Seth’s blog

When I gave a draft of my Robert Gallo article to my editor at Spy, Susan Morrison, she called it “well-reported.” I hadn’t heard the term before, but I understood what it meant. (And, yes, I do remember every compliment I have ever been given.)

I thought of well-reported when I read this in The Fortune-Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer Lee:

This eighty-one-year old Chinese woman was a professional Jew.

She lives in Kaifung, China, where long ago there had been a community of Jews large enough to build a synagogue. She is one of the few Jews left; pilgrims visit her. She makes a living selling them paper cutouts that combine Jewish and Chinese themes. You could read a hundred books about China and not come across anything like this, but it reminds me of my experience. When I was in China — I taught psychology at Beijing University — some friends and I visited the Great Wall. To avoid tourists, we went to a remote and less popular section. As predicted, it was nearly deserted. But along the path to the wall, just before it got steep, sat an old man in a chair. “2 yuan” said a sign. He wanted 2 yuan (about 25 cents) to allow us to pass. We paid.

Or should that be Write-Off? Last night I compared, as in a cook-off, the first few pages of four books I want to read. (I also want to read Cookoff by Amy Sutherland.) Here are my notes:

1. The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner. Slow start. Weiner goes to Rotterdam to visit happiness researcher Ruut Veerhoven. I am unamused that a Dutch waiter asks “Maybe now you would like some intercourse?”

2. Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins. Disappointing, although possibly a great book. The beginning is abstract and preachy — although the central idea — we are beginning an industrial transformation that will transform our lives as much as the Industrial Revolution did — is incredibly important.

3. The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom by Simon Winchester. About Joseph Needham. Another slow start. Begins with his arrival in China. No amount of well-written detail will make someone getting off a boat or plane interesting, although I expect the rest of the book will be excellent. Here’s how the USA Today review of the book begins:

Simon Winchester’s The Man Who Loved China proves the adage that if you really want to learn a foreign language, fall in love with a native speaker.

Winchester’s new non-fiction book is the tale of what happened after brilliant British scientist Joseph Needham lost his heart to Lu Gwei-djen, a 33-year-old Chinese biochemist. She had come to Cambridge University from China in 1937 to meet with Needham, 37, and his wife Dorothy, also a prominent biochemist.

Much better.

4. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer 8. Lee. (I have no idea why Lee spells her name with a period after the 8.) This was the book I kept reading. After a poor prologue (a cluster of Powerball winners due to a fortune-cookie fortune — unsurprising), the book moves to a well-written mix of stuff I didn’t know about an interesting topic (Chinese take-out) and personal story.

Winner: The Fortune Cookie Chronicles.

1. Why Word has an animated paperclip. For more on this, see the excellent Who Really Matters: The Core Group Theory of Power, Prestige, and Success by Art Kleiner.
2. Does sugar make it harder to fight off microbes?
3. Practical memory training.
4. Interview with Leonard Mlodinow, author of Feynman’s Rainbow and the soon-to-be-published The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives.

Thanks to Dave Lull and Peter Spero.

I’ve heard that Samuel Beckett’s plays, written in French, are better in English. I have no idea if that’s true but I am sure that Television Without Pity: 752 Things We Hate to Love (and Love to Hate) About TV by Tara Ariano and Sarah Bunting is better in its more accessible, abridged Google Books version. I remember Sarah from when she was an especially visible fan of My So-Called Life. I got a much-enjoyed soundtrack cassette from her. Then she and Ariano started Television Without Pity, a brilliant entrepreneurial idea, which has helped me understand so many erudite HBO dramas.

From Never Enough by Joe McGinniss, which I blogged about:

One day she noticed that Michael wasn’t wearing the [$7000] watch [she’d given him]. He was embarrassed to tell her why. Finally, he said he’d told his brother Lance about the affair but Lance had been born again and told Michael he was immoral. More to the point, he told Michael he was fired. They argued. Finally, Lance said that Michael could keep his job in return for the watch.

Shades of the indulgences that upset Martin Luther! You don’t find this sort of detail in other books.