Utne Reader Book Reviews

by Staff, Utne Reader

World of Hurt
My Brother’s Keeper: Documentary Photographers and Human Rights
edited by Alessandra Mauro (Contrasto)

The first step in healing suffering is to witness it, and My Brother’s Keeper is a powerful lens into the visual vocabulary of human misery. A collection of documentary photographs from the 1880s to 2004 by some of the masters of the genre, the book unflinchingly depicts sweatshop workers, AIDS victims, civil rights marchers, and nuclear casualties, with short essays that help explain and interpret these searing images.

What’s the point, you might ask? Not to bum viewers out, or to shock them, though both reactions are understandable, but to show the often world-changing work of photographers who “have in common the decision . . . not to turn away but to commit themselves to precisely revealing violence that needed to be shown, to be corrected,” editor Alessandra Mauro writes in an opening essay.

The viewer faces, at a greater remove, the same dilemma. Sometime between the impulse to examine each photo and the urge to turn away, our humanity kicks in and correction seems not just possible but imperative.

—Keith Goetzman

The Geography Of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World
by Eric Weiner (Twelve)

It’s a smile-inducing concept: Armed with scientific rankings of the happiest countries, writer Eric Weiner sets out to find what makes them so darn joyous.
He hops planes to Iceland, where he visits Hilmar the Happy Heathen; Bhutan, which has an official Gross National Happiness policy; and Qatar, where he finds laughter elusive despite staggering wealth. For good measure, he even visits a markedly unhappy place, dour and dank Moldova. These and other destinations provoke humorous ruminations that at their best recall the witty travelogues of Bill Bryson and Tim Cahill. In the end the book wanders a bit, as if Weiner’s lost his bearings, but as in most travels, the journey is as important as the destination. —K.G.

Citrus: A History
by Pierre Laszlo (University of Chicago Press)

Where do scurvy and sabayon meet? Both the deadly seafarer’s disease (caused by vitamin C deficiency) and the gourmand’s finicky foam enliven Citrus: A History, in which Pierre Laszlo colorfully unpacks the cultural, economic, and gastronomic significance of the long-sought-after citrus fruits. It is a labor of love for Laszlo, a chemist whose gift for storytelling extends to the molecular level; he can’t help but add quick scientific explanations for how to protect citrus crops from the cold and why lemon tart tastes good. Laszlo has assembled a series of curious, captivating stories that touch on the commercialization of orange juice, intrigue in the race to discover vitamin C, and the author’s own mouthwatering recipe for fried Valencia oranges. —Danielle Maestretti

How The Dead Dream
by Lydia Millet (CounterPoint)

There’s no heaven in How the Dead Dream, just a House of Pancakes in the sky. In any other novel the motif would signal another snarky entry in the ultrahip class of satire criticizing our ugly modern ways. Lydia Millet has so much more to offer. Her sixth novel, which is elegantly written and intellectually sophisticated, is a heartbreaking examination of humanity’s troubled relationship with the natural and unnatural worlds. The protagonist, T., who even as a child possessed a preternatural affinity for money and lying, dreams of perfect expanses of asphalt and longs for communion with wild animals. It’s a frightening and gorgeous vision of human decline. —Julie Hanus

The Future Of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet
by Daniel J. Solove (Yale University Press)

Cell phone cameras, blogs, and Google are straining the delicate balance between freedom of speech and the right to privacy, according to author Daniel Solove. A blogger and an associate professor at the George Washington University Law School, Solove offers practical advice on how societal norms and laws can catch up with technology’s relentless progress. He illustrates his ideas using quotes from famous bloggers, well-researched precedents, and a litany of anecdotes about web-based mob justice, cybervoyeurs and cyberexhibitionists, and people who have embarrassed themselves and others using the Internet. Rather than advocating the typical libertarian or authoritarian approaches to information control, Solove offers a funny and readable call for netizens and legal scholars to accept a more nuanced understanding of privacy. —Bennett Gordon