Four Stars

Best for:
Fans of Icelandic crime fiction.

In a nutshell:
A young woman is found dead on a sidewalk, apparently having jumped from the balcony of a home. Or did she?

Worth quoting:
N/A. I just raced through the book.

Why I chose it:
Four years ago I picked up the first in the Dark Iceland series at the Iceland Airport. I immediately tracked down the rest of the books, and then read what I thought was the final (fifth) book. In a bookstore this weekend, I wandered over to the J section in Crime and saw there was a sixth!

Review:
I enjoy these books. They aren’t formulaic but they aren’t totally absurd either. Yes, there are often twists, and sometimes they are ones that I didn’t see coming, but also that are specific enough that it might be hard for anyone to see coming. That said, I always find them interesting.

Ari has gone from a new officer in the first book to the Inspector in charge of police in the town in the final one. We’ve followed his relationships and the birth of his son. He’s not the most complicated person, but he is interesting enough. The star of these books, however, is the way Jónasson writes about small town Iceland. Even in the spring, there’s a sense of claustrophobia, but not in a bad way. The people are mostly pretty typical, but they also all know each other, which makes keeping secrets a bit of challenge. Things are connected, and not always in the ways a reader might predict.

In this particular book, there are a couple of different storylines, which may or may not be related. Plus, Ari’s ex is visiting with his son, so there’s a slight romance angle as well. I believe this is now the final book in this series, as he Jónasson has moved on to create a new series (the first two books I’ve also recently procured). It’s a decent enough wrap-up to the books, and I’m glad I got another chance to see how Ari would handle a case.

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

Four Stars

Best for:
Fans of The Good Place. People who want to be better.

In a nutshell:
TV writer and Creator of The Good Place shares what he learned about moral philosophy during that show, breaking it down using funny analogies and stories.

(Note: My review may have some spoilers for The Good Place. If you’ve never seen the show, I suggest you fix that immediately.)

Worth quoting:
“[F]or a meritocracy to work — for a society to properly value and celebrate the hard work and individual success — the people within the society need to start from the same point of origin. Otherwise, the cream isn’t rising to the top — the people who were the closest to the top already are rising to the top, and the whole concept of meritocracy crumbles to dust.”

“For people deeply invested in the way things are, any change would mean confronting decisions they’ve made that created or sustained the troubling reality.”

“When we do something good, we want credit, dammit. We want a little gold star.”

Why I chose it:
The Good Place is 100% my favorite television show of all time. Like, it’s not even a competition. Part of that is because I studied moral philosophy in graduate school (I actually squealed when ‘What We Owe to Each Other’ showed up in an early episode, and ran to get my copy to show my partner) and part of that is because it’s forking hilarious while also being extremely thoughtful. When I saw this book, I knew I had to order it and read it immediately.

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Review:
What a book. What a delightful, optimistic, educational, funny book.

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Alright, so Michael Schur, who created a Good Place that I really hope exists, has taken what he learned about philosophy from that experience and written an interesting and easy to understand book about moral philosophy and ethics. It is a VERY fun read, which is impressive, since it covers virtue ethics (Aristotle), deontology (Kant), utilitarianism (Mill and Bentham), Consequentialism (Scanlon), and Existentialism (Sartre and Camus).

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Plus it includes some nice, deep burns of Ayn Rand. Those are always welcomed.

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Schur starts with the easier stuff (“Should I punch my friend in the face for no reason?”), introducing different concepts slowly, so the reader can get used to one and see how it applies in a situation. By the later chapters, when we’re dealing with more intense stuff (e.g. can you keep supporting a person or company that does bad things and also makes things you love, aka the Chic-fil-a Conundrum), he brings together multiple theories to see what they would say about the decisions we could make, and opines on why some options might be better than others.

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I especially appreciate his take on the ideas of what we owe to each other, because he talks extensively about how what we owe does depend on who we are and where we are in our lives. He has a running thread about a 27 cent tip on a $1.73 cup of coffee. He rightly points out that to someone who doesn’t have a lot of money, that 27 cents is generous. But for someone like him, who is extremely privileged and has a lot of money, he should be giving more. Doing more. He owes it to society. As do people with even more wealth and privilege than Schur like, say, Jeff Bezos.

