COOKED by Michael Pollan

Eat food.
Not too much.
Mostly plants.

--Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food

In The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006), science journalist Michael Pollan looked at how food is produced. In his next two books, In Defense of Food (2008)and Food Rules (2009), he told us what we should eat (see above). In his most recent book, Cooked (April 2013), he investigates the methods, biology, and philosophy of food preparation.

I loved Omnivore: it's one of those rare books that can get a person fascinated by a topic that previously held no interest whatsoever. The two Food books were thin but full of wise advice, such as Pollan's now-famous seven-word guide to good eating.

Cooked, at 480 pages, should have been thinner.

I enjoyed Pollan's introduction, which is essentially the speech I heard him give at a nearby college a couple of months ago. Cooking, he says, is what separates humans from all other species--or at least so wrote the Scottish biographer Boswell in the 18th century, the French gastronome Brillat-Savarin in the 19th, and the French anthropologist Lévi-Strauss in the 20th. In fact, numerous writers suggest, cooking (rather than hunting and gathering) made civilization possible.

Unfortunately, Americans in the 21st century seem to be devolving: we now spend less time than people of any other nation preparing our meals, though we watch an incredible amount of cooking-related TV. "The premise of this book," Pollan writes, "is that cooking--defined broadly enough to take in the whole spectrum of techniques people have devised for transforming the raw stuff of nature into nutritious and appealing things for us to eat and drink--is one of the most interesting and worthwhile things we human beings do."

Pollan explores four of these techniques in the book's four sections, "Fire" (grilling: barbecue), "Water" (braising: stews), "Air" (baking: bread), and "Earth" (fermenting: sauerkraut, cheese, wine, beer). In each section he observes and often works alongside masters of the particular craft, not only describing each process but also telling how to reproduce the ancient methods today, how they work biologically, what they offer nutritionally, and how the results taste.

Part of the fun of a book by Pollan is the way he interacts with his topic. My favorite story in Cooked is about the night he and his son, Isaac, decided to "cook" a meal using only convenience foods bought at Safeway. It's not exactly a spoiler to let you know the outcome: more time, more expense, and less family time at table than when they cooked meals from scratch. And besides, after the first three bites everything tasted alike.

Still, 480 pages turned out to be more than I wanted to know. I found myself skimming though many descriptive pages that needed to stop circling and come in for a landing. Pollan could have condensed his material into one fantastic magazine article, or maybe even four of them. His book-length treatment, however, seemed excessive.

Besides, I wondered, why was the guy who told us to eat "mostly plants" devoting maybe three-quarters of his book to meat and dairy?

If you haven't yet read a book by Pollan, don't start here: you are more likely to be entranced by The Omnivore's Dilemma. If you already love Pollan's writing (or his frequent commentaries on TV), go ahead and read Cooking. Skim if you need to: just as you're thinking, he does go on, doesn't he, you'll hit a trenchant observation that keeps you reading. Like this, for example, on the role of alcohol in religion:

Alcohol has served religion as a proof of gods' existence, a means of access to sacred realms, and a mode of observance, whether solemn (as in the Eucharist) or ecstatic (as in the worship of Dionysus or, in Judaism, the celebration of Purim). The decidedly peculiar belief that, behind or above or within the physical world available to our senses, there exists a second world of spirits, surely must owe at least a partial debt to the experience of intoxication. Even today, when we raise and clink glasses in a toast, what are we really doing if not invoking a supernatural power? That's why a glass of water or milk just doesn't do the trick.

I'll drink to that.

THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN by Garth Stein

Book publisher's marketing department's hypothetical dream plot, 2012 version:
Jacqueline Kennedy's toy poodle, having been transformed by a vision of heaven, moves to a decrepit Provençal farmhouse, falls in love with a shih tzu, and gives birth (without anesthetics) to a litter of pleasantly diverse puppies, who, being both French and Chinese, are perfectly housebroken by age six weeks.

Occasionally while reading The Art of Racing in the Rain I wondered if author  Garth Stein ever worked in that marketing department (short answer: probably not). He sure knows how to load a book with crowd-pleasing elements:

The dog. Like Chet, the narrator of Spencer Quinn's wonderful comic detective stories, narrator Enzo is an articulate canine of indeterminate ancestry. Chet, however, is much doggier. Enzo, by contrast, is literary, culturally sophisticated, and psychologically astute--practically an Edwardian English butler. The book does not reveal whether he ever scoots his bottom on the rug.

The dad. Like Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Stein's Art has to do with values, machines, and fathers, but it is blessedly shorter and simpler than Pirsig's tome--none of those lengthy digressions about ancient philosophy that gave Zen weight but also made it harder to read.

