What do you think?
Rate this book
Εδώ ανθρωπόκαινος
Goodreads Choice Award
Winner for Readers' Favorite Nonfiction (2021)ΣΤΗΝ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΚΑΙΝΟ ΔΕΝ ΥΠΑΡΧΟΥΝ ΠΑΡΑΤΗΡΗΤΕΣ, ΜΟΝΑΧΑ ΣΥΜΜΕΤΕΧΟΝΤΕΣ.
Μου πήρε μια ολόκληρη ζωή να ερωτευτώ τον κόσμο, αλλά τα τελευταία χρόνια το αισθάνομαι όλο και περισσότερο. Το να ερωτευτείς τον κόσμο δε σημαίνει να αγνοήσεις ή να παραβλέψεις τον πόνο, ανθρώπινο και μη. Σημαίνει να κοιτάς τον νυχτερινό ουρανό και ν’ αφήνεις το μυαλό σου να γλιστρά ανάμεσα στην ομορφιά και στο άπειρο των άστρων. Σημαίνει να αγκαλιάζεις τα παιδιά σου όταν κλαίνε και να βλέπεις τα πλατάνια να ανθίζουν τον Ιούνη. Όταν σφίγγεται το στήθος μου, κλείνει ο λαιμός μου και πλημμυρίζουν δάκρυα τα μάτια μου, θέλω να στρέψω το βλέμμα από το συναίσθημα. Χρησιμοποιώ την ειρωνεία ή κάτι ανάλογο ως αντιπερισπασμό για να αποφύγω τα απευθείας συναισθήματα. Όλοι γνωρίζουμε πώς τελειώνει ο έρωτας. Εγώ ωστόσο θέλω να ερωτευτώ τον κόσμο. Θέλω να με κάνει κομμάτια. Θέλω να νιώσω όσα υπάρχουν να νιώσεις όσο είμαι ακόμα εδώ.
Στα απολαυστικά κείμενα που περιλαμβάνονται σε αυτό το βιβλίο για τη ζωή στην Ανθρωπόκαινο –την τρέχουσα γεωλογική εποχή που έχει καθοριστεί από την ανθρώπινη παρέμβαση–, ο αγαπημένος συγγραφέας Τζον Γκριν περιγράφει με χιούμορ, οξυδέρκεια και βαθιά ευαισθησία τι σημαίνει να ζεις σ’ αυτή την αντιφατική εποχή: Πώς μπορούμε να είμαστε ταυτόχρονα τόσο σκληροί και τόσο συμπονετικοί, τόσο επίμονοι και τόσο έτοιμοι να τα παρατήσουμε όλα;
Μου πήρε μια ολόκληρη ζωή να ερωτευτώ τον κόσμο, αλλά τα τελευταία χρόνια το αισθάνομαι όλο και περισσότερο. Το να ερωτευτείς τον κόσμο δε σημαίνει να αγνοήσεις ή να παραβλέψεις τον πόνο, ανθρώπινο και μη. Σημαίνει να κοιτάς τον νυχτερινό ουρανό και ν’ αφήνεις το μυαλό σου να γλιστρά ανάμεσα στην ομορφιά και στο άπειρο των άστρων. Σημαίνει να αγκαλιάζεις τα παιδιά σου όταν κλαίνε και να βλέπεις τα πλατάνια να ανθίζουν τον Ιούνη. Όταν σφίγγεται το στήθος μου, κλείνει ο λαιμός μου και πλημμυρίζουν δάκρυα τα μάτια μου, θέλω να στρέψω το βλέμμα από το συναίσθημα. Χρησιμοποιώ την ειρωνεία ή κάτι ανάλογο ως αντιπερισπασμό για να αποφύγω τα απευθείας συναισθήματα. Όλοι γνωρίζουμε πώς τελειώνει ο έρωτας. Εγώ ωστόσο θέλω να ερωτευτώ τον κόσμο. Θέλω να με κάνει κομμάτια. Θέλω να νιώσω όσα υπάρχουν να νιώσεις όσο είμαι ακόμα εδώ.
