Walk With Me?
As you all know from my calendar system, I live by certain rules. In addition to those I’ve already shared, I believe in a firm book-to-podcast ratio: at least one hour of book listening* for every three hours of podcast listening.
Some of the most thoughtful people in my life, like my husband Chris, do the reverse: he consumes many more books than podcasts. I respect his ratio, but I prefer mine: I have a large appetite for free-wheeling banter about politics, technology, business, and culture. Podcasts sate that, while books—so carefully constructed! so thoughtfully edited!—slow the world down enough to make real sense of it, at least for a time.
More rules: I alternate non-fiction and fiction. Julia Minson’s How to Disagree Better (a mediator’s catnip) followed by Courtney Maum’s Alan Opts Out (an advertising exec leaves his Greenwich mansion to live in his kids’ playhouse with a pet lobster). Megan Garber’s Screen People (about the dehumanizing forces of screen culture) followed by Halle Butler’s Banal Nightmare (the novel Virginia Woolf might have written had she been teleported to the 2020s). Ben Wikler’s This Is the Plan (how to win elections) followed by Jess Gibson’s The Good Eye (eerie short stories). Claire Stapleton’s Don’t Be Evil (about her 12 years at Google) followed by Kurt Andersen’s The Breakup.
This last one. Holy sh*t.
It is set in 2045. After Civil War 2 (ruefully acknowledged as sounding like a video game) ravaged the 2030s, the painstakingly-negotiated “disunion” of America is complete: the U.S. now consists only of blue states, red states have reorganized as the Free American Republic, and blue cities within red states operate, tenuously, as Independent Metro Regions (IMRs). And that’s not all: after years of making humans and robots ride separate elevators, segregation is ending. As of Monday, our protagonist learns, all of his colleagues will share the same spaces.
This book—which I am devouring (thank you, Dad, for the recommendation)—is messing with my non-fiction/fiction scheme. On the one hand, I know it’s fiction—it’s set in the future for heaven’s sake. On the other hand, it does not seem that far-fetched, which says something both about Andersen’s writing talents and our current moment.
Please read it immediately so that we can discuss. Usually, I love nothing more than being alone in the woods with a book, but with this one, I wouldn’t mind some fellow travelers. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Image credits: book cover from Good Reads; above, my local forest snapped by me, Kate Gace Walton
*Yes, listening. I “read” while I walk, commute, make dinner, or fold laundry. There might come a time when I will lounge on the grass with a physical book as I did in childhood, but right now the crunch of middle age requires that I “port” books directly into my head while knocking something else off my to-do list. It works, it’s fine!
