Tag Archives: nonfiction

BOOKS: “Improv Wisdom” by Patricia Ryan Madson

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Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show UpImprov Wisdom: Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up by Patricia Ryan Madson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Website

One might expect this to be a book about how to perform improvisational comedy, but it’s better described as a philosophy of life that employs lessons from improv. There are books that take a much more tailored approach to building an improv act. This one, rather, broadens its target demographic from those interested in theater and comedy to everybody. It discusses applying lessons such as default to positivity (the famous “Yes, and…” of improv) both on and beyond the stage.

Each of the thirteen chapters is built around a maxim that might be heard in an improv theater or troupe. The crux of the matter is building the confidence and sense of freedom to be able to behave spontaneously in an environment that’s stressful and somewhat chaotic. Most of the lessons approach an aspect of the problem of surrender and free response action, though there are broader lessons such as the benefits of gratitude and helpfulness. While I call the book’s content a philosophy of life, the author doesn’t spend a lot of time drilling down into established philosophies, with the exception of Buddhism — specifically of the Zen variety. As one might imagine, Zen — with its emphasis on non-attachment and avoidance of overthinking — has a substantial overlap with the approach to living that Madson is proposing.

“Improv Wisdom” is set up as a self-help book, featuring not only lesson-based organization but also offering a few exercises in each chapter.

This is a quick read and might prove to be of great benefit to those who have never thought much about the challenges and lessons of improv. The book can’t be said to be groundbreaking in terms of the lessons it presents, but its focus on what improv elucidates about these lessons is interesting and unique.

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BOOK: “Toleration and Other Essays” by Voltaire

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A Treatise on Toleration and Other Essays (Great Minds Series)A Treatise on Toleration and Other Essays by Voltaire
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Project Gutenberg — Free Access

This collection gathers together eight essays and a poem. The theme that interconnects these works is a petition to avoid petty tribalism and irrationality / superstition in the practice of one’s religion. The titular essay, “On Toleration,” sets the collection’s tone, beginning with its detailing of the murder of Jean Calas on religious grounds and its exploration of many more acts of savagery attributable to sectarian forces in alliance with authoritarian governments. The poem, “Poem on the Lisbon Disaster,” echoes the central idea of “Candide” — i.e. the idea that we live in the best of all possible worlds is patently false.

As one would expect of Voltaire, there is plenty of humor and satire throughout these pieces. The arguments are also generally well supported by facts. It is clear that Voltaire possessed a great deal of the knowledge of his day. That said, the reader may well find some factual errors. Most notably, Voltaire tends to attribute a kind of enlightened utopian vision to cultures with which he was likely largely unfamiliar as he builds a case against many within the culture with which he is familiar. This isn’t to say that there isn’t some truth to Eastern traditions being historically more tolerant of other sects than the Abrahamic religions, but the degree to which he extends these idyllic views of those outside of Europe (and the details, thereof) don’t always seem to comport with the historic record.

While some may be inclined to dismiss this book as a collection of anti-religion writings, it is really not anti-belief at all. (Though he does poke holes in many a Biblical myth, so too does he actually provide a deist argument in favor of the existence of a god or gods in the book’s final essay.) Instead, the collection is anti-intolerance, anti-superstition, and anti-authoritarianism. I’d highly recommend this book for all readers. Whatever flaws it may contain are outweighed by the great importance of its message and the cleverness with which Voltaire conveys said message.

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BOOKS: “Christianity: A Very Short Introduction” by Linda Woodhead

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Christianity: A Very Short IntroductionChristianity: A Very Short Introduction by Linda Woodhead
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Page OUP

The central idea of this book is that (despite all the complexity of schisms, sects, and subsects) the various entities that call themselves Christian can be put into one of three categories: church, biblical, or mystical. These groups reflect where the adherents see the ultimate source of authority. Church Christians, exemplified by Roman Catholics, view the hierarchy of clergy as the ultimate authority. Biblical Christians, e.g. Baptists, see the Bible as the highest authority. Finally, mystics see the individual’s relationship with (or connection to or oneness with) God to be what matters.