Στα απολαυστικά κείμενα που περιλαμβάνονται σε αυτό το βιβλίο για τη ζωή στην Ανθρωπόκαινο –την τρέχουσα γεωλογική εποχή που έχει καθοριστεί από την ανθρώπινη παρέμβαση–, ο αγαπημένος συγγραφέας Τζον Γκριν περιγράφει με χιούμορ, οξυδέρκεια και βαθιά ευαισθησία τι σημαίνει να ζεις σ’ αυτή την αντιφατική εποχή: Πώς μπορούμε να είμαστε ταυτόχρονα τόσο σκληροί και τόσο συμπονετικοί, τόσο επίμονοι και τόσο έτοιμοι να τα παρατήσουμε όλα;
376 pages, Paperback
First published May 18, 2021
About the author
John Green
74 books318k followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
John Green's first novel, Looking for Alaska, won the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award presented by the American Library Association. His second novel, An Abundance of Katherines, was a 2007 Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His next novel, Paper Towns, is a New York Times bestseller and won the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best YA Mystery. In January 2012, his most recent novel, The Fault in Our Stars, was met with wide critical acclaim, unprecedented in Green's career. The praise included rave reviews in Time Magazine and The New York Times, on NPR, and from award-winning author Markus Zusak. The book also topped the New York Times Children's Paperback Bestseller list for several weeks. Green has also coauthored a book with David Levithan called Will Grayson, Will Grayson, published in 2010. The film rights for all his books, with the exception of Will Grayson Will Grayson, have been optioned to major Hollywood Studios.
In 2007, John and his brother Hank were the hosts of a popular internet blog, "Brotherhood 2.0," where they discussed their lives, books and current events every day for a year except for weekends and holidays. They still keep a video blog, now called "The Vlog Brothers," which can be found on the Nerdfighters website, or a direct link here.
John Green's first novel, Looking for Alaska, won the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award presented by the American Library Association. His second novel, An Abundance of Katherines, was a 2007 Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His next novel, Paper Towns, is a New York Times bestseller and won the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best YA Mystery. In January 2012, his most recent novel, The Fault in Our Stars, was met with wide critical acclaim, unprecedented in Green's career. The praise included rave reviews in Time Magazine and The New York Times, on NPR, and from award-winning author Markus Zusak. The book also topped the New York Times Children's Paperback Bestseller list for several weeks. Green has also coauthored a book with David Levithan called Will Grayson, Will Grayson, published in 2010. The film rights for all his books, with the exception of Will Grayson Will Grayson, have been optioned to major Hollywood Studios.
In 2007, John and his brother Hank were the hosts of a popular internet blog, "Brotherhood 2.0," where they discussed their lives, books and current events every day for a year except for weekends and holidays. They still keep a video blog, now called "The Vlog Brothers," which can be found on the Nerdfighters website, or a direct link here.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32,860 reviews
May 15, 2021
I don’t fail to see the irony in reviewing a book that’s essentially all about reviews, but I was actually pretty surprised by this book. One minute he’s talking about hot dog eating contests and Dr. pepper and the next he’s talking about human loneliness and connection and life during a pandemic. It was actually really cool to read a book that talked about COVID and the struggles of living during a pandemic, this is the first book I’ve read that really talks about it. I also really enjoyed hearing about his relationship with his brother Hank, and their discussions about the meaning of life. This book ends on a really great note, the ending gave me goosebumps.
Thanks so much to Libro.fm for providing me with an advanced listening copy!
Thanks so much to Libro.fm for providing me with an advanced listening copy!
June 12, 2021
I give John Green's ability to make me view the world with hope and wonder 5 out of 5 stars
Watch me discuss this book in my May wrap up: https://youtu.be/ouTm4bZ6TQw
Watch me discuss this book in my May wrap up: https://youtu.be/ouTm4bZ6TQw
May 18, 2021
I received a copy of this audiobook, read by John Green, through libro.fm and their ALC Program.
I am not super familiar with the podcast of the same name, but still, I knew that I was predisposed to love this. And love this I did.
