This is Running For Your Life: Essays, Michelle Orange

A singularly talented voice.
Michelle Orange's propulsively readable essays take the reader across the globe, and through time, but always returning to define here and now.
Her writing offers insights both into pop culture, as in her beautiful and grateful piece on "The Uses of Nostalgia and Some thoughts on Ethan Hawke's Face", and into her own background, but always with a wider perspective. The melancholy and elegiacal "One Senior, Please", about her grandmother's fading days is both intensely personal and a wider view of how geriatric people are viewed and treated in our society, and Orange uses film to frame her experiences.
This is the kind of writing that makes one's hair stand on end.
Brilliant, thought-provoking, and memorable.

It's Only Slow Food Until You Try to Eat It: Misadventures of a Suburban Hunter-Gatherer , Bill Heavey

This was a very well written and well done book about how to see the food in front of our eyes, and how to go about eating it!
Bill Heavey, a sportswriter, takes on learning to forage, hunt, and fish, and in the process, learns and shares a ton of great information about the history of American food, the industrialization of the food industry, and how food and society can be intrinsically linked, as in the sections about the Gwich'in and the Cajuns.
More than an entertaining read, this surprisingly powerful books has me looking for local edibles in my own area, and thinking much more about what it means to eat locally.

Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, Elizabeth Cline

Fantastic non-fiction examining the decline in quality of clothing, and the ethical and environmental damages wrought by disposable fashion. Really incisive, and although she was preaching to the choir here, I am newly resolved to stay away from poorly made garments, and will try even harder to buy American/Canadian/English or vintage clothing.

Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology, and the Fate of the Nation, James Howard Kunstler

I have been a long term fan and reader of Kunstler, and felt that this was sadly his weakest book yet.
He covers much of the same territory as he covers in The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century, which is a wonderful and eye-opening book, but Too Much Magic is very much a rehash of those same topics.
Kunstler's blog, [...] has long been an interesting read, but I can't help but feel he has lost his way somewhere.

In The Long Emergency, Kunstler neatly and concisely brought together a number of themes- unsupported development, unsustainable lifestyles, crumbling infrastructure, climate change, and so on, and predicted a future that will resort to a kind of agrarian feudalism in many areas. In his novels, World Made By Hand and The Witch of Hebron, he takes those themes and creates a bleak future scenario, with some very dark scenes, and some disturbing twists- in his novels, women are relegated to a status of breeders, and men control the society. In his novels, that is one thing, but in Too Much Magic, he starts to respond to criticism about that issue, and then trails off into ranting, without fully explaining his view of the roles of women in his imagined "long emergency".

He also left this reader worried, when he started talking about how the Moon landing left him terrified and suspicious of technology- it is one thing to be aware of and alarmed by the limitations of technology, and to be worried about energy supply, but it is quite another to come across as a frightened luddite, cringing from images of mankind's achievements.

Another source of MAJOR frustration is that for Kunstler, there is apparently no middle ground- he writes about trying to live with a smaller footprint, but admits that he is (as are most Westerners) responsible for much of the damage and destruction he discusses, but then contrasts that with living with the Kalahari bushmen, as a solar-society transplant, and concludes he would be useless in the Kalahari. I feel like his (understandable) addiction to his own creature comforts is hindering him from seeing a less dichotomous choice- and that by positing the Kalahari bush-men experience as the guilt-free option, he is deliberately being obtuse and ignoring the many more accessable ways we can lessen our own impact on the world.

Truly disappointed in this book, and unfortunately, this bad experience has left me questioning the validity and worth of his previous works.

A Voyage Long and Strange, by Tony Horowitz

Fantastic history of pre-Plymouth European contact with the Americas.

