Notes on three books I’ve read recently:

Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie.

I came into Not the End of the World thinking that it was about climate change. I had, however, not taken the title literally enough: The book is literally a series of arguments that amount to such and such problem is not the end of the world. I came to determine that Ritchie had not written this book with me in mind; I think that climate change is really bad, but I don’t think that it’ll cause my children’s lives to be shortened or filled with misery. And the other issues that Ritchie discusses (which range from ocean plastics and air pollution to biodiversity loss and deforestation) feel even less like the end of the world to me — a feeling which was only heightened by the book’s structure, which involves repeatedly debunking strawman arguments.

This is not to say that I thought NTEOTW was a bad or unconvincing book. But I don’t think it really convinced me of anything either. I’m not sure whether that’s because I’m older than her target audience (Ritchie is ten years younger than me, and seems to be writing to people even younger than her), or because I’m more well-informed about the topics she discusses (among the issues that Ritchie debunks is the idea that recycling can be seen as an effort to end climate change — a conflation that I don’t think I’ve ever made), or because of some idiosyncratic reaction I had to Ritchie’s argumentative style (I found the “debunking dumb ideas” structure... annoying?). Regardless, there are probably people who I’d recommend NTEOTW to — I just wouldn’t recommend it that full-heartedly.

Oh — just to summarize, Ritchie’s main recommendations in NTEOTW seem to be:

Don’t eat meat, especially beef and lamb
Drive as little as possible
Try however we can to lift people out of poverty

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders, narrated by George Saunders et al.

I enjoyed A Swim in a Pond in the Rain very much — enough to purchase a paper copy after having finished the (excellently produced) audio version. Let’s do this in bullet points:

The structure of this book is that Saunders introduces some ideas, then a Russian short story is presented in full, then Saunders reacts to and analyzes the story. Saunders’ reactions are thoughtful and funny, and the stories range from the tender and philosophical to the comically bizarre.
In the audio version, Saunders narrates the portions that he wrote. Each short story is narrated by an actor, many of whom are recognizable — Nick Offerman, Rainn Wilson, and Glenn Close among them.
The net effect (of the audio version in particular) is of being in an MFA writing seminar, which of course the book is adapted from (Saunders teaches writing at Syracuse University). Saunders holds your hand as you walk through these stories, none of which I had been aware of previously.
Saunders’ observations and analyses are convincing, interesting, and resonant. He gives practical advice, and frames reading as a tool with which to hone one’s writing. In many ways he offers suggestions that are similar to those in Lydia Davis’ Essays, but he does so with a bit more wit, and the format of the book is a little more entertaining than Essays.
I think the takeaway that I found most useful is that I should try to hone my own writing so that it feels increasingly like me, and that I should strive to make each line that I write compelling enough to make the reader want to read the next one.
Also, Gogol’s The Nose (which you can read in full here) was just wild!

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, narrated by Jonathan Todd Ross.

I came to Eating Animals from a conversation in SOW’s Reading Group in which we were discussing Not the End of the World. Among NTEOTW’s main recommendations is to reduce beef and lamb consumption, which is something that my family has done to a reasonable extent over the past ~8 years. That said, there seems to be a good case to be made for strict vegetarianism based on climate change alone, and Eating Animals was recommended as making an effective argument for immediate and decisive action.

I have not, yet, made such an action; I ate bacon last night and am reasonably likely to eat fish for lunch. But Foer’s arguments are, indeed, quite convincing. He argues primarily against factory farming, which encompasses effectively all of modern meat production in the US — including the “sustainable” and “free range” and otherwise touchy-feely options available to me in gentrified (and by all means consumer-conscious) Brooklyn. Foer describes factory farming in detail, though even the broad strokes are pretty horrible, and ultimately he determines that consuming factory-farmed animals (which, again, encompass virtually all of the options available to me) is not a reasonable or conscionable thing to do.

So, why have I not converted to strict vegetarianism? I do not have a good answer to this question, except that I find myself with limited emotional bandwidth, and converting to strict vegetarianism feels like something that will require more than zero emotional effort. That said, I would recommend Eating Animals to basically anyone, and I do think that it’ll have an effect on my eating behavior. The book is funny, and touching, and I find Foer’s arguments both comprehensive and well formulated. However you engage with your food, or the climate, or the ethics of our relationship with animals, Eating Animals will only make your decisions more well-informed.