This is perfectly what I enjoy in a collection of essays: each essay well crafted, but all tied together by a strong central theme. Green writes with the flair of a seasoned storyteller so that I can imagine even readers who are not usually fond of or used to non-fiction would find it easy to sink into The Anthropocene Reviewed. These are stories, after all, told accessibly, in beautiful language, and by a keen observer.
In his postscript, Green reflects on the contradictions of the human experience, the wonder of it all alongside the misery of it all. Throughout this work, Green captures those contractions well. He flawlessly ties together bits of human history and invention with personal stories, presenting both with equal skill. The macro parts of the story are clear, concise and well presented. The micro parts are vulnerable and full of emotion. I found myself also experiencing the highs and lows alongside the author. It was particularly emotional hearing Green muse on his own writing, on the pandemic, and on his relationship with his family, themes that appear throughout. Also layered throughout is a love of art and literature. At the end, Green wonders if his work is too full of quotes, as he is too full of quotes, but any other readers also full of quotes will find it a joy.
I finished the book and wanted immediately to listen again. To slowly go back through and pick out those quotes, to do a few deep Google searches into Monopoly or geese or the QWERTY keyboard. To experience again the coziness of someone telling me an interesting story, about himself, but also about myself, and also about us all.
I give The Anthropocene Reviewed 5 out of 5 stars.
I am not super familiar with the podcast of the same name, but still, I knew that I was predisposed to love this. And love this I did.
This is perfectly what I enjoy in a collection of essays: each essay well crafted, but all tied together by a strong central theme. Green writes with the flair of a seasoned storyteller so that I can imagine even readers who are not usually fond of or used to non-fiction would find it easy to sink into The Anthropocene Reviewed. These are stories, after all, told accessibly, in beautiful language, and by a keen observer.
In his postscript, Green reflects on the contradictions of the human experience, the wonder of it all alongside the misery of it all. Throughout this work, Green captures those contractions well. He flawlessly ties together bits of human history and invention with personal stories, presenting both with equal skill. The macro parts of the story are clear, concise and well presented. The micro parts are vulnerable and full of emotion. I found myself also experiencing the highs and lows alongside the author. It was particularly emotional hearing Green muse on his own writing, on the pandemic, and on his relationship with his family, themes that appear throughout. Also layered throughout is a love of art and literature. At the end, Green wonders if his work is too full of quotes, as he is too full of quotes, but any other readers also full of quotes will find it a joy.
I finished the book and wanted immediately to listen again. To slowly go back through and pick out those quotes, to do a few deep Google searches into Monopoly or geese or the QWERTY keyboard. To experience again the coziness of someone telling me an interesting story, about himself, but also about myself, and also about us all.
I give The Anthropocene Reviewed 5 out of 5 stars.
July 29, 2021
I would like more non-fiction from John Green please! I loved it. I give my experience reading this book 5 stars.
Read
November 2, 2025as a lover of random facts and someone always wanting to learn something new, this was just that! i just adore john green and the way his mind works, it's a beautiful thing that we get to witness it
January 25, 2022
edit, jan ‘22: the place this book (and the podcast that i religiously listened to every month for the better part of my teenage years) has in my life is all-encompassing and impossible to articulate—to the point that i feel strangely indebted to it. i am almost certain that the genuine honesty and care with which john green reflects on the human experience will stay with me for the rest of my life.
—
HAND IT OVER IMMEDIATELY, JOHN.
—
HAND IT OVER IMMEDIATELY, JOHN.
February 20, 2023
The world is a little brighter, is filled with a little more hope, for having this book exist within it…
I give The Anthropocene Reviewed five out of five stars!
I give The Anthropocene Reviewed five out of five stars!
January 16, 2022
Podcasts made nonfiction books, pimped with some specially written parts, rule
The Greens know how to make science rock
I knew the Green brothers from the youtube channel sci-show and crash course and expected nothing more than a great infotainment, edutainment overkill. And boy, how they delivered. I´m now even thinking about listening to the podcast to see how much it differs from the written version.
A bit of everything, never too complicated, understandable, and perfectly portioned to fit into every readers´ memory.