Zone One, by Colson Whitehead

Amazing take on a classic zombie novel. So many "literary" authors are venturing into post-apocalyptic fiction that its hard to keep them all straight, but this one really stood out. Mark Spitz (the name is a joke you don't get til you're more than halfway through the book) has been, in his own mind, mediocre his entire life, but it turns out he has a hell of a survival instinct. In the blurred days since Last Night, he has managed to keep away from and survive enough skels (the dead) to make it to being a part of a clearing crew, a 3 person team working on buildings under 20 stories in Zone One, lower Manhattan.
In the choas of sweeping the city for stragglers, Mark reflects on what has been lost, and what may be to come, and human nature gets painted in some pretty ugly terms, but parts of the novel are lyrical in mourning what will pass, the chain restaurants, the easy commerce, the abundance of America. I think the resurgence of post-apocalyptic fiction is telling, and have written more about that elsewhere, but this is one of the finest examples I have read. Justin Cronin's The Passage was a straight-up Stephen King-ish horror vampire epic, Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story kind of skipped the apocalypse and led us right to moral ruin, but this book showed the steps in between. Wonderfully done.

2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America, by Albert Brooks

Interesting and creative near future satire, from THAT Albert Brooks, the actor/writer.
In 2030, medical advances, including cancer being cured, have extended the length of life to a point where younger Americans feel they have no opportunities, but are only working to support "the olds", and the dismal American economy thrums along on support from China, and social unrest haunts the nation. President Bernstein is already at a loss as to what to do, and then a 9.1 earthquake in LA sets a number of plots into motion.
This was good, but too much was going on to get genuinely involved in any one thread. Clever, but not a stand-out.

In The Basement of the Ivory Tower: Confessions of an Accidental Academic, by Professor X

FANTASTIC nonfiction. Professor X is an adjunct English instructor at a state university and at a community college, and his take on the problems in academia was thoughtful, born of experience, and heart rending.
From students who are inadequately prepared for college level work to students who are forced to earn a 2 year degree to move up in fields that traditionally didn't require an associate's degree, X sees the problems (and opportunities) of the changing face of college students, and clearly outlines the challenges facing students and instructors.
Fascinating and wonderfully written, though provoking, and timely.

Made in Detroit, by Paul Clemens

Interesting memoir, but not as good as I hoped it would be.

Girls on the Edge, by Leonard Sax

Interesting look at girlhood now, with what the author sees as four factors causing a new crisis for American girls- early sexualization, the "cyber bubble", obsessions, and environmental toxins leading to early pubescence. Good read- if  a little repetitive, but maybe only because I've read it other places as well.

The Double Human, by James O'Neal

There was a LOT going on in this book. Set in an apocalyptic near-future Florida, the Unified Police Force is the last vestige of control within what is left of the USA, while anarchy basically reigns in the Miami Quarantine Zone. Manhattan has been destroyed, as has Tehran, wars flourish across the world, but mostly the book follows one officer, and his attempt to hunt down a serial killer. Talking dogs, incoming aliens, and 2 rival groups of Eastern European alternate hominids who live, seemingly, forever, only complicated what was already a pretty lively and crowded plot. It was a page turner, but left about a thousand loose ends, which I hope will be tied up in the inevitable sequels.

Broke, USA: From Pawnshopts toPoverty, Inc.- How the Working Poor Have Become Big Business, by Gary Rivlin

Excellent, if depressing look at how abusive lending practices have created billions of dollars in wealth for those willing to ignore the consequences of charging interest rates up to 390%.

American Taliban, by Pearl Abraham

This was interesting, but hard for me. I think after the astonishingly good American Subversive, by David Goodwillie, it was maybe too soon to read a book that even came close to a similar topic. This book, as different in premise as it was, failed to convince me, like American Subversive did. I did actually cry at one point reading it, but it just wasn't that strong.

John Jude Parish, 19 year old surfer, breaks his leg skateboarding, and becomes involved in Sufi studies, and his indulgent parents agree to let him defer admission to Brown for a year while he studies Islam and Classical Arabic in Brooklyn. For reasons that are never really clear or believable of a character who initially comes across as as deep as a saucer, he falls deeper and deeper into his studies, eventually going to a language immersion school in Pakistan. There, he teaches local kids to skateboard (and annoyingly calls them groms- lots of bad stereotypical surfer/skater talk in this one, and while I might only know East Coast surfers or skaters, if anyone talked like as much of an ass as this guy, he'd probably get kicked for his efforts), has random and surprising sexual encounters with his fellow students, who assure him that Allah has no problem with homosexuality, and naturally joins the Taliban ahead of 9/11.

