John Walters

Book Review: A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness by Michael Pollan

Posted on March 28, 2026 by John Walters

The title of this book is from a quote from Being You by Anil Seth: “I open my eyes and a world appears.” It is an inquiry into what human consciousness really is. Pollan starts from a perspective of ignorance and interviews expert after expert, each with their own perspective on the subject. It is not as easy reading, for me at least, as other Pollan books I have eagerly devoured, such as How to Change Your Mind, in which Pollan delves deeply into psychedelic experiences; This Is Your Mind on Plants, which in a way is a continuance of How to Change Your Mind; and A Place of My Own, which is a memoir about how Pollan built himself a writer’s retreat in his backyard. Part of the difficulty I had with A World Appears is that it deals with abstractions; there are no easy answers, and Pollan is trying to figure things out as he goes along. He explains that “there is no godlike vantage from which we can objectively regard consciousness, because all views, including neuroscience’s and philosophy’s, are themselves the products of consciousness.”

The book is broken up into various sections with chapter titles such as “Sentience,” “Feeling,” “Thought,” and “Self.” In each of these, Pollan explores ideas based on recent studies. In the chapter on sentience, he investigates the possibility of sentient plants. One problem about exploring topics such as this is that “scientists bring their particular human-scale perspective to other life-forms and, as a result, miss all sorts of other kinds of intelligence.” A philosopher named Evan Thompson explains that “we have lost our empathetic resonance with the larger universe.” He believes that indigenous cultures, with their more participatory approach, may hold the key. And Pollan emphasizes that “a new science of consciousness will likely be a hybrid enterprise,” which will include not only empiricism and experimentation, but also philosophy, imagination, the arts, spiritual traditions, personal experience, and altered states of consciousness such as those derived from psychedelics.

In the section on feelings, Pollan explores the issue of artificial intelligence and whether AI can truly be conscious (Pollan tends to think maybe not). He investigates the research of a team of scientists trying to construct a robot with feelings, but also delves into the ethical considerations of such an enterprise. He says: “We can only hope that the profit motive doesn’t outrun the public good, but if our experience with the last big digital innovation – social networks – is any guide, it probably will.” He points out the differences between brains and computers – which are vast – and that animal life forms such as humans (as opposed to AI) have the advantages of their bodies, which contribute greatly to feeling and consciousness. “The vulnerabilities of our mortal flesh” actually give us great advantages over “the consciousness they’re hoping to install in computers.”

The section on thought includes analyses of stream-of-consciousness attempts by famous novelists and also of the value of spontaneous thought, which leads to inspiration. In the section on self he emphasizes the importance of memory.

Pollan comes to no definitive conclusions. He writes: “Nearing the end of this journey, I find myself not at all sure what to believe, if anything.” In fact, in the last chapter he travels to a Buddhist retreat in the mountains near Santa Fe. The goal? The obliteration of self. It is a temporary fix, of course, because once he leaves the retreat, he is again confronted by the world he left behind.

As I mentioned earlier, parts of this book I found to be tough going. Navigating the many theories and possibilities that are presented can be confusing. One anchor to it all is Pollan’s skepticism. He doesn’t pretend to have the answers; he is content to take us on a journey to explore the possibilities. He functions as a tour guide, leading us from one researcher to the next, asking questions and presenting a range of speculations, inferences, and presumptions. I don’t know if I would recommend this book to everyone, but if you are interested in such heady topics, Pollan takes you on a pilgrimage of the mind that you won’t soon forget.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged consciousness, feeling, psychedelics, self, sentience, thought | Leave a comment

Book Review: Writing Creativity and Soul by Sue Monk Kidd

Posted on March 21, 2026 by John Walters

I’ve never read any of Sue Monk Kidd’s books before this one, but then again, she probably hasn’t read any of mine either. Be that as it may, I was drawn to Writing Creativity and Soul because I hoped that it would be more of a memoir than a self-help book for beginning writers.

And I was right – sort of. It’s true that to get to the parts that appealed to me I had to wade through some elementary dissertations on plot, characterization, and other basics that I studied decades ago, back in the seventies when I was a novice writer. However, there were enough deeper insights and observations to justify the treasure hunt. Kidd approaches her calling as a writer with sincerity and conviction – and always with a gentle, magnanimous touch. She writes of woman writers she admires such as Virginia Woolf and Eudora Welty and of the special courage that women in the past needed to overcome powerful misogynistic prejudices in the publishing world.