Bookending elaboration upon those three forms of Christianity, there is an opening that discusses early development of the Christian religion and the dividing lines that characterized it (e.g. whether Jesus was man, god, or a bit of both,) and there is a closing chapter about modern Christianity that explores various modern movements, such as: liberal Christianity, Evangelicalism, Fundamentalism, and charismatic Christianity.

If you’re interested in understanding the various permutations of Christianity (past and present,) and how they developed and differentiated themselves, this is a fine introduction to the subject.

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BOOKS: “Teachings of the Christian Mystics” ed. by Andrew Harvey

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Teachings of the Christian Mystics (Shambhala Pocket Library)Teachings of the Christian Mystics by Andrew Harvey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Acquired at Blossom Bookhouse

This book gathers a collection of short writings (mostly paragraph to a few page excerpts as well as a few poems) on mystic Christianity from the time of the Gospels through the twentieth century. While the bulk of the pieces are (if not from scriptures) the work of clergymen and / or theologians, there are some by individuals known elsewise (e.g. poets William Blake and Gerard Manley Hopkins.) The book is arranged somewhat, but not perfectly, chronologically — enough that all the Biblical excerpts are lumped together at the beginning to form about the first quarter of the selections. While there are a number of one-off contributors, there are several pieces from each of: Gregory of Nyssa, the Desert Fathers, Saint Symeon the New Theologian, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint Teresa of Avila, and Eckhart von Hochheim.

One nice feature of this book is that it does include selections from a wide range of sources (Roman Catholic, Orthodox Catholic, and Protestant) over a range of time periods, and from scriptures both canonical and “apocryphal.” So, there are many varied ideas of the mystical experience and the path thereto. The flipside of this fact is that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of cohesiveness to the collection. It isn’t always clear why Harvey (the editor) thought a given excerpt was representative of mystic teachings versus of mainstream Christianity. There is a substantial introduction, but otherwise the selections are left to speak for themselves.

Still, it was a quick read, dense with insights, and I found — particularly some of the scriptural selections — to be among the most profound statements of Christian philosophy that I’ve seen.

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BOOKS: “Forensic Psychology: A Very Short Introduction” by David Canter

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Forensic Psychology: A Very Short IntroductionForensic Psychology: A Very Short Introduction by David Canter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher site

This book discusses the many roles that psychologists play in the criminal justice system: e.g. as expert witnesses, as consultants to police and prosecutors, and as therapists to prisoners. The big takeaway is that forensic psychology is much messier than we have been led to believe. In the 1980’s, a wave of pop psych books suggested that a clever psychologist could build a detailed profile that would tell the authorities all they needed to know to winnow a suspect pool down to one. Fascination with this Neo-Sherlock Holmesian notion resulted in it spilling over into popular culture, most famously in the excellent movie, “The Silence of the Lambs.” The only problem is that it’s largely BS. Humans are too complex and varied for such easy policing to be achieved.

The book begins with an examination of how criminals are made, and this – too – is largely a disputation of the overly simplified single-source arguments: nature, nurture, etc. Instead, the suggestion is that it is a range of factors and their interactions that lead one down the road to crime, and that said factors can be very circumstantial. The rest of the book explores the specific roles that psychologists play in criminal justice and their limitations, therein.

I found this book to be interesting and an eye-opener.

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BOOKS: “The Pass of the Persecuted” by Guram Odisharia

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The Pass of the PersecutedThe Pass of the Persecuted by Guram Odisharia
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Prospero’s Books

I picked up this book at Prospero’s Books in Tbilisi as part of my continuing effort to consume literature from every place I visit. It’s one of those books that’s small in page count (less than 100pp.) but massive in emotional impact. It tells of the author’s flight from Abkhazia (a contested region between Georgia and Russia on the Black Sea) on foot over a high mountain pass in the early 1990’s. It shines a harsh light on the refugee experience (though I don’t know that the term “refugee” is technically correct as Odisharia was both leaving from and going to a country to which he was a citizen.)