This is how science education should be done, no matter how dry or theoretical a theme might seem, Green understands how to make it funny, memorable, and easy to retell to always have a good science pun in the backhand if one is into social interaction. As always, there is the lurking question of why this kind of knowledge transfer still hasn´t really reached many schools and universities, but sociocultural, epigenetic evolution just seems to take its time.
The perfect mix thanks to the unique duo of
Greens´ expertise as both a successful and highly acclaimed, bestselling nonfiction writer and
science education veteran. I guess that this ingenious combination will make it one of the most mindboggling nonfiction books ever, because his huge fan community from youtube, social media, and his books combined alone are more readers than an average nonfiction author could wish for in his wettest dreams.
And the works´ quality is as high as expected, the biggest nonfiction problem of not knowing how to tell a story and have an emotional impact is a never seen problem in this, also a bit personal, collection of narrative pearls. And it´s not just STEMy stuff, there are also philosophical and sociological soft science vibes in the knowledge house, baby. Also, the emotional impact doesn´t pollute the meta, big history Green keeps clean from too subjective, emotional tones, while fully embracing them in the personal and more story and kind of character focused parts.
Antrophocenic main plotline
The red line is how the current and coming impact of our 8 billion bunch of naked ape population will form the world we live in and some of the ways of illustrating it shows the expertise the Greens have reached in finding creative, unconventional ways to clothe the old topics in shiny, new bling hot word couture. There could be, for instance, my, much darker and depressing perspectives on the future, but a positive, knowledge based way is always a great alternative to pessimistic misanthropy.
More youtube and podcast adaptions, please!
It´s a pity that there may be no further parts, at least Green said so, but maybe the success of this work may change his mind. Even if not, so many other youtube and podcast pearls should be made books and audiobooks, there are so amazing, groundbreaking ideas, theories, criticism, wit, and simple unique ways of teaching science and spreading knowledge that it would be a shame to let them be limited to the audiovisual level and not make them true, pure brain candy.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthrop...
The Greens know how to make science rock
I knew the Green brothers from the youtube channel sci-show and crash course and expected nothing more than a great infotainment, edutainment overkill. And boy, how they delivered. I´m now even thinking about listening to the podcast to see how much it differs from the written version.
A bit of everything, never too complicated, understandable, and perfectly portioned to fit into every readers´ memory.
This is how science education should be done, no matter how dry or theoretical a theme might seem, Green understands how to make it funny, memorable, and easy to retell to always have a good science pun in the backhand if one is into social interaction. As always, there is the lurking question of why this kind of knowledge transfer still hasn´t really reached many schools and universities, but sociocultural, epigenetic evolution just seems to take its time.
The perfect mix thanks to the unique duo of
Greens´ expertise as both a successful and highly acclaimed, bestselling nonfiction writer and
science education veteran. I guess that this ingenious combination will make it one of the most mindboggling nonfiction books ever, because his huge fan community from youtube, social media, and his books combined alone are more readers than an average nonfiction author could wish for in his wettest dreams.
And the works´ quality is as high as expected, the biggest nonfiction problem of not knowing how to tell a story and have an emotional impact is a never seen problem in this, also a bit personal, collection of narrative pearls. And it´s not just STEMy stuff, there are also philosophical and sociological soft science vibes in the knowledge house, baby. Also, the emotional impact doesn´t pollute the meta, big history Green keeps clean from too subjective, emotional tones, while fully embracing them in the personal and more story and kind of character focused parts.
Antrophocenic main plotline
The red line is how the current and coming impact of our 8 billion bunch of naked ape population will form the world we live in and some of the ways of illustrating it shows the expertise the Greens have reached in finding creative, unconventional ways to clothe the old topics in shiny, new bling hot word couture. There could be, for instance, my, much darker and depressing perspectives on the future, but a positive, knowledge based way is always a great alternative to pessimistic misanthropy.
More youtube and podcast adaptions, please!
