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Sarojini Seupersad

NonfictionTechnologySocial Science

The foreseeable future: Two visions of what’s ahead

Feature by Sarojini Seupersad

As technology disrupts and defines how we live our lives, two nonfiction books explore how it has shaped society up to this point and how it will affect what it means to be human in the future.

In a nondescript building in an office park in Southern California lies the future of human relationships. Or that’s what Abyss Creations founder Matthew McMullen would have us believe. In Sex Robots and Vegan Meat: Adventures at the Frontier of Birth, Food, Sex, and Death, journalist Jenny Kleeman speaks to CEOs like McMullen, as well as scientists, professors and ethicists, to investigate new technologies that are poised to change essential industries and human interactions.

As McMullen competes with other robotics companies to bring the first fully functional, lifelike sex robot to market, the world must contend with the ethical implications of subservient sex robots that are designed to look and act human but that consist of artificial intelligence, silicone and complex circuitry instead of warm flesh and blood. In other chapters, Kleeman investigates the new industry of plant-based, vegan “meat,” which tastes like a burger or steak without the abattoir, animal suffering or impact on global climate change. She then moves on to the future of childbirth (which involves artificial wombs called “biobags”) and a 3D-printed device that could make euthanasia more accessible. Thoroughly entertaining and written with humor and sly intuition, Sex Robots and Vegan Meat is an account of the future that will have you questioning whether technology is helping or hindering human progress.

As current technologies, especially artificial intelligence and robotics, continue to develop, they will force changes in how we structure our work and family lives. One example from history is the plow. It changed humans from egalitarian, freewheeling hunters and gatherers into a society of small families with strict gender roles and private land to cultivate. In Work Mate Marry Love: How Machines Shape Our Human Destiny, Harvard Business School professor Debora L. Spar examines historical links between technology, gender, work and family to imagine what the future might look like.

Starting in 8,000 B.C. and writing all the way into the present, Spar argues that nearly all the decisions we make in our intimate lives, including sex and marriage, are driven by technology. This detailed and deeply researched book lands at the intersection of history, feminist theory and futurism and will enrich your understanding of humanity’s pliant adaptability. Most of all, Work Mate Marry Love lends insight into whether technology can help us live more equal, fulfilling lives in the future.

 

As technology disrupts and defines how we live our lives, two nonfiction books explore how it has shaped society up to this point and how it will affect what it means to be human in the future. In a nondescript building in an office park in Southern California lies the future of human relationships. Or […]
NonfictionSocial Science

American marriage under the microscope

Feature by Sarojini Seupersad

Although we’re now living through a time of all-access Zoom weddings, marriage throughout history wasn’t always so easily achieved. For some, it was celebrated; for others, it was withheld. These books explore the complicated history of marriage in two very distinct ways.

Access to marriage means access to equality. Dianne M. Stewart, professor of African American studies at Emory University, investigates the complex conditions that have led to low marriage rates among Black heterosexual women in the United States in Black Women, Black Love: America’s War on African American Marriage.

Stewart notes that 70% of Black American women are not married—many not by choice but because of centuries of injustices that continue into the present day. She begins this powerful and wholly original work by discussing how slavery made it impossible for Black women to control their own bodies, much less their families and relationships. Even after emancipation, lynching, terror and the stress of poverty continued to threaten the stability of Black communities. In the 20th century, the scars of Reconstruction still controlled Black women’s upward mobility through systemic restrictions like federal “man-in-the-house” policies, which stripped Black women of public assistance if they lived with a boyfriend or husband. Combined with a lack of access to well-paid jobs, these polices caused marriage rates to decline in Black communities. But the most devastating barrier to Black marriage is modern-day mass incarceration, which continues to pull families apart.

Scholarly and moving, with deeply personal notes and references to pop culture, Stewart’s eye-opening analysis reveals how marriage is an enduring civil rights issue for Black women in the United States.

Matrimony, Inc.: From Personal Ads to Swiping Right, a Story of America Looking for Love explores a very different type of relationship history. In this book, Francesca Beauman delves into the quirky history of the romantic personal advertisement and reveals how it has aided Americans’ never-ending search for love and companionship throughout the centuries.