Besides being a visceral story of hardship, this thin book is weighty with powerful language, and it offers some vivid philosophical insights — e.g. “Miserable is the country where a bullet is valued more than a kind word, where hatred means more than love.” or “Mountains are like great love. Great love makes a kind man kinder, and a wicked man more wicked, a niggardly man more niggardly, a greedy man greedier, a cowardly man more cowardly, a naive man more naive…”

I found this book to be well worth reading.

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BOOK: “How To Be The Best Improviser On Earth” by Will Hines

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How To Be The Greatest Improviser On EarthHow To Be The Greatest Improviser On Earth by Will Hines
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

This guide to performing improv comedy alternates chapters that explore various tenets of the art with chapters that present exercises to help one carry out said tenets in practice. So, it is both a philosophy of improv and a how-to manual. The tenets include: “be present,” “be changeable,” “be brave,” “be authentic,” and “be funny” — among others.

Being a neophyte to the subject, I knew nothing beyond the oft joked upon advice to always “Yes, and…” during a scene, a lesson intended to keep a scene moving and which also provides much material for wisecracks. This book doesn’t spend much time on that rule beyond discussing when one should break it, and how one can do so without bringing a scene to a halt. The key takeaways of the book were about pacing and the need for normality in contrast to the absurdity to make a scene funny. That is, one can’t just go to the whackiest place possible out of the gate and with all characters, instead it is the contrast between everyday conversation and the introduction of an absurd premise that makes a scene funny. As with the “straight man” of a comedic duo, one needs straight elements or characters.

I found this book to be informative. It’s a quick read and offers much food-for-thought that could benefit one offstage as well as on.

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BOOKS: “Play” by Stuart Brown

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Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the SoulPlay: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart M. Brown Jr.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Why does biology encourage play? Why does it stop encouraging play at some point? Should play end, or should one maintain a dedication to play throughout life? These are principal questions addressed by this book.

Brown explores the advantages of leading a playful life, and he doesn’t restrict himself to childhood play. In fact, the book doesn’t restrict itself entirely to human play, but also presents insights derived from the study of other playful species. One of the most profound lessons from the book comes from a story about a sled dog that has repeated playful interactions with a polar bear — a hungry polar bear, at that.

The book is presented more like an essay or a collection of essays than the usual popular science or pop psychology book. That is to say, it is not annotated and lacks a bibliography. The author sites the occasional book or study in the text, but it’s in the manner one would see in journalism or essays. This approach has its advantages, but the flipside of those advantages are the disadvantages. On the positive side, the author is able to communicate more freely, including the ability to discuss more speculative possibilities than one would expect from scientific reporting (with its usual “just the facts” approach.) Of course, the extensive speculation will be frustrating to readers who want to know what evidence has been produced for the proposed benefits. Furthermore, it often feels like the speculation in question is of the “when you’re a hammer every problem is a nail” nature — i.e. when one is a play researcher, one may be inclined to see play as a panacea for all the ills facing humanity (it surely is for some, but probably not all.) [To be fair, the book is almost fifteen years old, and I suspect it was / is probably harder than pulling teeth to get academic funding for play research outside of early childhood development, and so part of what the book was probably trying to do was build enthusiasm for supporting this kind of research, which necessitated talking about possibilities that were outside the known.]

The book does have a chapter on “the dark side of play.” It deals with compulsive behaviors like gambling and video game playing addiction (i.e. not people who like playing video games once in a while, but those who go 48 hours without sleep and who live in cave-like darkness to limit screen glare.) Much of the chapter argues that, while those problems are real and of concern, the activities aren’t play, not as per the definition presented early in the book.

This book does make a sound case for a number of benefits of play and for not abandoning play in one’s youth. If you’re interested in how play can help one to cope in a world of uncertainty, to keep one’s mind and body healthy, and to maintain or grow one’s capacity for imagination, this book is well worth reading.