It was kind of a hot mess of a book actually.

American Subversive, by David Goodwillie

Best book I've read this year.

After a terrorist bombing at Barneys, Aidan Cole, a NYC based blogger, who works for a thinly-veiled Nick Denton of Gawker media fame, receives an anonymous email with a photo of a beatiful girl, claiming that the girl, Paige Roderick, is responsible for the attack.

A page-turning, thoughtful, careful study on what patriotism means in post-9/11 America, this is the book I've been waiting for for a long time.

Off Ramp - Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere, by Hank Stuever

After reading and enjoying Tinsel: A Search for America's Christmas Present, I wanted to read more of Stuever's writing. I liked this collection of short pieces very much, but without the greater theme to bind them together, it was easy to put down and so it took me ages to finish it. Still, I love his curious and unjaded eye, and thought all the pieces were interesting, but I'll still be looking forward to him writing a book all about one topic again. He reminds me of Jake Halpern, able to take a random topic and grow it, and I hope he does, soon.

The Hole We're In, by Gabrielle Zevin

Impossible to put down. Fantastically well-done look at the varied holes we climb in, climb out of, dig for ourselves, and find ourselves in. This searing family-dysfunction/credit-based-society-critique/study of religious fundamentalism left the earth pretty scorched, but breathing, bleeding believable characters kept me turning pages as fast as I could read.
Roger, trying to finish his PhD, leaves his wife Georgia to take care of family finances while he focuses on his dissertation- which he hopes will become a book that will save their family. Georgia, however, is struggling with his drop in income since he returned to school, and with the pressure to stage an elaborate back-yard wedding for oldest daughter Helen, who unthinkingly keeps increasing her wish-list (repaint the house, add a pond? professionally printed invitations, at the very least). Son Vinnie has already left Texas for New York, where his film school ambitions prove more costly than he could have known, and youngest daughter Patsy is left, in the cruelest twist, to bear the brunt of Roger and Georgia's failings, and she is essentially cast out of the family to serve as a sacrificial lamb. Patsy, however, is a powerful and strong character, and one of the best characters I've read all year.
This was really seriously good fiction. So impressed.

Tinsel: A Search for America's Christmas Present, by Hank Steuver

Fantastic adult non-fiction. A look at Christmas, as it is celebrated in Frisco, Texas, over the course of what were probably the most interesting 3 years Steuver could have chosen, starting in 2006, before the bubbles burst, and ending in 2009, when the foreclosures are emptying the McMansions that rang with such expensive bells and glowed with such pricey and complicated lights. Steuver profiled several families, who he followed through the years, and while it read as smooth as fine fiction, the fact that these people are real made it haunting. Wonderful.

American Teen

Interesting 2008 documentary about the senior year of high school for 5 students in Warsaw, Indiana. High school looks so much worse now than even I remember it- the texts, the online humiliation seem to add a new level to the lord of the flies nature of high school.

American Salvage, by Bonnie Jo Campbell

Phenomenal collection of short stories. Nominated for the National Book Award, each story in this collection was set in rural Michigan, which, to be honest, sounds a bit of a depressing place, but the stories themselves were incredibly powerful. My "favorite", if you could call it that, was The Solutions to Brian's Problem- the title alone hints that Brian has a hell of a problem.
Rough and inspiring.

In A Perfect World, by Laura Kasischke

Phenomenal book. This was so good.
Flight attendant Jiselle marries Captain Dorn, and settles down to take care of his 3 children. A strain of flu, known as the Phoenix Flu, with a kill rate of about 1 in 3 spreads over America, and the world, and Jiselle and the children inhabit a world in which electricity becomes unreliable, cars useless without gas, the whole unsustainable life thing, coupled with rage from the rest of the world...
Haunting, and I've read a LOT of near-future disaster scenarios. So quietly done, this had all the impact of the noisiest.