Regardless of one’s gender, though, Kidd points out that “every creative act is a revelation of the self, rendering us exposed, vulnerable, and unguarded.” If you want to write something worth reading, you have to strip away the pretences and cover-ups and internal subterfuges that we all set up to protect ourselves in an often hostile world. One method Kidd describes that accomplishes this is the experience of flow. She says: “I’m referring to the sense of personal fulfillment that comes from giving yourself over to something you feel you can belong to, setting a worthwhile and challenging goal, and then giving that goal your full attention, commitment, and energy.” This is something I have certainly found to be true in my long journey as a writer. Regardless of whether you ever attend any formal creative writing classes, you have to be all-in and hold back nothing.

Another concept Kidd discusses that touched me personally was the curative power of writing. She writes: “To interact with our sufferings and difficulties by translating them into language seems to offload some of the heaviness and lighten the mind, the spirit, even the body.” The chapter exploring this idea opens with her husband of forty-four years being diagnosed with cancer. She explains that writing about the cancer journey was cathartic for her and helped her to bear the otherwise overwhelming emotional burden. I can relate to this because I am in the midst of my own struggles with cancer, and it is indubitably true that writing about what I have been going through has assisted me in enduring the examinations, biopsies, surgery, radiation therapy, and uncertainties about the future.

Kidd states: “Writing has a private function that serves our personal wholeness and it has a public function that serves the wholeness of others.” You see? That’s what I’m talking about. It’s gems like this that make the reading of this book worthwhile. In the end, she speaks of “the common heart,” a concept developed by Ralph Waldo Emerson. This is “the place of our deep and shared belonging,” which writers and readers explore together through the language of story.

For the most part, Writing Creativity and Soul is a light read, but it nevertheless illuminates profound truths about the creative process.

Posted in Book Reviews, On Writing | Tagged creativity, inspiration, Writing | Leave a comment

On Walking

Posted on March 14, 2026 by John Walters

During and immediately after my recent cancer surgery and radiation therapy, I had to put my normal exercise routine (dumbbell weights and power yoga) on hiatus. My oncologist and radiologist emphasized, however, that as much as possible I should continue with my long daily walks and that they would be key to my rapid recovery. I was only too happy to oblige. I love walking; I’ve been doing it my whole life. During my far-flung travels the walks would often be in exotic locations such as the Himalayan Mountains, Greek islands, and primeval forests around the world, and in historic cities such as Rome, Athens, Tehran, Kabul, Kathmandu, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangkok, Singapore, Jakarta, and others. Here at home, I often wander the environs of my neighborhood, but sometimes I take a bus to another part of the city of Seattle and roam the downtown area, the waterfront, and various parks.

Walking not only provides physical benefits but also, if you do it with the right mindset, mental and spiritual recalibration. To walk is to relieve stress and nurture tranquility and calm. All the crud clogging your brain dissipates and your mind can freely roam far beyond its normal programmed day to day patterns.

Henry David Thoreau is best known for his masterpiece Walden and for his influential essay “Civil Disobedience,” but he also wrote a fascinating essay called “Walking.” In it, he sets the bar high for a successful walk: “We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return…” He goes on to relate that “if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.” Freedom, he insists, is the first requisite for walking. The hyperbole in his words is to emphasize the importance of a clean, clear mind during your perambulations. In fact, in this essay, as soon as Thoreau establishes the importance of freedom during the walking experience, he launches forth into digressions on other topics that have little to do with his immediate surroundings or the walking process itself. In short, every walk is a call to adventure. If you leave yourself open to it, every walk can change your life.

Thoreau asks: “What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whither we will walk?” I have encountered this conundrum myself; to help me solve it I have obtained several books from the library on Seattle city walks. I am hoping that they will provide me with ideas for many walks to come. During the week, when I am busy with my remote work, the quiet neighborhood sidewalks and streets suffice, but when the weekend comes, I am ready for something more elaborate, exotic, picturesque, and stimulating. As T.S. Elliot expresses in his poem “Little Gidding,” the goal of our explorations is to “arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” That’s how I look at Seattle now. I was born and raised here, sure, but later I spent several decades abroad. The Seattle I used to know was a neglected backwater in a forgotten corner of the country; now it’s a thriving metropolis fueled by tech money. Still, there are wonderful bits of idiosyncratic history hiding in backstreets and alleyways beneath the flashy surface. It’s all out there waiting for me to discover it. And while I am discovering it, I can also allow my thoughts to grow and blossom and expand and roam whithersoever they will.

I’m a professional writer; I make my living by my words. I’m happy to share these essays with you, but at the same time, financial support makes the words possible. If you’d like to become a patron of the arts and support my work, buy a few of my available books or available stories. To send a one-time or recurring donation, click here. You can also donate via my Patreon account. Thanks!