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BOOK: “The Perennial Philosophy Reloaded” by Dana Sawyer

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The Perennial Philosophy Reloaded: A Guide for the Mystically-inclinedThe Perennial Philosophy Reloaded: A Guide for the Mystically-inclined by Dana Sawyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Release Date: July 9, 2024

The good news is that this book does a thorough, clear, and balanced job of discussing Perennial Philosophy along a number of dimensions including metaphysics, psychology, theology, and aesthetics. The bad news is that it can lead one to believe there IS NO Perennial Philosophy, just a hodge-podge of (often disparate) assumptions about the grand metaphysical questions of life, the universe, and everything, assumptions that are usually Eastern, mystical, or both and which appeal to the kind of person who likes to say, “I’m spiritual, but not religious,” but which are all over the place, intellectually speaking. We learn more about the varied metaphysical perspectives that can be lumped under rubric Perennial Philosophy, than we learn of any internally consistent set of beliefs which distinguish the Philosophy from others. Sawyer does acknowledge that there is not a unified worldview that is Perennial Philosophy and that, instead, one must think in terms of “family resemblance.” The problem is that Perennial Philosophy displays the kind of family resemblance seen in a foster home. One can believe in a god or not, believe in a soul / persistent self or not, one can hold any number of beliefs about time, causation, creation, and other aspects of metaphysics. Sawyer does solidly distinguish Perennial Philosophy from Materialism, but it’s not clear why we needed it, given we already had various permutations of Idealism.

The book does provide a lot of food-for-thought, if often frustratingly so. The most important thing it does is lay out the various questions at the fore of Perennial Philosophy, how they’ve been addressed by different thinkers, and the crux of discord.

I did find myself disturbed by the arguments on occasion. A prime example is when Sawyer writes about students who describe themselves as non-spiritual but who enjoy going hiking. Because Sawyer couches the experiences that are had on a good hike in spiritual terms, he believes the students are wrong to describe themselves as “non-spiritual.” However, it’s far from clear why they need to twist their interpretations into line with his worldview. I suspect that his “non-spiritual” students, like me, see in “spiritual” types a need to escape the surly bonds of nature, to have magic exist in their worlds, something above and beyond nature. I see “spiritual” people as having a craving like the proverbial true-believer / flood victim whose neighbors come by in a truck and a boat to rescue him (and then rescue services come by with a helicopter,) but he turns them all down because “God Will Save Me!” Then he dies and goes to heaven and berates God for letting him drown, to which God says, “I sent a truck, a boat, and a helicopter. What do you want from me?” Well, he wanted a divine golden light to levitate him not some mundane solution based in the natural world; he wanted magic, rapturous rescue.

If you are interested in the various debates between Materialism and Idealism, this book is well worth reading, and if you describe yourself as “Spiritual, but not religious,” you’ll probably really love it.

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BOOKS: “The Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the Cynic” by Jean-Manuel Roubineau

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The Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the CynicThe Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the Cynic by Jean-Manuel Roubineau
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

This is a translation of a French book about the life and philosophy of Diogenes the Cynic. It’s a thin volume, as there is much that’s unknown about the life of Diogenes, and the dearth of surviving texts means that some of what is believed about Diogenes and Cynic philosophy maybe corrupted by the reports of detractors. I learned a great deal from reading this book, but not because I learned much new about Diogenes, himself. The colorful anecdotes from his life have been extensively discussed.

With respect to what I did learn, it largely fell into three categories. First, I gained insight into the context and environment in which Diogenes lived. Second, I discovered that many of the stories of Diogenes’ life are far less certain than we have been led to believe through the presentations of them in so many books. For example, we know Diogenes was exiled from his native Sinope in relation to a scheme involving currency debasement. This is often straightforwardly stated as “Diogenes was a counterfeiter,” but Roubineau shows that we don’t know much (if anything) about the degree to which Diogenes was involved (i.e. whether he was mastermind, accomplice, or an unwitting pawn.) Third, I benefited from the comparing and contrasting of Cynic philosophy with that of predecessors (e.g. Socratics) and successors (e.g. Stoics,) and – in a few cases – comparisons between Diogenes and other Cynics.

The book consists of four chapters. The first is a discussion of what is known about Diogenes as a historical figure. The second focuses on the Cynics views on economy, wealth, and related ideas. The third explores the Cynic view of the human body and related topics like sex, pleasure, and pursuit of health and well-being. The last chapter considers Diogenes as a teacher and the Cynic approach to practicing philosophy.

I’d highly recommend this book for readers interested in philosophy.


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