The dying woman. Like far too many popular books, films, and songs, Racing in the Rain centers on a dying young woman--in this case, with brain cancer. When was the last time you wept for a fictional dying man? Just wondering.

The dysfunction. Like just about everything by Jodi Picoult, Racing features people in dysfunctional families fighting with, against, and for one another.

The driver. Families, love, death, parenting--would a guy read this book? Hey, let's throw in a whole lot about auto racing! Cars! Technique! Competitions! And let's make Dad a driver! Should work.

The dharma.  Add a few grains of motivational spirituality--the cryptic mantra, "That which you manifest is before you" (huh?); the expectation of reincarnation; the belief that the mind, or the will, controls events; the valuing of the soul above the body--why, it almost sounds philosophical, yet you don't have to think very hard.

The dénouement.  May I tell you that the ending is reasonably happy? And that it takes place in Italy? What's not to like?

Well, it worked. I--and a million or so other people--liked The Art of Racing in the Rain. It's not a great book, but it's well plotted and cleverly written. Sometimes you laugh; sometimes you cry. Sometimes you laugh at yourself for being manipulated into crying. But it's a pleasant read. And it does make me wonder what my dogs are thinking.

THE SOCIAL ANIMAL by David Brooks

Last December a couple of magazine editors asked me to read a galley of David Brooks's then-forthcoming book, The Social Animal: A Story of Love, Character, and Achievement, and consider reviewing it. After reading the galley, I declined.

I didn't hate the book as much as P.Z. Myers does in his hilarious Salon review, "David Brooks' Dream World for the Trust Fund Set," though you might want to read Myers before tackling Brooks. Equally dismissive but more analytical is Will Wilkinson's "Scornful Review" on his Forbes blog. And while philosopher Thomas Nagel, who analyzes "David Brooks's Theory of Human Nature" in the New York Times, is not dismissive, he too seems less than impressed by Brooks's argument and presentation.

I sent one of the editors a lengthy e-mail explaining why I didn't want to review the book, which was published last week. Here's what I told him:

... I’m less enthusiastic about it than I hoped I’d be. Brooks is writing about the primacy of the unconscious over the conscious mind, and secondarily (I think) the primacy of interpersonal relationships over rational constructs. Basically he’s synthesizing a lot of books he’s read, and he’s presenting the findings in more-or-less story form as he follows the lives of two imaginary characters, Harold and Erica. Weirdly, he has his characters living in the eternal present, as he warns us up front—at every stage of their life, they seem to be living in about 2010.

This framework allows Brooks to pontificate on lots of things that are dear to his heart, especially in the chapter “The Soft Side” in which Harold joins a think tank and ruminates on everything that Brooks thinks about (“He spent those years writing his essays, peppering the world with his policy proposals. Not many people seemed to agree with him. There was a New York Times columnist whose views were remarkably similar to his own, and a few others. Still, he plugged away, feeling that he was mostly right about things and that someday others would reach the conclusions he had reached.”)

The book also includes a great deal of typical Brooks humor. Unlike some reviewers of his previous books, I generally enjoyed the humor, though it sometimes seemed discordant with his sociological musings.

Summary: the book put a lot of interesting research together, but it did not break any new ground. Harold and Erica kept my attention, but I didn’t identify with either of them – and I’m not sure that many other readers would either. Erica is a driven over-achiever from an underprivileged background who ends up in the halls of power, partly thanks to Harold’s support and occasional wisdom. Harold doesn’t really seem to be anybody, though he has good people skills. They have quite a lot of money and no kids. When they retire, they lead overseas tours three times a year until they can’t do that anymore, and then they buy a second home in Aspen. Who are these people, and could they exist anywhere but inside the Beltway?

Anyway, I do plan to comment on the book on The Neff Review, though I won’t publish my comments until March, when the book is published. But I’ve lost my enthusiasm for writing a review for [your magazine]. This is by no means to say that it shouldn’t be reviewed. Brooks says some fine things about relationships and the unconscious and why we need to get past mechanistic Enlightenment reasoning, or at least move from the French to the English Enlightenment. Another of your authors may be perfectly suited to review it.

I loved Brooks's first book, Bobos in Paradise. I liked his second, On Paradise Drive. I managed to finish reading his third, The Social Animal. I appreciate the irenic tone of his op-ed pieces, and I wish him well. I hope he takes a refreshing sabbatical before starting another book.

FREEDOM by Jonathan Franzen

Normally my book reviews are also recommendations. I write about books I enjoyed, in case others might want to enjoy them too. This time I may be making an exception.

