According to clinical psychologist, Meg Jay, the “defining decade” is your twenties. In her new book by the same title, Jay does her best to expel the now socially accepted theory that “thirty is the new twenty.” Having worked with hundreds of twentysomethings in her practice over the past ten years, Jay weaves together personal stories of her clients with findings of other psychologists, sociologists, neurologists, reproductive specialists, human resources executives and economists. From the introduction:

Our cultural attitude toward the twenties is something like good old American irrational exuberance. Twenty-first-century twentysomethings have grown up alongside the dot-com craze, the supersize years, the housing bubble, and the Wall Street boom… [a]dults of all ages let what psychologists call “unrealistic optimism”-the idea that nothing bad will ever happen to you-overtake logic and reason. Adults of all backgrounds failed to do the math. Now twentysomethings have been set up to be another bubble ready to burst.

Being a twentysomething myself, I’m not sure if I buy into the assumption that I am a “bubble ready to burst,” but I can certainly empathize with the notion that twentysomethings are set up to be “too big to fail” and then get lost in the endless possibilities of being young and having everything ahead of them.

Jay sets the book up in three sections- “Work,” “Love,”  and “The Brain and the Body.” The first two sections on Work and Love contain individual accounts of twentysomethings who met with Jay after seeking counseling for each respective subject area of their lives. The third section on “The Brain and the Body” actually explains the neuroscience of the twentysomething brain and its physical development:

By the time we reach our twenties, the brain has gotten as big as it is going to be, but it is still refining is network of connections. Communication in the brain takes place at the level of the neuron, and the brain is made up of about one hundred billion of these, each of which can make thousands of different connections. Speed and efficiency are paramount and are the hard-won result of two critical periods of growth.

The two critical periods of growth occur in the first eighteen months of life and then again in our twenties (which is a fact I was completely unaware of.) Jay concludes the book with sound advice for making a timeline and “Doing the Math” about the reality of future prospects for a twentysomething. Time is a concept that a lot of twentysomethings do not realize has a huge impact on their later lives, and Jay has written a sound work of non-fiction that drives this point home without being too preachy or condescending. I recommend this book for any upcoming college graduates you may know who could use an easy-to-read book of advice for the future.

The Defining Decade by Meg Jay, Ph.D  (Twelve Press, 2012)

by Anna

Sometimes you pick up books and immediately grasp the idea. I picked up this book and started reading because I couldn’t figure out what it was about. It takes a bit of explanation, but it’s worth it.

The Lifespan of a Fact begins with this note, copied from an internal memo at a magazine, concerning a story submitted for publication by John D’Agata. A story, it’s worth mentioning, that had already been rejected by one magazine because of concerns over factual inaccuracies.

From the Editor:

I’ve got a fun assignment for somebody. We just received a new piece from John D’Agata that needs to be fact-checked, thoroughly. Apparently he’s taken some liberties, which he’s admitted to, but I want to know to what extent. So whoever’s up for it will need to comb through this, marking anything and everything that you can confirm as true, as well as whatever you think is questionable. I’ll buy you a pack of red pens if necessary.

Thanks!

What seemed to be a fairly straightforward assignment became a seven year dialogue between author John D’Agata and fact-checker Jim Fingal. D’Agata’s story is picked apart line by line, each claim put on trial by Fingal with D’Agata defending his choices. The center of each page features the original story, and then around the margins the messages from D’Agata and Fingal are arranged in black text (to indicate confirmed statements) and red text (to indicate statements disputed by Fingal).

Some concerns have been raised over the last few years how publishers fact-check books; the James Frey (Million Little Pieces) and Greg Mortenson (Three Cups of Tea) scandals come to mind. The Lifespan of a Fact offers an inside look at this process, but I think it may do more than that as well. It’s not just a practical discussion between author and fact-checker over verifying sources; it seems to be almost a debate on the nature of nonfiction, a battle whose front line is the demarcation between fact and fiction.

Back in early November, John Jeremiah Sullivan stopped by the store to sign and read from his recently published Pulphead: Essays. I had received an email from my mother  earlier that day saying please snag her a copy to be signed at the event because she had worked with Mr. Sullivan at the Oxford American when the magazine was still actually based out of Oxford, Mississippi. As I thumbed through the essays before the event, I knew I would be buying two copies of the book – one for my mom and one for myself.

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Mr. Sullivan covers a range of topics, including his time living with an elderly southern author at the University of the South, coverage of a Christian Rock festival and time spent at a shelter on the Gulf Coast immediately following Hurricane Katrina – all of which are thoroughly researched and well-written, making them very much worth reading.

This recent review of Pulphead, which appeared in The New Yorker in December compares Mr. Sullivan to Tom Wolfe or David Foster Wallace, noting that “he is kinder than the former, and less neurotic than the latter.”