It´s a pity that there may be no further parts, at least Green said so, but maybe the success of this work may change his mind. Even if not, so many other youtube and podcast pearls should be made books and audiobooks, there are so amazing, groundbreaking ideas, theories, criticism, wit, and simple unique ways of teaching science and spreading knowledge that it would be a shame to let them be limited to the audiovisual level and not make them true, pure brain candy.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthrop...
July 9, 2021
Anthropocene (noun): the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.
Have you ever heard that term before now? I sure hadn’t before coming across John Green’s excellent 2021 essay collection, written during COVID lockdown, in which he reviews a wide range of aspects of our existence.
Yes, John Green is the author of uber-popular Young Adult novels like The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska. But no, this is not really a book targeted to those readers. Rather, it’s written for those who delight in the mundane and revel in the extraordinary. Nonfiction lovers who read to learn could do a heck of a lot worse than to give a chance to Green’s first nonfiction foray.
In this collection, topics covered include anything and everything: teddy bears, Kentucky bluegrass, velociraptors, whispering, viral meningitis, Monopoly, Diet Dr Pepper, sunsets, and many more. Green gives a bit of historical or contextual background, shares his perspective on the subject, then rates it on a 5-star scale.
I rarely quote from books in my reviews, but seeing as how this particular one is quite meta in that I’m reviewing a book about reviews for people that primarily read and write reviews, I found this section of the Introduction fascinating:
“The five-star scale has only been used in critical analysis for the past few decades. While it occasionally applied to film criticism as early as the 1950s, the five-star scale wasn’t used to rate hotels until 1979, and it wasn’t widely used to rate books until Amazon introduced user reviews. The five-star scale really doesn’t exist for humans; it exists for data aggregation systems, which is why it did not become standard until the internet era. Making conclusions about a book’s quality from a 175-word review is hard for artificial intelligences, where as star ratings are ideal for them.”
And with that, The Anthropocene Reviewed = 4.5 stars.
Blog: https://www.confettibookshelf.com/
Have you ever heard that term before now? I sure hadn’t before coming across John Green’s excellent 2021 essay collection, written during COVID lockdown, in which he reviews a wide range of aspects of our existence.
Yes, John Green is the author of uber-popular Young Adult novels like The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska. But no, this is not really a book targeted to those readers. Rather, it’s written for those who delight in the mundane and revel in the extraordinary. Nonfiction lovers who read to learn could do a heck of a lot worse than to give a chance to Green’s first nonfiction foray.
In this collection, topics covered include anything and everything: teddy bears, Kentucky bluegrass, velociraptors, whispering, viral meningitis, Monopoly, Diet Dr Pepper, sunsets, and many more. Green gives a bit of historical or contextual background, shares his perspective on the subject, then rates it on a 5-star scale.
I rarely quote from books in my reviews, but seeing as how this particular one is quite meta in that I’m reviewing a book about reviews for people that primarily read and write reviews, I found this section of the Introduction fascinating:
“The five-star scale has only been used in critical analysis for the past few decades. While it occasionally applied to film criticism as early as the 1950s, the five-star scale wasn’t used to rate hotels until 1979, and it wasn’t widely used to rate books until Amazon introduced user reviews. The five-star scale really doesn’t exist for humans; it exists for data aggregation systems, which is why it did not become standard until the internet era. Making conclusions about a book’s quality from a 175-word review is hard for artificial intelligences, where as star ratings are ideal for them.”
And with that, The Anthropocene Reviewed = 4.5 stars.
Blog: https://www.confettibookshelf.com/
June 15, 2021
Audiobook…read by John Green
…..10 hours and 3 minutes
Nothing prepared me for how wonderful this book is.
I’m thrilled that I own it. Paul listen to parts, and now he wants his own copy on ‘his’ phone.
I haven’t had so much enjoyment learning about trivial things that are not really trivial but may be trivial things from an audiobook as much as this one.
And I haven’t thought about the really important issues of life — like this — (to my awareness) either.
I’ve always liked John Green….
I like his young adult books….
But my god…
“The Anthropocene Review:
Essays on a Human-Centered Planet”…..
IS HIS BEST BOOK….
It’s OUTSTANDING- FANTASTIC- INFORMATIVE- MOVING - THOUGHT PROVOKING…..