Posted in Memoir, Travel | Tagged hiking, journey, travel, trekking, walking | Leave a comment

Book Review: Gemini: Stepping Stone to the Moon, the Untold Story by Jeffrey Kluger

Posted on March 7, 2026 by John Walters

To me, this new book on the Gemini program is like a blast of nostalgia from the sixties. I was a child during the era of Project Mercury and Project Gemini and a teen when some of the crew of Apollo 11 set foot on the moon in 1969. When the astronauts partook of their science fiction-like space adventures, my family’s black and white TV would invariably be tuned in. The space race was a bright spot, a majestic evocation of a sense of wonder, in the otherwise gloomy, paranoia-ridden Cold War era.

Gemini focuses on the middle act of the trio of programs whose ultimate goal was John F. Kennedy’s challenge to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade of the sixties, although a third of the book, well over a hundred pages, is taken up with introductory material on the Mercury program. I’m not really sure why “the untold story” is a part of the subtitle, because the story is familiar to many through multiple books, films, and mini-series. Still, it serves as an effective reminder of the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of nascent NASA and its push to get astronauts to the moon before the Soviets.

The Soviets scored early victories in sending out Sputnik 1, the first orbiting satellite; Yuri Gagarin, the first human to orbit the Earth; and Gherman Titov, the first person to spend over a day in space. Thereafter, the United States was forced to play catch-up. In the Mercury program, single astronauts went up in tiny, rudimentary spaceships; however, the Gemini spaceships were built to carry two. Their purpose was to practice maneuvering and docking procedures as a prelude to the moon-bound Apollo program. Of course, as in most complex undertakings, there were many snags, impediments, delays, dangers, and even a fair share of disasters. Still, with the backing of a U.S. government determined to outdo the Soviets, NASA forged ahead. In fact, if there had not been a Cold War, it’s possible that it would have taken decades longer to reach the moon. The propaganda value of getting there first provided the impetus for the effort.

This book serves mainly as a summary of the Mercury and Gemini programs rather than a comprehensive look at them. Any one of the Gemini missions, examined in depth, would provide material for a fascinating and exciting book-length story of its own. This is obviously not Kluger’s intention, though; instead, he gives us an overview of NASA’s early years, culminating, in the epilogue, with the Apollo 11 moon landing and the remaining Apollo moon flights that followed.

As I write this, the members of the crew of the Artemis II spacecraft are preparing for the first lunar flyby since 1972. If all goes well, this will be accomplished soon, in March of 2026. Space travel has long captivated the imaginations of us Earth-dwellers. Gemini serves as a reminder that the exploration of space is not a new idea, but rather one with a history of valiant efforts, of setbacks, defeats, and victories. Sometimes it’s invigorating to get our minds off the current tangled sociological and political mess, gaze up at the stars, and dream of worlds yet to be explored.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged Apollo program, astronaut, Gemini program, Mercury program, space travel | Leave a comment

Book Review: Front Street: Resistance and Rebirth in the Tent Cities of Techlandia by Brian Barth

Posted on February 28, 2026 by John Walters

I have great sympathy for the homeless, or as the author of Front Street says is more politically correct, the unhoused. For years, during my road days, I had no dwelling place to call my own. I would simply roll out my sleeping bag wherever I found myself, and sometimes that occurred in odd places indeed. I probably had the most difficult time when my passport was stolen in Iran, and the American embassy in Tehran told me “no money, no passport.” I begged on the streets for two weeks before I could raise enough money to replace my passport and move on. My situation on the road was different, though, to what Barth describes in Front Street. He focuses his attention on three homeless camps in the San Francisco Bay area, in San Jose, Oakland, and Cupertino, from about 2020 to 2024. He did not really immerse himself by living amongst the subjects of his research, at least not for more than a few days, but he got to know numerous residents of the tent cities so that they trusted him and told him their stories.

Barth’s account sheds light on the complexity of the problem of the unhoused. The government’s tendency is to throw money at the problem but not provide any enduring solutions. A limited number of tiny houses and other facilities may be constructed at bloated costs; however, not only are there far fewer shelters than there are unhoused people, but moving into these establishments often comes with rules and restrictions that compromise the freedom of the inhabitants. The unhoused do not want government-imposed and monitored situations. They don’t want to lose their communities. As the author points out: “Those designing the solutions generally do not ask unhoused folks for their opinion, at least not in a meaningful way. What do they actually need? How do they really feel? What are their dreams and goals?”