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Obviously I loved this book, so why isn’t it 5 stars? Well, let’s get back to the Chic-fil-a Conundrum. Because part of the book — not a huge part, but definitely at least a chapter — is devoted to Peter Singer. Now, I have read some of Singer’s work in the past, and I found a pre-CBR review I wrote of one of his works that I obviously didn’t assess critically. I should have done my homework, because that guy is a mess. He’s definitely … consistent, but that consistency leads him to support eugenics. Dude is SUPER ableist, to a deeply disturbing degree. Which is a big bummer, because he also happens to have some interesting ideas about where we should target charitable giving.

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Schur references this a bit in a footnote (a footnote that comes in ten pages into the section on Singer), but basically makes it sound like he almost respects how hard Singer sticks to his beliefs even as they lead to some despicable outcomes (making Singer a pretty big failure from a virtue ethics perspective). Schur even suggests that people don’t like Singer because he makes us feel bad about our own actions. I mean sure, probably that factors in it a little. But mostly its the eugenics. And apparently Schur even wrote the introduction to one of Singer’s books? COME ON BUDDY. Like, I know it’s a bit meta, but writing a book about moral philosophy and choosing to include one of the more problematic living philosophers isn’t great. I’m sure there’s another philosopher he could have included for that section.

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Some other bits of note:
This book has a lot of footnotes and those footnotes are GEMS. I love a book that takes a moment to redirect the reader to a footnote, and that footnote says something like ‘Todd notes that Sartre would also say that addiction is a choice. Mike notes that Sartre needs to cool it a little.’

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I wish this book had been available to me before I started grad school because honestly, Schur described Kant and the categorical imperative in 10 pages better than many philosophy professors. Like, seriously, if I could go back and take my moral philosophy course exam again, I think I might crush it.

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

Four Stars

Best for:
Fan of claustrophobic fiction

In a nutshell:
In the 1600s in Norway, a sudden storm kills nearly all the men in the village of Vardø. A year later, a man is sent to govern the remaining women.

Worth quoting:
“But now she knows she was foolish to believe that evil existed only out there. It was here, among them, walking on two legs, passing judgment with a human tongue.”

Why I chose it:
It was in a subscription box and I hadn’t yet read it. Then my partner got it for me for my birthday (whoops) so I figured it was a sign to finally read it.

Review:
This is a story primarily about about young women growing up and trying to make their way in difficult circumstances. On the one hand there is Maren, a resident of the village who loses her father, brother, and fiancée in the storm. Her sister-in-law is Sámi, and is pregnant with Maren’s nephew. The women attempt to deal with having lost 40 men from their village, including the town minister. Some take it upon themselves to do things like fish (which is seen as absurd for a woman to do) and try to survive in this freezing land north of the Arctic Circle, while others lean deeper into their Christianity, judging others around them who are defying their ideas of what women should be.

On the other had there is Ursa. She is promised to Absalom, the man who has been identified as the one who will go up to Vardø to ‘take control’ of the situation. She knows nothing about Absalom before she has to get on a ship with him and travel north for a month. She is unprepared to be a wife, let alone a wife in such a challenging environment, but she and Maren become friends.

Then more things happen, which I won’t share because spoilers but yikes.

The writing is great. Author Millwood Hargrave manages to create such a descriptive environment. I could picture every scene so vividly. And, like some of the crime novels I love that are set in Iceland, she is able to make such an open place feel utterly claustrophobic. And the characters she’s created are well-defined and interesting. I want to learn more about all of them, even the most vile ones.

I was about 1/3 of the way through this book when I was listening to the humor podcast Wine and Crime. If you’re not familiar, three friends pick a theme each week and learn about the background and then share two real-world examples of crimes that fit the theme. A recent one was about a specific topic, which I knew because I listened to the whole starting bit with background on the topic. And then the first story they start telling is about 1617 Vardø, in Finnmark. I hit pause and double-checked and yup, they were about to talk about the historical incident that this book is based on. So I was spoiled, wish I hadn’t been, but it didn’t ruin the book at all.