I'm not sure if I enjoyed Freedom, or if I think my friends ought to take the time to wade through its 562 pages. Even though Oprah said, "I am really betting that 'Freedom' by Jonathan Franzen will end up being for you, as it is for me, one of the best novels you have ever read."

See, I did manage to read all 562 pages, and I wouldn't have done that if I'd disliked the book, would I? And very often I found myself chuckling over Franzen's characterizations or political asides or snippets of conversation. The man writes well.

I also enjoyed the vast extended soap opera involving Walter and Patty Berglund; their son Joey and his girlfriend Connie; Walter's feckless parents and brothers; Patty's equally misguided parents, brother, and sisters; Walter's college roommate, the enigmatic Richard; Joey's college roommate Jonathan and his amoral sister Jenna; the highly improbable Lalitha ...

Well, it's a bit like a book Dickens would have written, if Dickens had worried, not about the oppressed poor, but rather about the self-destructive middle class.

And maybe that's why I'm not sure if I liked the book.

It is well titled: it really is about freedom. Franzen uses some form of the word about once every five pages. It is about people who want to be free, who do various things to achieve freedom, but who in the end do not know how to use their freedom to make either themselves or anyone else happy. So Freedom would be a fine choice for a book club that is patient with long books and that wants to have a philosophical discussion about what freedom is, when it is good, when it is bad, how to achieve it, what to do with it.

But since book clubs are generally attended by women, let me advise potential readers that the various stories may contain more male sexual fantasy than you really wanted to read about. Franzen's men tend to think with their dicks, and most of his women, for some reason, are willing to do anything the men want. It isn't porn, but eventually the voyeurism gets tiring.

And despite its comic-novel moments and its odd Hollywood ending, Freedom is a typical Oprah-book downer. Its characters struggle against themselves, and mostly lose. Don't say I didn't warn you.

THE CHARMING QUIRKS OF OTHERS by Alexander McCall Smith

If you're not already a McCall Smith fan, The Charming Quirks of Others - book 7 in the Isabel Dalhousie series - may not be the place to start. Most readers get hooked on the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series (now up to 11 titles) before moving on to the first book about Isabel, The Sunday Philosophy Club, though the Dalhousie series is also a fine introduction to the man who surely must be Scotland's most prolific writer.

But if, like me, you're a confirmed McCall Smith devotee, you know without my telling you that, with his newest book, you're in for another evening or two of reading that's as comforting as a mug of hot chocolate.

Isabel, the kindly, rich, slightly snoopy, and incessantly worrying Edinburgh ethicist, has several things to think about. Will she be able to purchase the Raeburn portrait of her ancestors? How will she, as editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, deal with a presumptuous author she strongly dislikes? Can she - should she - help a woman she barely knows find out who has written an anonymous letter, and why? Has her niece, Cat, finally found a decent boyfriend? Is her fiancé, Jamie, having an affair?

The interwoven stories are fun - McCall Smith is a very funny writer. And Isabel's constant musings are delightful and, sometimes, thought provoking - McCall Smith is also a professional philosopher. Listen to Isabel thinking about why we are interested in genealogy, for instance:

Blood links, she thought; that was what it was about. However tenuous such links were, people regarded them as standing between themselves and the void of human impermanence. For ultimately we were all insignificant tenants of this earth, temporary bearers of a genetic message that could so easily disappear. We had not always been here, and there was not reason to suppose that we always would be. And yet we found such thoughts uncomfortable, and did not like to think them. So we clung to the straws of identity; these, at least, made us feel a little more permanent.

I love McCall Smith's storytelling and philosophizing, but even more I love his kindness. His characters are often odd and bumbling, but they mean well. They care for one another. They believe in forgiveness. They know how to love.

Isabel and Jamie, for example, having picnicked on Scotch egg pie and cucumber sandwiches, are now lazily talking. "You're very kind," Isabel says.

"Because I love you so much," he said. "That is why I like to be kind to you."

"And that is why I shall bring you all the flowers of the mountain," said Isabel. "For the self-same reason."

She went on to say something else, but Jamie found his attention drifting. He was feeling sleepy, for it was warm, and he could lie there for ever, he thought, listening to the sound of Isabel's voice, in the way one listens to the conversations of birds, or the sound of a waterfall descending the side of a Scottish mountain; sounds for which we cannot come up with a meaning, but which we love dearly and with all our heart, and loving anything with all your heart always brings understanding, in time.

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To read my reviews of other McCall Smith books, click here and then click on the titles that interest you.