This entertaining and well-researched account begins with the very first known personal ad, placed in a Boston newspaper in 1759. Beauman, a bookseller and historian, curates the archival materials in a witty and accessible way, and both history buffs and readers of romance will find her to be a dependable yet amusing guide. She writes authoritatively on American courtship through a historical lens, touching on different examples of the personal ad over the past 250 years.

Advertisements written by soldiers in the middle of the Civil War were circulated through “penny presses” designed for a middle-class public who was becoming more literate and refined. As the popularity of personal ads flourished in the 19th century, so did scams, deceptions and danger. Behind the ads were faceless strangers who might be bigamists, or worse. At the turn of the 20th century, Belle Gunness, one of the most prolific serial killers of all time, lured more than 40 men to her farm in Indiana by promising marriage though personal ads in newspapers. The threat of meeting a similar end, however, has never stopped the public from searching for love through the personals.

Primary source materials play a prominent role in Matrimony, Inc. As readers see antiquated, sexist language in action, they will laugh at how far we’ve come, and sigh at how far we still have to go.

Although we’re now living through a time of all-access Zoom weddings, marriage throughout history wasn’t always so easily achieved. For some, it was celebrated; for others, it was withheld. These books explore the complicated history of marriage in two very distinct ways. Access to marriage means access to equality. Dianne M. Stewart, professor of African […]
NonfictionSelf-Help

Overcome fear, set boundaries and take control of your life

Feature by Sarojini Seupersad

The self-help genre has a long history of providing advice to readers seeking change, guidance and empowerment. These two highly anticipated books, while wildly different, are positive, entertaining additions to the bunch.

In Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual, bestselling author Luvvie Ajayi Jones uses her trademark humor and insight to show readers how to break down—and break through—the fears that hold them back from their professional and personal goals. Her principles are explained in three sections: Be, Say and Do.

In the Be section, Ajayi Jones emphasizes how important it is to first know who you are and what you want. As you determine these things, remember that being audacious and dreaming big aren’t just for other people; they’re for you, too. In this section, readers meet Ajayi Jones’ grandmother, a joyful woman who took time to celebrate her life and always made space for herself in the world. In the Say section, Ajayi Jones explores how speaking up and setting boundaries are steps worth taking toward fighting your fears. Finally, in Do, she explains that there is no progress without action. 

Throughout the book, Ajayi Jones provides helpful examples of fear-fighting from her own life, such as the time she almost turned down the opportunity to give a TED Talk because she was scared of failure. She also provides useful exercises like writing a mission statement and listing your values and goals. Ajayi Jones’ fans will appreciate this bold display of her signature fearlessness, and new readers will connect with her funny personal stories and flair for language, which make reading this book feel like talking to an old friend.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of the Professional Troublemaker audiobook. Luvvie Ajayi Jones’ commanding, cheerful voice will hype up even the most fearful listener.

Nedra Glover Tawwab, a therapist with a hugely popular Instagram account, debuts with Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself. Tawwab, who specializes in relationships, began writing this indispensable guide after her Instagram post “Signs That You Need Boundaries” went viral. Her book aims to address frequently asked questions from people who may not even know they have boundary issues, since they’re often disguised as other problems such as time mismanagement, anxiety and burnout. Once someone understands boundaries better, Tawwab explains, they can begin to improve their relationships through open communication.

Beginning with a description of Tawwab’s own process of setting boundaries with family members, the book establishes six types of boundaries—physical, sexual, intellectual, emotional, material and time—and gives examples of how these issues might play out in real-life scenarios. Tawwab then dispenses advice about how to handle each type of situation through personal anecdotes and examples from anonymized therapy clients.

Although Set Boundaries, Find Peace is written with authority, Tawwab’s voice is friendly and sincere as she presents her ideas in a clear, no-nonsense fashion. For example, when explaining time boundaries, she gives a brief description of the issue; follows it up with examples of time boundary violations, such as overcommitting or accepting favor requests from people who won’t reciprocate; then tells the reader what time boundaries might sounds like (“I won’t be able to make it to your event on Tuesday”) and ends with an exercise to reinforce the information. 