I LOVED LOVED LOVED IT!!!
I will listen to this again. I look forward to it! I laughed, I got teary-eyed, and I continue to be in ‘awe’!!!
To miss a this gem… would be a shame—
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT TO EVERYONE!!!
John Green reads his own book with so much heart —
we need a new definition to the word heart!
I have pages of notes…. but I’m going to hold back sharing them as tempting as it for me.
I could be too much of a a gem-give-a-way- chatterbox.
I’m trying to discipline myself here —holding back my tongue.
GO IN BLIND….
Regardless of how wonderful reviews are— no matter how descriptive, and thoughtful they are, this is a book that simply has to be experienced.
AFTER taking one’s own turn reading it — there are themes, topics, issues, thoughts, feelings that are soooooo worth discussing with others who have read it.
But don’t cheat ‘yourself’ ….
Trust this book is worthy to be read!! ( listening was an added treat)…. but I’d like to own the physical book,
and read it too.
Great book club pick!!
5 stars for sunsets 🌅
5 ++++++++ and more stars for John Green and this wonderful gift he gave us.
…..10 hours and 3 minutes
Nothing prepared me for how wonderful this book is.
I’m thrilled that I own it. Paul listen to parts, and now he wants his own copy on ‘his’ phone.
I haven’t had so much enjoyment learning about trivial things that are not really trivial but may be trivial things from an audiobook as much as this one.
And I haven’t thought about the really important issues of life — like this — (to my awareness) either.
I’ve always liked John Green….
I like his young adult books….
But my god…
“The Anthropocene Review:
Essays on a Human-Centered Planet”…..
IS HIS BEST BOOK….
It’s OUTSTANDING- FANTASTIC- INFORMATIVE- MOVING - THOUGHT PROVOKING…..
I LOVED LOVED LOVED IT!!!
I will listen to this again. I look forward to it! I laughed, I got teary-eyed, and I continue to be in ‘awe’!!!
To miss a this gem… would be a shame—
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT TO EVERYONE!!!
John Green reads his own book with so much heart —
we need a new definition to the word heart!
I have pages of notes…. but I’m going to hold back sharing them as tempting as it for me.
I could be too much of a a gem-give-a-way- chatterbox.
I’m trying to discipline myself here —holding back my tongue.
GO IN BLIND….
Regardless of how wonderful reviews are— no matter how descriptive, and thoughtful they are, this is a book that simply has to be experienced.
AFTER taking one’s own turn reading it — there are themes, topics, issues, thoughts, feelings that are soooooo worth discussing with others who have read it.
But don’t cheat ‘yourself’ ….
Trust this book is worthy to be read!! ( listening was an added treat)…. but I’d like to own the physical book,
and read it too.
Great book club pick!!
5 stars for sunsets 🌅
5 ++++++++ and more stars for John Green and this wonderful gift he gave us.
November 30, 2021
A collection of essays about the most random things: air conditioners (this one I actually enjoyed a lot), hot dog stands, canada geese, notes app, etc (that I really did not care about).
It felt like a strange mix of factual information mixed with personal experiences. I fail to properly categorize this as an informative non-fiction or memoir. John Green uses so many quotes (the ones from Kurt Vonnegut I loved, but then I would rather just read something by Kurt Vonnegut) and thus it felt like I was just reading a collection of what others have said - resulting in a generic reading experience.
I also might have outgrown John Green, not really caring too much about his opinions (sorry). I really had to force myself to get through this, and had it not been for the audiobook version I may not have finished it.
I give this book 2 stars.
what better way to end the year than learning as much as you can about the world? (aka a non-fiction/memoir marathon)
❄ the anthropocene reviewed
It felt like a strange mix of factual information mixed with personal experiences. I fail to properly categorize this as an informative non-fiction or memoir. John Green uses so many quotes (the ones from Kurt Vonnegut I loved, but then I would rather just read something by Kurt Vonnegut) and thus it felt like I was just reading a collection of what others have said - resulting in a generic reading experience.