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

Four Stars

Best for:
Those looking for a mix between short stories and a novel.

In a nutshell:
Jonna and Mari are artists and friends who are in their 70s and live at opposite ends of an apartment building on an island.

Worth quoting:
“She’s not shy; she just won’t bother trying to be pleasant. She thinks it’s artistic to be gloomy.”

Why I chose it:
My partner gave this to me as a gift, I think because it’s a novel about friendship, not romantic love, and I wish there were more of those.

Review:
One of my favorite TV shows is Grace & Frankie. It’s not a perfect piece of art, but I love that women in their 70s are shown as complex people with their own wants and needs, not people who are shut off in a corner, watching everyone else live their lives. I don’t think we get enough of that in popular media – the exploration of friendship outside of, say, YA shows and books. Nearly everything revolves around romantic love, and while that can be interesting to me, I think the love of a friend is so interesting as well.

This book is a series of short chapters with no obvious through line. Yes, they probably should be read in order (I imagine the author had it in mind), but one chapter doesn’t necessarily follow from the next. Each has a title (similar to a short essay) as opposed to a number.

Jonna and Mari are both artists – Mari, I believe, writes and illustrates stories; Jonna works in other aspects of visual art (film, paint, etc.). They seem to be very important to each other’s creative processes, stopping in during the workday while also picking up on where the other is in their journey on a particular piece of art. They also have visitors, take trips, get stuck in storms. They clearly care deeply about each other, in a way that is so familiar that they know what to do next without discussion. It’s sweet and interesting.

They also aren’t perfect. Jonna can be a bit short, and Mari a bit passive-aggressive. Jonna strikes me as a bit more selfish, but not to a problematic degree. They are both independent and supportive of each other, and it’s lovely to read.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Keep it – I can see myself reading it again, especially as I get older.

Four Stars

Best for:
Those interested in a new way to think about society and community.

In a nutshell:
The Care Collective makes the case for a re-framing of our priorities, putting care at the top, and organizing society around that.

Worth quoting:
“The inherently careless practice of ‘growing the economy’ has taken priority over ensuring the well-being of citizens.”

“One of the great ironies surrounding care is that it is actually the rich who are most dependent on those they pay to service them in innumerable personal ways.”

“We must begin by recognising the myriad ways that our survival and our thriving are everywhere and always contingent on others.”

Why I chose it:
Verso books had a big sale. I might have bought a lot…

Review:
During the first UK lock down I joined a mutual aid WhatsApp group. I think the local council supported it with funds, but volunteers managed requests and then posted to the group to see who could fulfill them. Most required use of a car, which I didn’t have, but I was occasionally able to help out by printing a grocery gift certificate and home and then walking it over to a neighbor. When we were able to get a grocery delivery slot, we checked with our neighbor to see if they needed us to get them anything; we both shared extra food from produce boxes or extra things we had baked (our neighbor was a pastry chef, so I think we got the better end of that deal). I have friends with young kids who created ‘pods’ so they could spread the child caring responsibilities while also giving their children a way to socialize when they weren’t in-person in school.

I think for me and many others not raised in a culture of care and community, the pandemic has opened our eyes to what we can all do when we support each other, and how much better life is when we support and care for each other. This manifesto explores how much all of our lives could be improved by putting care at the center of our economy, government, and communities. It starts by making the case that we need to expand the idea of who is a carer in our life from immediate family to our friends and neighbors. Yes, some types of care (such as personal hygiene support) may require a close or intimate relationship, but many others just require being willing and supportive of our friends and neighbors.

In looking at the caring community, the authors argue for four main features. One is mutual support – so the types of things I mentioned at the start of this review. The second is public space – taking back green and other types of spaces that have been privatized and given to companies or private property owners. The third is shared resources – they discuss not just book libraries but other types of sharing systems like tool libraries or appliance shares (do you need a leaf blower every day, or can you perhaps borrow one a couple times a year?). And finally the last is local democracy – supporting the community at a local level based on what is needed.

I enjoyed reading this book as it got me thinking further about what our society really could be, and how deeply disappointing the concept of neoliberalism is, and how ridiculous capitalism is. We can do so much better.