Tawwab excels at presenting complicated ideas and behaviors in an accessible, nonjudgmental manner, helping the reader feel at ease and understood. Anyone looking to regain control over their time, energy and needs will appreciate her book’s wisdom and practical advice.

These two highly anticipated self-help books are positive, entertaining guides for readers seeking change, guidance and empowerment.
NonfictionHistory

Cuba

Review by Sarojini Seupersad

To explore the history of Cuba is to explore the history of the United States. In her new epic history, Cuba: An American History, author and historian Ada Ferrer shows the complex ties between these two countries going back centuries.

As the myth goes, Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492. But in actuality, he didn’t discover anything in the United States; he landed in Cuba, which was already very much inhabited. Columbus and his men killed most of the Indigenous population and, with Spain’s backing, introduced an economy that used enslaved labor to produce sugar, tobacco and rum. 

With his blunder of mistaking Cuba for India, Columbus initiated Spain’s centurieslong era of colonial dominance—with Havana, Cuba, at the center of it all. By the 18th century, Havana was the third-largest city in the New World. Britain and France, looking to end Spain’s colonial power, sought control of Cuba for its strategic location in the Caribbean, as well as for its military fortifications and natural riches. Meanwhile, as England’s colonies in North America grew, the fledgling United States profited enormously from Cuba’s economy. Eventually, because of their symbiotic relationship, Cuba supported the United States’ fight against Britain.

As time went on, Spain’s control of the Americas eroded, especially after the Seven Years War and the Spanish-American War. Ferrer’s retelling of these wars’ events from an updated, more nuanced perspective will bring a fresh view to history you thought you already knew. The narrative is often simplified as “the United States saved Cuba,” but Ferrer’s look at the Spanish-American War frames it as the point at which relations between the two countries finally began to sour.

Organized into 12 parts and accompanied by stunning historical photographs and illustrations, Cuba covers more than five centuries of complicated and dynamic history. Although much of the book covers the upheaval and chaos of the 20th century, Ferrer is an exceptionally thorough guide of the 15th century onward, careful to keep her readers’ attention with interesting characters, new insights on historical events and dramatic yet accessible writing. This new history of Cuba shows how connected all of our countries’ histories really are.

Ada Ferrer keeps her readers’ attention with interesting characters, new historical insights and dramatic yet accessible writing in her epic history of Cuba.
NonfictionBody, Mind & Spirit

This Is Your Mind on Plants

Review by Sarojini Seupersad

Acclaimed writer Michael Pollan, author of several notable books including In Defense of Food, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and most recently How to Change Your Mind, returns with This Is Your Mind on Plants, which delves into the deep relationships humans have with three mind-altering plants: opium, coffee and mescaline.

Pollan begins this book with an updated version of his Harper’s essay from 1997, in which he writes about attempting to grow poppies to make opium tea for his personal enjoyment—and about the intense anxiety over planting the poppies in his own garden. Confused over whether or not it was legal to grow poppies, Pollan conducted research that led him into a morass of penal contradictions, not to mention the philosophical puzzle of why certain drugs and not others are illegal to begin with.

Next Pollan describes his monthlong detox from caffeine, his preferred drug of choice. During this experiment he experiences mental dullness, lethargy and an intense inability to focus—a writer’s nightmare. Caffeine is a legal drug, of course, but Pollan can’t help but notice how it has a much stronger effect on him than his opium tea did. The relationship between humans and coffee is centuries deep, and Pollan helpfully connects the history of coffee-drinking to our modern-day reliance on caffeine.

The final section is devoted to the study of mescaline: its uses but also who gets to use it. Pollan explores some interesting history involving Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, and after taking mescaline himself during a Native American peyote ceremony, Pollan makes fair observations about the recent cultural appropriation of mescaline.

Readers of How to Change Your Mind will recognize Pollan’s thoughtful and scientific approach to the subject of psychedelic drugs and altered states of consciousness. This Is Your Mind on Plants is an entertaining blend of memoir, history and social commentary that illustrates Pollan’s ability to be both scientific and personal. By relying on contextual history and focusing on three popular, if misunderstood, drugs, Pollan challenges common views on what mind-altering drugs are and what they can accomplish.

