Finally someone who agrees with me about Sapiens. Im not a specialist on early humans but Ive read a lot of books about them and I noticed more and more contradictions. Then I googles "criticism of Sapiens" and apparently most chapters are full of things that are either very speculative at best or even willfully misleading or overly sensational. All just to fit the narrative. And yes that cherry picking is a hallmark of Ted talk books, but I rarely came across a book quite so misleading as Sapiens (and Ive read tipping point).
I think there's probably something inherent in these books where the bigger swing you take, the more likely you're going to distort the state of reliable knowledge. Most things are complicated and contradictory so when we seek to explain them we have to do away with those elements for the book to make "sense." That explanatory power is hugely attractive to audience, but over time, when the world doesn't behave according to the explanation, it all breaks down.
One of the thing I've always tried to do in my writing is to admit to complexity because, to my mind, it means the work is going to endure. I don't have the career where I get to make a splash, cash-in and move on. It's much more about a slow climb towards increasing credibility.
I look forward to reading your newsletters on Sundays. This morning’s was a particular treat as:
- I read Warmth of Other Suns because of your reading recommendation to me years ago
- I see the book recommendation you gave my friend Diane P
- I am meeting with Diane P and another beneficiary of The Biblioracle tonight to discuss our latest book read. Our last book read was Go Tell It On The Mountain
Your newsletter reminds me what a beautifully connected world we live in.
I agree with you completely about Yual Noah Hurari (I've never mastered his name), I read most of Sapiens as an e-book and liked it a lot. However, every time thereafter that I listened to him speak there would come a point when his theories-to-conclusion trajectory levitated beyond the gravity of common sense. The link to the other Substack writer's critique of Hurari was a perfect example of this.
"Levitated beyond the gravity of common sense" is a great line. I think once you've achieved that acclaim the thirst to get back to that level probably overpowers good sense, so you'll say stuff that gets attention, but increasingly it doesn't hold up.
Oh my god…THE BOOK OF LISTS. My grandparents had a copy of that in their house and I still don’t know what drew me to it so strongly, given that about ninety-five percent of the items in their included lists were unknown to my pre-teen mind, but I must have spent dozens of rainy (and not-rainy!) days reading that thing cover-to-cover. I do recall being introduced to the notion of sexual positions by one of their lists (I think it was a list of which ones were most likely to result in conception…).
I had the great pleasure of meeting Dr. Cottom at a function a couple of weeks ago. We talked about various things including both being from NC. I then won several books, including Thick, in a silent auction. She graciously signed it for me. It thrills me when people I admire so much are such lovely people in person.
It was hugely talked about when it first came out; I feel like the conversation about poverty has shifted in ways both good and bad that might have something to do with why it's less so now.
Also I agree this is a great a list - while none of the titles are super obscure or unknown, it's still dynamic and surprising. As a cranky leftist I'd love to see some love for some folks under that broad banner who have done amazing things with non-fiction during this time to go along with Ehrenreich and Davis- Sarah Shulman, David Graeber, Naomi Klein, Malcolm Harris and Greg Grandin all come mind - still a great list I'm going to share with my creative non-fiction students.
Something like Bullshit Jobs by Graeber certainly could've shown up in the list as a book that got lots of attention and probably sold pretty well, but it's interesting to note who those further to the left, particularly in the economic left are not as likely to find favor on these lists.
Yeah I'm a poet married to a left-wing economist, so I wonder about these things, but my sense is that while people recognize the importance of a book like Graeber to the world of ideas there's less recognition for it as writing qua writing when you're writing about money than some other things, and lists that prioritize "craft" still tend towards more "liberal" rather than left titles even when the left ones have lots of original, brilliant writing. It was really interesting to me that Naomi Klein talked a lot about moving to a different style and even studying CNF to try to make her political writing do something new for the moment we're in
Finally someone who agrees with me about Sapiens. Im not a specialist on early humans but Ive read a lot of books about them and I noticed more and more contradictions. Then I googles "criticism of Sapiens" and apparently most chapters are full of things that are either very speculative at best or even willfully misleading or overly sensational. All just to fit the narrative. And yes that cherry picking is a hallmark of Ted talk books, but I rarely came across a book quite so misleading as Sapiens (and Ive read tipping point).
