 2007)

NO. OF PAGES / 188

STARRED RATING / ★★★★


"It's your body, you can treat it however you please. The only area where you're free to do just as you like. And even that doesn't turn out how you wanted."

At the most basic level, The Vegetarian follows a woman who decides to give up eating meat and throws her marriage and family into chaos. At its core, Han Kang's beautiful little novel is about taking control and stepping outside of the prescribed path of life, even if that requires stepping outside yourself.

Yeong-hye is the wife of Mr. Cheong, a chronic under-achiever who married her beacuse she was perfectly ordinary and average. According to Mr. Cheong, the only thing that separates his wife from other women is her distain for wearing bras. That is, of course, until he wakes up to find her throwing out all the animal products in their house after suffering from a dream of blood and violence. Yeong-hye's seemingly simple decision not to eat meat causes life as they know if to tilt off its axis: Mr. Cheong is embarrassed by his once ordinary wife and her parents react violently to the shame of having a daughter who will not feed her husband "properly." As Yeong-hye's vegetarianism evolves into something more complicated, she becomes the object of her brother-in-law's obsession and causes her sister to wonder whether she would have had the courage to step so far out of the mold.

For such a short book, The Vegetarian attempts to look at quite a few themes: social and familial expectations, artistic inspiration, the importance of having some control over yourself. But what really stands out for me is the writing style itself. Deborah Smith did a fantastic job with the translation, really capturing the artistry of Kang's descriptions. With a vague Murakami-esque essence, Kang's writing has a surrealist and dreamlike quality. Yeong-hye is written almost like a mythical character and in the end I wouldn't have been surprised if she actually did transform from a woman into a tree.

Rather than using a traditional chapter breakdown, the novel is divided into three parts, all of which are separated by different periods of time. I think this was a really effective technique because it allows the reader to see the progression of Yeong-hye's condition without creating a lull in the plot. However, that doesn't mean that all the parts were equal to each other. I personally thought the weakest part was the second section, which was narrated by "brother-in-law," the husband of Yeong-hye's older sister. While I can see how it was necessary to show the intermediate stage of Yeong-hye's condition, I wasn't so sure that the voice of her brother-in-law was the best for the job.

In contrast, my favorite section was the final section, narrated by Yeong-hye's sister. In that section, everything comes together really beautifully and I think we get the most interesting discussion about social expectations in Korean culture. While her sister has always been the responsible one, the daughter who did everything she was supposed to and supported everyone else, Yeong-hye has effectively stepped outside those social constructs by deciding to take control over her own body.

In conclusion, this is a book I feel that I will need to reread again and again to discover all that Kang has hidden within its pages. I would like to note that, despite its title, The Vegetarian really isn't about vegetarianism or being a vegetarian in South Korea. I've seen many people jump to this conclusion and feel like I have a duty to steer readers in the right direction. And I would warn those who are easily triggered by mentions of eating disorders, rape, or mental illness.

However, if you like strikingly beautiful literary fiction about what it means to take control of the self and are interested in works of masterful translation, I would highly recommend this novel.


About The Vegetarian | About Han Kang

Disclaimer: I received this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for an honest review. I was not paid to review or feature this book and this review is my 100% honest opinion. This is not a sponsored post.

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Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness | Kenzaburo Oe

TITLE / Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness

AUTHOR / Kenzaburo Oe

TRANSLATOR / John Nathan

PUBLISHER / Grove Press

DATE OF PUBLICATION / October 13, 1994 (originally published in Japan 1966)

NO. OF PAGES / 261

STARRED RATING / ★★★★


With such an intense and fully packed collection of stories, I do not even know where to begin!

The title story, "Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness" is about a hugely fat man who believes he is the only connection between the real world and his mentally disabled son and his obsession with how his father died. "Aghwee the Sky Monster" is narrated by a young man who is hired as the companion of a young composer who believes he can see a giant baby floating in the sky. The collection's longest and most bizarre story, "The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away," is the tale of a man wearing goggles covered in cellophane who believes he is dying of cancer that is not actually there.

This collection of Oe's is full of the bizarre, the uncomfortable, and the grotesque. As mentioned in the fantastically informative introduction, Kenzaburo is of the generation of Japanese men that grew up in the aftermath of World War II and tried to recreate some sense of national identity while coming to grips with the horrors of war. The stories in this collection show a particular interest in father-son relationships, the act of seclusion, and the idea of what we inherit when we are born. Although these themes crop up in every story, Oe handles them so differently in each one that I was sometimes left wondering how one person could write in such different and yet equally strong voices.

The final and my favorite story in the collection, "Prize Stock," could be considered Oe's riff on Mark Twain's enduring novel Huckleberry Finn. In this story, our narrator is a boy of about 12 or 14 who lives in kind of a backwoods village during WWII. He sleeps with his father and brother in a storage shed full of slaughtered animals, hates the village kids, and believes that the war will never touch their lives until one day when an American fighter plane crashlands nearby. The villagers capture the African American pilot and hold onto him until he can be retrieved by the authorities. This African American soldier becomes the responsibility of the village children, who take turns watching and caring for him as though he were some kind of exotic pet.

"Prize Stock" is exemplary of this entire collection: graphic in its grotesqueness, brutal in its content, and harshly honest about how war affects boys and ultimately turns them into damaged men. It is also worth mentioning that John Nathan deserves some kind of medal for so beautifully translating a seemingly un-translatable novel. He somehow manages to translate the exquisite descriptions in "Prize Stock" without losing its ability to evoke emotion and in "The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away," well... that story is so structurally weird that it serves as all the evidence I need to demonstrate Nathan's genius as a translator.

Needless to say, Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness isn't a collection for those who like clean cut language or easy reads. But if you're interested in seeing just what twisted characters Oe can create, I would highly recommend this collection of short novels.

The Revenant | Michael Punke

TITLE / The Revenant

AUTHOR / Michael Punke

PUBLISHER / Picador

DATE OF PUBLICATION / December 29, 2015 (originally published in 2002)

NO. OF PAGES / 262

STARRED RATING / ★★★.5

Caretaker | Josi Russell

TITLE / Caretaker

AUTHOR / Josi Russell

PUBLISHER / Future House Publishing

DATE OF PUBLICATION / September 2, 2015

NO. OF PAGES / 325

STARRED RATING / ★★★

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Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I was not paid to review or feature the book and this review is my 100% honest opinion. This is not a sponsored post.