January 16, 2016

BOOK REVIEW: to rate a book, we agreed that if you tried to read it and want to score it, you may.

Social Animal: 4 people rated it between 0 and 2. The score averaged out to 1. More than one description was that of “sociology textbook”. Consensus was that that it was a relatively unbiased treatise on current sociological mores where the author tried to use his story of the lives of some mundane characters to illustrate a number of accepted sociological concepts. David Brooks, the conservative New Times columnist who wrote this book “continually refers to two fictional characters 'Harold' and 'Erica', used by Brooks as examples of how people's emotional personality changes over time.”

There were a few tags to current affairs – an in depth discussion of how people coalesce into groups and why people select membership in certain political parties; There was extensive discussion of creativity in old age, exploration and mellowness in old age, correlation of what happens in old age; return to pluto adolescence of Immortals…rich American men after they reach retirement age like, for example of all people, Donald Trump, and other successful old men and billionaires. One of my favorites in this book was Chapter 22 where the author talked about old age and included snippets like: Immortals- old guy who started to go on a fitness jihad at retirement, super bug who had shrunk over time; nuggets of spandex senior who whiz by like an iron raisinettes; … succeded at everything else they had ever tried…f you to death; started first paper route at 6, made their first million by 22 and married a string of beauties so that they had achieved this weird genetic phenomenon in which their grandmothers looked like Gertrude Stein, and daughters looked like Uma Thurman…Personal trainers, energy shakes, and pumping Cialis like raisinettes. We thought the characters could have been more interesting and the sociological concepts less elementary, i.e., not enough new stuff. And, the presentation… it could have had more literary sophistication.