Acclaimed writer Michael Pollan delves into our deep relationships with three mind-altering plants: opium, coffee and mescaline.
NonfictionMemoirFamily & Relationships

Notes on Grief

Review by Sarojini Seupersad

What is the shape of grief? For writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, grief takes the shape of her father’s absence: the hole he left behind when, in the summer of 2020, he suddenly died of kidney failure. In her slim memoir, Notes on Grief, Adichie pays homage to her father’s remarkable life while observing her own surprising emotions as she moves through the messy process of bereavement, completely unprepared. She writes, “How is it that the world keeps going, breathing in and out unchanged, while in my soul there is a permanent scattering?”

By any measure, James Nwoye Adichie lived an extraordinary life. The first professor of statistics in Nigeria, he also lived through the Biafran War and had his books burned by soldiers. He was an honorable and principled man who was naturally funny. When he visited Adichie at Yale, she asked him if he would like some pomegranate juice, and his response was, “No thank you, whatever that is.”

Adiche lovingly describes such details about her father, from his ease with humor to his discomfort with injustice. Upon learning of a local billionaire’s desire to take over ancestral land in their Nigerian town, he immediately looked into ways to stop him. But what is most memorable in this tribute is Adichie’s father’s love for his family and their enduring love for him. Adichie simply calls him “the loveliest man.”

Processing grief is difficult enough, but Adiche learned of her father’s death in Nigeria while she was home in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. One day, they were having family Zoom calls; the next, he was gone. Arrangements had to be made through phone calls and Zoom, and the funeral was postponed for months because the Nigerian airports were closed. Honoring Igbo traditions and arranging a funeral with her siblings during a worldwide pandemic was enough to make Adichie come undone. The hole her father left behind began to fill with guilt, denial, loneliness, panic and eventually bottomless rage.

A raw, moving account of mourning and loss, Adichie’s memoir reminds us there is no right or wrong way to grieve and that celebrating life every day is the best way to honor our loved ones.

In her slim memoir, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie pays homage to her father’s remarkable life while observing her own surprising grief.
Business & Finance

Drug Use for Grown-Ups

Review by Sarojini Seupersad

As more and more states across the country legalize marijuana, and as popular opinion toward the war on drugs sours, Dr. Carl L. Hart’s new book arrives at the perfect time. In Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear, Hart makes a thoughtful and persuasive (if controversial) case that everything we’ve been taught about drug use is wrong and that it’s high time we legalize all drugs and consider a more humane way forward.

Hart, a scientist and a professor of neuroscience at Columbia University, is an expert in drug abuse and addiction. He’s also a recreational drug user. Through careful research and illuminating personal stories, Hart dispels many drug myths and shows us that happiness can be found through responsible drug use, just as through drinking alcohol responsibly. He argues that if we truly believe in liberty as established in the Declaration of Independence, then the pursuit of this particular happiness should also be part of our protected civil liberties.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: We chatted with Dr. Carl L. Hart about the war on drugs, the stigma of being a drug user and the pursuit of happiness in the United States.

Even though we mostly hear about the dangers of drugs, most drug users are functional adults who experience no negative effects from their drug use, according to Hart’s research. He also posits that illegal drugs are dangerous because they are illegal, not because they are inherently dangerous substances. What makes a drug truly dangerous is its unregulated quality and potency, as well as ignorance about mixing drugs. Hart laments the opioid crisis in his book, while arguing that most overdoses and deaths related to drug use wouldn’t occur if the person knew what they were taking. He also suggests that opioid deaths and other overdoses would decrease if people had access to regulated opioid products, rather than forms of the drug that are laced with powerful and sometimes deadly additives.

Hart’s scientific training and personal use of drugs has informed his research and opinions, but the book is also shaped by his experience as a Black man. Although drug use is popular across all races, Black people—and Black men in particular—have been penalized for possessing and selling drugs at far higher rates than any other group. Hart convincingly asserts that this discriminatory enforcement of drug laws has had a more devastating effect on Black communities than drug use itself.