The encampments Barth researched existed side-by-side with some of the wealthiest businesses in the world, and in fact, some residents of the camps were employees laid off from billion-dollar tech companies. This brings out the reality that homelessness can happen to anyone, given the right circumstances. And it raises the question: Why aren’t these tech companies doing everything they can to lift up their fallen comrades? But then this illuminates another reality that Barth points out: “Hardly anyone sticks their neck out for homeless folks – like really sticks it out – and they desperately need defenders.” The largest tech companies, which could provide great assistance without even missing it, refuse to communicate with city officials to assist the homeless. They do throw money at the problem, but they don’t realize that “the solution to homelessness is much more complex than housing.” The ultimate problem, as Barth emphasizes, is broken human relationships. Many of the unhoused are reluctant to leave their camps because it is in those places that they have at last found solidarity and companionship.

Barth suggests that one solution might be found in the concept of multigenerational families, in which members look out for one another, rather than in the western cultural attitude of everyone, when they come of age, getting shoved out on their own. He makes it starkly clear that simply bulldozing homeless camps without offering the residents somewhere else to go is not only counterproductive but cruel.

In the end, there are no easy answers. In fact, the situation has only gotten worse. In mid-2024, the Supreme Court overturned a ruling that had found that “arresting a homeless person for sleeping on public land violates the Eighth Amendment, which protects against cruel and unusual punishment.” This has eroded legal protections for the unhoused at the same time that layoffs in many industries, including the tech industry, are taking place on a massive scale. Barth concludes that “the mission to pierce the veils of misunderstanding between housed and unhoused neighbors could not be more urgent.” This is true not only in Silicon Valley and its environs, but across the United States. I was heartened when a church near my apartment complex opened a portion of its large parking lot to an enclave of tent dwellers. It lasted for several months and then abruptly vanished. In another nearby part of the city, a few dozen tiny homes sprang up for the indigent; these too, abruptly disappeared after a year or so. Where did these people go? We can only hope that they found a safe haven. These people who live on the streets could be your brothers and sisters, former classmates or coworkers, people who in more fortuitous times you might have met at parks or parties or even at church. None of us are immune to hard times. We need to see our unhoused neighbors as fellow members of humankind and offer them attention, respect, and assistance.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged homeless, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, unhoused | Leave a comment

Surviving the Doldrums

Posted on February 21, 2026 by John Walters

In days of old, sailors feared the doldrums, also known as the calms, and officially known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone. Due to a complex meteorological effect in this area, ships in the age of sail often were stranded for weeks, imperiling the lives of the sailors and passengers. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge put it in his famous poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”:

Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

This is not the only meaning of the word, however; The Merriam-Webster online dictionary also defines doldrums as: “a spell of listlessness or despondency” and “a state or period of inactivity, stagnation, or slump.”

I feel empty, isolated, lonely, rudderless, without focus and without direction. To explain why and to put it into a nomadic context I must turn once again to the incomparable poem “The Song of the Open Road” by Walt Whitman:

Allons! We must not stop here,

However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here,

However shelter’d this port and however calm these waters we must not anchor here,

However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to receive it but a little while.

Whitman was referring to the periods of respite that perennial nomads take when they come in off the road for brief periods of time. It is intolerable for them to linger long; they must be away again on the next adventure. If we look at the nomadic lifestyle in a metaphorical sense, these periods of respite can refer to any interludes in your life’s journey when you are between active phases. For a traveler, it can refer, of course, to hiatuses between one peregrination and another. When I was young and on the road fulltime this would sometimes occur if I had run out of funds and had to pause and take a temporary job or I had reached a particular goal and needed to set my sights on a new direction. The journeys we take are not always physical meanderings, though. A career can be a journey, as can marriage, and parenthood, and numerous other undertakings. And these journeys can abruptly come to an end. For instance, you might quit your job or get fired; your spouse might die or you might get divorced; your kids eventually grow up and move out. Your life’s continuity becomes disrupted and you go through a reset. But eventually you have to pick yourself up and move on. Here’s Whitman again:

All parts away for the progress of souls,

All religion, all solid things, arts, governments – all that was or is apparent on this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners before the procession of souls along the grand roads of the universe.

Moving on: that’s the key. If you need to rest, fine; but eventually you must rejoin that “procession of souls.” You can’t sit still forever. And Whitman enjoins us:

Whoever you are, come forth! or man or woman, come forth!

You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though you built it, or though it has been built for you.

Out of the dark confinement! out from behind the screen!

It is useless to protest, I know all and expose it.