I also might have outgrown John Green, not really caring too much about his opinions (sorry). I really had to force myself to get through this, and had it not been for the audiobook version I may not have finished it.
I give this book 2 stars.
what better way to end the year than learning as much as you can about the world? (aka a non-fiction/memoir marathon)
❄ the anthropocene reviewed
July 31, 2025
I saw this book a few times and finally discovered it in Goodreads CHOICE AWARDS Best Nonfiction Winner. 💪
One of the best parts I like in this book is as follows:
"Believe".
My friend Amy Krouse Rosenthal once told me to look at the word and be awed by it. See how it contains both be and live. We were eating lunch together, and after telling me about how much she liked the word believe, the conversation drifted off toward family or work, and then out of nowhere, she said, "Believe! Be live! What a word!"
Be and Live.
I will recommend reading this book, and it can improve a lot of common sense and knowledge in our world.
One of the best parts I like in this book is as follows:
"Believe".
My friend Amy Krouse Rosenthal once told me to look at the word and be awed by it. See how it contains both be and live. We were eating lunch together, and after telling me about how much she liked the word believe, the conversation drifted off toward family or work, and then out of nowhere, she said, "Believe! Be live! What a word!"
Be and Live.
I will recommend reading this book, and it can improve a lot of common sense and knowledge in our world.
July 29, 2021
I mean…sure? This is a collection of personal essays by John Green in which he basically just ponders humanity and rambles endlessly about arbitrary topics like scratch-and-sniff stickers, air conditioning, and the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. It’s pretentious with a sparse sprinkling of insight here and there. I found myself thinking, who cares multiple times throughout the book. I am flabbergasted by the high ratings for this. His target audience is without a doubt, people who already love him. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people so this is a no from me.
May 19, 2021
I loved this so fucking much. Apparently non-fiction essays were what I needed to rekindle my love for John Green’s writing. Through reviews of different facets of the world he tells stories of his own life, inventions, human connections, loneliness, mental health, living through a pandemic, and so much more.
Some of the aspects of his writing that I started to not appreciate so much in his YA novels definitely work better here in adult non-fiction. His worldview, use of quotes, and deep musings sometimes seemed a bit much for all of his teenage characters, but coming directly from him I really enjoyed it. I hope he publishes more non-fiction in the future because this book was phenomenal.
I definitely recommend checking this one out. The reviews are short but impactful and flow like you’re reading a piece of fiction. This is a really special book and one that I know I’m going to continue to revisit in the future.
Some of the aspects of his writing that I started to not appreciate so much in his YA novels definitely work better here in adult non-fiction. His worldview, use of quotes, and deep musings sometimes seemed a bit much for all of his teenage characters, but coming directly from him I really enjoyed it. I hope he publishes more non-fiction in the future because this book was phenomenal.
I definitely recommend checking this one out. The reviews are short but impactful and flow like you’re reading a piece of fiction. This is a really special book and one that I know I’m going to continue to revisit in the future.
April 27, 2026
4.5/5. Such a ✨ soft ✨ book, I loved it.
John Green gave this review 4 out of 5 stars.
John Green gave this review 4 out of 5 stars.
July 3, 2021
Note: Rounded up to five stars because John literally reviewed the font in the copyright section in his own book.
“We all know how loving ends. But I want to fall in love with the world anyway, to let it crack me open. I want to feel what there is to feel while I am here.”
Short chapters/essays, but very entertaining, educational, and thought-provoking, The essay topics range broadly all the way from Air Conditioning to Sunsets, and even The Penguins of Madagascar. John ties the history of the topics with his own personal experience and connections to show an appreciation for the mundane world around us. Very vulnerable and human. I give The Anthropocene Reviewed four and a half stars.
“We all know how loving ends. But I want to fall in love with the world anyway, to let it crack me open. I want to feel what there is to feel while I am here.”
Short chapters/essays, but very entertaining, educational, and thought-provoking, The essay topics range broadly all the way from Air Conditioning to Sunsets, and even The Penguins of Madagascar. John ties the history of the topics with his own personal experience and connections to show an appreciation for the mundane world around us. Very vulnerable and human. I give The Anthropocene Reviewed four and a half stars.