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

Three Stars (2.5 if I did half stars)

Best for:
Fans of Sally Rooney’s books.

In a nutshell:
Eileen and Simon have known each other since they were little. Alice and Eileen have been friends since university. Eileen and Felix have just met. Events transpire.

Worth quoting:
“I think I have by now forgotten how to conduct social intercourse. I dread to imagine what kind of faces I was making, in my efforts to seem like the kind of person who regularly interacts with others.”

Why I chose it:
This was in a book subscription I got, and it’s the only hardback fiction on my to-be-read bookshelf, so thought I’d finally read it.

Review:
Sigh. I think this is a book I’m ‘supposed’ to like? Or maybe I’m too old for it? The main characters are all in their 30s, and I’m in my 40s, so perhaps this is just not for me? But I’ve read other fiction where the leads are all much younger than me and enjoyed those, so maybe it’s just this author’s style that doesn’t sit well with me. I enjoyed her first book “Conversations with Friends”, though “Normal People” was fine, and enjoyed this the least.

It isn’t that the story isn’t believable, or that there is anything inherently wrong with it. It just isn’t very good. Or should I say, it isn’t constructed in a way that I found interesting. I finished it mostly because it was a pretty easy read (though my kingdom for a paragraph break or a set of quotation marks) and I’d already started it. I briefly saw one review that it was an attempt at a modern take on 18th century novels of letters, which, absolutely fine, but the emails that take up half the book are borderline absurd. Maybe that’s the point! But I can’t imagine anyone really writing to their friends in such a way. I mean, perhaps people do, but I think people text their thoughts? I don’t know, perhaps this was Rooney’s way of trying to knock texting, or make a social commentary on how we choose to interact with those who don’t live near us. If so, cool. But it still didn’t work for me.

As for the characters, I guess I cared about them? Again, I don’t know. I suppose I should have seen Eileen’s personality early on, but the Eileen in the second half of the book could have been a complete different character from the Eileen in the first. Also I suppose the focus was on the women, but giving a little bit of background to the men frustrated me because either we’re going to get to know them or we aren’t. Going halfway there didn’t work for me.

I’d imagine being a lauded author with one’s second book even better received than the first can create a lot of pressure for the third, and I hope that this is the book Rooney wanted to write regardless of how it might be received. I think a lot of people are going to enjoy it. Just not me.

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

Four Stars

Best for:
Those who enjoy interesting, somewhat mystical novels that aren’t extremely fantastical.

In a nutshell:
Noemí Taboada has been asked by her father to visit her cousin Catalina, who is newly married and living in a giant home in the Mexican countryside. She’s sent a worrying letter, so Noemí is off to investigate and see if Catalina needs help.

Worth quoting:
“A woman who is not liked is a bitch, and a bitch can hardly do anything; all avenues are closed to her.”

Why I chose it:
This was a Christmas gift from my bestie in Seattle. She knows me well.

Review:
I’ve seen so many reviews of this book pop up, but I’ve not read any of them, and I’m glad, because I remained completely unspoiled. To avoid spoilers for anyone reading this review, I’ll just offer some thoughts on the experience of reading the book.

First of all, the book is a pretty literal metaphor for the dangers of colonialism, and author Moreno-Garcia does a great job of weaving all the problems of it through the book. From how it impacts the town and those who encounter this family, to the family itself. It is a rot.

The writing itself is so beautiful and vivid. I read the first chapter in a room where my partner was watching TV, and I had to finish it in a separate part of our apartment because the language and story demanded my full attention. I read the first 25% of the book over a couple of days, but read the final two thirds in basically one sitting, and I highly recommend that approach. Some aspects are deeply disturbing, and some parts are extremely frustrating, but I think the book benefits from taking it all in at once as much as possible.

The characters in the book were all interesting, especially Noemí. She seems to take herself none too seriously, and is okay with others mostly not taking her that seriously either, but as the novel progresses she sees the responsibilities she has to her cousin and herself, and takes those duties to heart. She has an end goal, and is willing to do what it takes to get there. She needs help and is open to it, though, and I appreciate that.

I don’t think I’ve really read a book like this before, but I’d be happy reading more.

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