So, if you are a fan of the essay, or maybe just want to read some well-researched, insightful writing on various topics, give Pulphead: Essays a try.

Many of you may have attended the May 2010 event for Karl Marlantes’ first book, Matterhorn. It was a memorable night but it seemed to me that we would never be so lucky to see Karl again. I had the pleasure and honor of taking him to the Eudora Welty house and about town. I also thought that Matterhorn would be Karl’s only book, but much to everyone’s delight he has given us this fall. I have found his new book profoundly moving, and I think this is a book we should all read.

I enjoyed reading Jerry Mitchell’s great write-up for Karl’s book and would like to share this quote with you:

Gunnery Sgt. Terence D’Alesandro, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, said publicly that Marlantes “is the absolute master of taking the psyche of the combat veteran and translating it into words that the civilian or non-veteran can understand. I have read many, many books on war, and this is the first time that I’ve ever read exactly what the combat veteran thinks and feels. Nothing I have ever read before has hit home in my heart like this book.”

Please read the full article in The Clarion Ledger.

Join us this evening for a signing at 5:00 and reading to follow at 5:30.

Click here for more information about What It Is Like to Go to War.

“Mellas stood beneath the gray monsoon clouds on the narrow strip of cleared ground between the edge of the jungle and the relative safety of the perimeter wire.”

With these words Karl Marlantes began his amazingly powerful novel about the Vietnam War, Matterhorn. The first step to becoming, as Sebastian Junger says, “the preeminent literary voice on war of our generation“, and in no way were we left unsatisfied. Matterhorn quickly became a bestseller, hundreds – many of them vets themselves – commented on our blog about Matterhorn (here) and we had a wonderful evening with Karl at Lemuria books. Then, back in the winter, we discovered that there was more – Karl has written his non-fiction/extended essay – with the title that says it all – What Its Is Like to Got to War.

There have been many reviews of What It Is Like to Go to War, but none of them do the book any justice. LISTEN: this book is so good, so well balanced, so exactly what we need to understand about war. The reviews haven’t done justice because a review never could. This book is about what it was like for Karl – as an individual – to go to war and what it has been like for him to have been someone who went to war.

As Karl says, “All conscientious citizens and especially those with the power to make policy will be better prepared to make decisions about committing young people to combat if they know what they are about to ask them.”

Please don’t miss this chance to meet Karl Marlantes on Wednesday, October 5th for a signing and reading from What It Is Like to Got to War at 5:00 and 5:30.

I mentioned to John the other day that I was planning on blogging about Mark Bowden’s new book, Worm, and he told me that there was a review of it in the Wall Street Journal. John brought me the review and I read it. I was immediately conflicted. The review was…well, it wasn’t good. I began questioning my own judgment. The reviewer raised some valid concerns, not just minor annoyances, but problems at the very heart of the book. Could I still in good conscience write a positive recommendation for the book? Worse yet, would I be identifying myself as a numb and uncritical reader if I did?

It bothered me for a while, right up until I sat down to read and realized that, bad review or no, I found myself wanting to pick the book back up and finish it. Not out of duty, or as a challenge, or even out of spite — just because I had been enjoying it, and I wanted to continue the story. And really, that was enough.

So let’s just address some of the concerns. Yes, the book is about the spread of the Conficker computer virus (or, more appropriately, worm), and the efforts of a small team of computer security experts to defeat it. Yes, that is, to put it mildly, a rather nerdy topic for a serious book. And while Bowden does an admirable job of explaining the long-reaching consequences of such a potentially-damaging worm, he can’t quite escape the fact that he’s writing about security loopholes in Microsoft Windows and lines of code, instead of Army Rangers and Blackhawk helicopters.

The bigger issue to me, however, is that the Conficker worm just isn’t the best story available in computer warfare. Two years after the Conficker worm was discovered, a worm that became known as Stuxnet infected computers in the Iranian nuclear program, eventually sabotaging and damaging some 1000 enrichment centrifuges. I can’t help but wonder if Mark Bowden, already committed to his book and deep into his research, swore under his breath when the Stuxnet story broke.

The decision he faced in his research and writing is really the same decision we face in reading, I think. Somebody may write a book about the Stuxnet worm in the next few years. And it may be a perfectly readable book or even a great book. But we don’t have that book yet. What we do have is a very good book by Mark Bowden, one that covers a legitimately interesting story, and that features some excellent writing. I figure that if someone can point out all the flaws in a book, can list them out and discuss them in great detail, and at the end of it, I still pick the book up and enjoy what I’m reading, then there’s no reason to get worked up over a bad review. Just read and enjoy.