These musings were brought on because of a milestone I reached in a particularly rough journey I have been on: my cancer journey. In recent months this has been my primary focus, with exams, procedures, surgery, and several weeks of daily radiation therapy, which has just ended. I supposed that after it was all over I would be ebullient and feel like celebrating. Instead, when I got home after the final radiation session I felt empty, isolated, and lonely. Cast adrift.

For the past several months my cancer diagnoses had been dominating my existence and my schedule. There had been one appointment after another, and some of them had been profoundly unpleasant. But here’s the thing: at least I had been out there interacting with sympathetic people on a regular basis: doctors, nurses, clinicians, receptionists, and my siblings who had been driving me to appointments. It was eventful, and sometimes even exciting. Now that it was all over, what next? During a cancer journey you are not visiting faraway lands, but you are on an adventure nonetheless, an adventure that takes courage and resolve and the ability to keep your eyes on the goal – the goal of regaining your health. During the course of it I had been all-in; to contain my thoughts and impressions and ideas and emotions I’d even written a book-length journal. Now what? When I got home I felt depressed, as if on a sailing ship I’d entered the doldrums and had lost all momentum.

I’ll get it back, I know, and I will reenter that procession of souls that Walt Whitman writes about. The journey is far from over. Past experience has shown me that another journey, another adventure is in the offing – always.

Posted in Memoir, Travel | Tagged travel, Walt Whitman, journey, cancer, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner | Leave a comment

Book Review: Picks and Shovels: A Martin Hench Novel by Cory Doctorow

Posted on February 14, 2026 by John Walters

It’s been decades since I became absorbed enough in a novel series to read one book after another as soon as they came out. I thought those days were behind me. But then along came Cory Doctorow and his novels about the idiosyncratic forensic accountant Martin Hench. I first became acquainted with Hench after attending a question-and-answer with Doctorow and Neal Stephenson at a local bookstore. Soon afterwards, I picked up the second Hench novel, The Bezzle, which Doctorow was promoting at the interview, and then the first Hench novel, Red Team Blues. As an example of the idiosyncrasy of the series, as Doctorow progresses from one book to the next, Hench gets younger and younger. In Red Team Blues, he is a sixty-seven year old man, already successful in his chosen field of endeavor and incredibly rich, who wanders around California in a bus-sized RV that used to belong to a rock star. In The Bezzle, he is middle-aged. The story opens on Catalina Island, off the coast of California, where he uncovers a scheme of the ultra-rich to get richer at the expense of their less-affluent neighbors.

Picks and Shovels is Martin Hench’s origin story. It takes place from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. Hench flunks out of MIT after discovering and devoting his time (instead of studying) to the new phenomenon of personal computers, and then compromises with his father in obtaining an accounting degree. After an ill-fated venture in Massachusetts in which he and his friend are exploited by ruthless businessmen, they both move to the San Francisco Bay area and Silicon Valley at the beginning of the tech revolution. There they get caught up in a nefarious scheme of some pseudo-religious gangsters (a Catholic priest, an Orthodox rabbi, and a Mormon bishop) who run a computer company, and they ally themselves with a team of plucky young women programmers who are determined to bring the miscreant fake religionists down. The unholy gangsters don’t give up easily, though, and send out hit squads to stamp out the competition.

This all makes for a rousing tale of adventure set in a vibrant San Francisco, both laid-back and party-rich, innocent and inclusive, a cultural backwater about to be inundated by the tech revolution. It’s the perfect setting and story for Doctorow to promote his ubiquitous theme of open-sourcing technology so that it can be available to all, and it serves as a fitting introduction to the fascinating character of Hench, who goes on to make his living as a super-sleuth forensic accountant, recovering funds for individuals and organization in exchange for a hefty percentage of the take. Here, though, in Picks and Shovels, Hench is just starting out, still finding his footing, discovering his talents, and engaging in his first serious relationships.

Like the other Hench novels, this book is a lot of fun to read, and Doctorow’s representations of the era and the locations in which it takes place carry a strong sense of verisimilitude. It made me nostalgic for the days when the Bay Area was an inexpensive backwater, home to all sorts of free-thinking nonconformists. But whether or not you knew firsthand what San Francisco and its environs were like way back then, you’re in for an absorbing and joyous read with Picks and Shovels. Sometimes it’s thrilling and sometimes it’s slapstick, but it’s always entertaining.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged seventies, novel, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, forensics | Leave a comment

Book Review: The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultra Rich by Evan Osnos

Posted on February 7, 2026 by John Walters

This is a most unusual, entertaining, and appalling collection of essays by a National Book Award-winning author about the fraction of one percent who hoard most of the wealth in the United States. And goofy title aside, it is one compelling read. It caused me to reflect upon the dichotomy when I wandered the streets of Kathmandu, Nepal, in the mid-1970s as a nearly broke hippy traveler, while speakers in every restaurant and tea shop on Freak Street were blasting out the hit song “Money” from The Dark Side of the Moon album by Pink Floyd. It also caused me to envision extreme wealth as a malignant disease, not unlike cancer in the flesh, which corrodes a person’s humanity, causing blindness to the needs of others and deafness to the cries of those in need.