Drug Use for Grown-Ups argues that it makes no sense to continue the war on drugs, which has failed to put even a dent in the illegal drug trade. Throughout history, people have always taken drugs, and they are a part of our society. This book’s soundly researched views on a safer approach to drug use and regulation will have many readers rethinking their assumptions.

In Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear, Dr. Carl L. Hart makes a thoughtful and persuasive (if controversial) case that everything we’ve been taught about drug use is wrong and that it’s high time we legalize all drugs and consider a more humane way forward.

NonfictionSocial Science

Mediocre

Review by Sarojini Seupersad

Ijeoma Oluo, author of the bestselling book So You Want to Talk About Race, offers a historical and sociological view of the toxic white male identity in her new book, Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America. Oluo persuasively argues that American society is structured to preserve the power (and tastes) of white men and outlines how we got here.

Our now-ingrained power structure wasn't inevitable but was purposely designed to center white men. Looking back at centuries of American history, Oluo shows how white male entitlement took hold from the early beginnings of this country—from slavery to westward expansion to the genocide and displacement of Indigenous Americans; from cowboy mythology glamorizing the violence of “Buffalo Bill” Cody to the modern-day obsession with spoiled but dangerous white men like Ammon Bundy.

Americans are taught that the United States is a meritocracy and that anyone who tries to get ahead will be rewarded with opportunities. However, the evidence doesn’t bear this out. With example after example—the male feminists of the early 20th century, NFL owners, presidential candidates and even their supporters—Oluo deftly shows how the society that white men built now rewards mediocre white men, regardless of their skills or talent, while punishing women and people of color for anything less than perfection. Unfortunately, when ordinary white men do not receive the unmitigated success they feel is their right, they turn their disappointments and anger on these women and people of color instead of on the elite white men who hoard opportunities and power for themselves. Because of this, disaffected white men are now the biggest domestic terror threat in the United States.

Oluo expertly shows how inequality, toxic masculinity and an unequal power structure deeply hurt all Americans, including white men. Through careful research and scholarship, she breaks down the system that sustains the status quo while shedding light on the ways others can also dismantle this system to ensure a more equitable future for all. It’s an essential read during times of political upheaval and unsure futures.

Ijeoma Oluo, author of the bestselling book So You Want to Talk About Race, offers a historical and sociological view of the toxic white male identity in her new book.

NonfictionTrue CrimeArt

The Woman Who Stole Vermeer

Review by Sarojini Seupersad

In The Woman Who Stole Vermeer: The True Story of Rose Dugdale and the Russborough House Art Heist, Anthony M. Amore expertly combines extraordinary history with gripping true crime. Amore, author of The Art of the Con and director of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, is an authority on art crimes and homeland security. His new book recounts the life of heiress Rose Dugdale, one of few women in the world to pull off a great art heist. The book starts with her privileged beginnings in England and college years at Oxford studying philosophy and economics, and progresses through her radical transformation into an incredible art thief.

Rich in tantalizing details, The Woman Who Stole Vermeer is filled with personal anecdotes from those who knew Dugdale the best— old college friends, colleagues and political compatriots who all remember her as wholly original and completely fearless. Several dramatic events in Dugdale’s life led her to follow revolutionary politics, but none affected her more than Bloody Sunday in 1972, when British soldiers killed more than two dozen demonstrators at a protest march in Northern Ireland. From then on, she became dedicated to ending British imperialism and helping the Irish Liberation Army.

The reasons for Dugdale’s prolific art heists were complicated and surprising, but they were never selfish. In 1973, to help fund her political causes, Dugdale stole valuable artwork from her family’s estate. As her crimes escalated, she stole a helicopter and attempted to bomb a police station. In 1974, along with three other people, she entered Ireland’s Russborough House, which was then the home of a British Member of Parliament, and stole 19 priceless paintings, including Johannes Vermeer’s “The Lady Writing a Letter With Her Maid.” In striking detail, Amore describes how Dugdale was identified as the one who orchestrated the heist. Her subsequent arrest, theatrical trial and most dramatic crimes are also vividly explained. This exciting biography of a singular woman is for anyone who loves true crime, art, politics and history.

