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A review by botanyandbookends
The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Short review: This is a hope-filled, inspiring book I will reread many times in the future.
Fleshier review: I have not read any of the wildly popular @johngreenwritesbooks books. Of course I’ve seen them everywhere and glowingly reviewed, but I never seemed to connect with them. I am a fan of the author, however. His quirky intellect is appealing and funny and always interesting. I am glad I picked up this book first. It is a collection of essays he’s written about a wide variety of subjects. I often thought of This American Life as I absorbed the pages.
• • •
“I remember when my son was about two, we were walking in the woods one November morning. We were along a ridge, looking down at a forest in the valley below, where a cold haze seemed to hug the forest floor. I kept trying to get my oblivious two-year-old to appreciate the landscape. At one point, I picked him up and pointed out toward the horizon, and said, “Look at that, Henry, just look at it!” And he said, “Weaf!” I said, “What?” And again he said “Weaf”, and then reached out and grabbed a single brown oak leaf from the little tree next to us. I wanted to explain to him that you can see a brown oak leaf anywhere in the eastern United States in November, that nothing in the forest was less interesting. But after watching him look at it, I began to look as well, and I soon realized it wasn’t just a brown leaf. It’s veins spidered out red and orange and yellow in a pattern too complex for my brain to synthesize, and the more I looked at the leaf with Henry, the more I was compelled into an aesthetic contemplation I neither understood nor desired, face-to-face with something commiserate to my capacity for wonder. Marveling at the perfection of that leaf, I was reminded that aesthetic beauty is as much about how and whether you look as what you see.”
• • •
Sidenote: Audio listening is great. My physical copy is marked by notes and underlines but I enjoyed hearing Green’s voice narrate these beautifully compelling stories.
"You can't see the future coming - not the terrors, for sure. But you also can't see the wonders that are coming, the moments of light-soaked joy, that await each of us."
Fleshier review: I have not read any of the wildly popular @johngreenwritesbooks books. Of course I’ve seen them everywhere and glowingly reviewed, but I never seemed to connect with them. I am a fan of the author, however. His quirky intellect is appealing and funny and always interesting. I am glad I picked up this book first. It is a collection of essays he’s written about a wide variety of subjects. I often thought of This American Life as I absorbed the pages.
• • •
“I remember when my son was about two, we were walking in the woods one November morning. We were along a ridge, looking down at a forest in the valley below, where a cold haze seemed to hug the forest floor. I kept trying to get my oblivious two-year-old to appreciate the landscape. At one point, I picked him up and pointed out toward the horizon, and said, “Look at that, Henry, just look at it!” And he said, “Weaf!” I said, “What?” And again he said “Weaf”, and then reached out and grabbed a single brown oak leaf from the little tree next to us. I wanted to explain to him that you can see a brown oak leaf anywhere in the eastern United States in November, that nothing in the forest was less interesting. But after watching him look at it, I began to look as well, and I soon realized it wasn’t just a brown leaf. It’s veins spidered out red and orange and yellow in a pattern too complex for my brain to synthesize, and the more I looked at the leaf with Henry, the more I was compelled into an aesthetic contemplation I neither understood nor desired, face-to-face with something commiserate to my capacity for wonder. Marveling at the perfection of that leaf, I was reminded that aesthetic beauty is as much about how and whether you look as what you see.”
• • •
Sidenote: Audio listening is great. My physical copy is marked by notes and underlines but I enjoyed hearing Green’s voice narrate these beautifully compelling stories.
"You can't see the future coming - not the terrors, for sure. But you also can't see the wonders that are coming, the moments of light-soaked joy, that await each of us."