I think there's probably something inherent in these books where the bigger swing you take, the more likely you're going to distort the state of reliable knowledge. Most things are complicated and contradictory so when we seek to explain them we have to do away with those elements for the book to make "sense." That explanatory power is hugely attractive to audience, but over time, when the world doesn't behave according to the explanation, it all breaks down.
One of the thing I've always tried to do in my writing is to admit to complexity because, to my mind, it means the work is going to endure. I don't have the career where I get to make a splash, cash-in and move on. It's much more about a slow climb towards increasing credibility.
I look forward to reading your newsletters on Sundays. This morning’s was a particular treat as:
- I read Warmth of Other Suns because of your reading recommendation to me years ago
- I see the book recommendation you gave my friend Diane P
- I am meeting with Diane P and another beneficiary of The Biblioracle tonight to discuss our latest book read. Our last book read was Go Tell It On The Mountain
Your newsletter reminds me what a beautifully connected world we live in.
Thank you!
Laura F
Dallas, TX
(just south of Plano, TX)
"For me, every day is Independent Bookstore Day."
Me, too.
Every day is certainly “Go fuck yourself, Amazon” day, even if I don’t buy a book at an indie on all 365.
I agree with you completely about Yual Noah Hurari (I've never mastered his name), I read most of Sapiens as an e-book and liked it a lot. However, every time thereafter that I listened to him speak there would come a point when his theories-to-conclusion trajectory levitated beyond the gravity of common sense. The link to the other Substack writer's critique of Hurari was a perfect example of this.
"Levitated beyond the gravity of common sense" is a great line. I think once you've achieved that acclaim the thirst to get back to that level probably overpowers good sense, so you'll say stuff that gets attention, but increasingly it doesn't hold up.
Oh my god…THE BOOK OF LISTS. My grandparents had a copy of that in their house and I still don’t know what drew me to it so strongly, given that about ninety-five percent of the items in their included lists were unknown to my pre-teen mind, but I must have spent dozens of rainy (and not-rainy!) days reading that thing cover-to-cover. I do recall being introduced to the notion of sexual positions by one of their lists (I think it was a list of which ones were most likely to result in conception…).
I am also reminded of my favorite words of the prophets -- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Humoristic_grafitti_(cropped).jpg
I had the great pleasure of meeting Dr. Cottom at a function a couple of weeks ago. We talked about various things including both being from NC. I then won several books, including Thick, in a silent auction. She graciously signed it for me. It thrills me when people I admire so much are such lovely people in person.
Random Family is one of my favorite books of all time! But I feel that not many people have read it.
I'm with you. It shows up on these kinds of lists from time to time, but it's not talked about much today that I've seen.
It was hugely talked about when it first came out; I feel like the conversation about poverty has shifted in ways both good and bad that might have something to do with why it's less so now.
Also I agree this is a great a list - while none of the titles are super obscure or unknown, it's still dynamic and surprising. As a cranky leftist I'd love to see some love for some folks under that broad banner who have done amazing things with non-fiction during this time to go along with Ehrenreich and Davis- Sarah Shulman, David Graeber, Naomi Klein, Malcolm Harris and Greg Grandin all come mind - still a great list I'm going to share with my creative non-fiction students.
Something like Bullshit Jobs by Graeber certainly could've shown up in the list as a book that got lots of attention and probably sold pretty well, but it's interesting to note who those further to the left, particularly in the economic left are not as likely to find favor on these lists.
Yeah I'm a poet married to a left-wing economist, so I wonder about these things, but my sense is that while people recognize the importance of a book like Graeber to the world of ideas there's less recognition for it as writing qua writing when you're writing about money than some other things, and lists that prioritize "craft" still tend towards more "liberal" rather than left titles even when the left ones have lots of original, brilliant writing. It was really interesting to me that Naomi Klein talked a lot about moving to a different style and even studying CNF to try to make her political writing do something new for the moment we're in