The book is broken into three sections: “The Rewards – How to Spend It,” which describes what the mega-rich do with their money, “The Mechanics – How to Keep It,” which delineates the elaborate schemes the mega-rich concoct to avoid sharing their wealth, and “The Perils – How to Lose It,” which provides case studies of some of the mega-rich who got caught acquiring and keeping their wealth in nefarious ways.

To me, the most unworldly and fascinating is the first part. It opens with a look into the building, buying, and selling of gigantic yachts that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. There is an entire business subculture devoted to this uniquely ostentatious hobby available only to the world’s richest people. They really get into it too, to the point that they compete with each other while obsessed with a ridiculous “mine’s bigger than yours” mentality. As I read about how some of these people behave, I found it hard to believe that we lived on the same planet. As they compete to construct larger and larger pleasure-craft, are they really unaware of the millions of people who can’t afford homes and don’t have enough food to eat? How can they possibly justify such extravagant waste? They should take a tip from MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, one of the world’s richest women, who is devoted to giving away most of her fortune to needy organizations. When you think of how much they cost to construct and maintain, yachts are truly the ultimate symbols of garish excess.

Another essay is devoted to the super-rich as survivalists. As the wealth gap widens, more and more rich people become frightened. However, rather than attempt to help fix the problems for us all, they spend their money on elaborate schemes to ensure their own survival. As Osnos writes: “Fear of disaster is healthy if it spurs action to prevent it. But elite survivalism is not a step toward prevention; it is an act of withdrawal.” And he quotes Stewart Brand, the creator of The Whole Earth Catalog as saying: “As Americans withdraw into smaller circles of experience, we jeopardize the larger circle of empathy, the search for solutions to shared problems.” The rich are content, though, to build their elaborate bunkers and palaces in isolated areas to which they can flee and wait out the apocalypse that is decimating the rest of us.

Yet another essay shines a light on the mega-rich trend of hiring famous entertainers for their private parties, sometimes spending hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars for celebrities such as Beyonce, Rod Stewart, Jennifer Lopez, Steely Dan, and the Rolling Stones. A panoply of musicians are more than willing to do private gigs, fully realizing that the payday can far surpass the payday from concert performances.

There is a lengthy overview of Mark Zuckerberg and the moral compromises he allows at Facebook, which concludes with the challenge: “The question is not whether Zuckerberg has the power to fix Facebook but whether he has the will… He succeeded, long ago, in making Facebook great. The challenge before him now is to make it good.” Osnos also highlights Greenwich, Connecticut, one of the wealthiest suburbs in the country, in which financial scandals abound, and its surrender to extreme conservatism. This article in particular includes a litany of moral compromises. In a piece that delineates how the super-rich hide their wealth from taxation, the author points out that “scholars of wealth and taxes say that the golden age of elite tax avoidance has contributed to the turbulence in American politics, by hardening social stratification; reducing public resources for education, health, and infrastructure; and eroding trust in America’s mythologies of fairness and opportunity.” He uses the Getty family as an example of hoarding inherited fortunes at any cost, and adds: “In their current condition, taxes on American wealth are, effectively, on the honor system, with opt-outs for the flagrantly defiant.” And most of those who accrue massive fortunes are defiantly me-first.

In the last section of the book, Osnos focuses on those who got caught breaking too many rules while enriching themselves. However, those who serve time for white collar crime are not the very richest, but rather those trying to climb the ladder of greed and gain in an attempt to reach the top. They are aided, in fact, by the U.S. legal system, which tends to turn a blind eye on the crimes that the wealthy commit. As Osnos writes: “The Supreme Court has continued to limit the scope of prosecution for white-collar crimes.”

