Three Stars

Best for:
People looking for some conversation-starting ethical starting points.

In a nutshell:
Ethics professional Liautaud explores a bunch of questions and what the ‘right’ thing might be to do in each.

Worth quoting:
“So I try my best to be careful about making choices that affect the people who will be living with them.”

Why I chose it:
I like accessible pop philosophy books.

Review:
And yet … I need to stop buying pop philosophy books. I’m almost always disappointed. (Except How to Be Perfect. That was fun.) This book is fine, though some parts did frustrate me enough to make me underline a whole lot and write a lot in the margins.

The book breaks the questions down into six sections: family and friends; politics, community and culture; work; technology; consumer choices, and health. She includes questions like: “Should you read your child’s or teenager’s diary or journal?”; “Should voting be mandatory?”; “Should your employer have a say in what you post on your private social media?”; “Should robots have rights?”; “Is purchasing organic food and products a more ethical choice?”; “Would you be in favor of editing the genes of human embryos?”

It’s got a great range of questions, and I think I might have enjoyed the book more with a book club so we could have some good discussions, though some of the questions in the book are pretty straightforward for me, while for the author she sees nearly everything in shades of gray. That’s not necessarily bad, and I think she makes some great arguments against binary thinking in certain circumstances, but there was a bit too much bet-hedging for me.

The chapter that got me frustrated was looking at the question “Should CEOs speak out about important social and political issues of the day?” And her response was basically nope. As though CEOs don’t owe anything to their employees or customers other than dividends. Yuck.

(Also, once again, can philosophers please stop referencing Peter Singer! Ugh.)

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Donate it

Four Stars

Best for:
Fans of Icelandic crime books.

In a nutshell:
Ten years ago, a woman died. Someone went to jail for that murder. Ten years later, friends get together to commemorate the death, and another person dies. This time, the friends are literally on a deserted island, so … it’s gotta be one of them. Right?

Worth quoting:
N/A

Why I chose it:
This is the second in the Hidden Iceland series. I enjoyed the first one. Plus at this point I’ll read basically anything by Ragnar Jónasson.

Review:
This book takes place roughly 20 years before The Darkness. It’s an interesting way to write a series (and the final book apparently takes place 40 years before The Darkness), but it worked in this case. It starts in 1988, with a vignette that will later become relevant. There is a death, an investigation, and ultimately an arrest. The bulk of the book takes place in 1998, 10 years to the weekend of the anniversary of that death. And, once again, someone dies.

Hulda Hermannsdóttir is the main investigator on the second death, and some of what we know about Hulda from the first (but chronologically later) book comes into play here, but you don’t have to have read the first book to understand this one. Hulda is a middle-aged woman trying to make it in a very male profession, and has some frustrating encounters with her colleagues.

Obviously as a crime book I can’t say much more, but I will say that that first vignette had me guessing for a bit as to who the first victim was, which was a nice little addition to the overall main focus of the book, which is what happened to the second victim. As an added bonus, the setting for the second death is a real island off the south coast of Iceland. An island with literally just one building.

Yeah, I’d probably pass on a trip out there…

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Recommend to a Friend

Three Stars

Best for:
New moms looking for some solidarity.

In a nutshell:
Author Jessi Klein shares brutally honest stories from her life raising a tiny human as an older mother.

Worth quoting:
If I’d had a hard copy I’d probably have underlined a bunch, but it was an audio book, so I didn’t capture any.

Why I chose it:
I generally like her stuff.

Review:
I don’t have kids, and I’m not having kids. So this book is not for me, and my review should be read from that lens. My review is for other people like me, who might be thinking about picking this book up even though they don’t have any kids, nor do they want any. But maybe they have friends who do.

Klein’s writing reminds me a bit of a previous book I read – “All Joy and No Fun.” I absolutely get that Klein loves her son, and I even get the sense that she is happy being a mother. But being a mother, as described by her, sounds brutal. Like, really, really rough. And she has access to a nanny and had a lot of support. Like, if it was just a matter of it ‘taking a village,’ she should be all set. And yet she clearly isn’t.

One thing that stuck with me was the advice her son’s teacher gave about putting together small books when changes are coming, to walk the child through the change so he can be prepared. Man, that’s a great idea. I might start doing that for myself for changes, just to keep myself calm.

I don’t think that parenting is easy for the primary caregiver really ever. But my goodness, this book definitely makes it sound like something pretty freaking brutal. And honestly, probably more people could benefit from some of this type of frank discussion if they are at all on the fence about having kids.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Donate it (if I had a physical copy)