In The Woman Who Stole Vermeer: The True Story of Rose Dugdale and the Russborough House Art Heist, Anthony M. Amore expertly combines extraordinary history with gripping true crime. Amore, author of The Art of the Con and director of security at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, is an authority on art crimes […]
NonfictionEssays

A Measure of Belonging

Review by Sarojini Seupersad

In this penetrating new essay collection, 21 writers of color explore the joys and heartbreak of living in the contemporary American South, a vast and diverse region heavy with history, possibilities and contradictions. Edited by author Cinelle Barnes, a resident of Charleston, South Carolina, A Measure of Belonging aims to answer the question: Who belongs here?

Written by a mix of established and emerging writers, these piercing essays present a refreshing and nuanced view of the South by never engaging in flat Southern stereotypes or assuming a veneer of homogeneity. Instead the collection subverts the cultural dominance of whiteness by engaging with topics as varied as Black college majorettes, the DMV and apartment hunting. Kiese Laymon, writer of the critically acclaimed memoir Heavy, looks into the difficulties of living in Oxford, Mississippi, as a Black professor. In his essay “That’s Not Actually True,” he explores the layered tension of race and class in trying to record his own audiobook. In the essay “Foreign and Domestic,” Jaswinder Bolina talks about the unique sensation of being mugged in Miami and feeling a kinship to his muggers because of their similarities. He feels at home in a neighborhood with people who look like him, in a city that is technically part of the South but also a world away. In “My Sixty-Five-Year-Old Roommate,” Jennifer Hope Choi delightfully describes the unexpected comfort of moving in with her mother in South Carolina after a veritable lifetime of living precariously in New York City. Latria Graham painfully deals with the never-ending flooding on her family’s farm, while Minda Honey relishes in her newfound auntie status.

Not all of the writers are originally from the South, but they all contribute to a well-rounded view of the Southern United States as a place that isn’t a monolith. Sharp and witty, this collection shows that there are many different ways to live, breathe, thrive and be a person who belongs in the South.

In this penetrating new essay collection, 21 writers of color explore the joys and heartbreak of living in the contemporary American South, a vast and diverse region heavy with history, possibilities and contradictions. Edited by author Cinelle Barnes, a resident of Charleston, South Carolina, A Measure of Belonging aims to answer the question: Who belongs […]
NonfictionHealth & Fitness

Clean

Review by Sarojini Seupersad

Imagine there was one simple activity you could cut from your daily schedule that would save you time, money, water and energy and help keep countless plastic bottles out of the ocean. With all of these gains in the face of climate change, most people would probably consider it. But what if that simple activity you could cut from your daily schedule was . . . showering?

James Hamblin, a medical doctor and staff writer for The Atlantic, knows exactly what it’s like to give up showering for good. In his provocative book Clean: The New Science of Skin, Hamblin explains why he stopped showering five years ago. Although he admits that this course of action isn’t for everyone, he argues that our modern idea of extreme hygiene has gone a little overboard. In this entertaining and deeply researched book, he suggests that our addiction to soap and skincare is creating more problems than they solve. Along the way, he discusses Dr. Bronner’s, Gweneth Paltrow’s Goop and soap making, and he speaks to dermatologists, biologists, allergists, peddlers of snake oil and a paraphernalia-collecting soap historian.

Many people will be horrified at the idea of not showering for a prolonged amount of time, but according to Hamblin, our dedication to sterile cleanliness is relatively new. Following the Industrial Revolution, theories about germs and infectious diseases led to the explosion of the soap industry to promote good hygiene, but it also gave birth to the marketing ploy that clean, germ-free skin equals good health. What if we need those “germs” on our skin that we lather and wash away every day? Hamblin examines the discovery of beneficial skin microbes that live on our skin and in our pores. Wash the microbes away, and the immune system goes haywire, causing allergies, eczema and other skin conditions. What if an industry that claims to keep us healthy is actually harming us?

Organized and thorough, the research and history Hamblin presents are uncomfortably compelling. This is a fascinating, rich mix of science, marketing and culture that will have you questioning everything you think you know about your daily skincare routine.

Imagine there was one simple activity you could cut from your daily schedule that would save you time, money, water and energy and help keep countless plastic bottles out of the ocean. What if that simple activity you could cut from your daily schedule was . . . showering?

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