Reading this is like taking a tour of a fantasy world in which far different rules of morality apply. If you wonder why our society has become so stratified, why it is so difficult to afford a home and food and education and recreation, why the American dream has got so far out of reach, this book supplies some of the answers. It clarifies that those at the pinnacle of the wealth pyramid did not get there because they were smarter or stronger or nobler than anyone else, but rather because they were the most rapacious, greedy, selfish, and amoral. In fact, many of them inherited their wealth, but once they acquired it, they became determined to hold onto it at any cost. With few exceptions, they are not worthy of your admiration. Your pity, perhaps, and even your contempt, but not your admiration. The great tragedy is that people such as these have bought their way into positions of power, although they are in no way worthy to wield such power. Through this book, Osnos becomes an iconoclast, shining a spotlight on the inadequacies of the super-wealthy; in this essential task he meets with praiseworthy success.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged inequality, mega-rich, money, wealth | Leave a comment

Book Review: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee; Part Two

Posted on January 31, 2026 by John Walters

As I read on in The Emperor of All Maladies, some sections I find absorbing and fascinating, while others, such as those describing the efforts to understand the intricacies that lie within cancerous cells, are sometimes hard for me to follow. I persevere because overall it provides a realistic look at the nature of the beast. For decades, even centuries, doctors and scientists have been attempting to unravel and expose this mysterious and lethal ailment, and yet it proves to be complex, elusive, and even cunning in its ability to overcome attempts to destroy it. I think that though my doctors were concerned, I personally didn’t take my diagnoses seriously enough. It took reading this book to see how portentous the situation is. And now I continue reading, even through the rough or boring parts, because I look for some optimism that I have not so far found. No matter how many brilliant researchers and practitioners throw themselves into the fray, we are far from defeating this ferocious adversary. Having cancer is not the same as getting the flu, for instance, or even, as Henry Miller would put it, “a dose of the clap.” No. With cancer, once you’ve had it you can never be sure you are completely rid of it. It can go into remission, sure, but you never really know whether it is gone or if it might still be lurking in distant cells, ready to metastasize into deadly clusters at any moment.

* * *

As I plunged into the final chapters of The Emperor of All Maladies, I kept hoping for a satisfactory resolution, a glimmer of assurance, a light at the end of the dark, dark tunnel. Alas, this was not forthcoming. The book ends on a tragic note, as Mukherjee relates the story of a woman who is diagnosed with a rare cancer that she fights for several years but that eventually claims her life. It is an illustration of what the author states earlier of advanced stages of the disease: “Cancer is not a concentration camp, but it shares the quality of annihilation: it negates the possibility of life outside and beyond itself; it subsumes all living. The daily life of a patient becomes so intensely preoccupied with his or her illness that the world fades away.” As a patient battling acute leukemia told the author: “My friends often asked me whether I felt as if my life was somehow made abnormal by my disease. I would tell them the same thing: for someone who is sick, this is their new normal.” I can empathize with this attitude. After mere months of appointments, exams, biopsies, and procedures, I can’t imagine life without these seemingly endless traumas.

The author ultimately provides no solutions, but he does share suggestions of directions cancer medicine should take. His prognosis, however, is dark. Just as the patient he quotes says that cancer is her new normal, he writes that “quite possibly cancer is our new normal as well, that we are inherently destined to slouch toward a malignant end.” And “perhaps cancer, the scrappy, fecund, invasive, adaptable twin to our own scrappy, fecund, invasive, adaptable cells and genes, is impossible to disconnect from our bodies…it is possible that we are fatally conjoined to this ancient illness, forced to play its cat-and-mouse game for the foreseeable future of our species.” He says that “no simple, universal, or definitive cure is in sight – and is never likely to be.”

What does someone like me, who has been diagnosed with early-stage cancer, make of all this? Are we doomed forever to succumb to the evil beast? Not necessarily. And though this book provides no definitive answers, it is nonetheless a valuable read. First of all, it is a sobering wakeup call for people like me who initially take their diagnosis too lightly. But even more, in its account of excruciatingly slow but steady progress in the understanding of the disease and refinements in its treatment, it is in fact a powerful document of the tenacity of human endeavor and resilience of the human spirit in the face of a formidable adversary. The treatment that I receive is far more nuanced and effective than that of a century ago – or even a decade ago, for that matter. And researchers, scientists, and physicians are continually searching for more insights, more answers, and more cures. I’m not going to unequivocally state that everyone diagnosed with cancer should read this book, but I am exceedingly thankful that I did.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged cancer, disease, Pulitzer Prize | Leave a comment

Book Review: The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee; Part One

Posted on January 24, 2026 by John Walters

Shortly after I began the multifarious medical appointments related to my own cancerous condition, I reserved a book from the library called The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. It had been on my radar since it won the Pulitzer Prize over a decade ago, but until I became personally involved, I could never summon the inspiration to read a book about the history of cancer. Now, though, it seemed appropriate to conduct some research to discover what exactly I was dealing with. It is very well-written and well-researched and full of fascinating insight. For instance, there is a description of cancer in a papyrus record from 2500 BC, but for the most part the disease is absent from ancient medical literature. One of the main reasons, as Mukherjee tells it, is that “cancer is an age-related disease – sometimes exponentially so” and “in most ancient societies, people didn’t live long enough to get cancer.” He goes on to point out that “nineteenth-century doctors often linked cancer to civilization,” but “civilization did not cause cancer, but by extending human life spans – civilization unveiled it.”

Of course not all cancer is age-related; the author documents the traumatic struggle of attempting to find a cure for childhood leukemia. He moves from one iteration of cancer to the next, sharing how researchers devoted their lives to discover surgical, radiological, or chemical solutions to this deadly malady. Often it appeared that early pioneers of cancer took one step forward and two steps backward, but they persevered despite innumerable setbacks.

In the midst of reading this tragic epic, I wondered what the hell I was doing. Was it wrong to immerse myself in cancer stories? It was a brilliant book but it was dragging me down. Maybe instead I should be reading something that could get my mind off all of this: perhaps some science fiction or fantasy. Except that I shouldn’t run when I confronted the monster, when I realized it was much more horrible than I had imagined. Instead, I should face it head on. I had been flippant about it all: my diagnosis, the biopsies, and even the initial surgery. As I read on in this book, though, I realized I faced a profound and lengthy and all-absorbing battle – a battle that very possibly might be to the death. Wasn’t it better to know the monster that already had me in its claws? And rather than cower to spit in its face? Why back down? To hell with fear. And to hell with cancer. Getting to know your enemy – that’s the key.

* * *

Mukherjee devotes a lengthy section in the middle of the book to the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Long before mandatory warnings appeared on cigarette packages, scientists were aware that tobacco was a carcinogenic agent and was directly responsible for the explosive rates of lung cancer among smokers. However, the tobacco companies were extremely powerful and replete with well-paid politicians, lawyers, and lobbyists eager to do their bidding. In the years following the Second World War, cigarette smoking was well-nigh ubiquitous among men, and sales campaigns specifically targeted women so as to bring them into the deadly fold as well. It wasn’t until the mid-sixties that the government began to sit up and take notice: Americans were dying of lung cancer at ever-increasing rates, and the tobacco industry was clearly at fault. At first, the warnings on packages were watered down: Cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health. Later, they became more direct.

Reading about the battle to publicize the toxic effect of cigarettes reminded me of how different things were in my youth. You could smoke anywhere: in restaurants, coffee shops, supermarkets, department stores, buses, trains, and even airplanes. Commercials saturated airtime on radios, television, and movie theaters; men were reminded of how macho and attractive to women they would be if they smoked, and women received messages of empowerment, freedom, and joy. And by the time I personally witnessed these commercials in the late fifties and sixties, the manufacturers knew that their products were deadly and they were killing their customers. They just didn’t care. The money was too good.

I first became hooked on smoking as a young teenager during an excursion for Seattle Times newspaper deliverers. The company booked a passenger liner and took us all on a cruise from Seattle to Victoria B.C. in Canada. On the voyage, the hallways and common areas were thick with smoke. Almost everyone was sitting around smoking and playing poker. The second-hand smoke was murderous enough, but I couldn’t risk ostracism and so I tried a cigarette. And then another. And another. It took just that one boat trip to get me hooked. In the days following, after I got home, I would daydream about living in a mansion with nearby warehouses stuffed with cartons of cigarettes. I soon discovered that the regular smokers, during breaks from high school, would walk up a nearby hill and light up, so I joined them as often as I could.

As a young man I tried to quit smoking at least four times, but always went back to it. At the start of my epic hitchhiking journey from Seattle to Goa, India, in the middle of winter in the 1970s, I hadn’t been smoking for months, but I made a conscious decision to start again because I thought that it might help me get through the hardships I knew were ahead. When I reached Goa, though, and I was about to join a commune of fellow travelers, I knew that they didn’t allow smoking. I made the decision to stop cold turkey as I was walking along the path towards the house and since then, almost five decades ago, I’ve never touched another cigarette. I dodged a bullet there. Mukherjee clarifies that there is no safe way to smoke; a cigarette habit is basically slow suicide. The filters that tobacco companies attached to their products, beginning in the fifties, are ineffective in reducing risk; their advantage, for the tobacco companies, is in the misconception of safety, in the illusion that because of them the toxic product is somehow safer. But it’s not true.

This tale of humans deliberately poisoning their fellow humans, their only motivation being the avaricious accumulation of wealth, is a true-life horror story. I can’t even imagine the mindset. Who would deliberately hurtle a fellow human into the ravenous maw of the cancer beast?

(To be continued)