December 8, 2024
On a site that reviews books on a five-star scale, I am going to review a book that is a collection of quite personal essays masquerading as reviews of random things from everyday life rated on a five-star scale. Yeah, I know.
The range of topics here is quite expansive, with Anthropocene in the title allowing the focus - or at least the springboard of each piece - to be pretty much anything. Our capacity for wonder, humanity temporal range, diet Dr Pepper, velociraptors, teddy bears, sunsets, Green’s favorite band, air conditioning, Indy 500, Canada geese, Scratch ’n’ Sniff stickers, Kentucky bluegrass, Lascaux Cave Paintings, Indianapolis (“You gotta live somewhere”) — you name it, Green wrote about it here. And then rated it on the five-star scale.
Before I forget, let me bring up my grievance here. Diet Dr Pepper, “the soda that tastes more like the Anthropocene than any other”, according to Green, is rated higher than Jurassic Park velociraptors. I mean, on one hand we have the concoction that tastes like pure evil had a baby with indigestion medicine. On the other hand there are velociraptors that can open locked doors in the most pants-shittingly terrifying way, even if they are modeled on a species completely different than chicken-like raptors just because “velociraptor” sounded infinitely cooler as a name for these ruthless predators. But even the chicken version of velociraptor beats Dr Pepper, diet or otherwise, any time.
Green’s essays can be a bit of a hit or miss for me, mostly depending whether I care at all about things he writes about, often seeming almost like a Wikipedia article (into the depth of which I’ve been known to get lost for hours at a time) but one thing the man can certainly do is spin a quotable phrase.
There’s nothing like listening to an essay on Canada geese while walking by a lake and hopping around the prodigious excrement output of those geese while carefully trying to stay out of the way of particularly irritable-looking ones. On my long nature walks Canada geese and I maintain an uneasy state of mutual neutrality, meaning they kindly refrain from eating me alive and I maintain a small degree of healthy caution at all. (Hey, I was treed as a small kid by an angry rooster, and those geese can act way angrier).
Green is quite candid in these essays, not hiding his struggles with anxiety and depression, and brings in an interesting combination of pessimism and optimism, often within the same passage, with a hefty dose of irony interspersed with soft humor and occasional quite pointed observations.
I quite liked a few of these essays — unexpectedly one on viral meningitis, the awful experience that apparently I had in common with Green. The guy understands the blinding incapacitating pain of a true headache that makes you wish you were dead instead.
————
Some essays I really enjoyed; the others I listened to without them leaving any memorable impression on me. I suppose it’s the pitfall of such a hodgepodge collection — you can’t connect with it all. But overall it was good, even though I’m still unhappy about velociraptors ranking below diet Dr Pepper.
So I give this collection of reviews about random things in our world 3.5 stars.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
“It has taken me all my life up to now to fall in love with the world, but I’ve started to feel it the last couple of years. To fall in love with the world isn’t to ignore or overlook suffering, both human and otherwise. For me anyway, to fall in love with the world is to look up at the night sky and feel your mind swim before the beauty and the distance of the stars. It is to hold your children while they cry, to watch as the sycamore trees leaf out in June. When my breastbone starts to hurt, and my throat tightens, and tears well in my eyes, I want to look away from feeling. I want to deflect with irony, or anything else that will keep me from feeling directly. We all know how loving ends. But I want to fall in love with the world anyway, to let it crack me open. I want to feel what there is to feel while I am here.”
The range of topics here is quite expansive, with Anthropocene in the title allowing the focus - or at least the springboard of each piece - to be pretty much anything. Our capacity for wonder, humanity temporal range, diet Dr Pepper, velociraptors, teddy bears, sunsets, Green’s favorite band, air conditioning, Indy 500, Canada geese, Scratch ’n’ Sniff stickers, Kentucky bluegrass, Lascaux Cave Paintings, Indianapolis (“You gotta live somewhere”) — you name it, Green wrote about it here. And then rated it on the five-star scale.
“We live in hope—that life will get better, and more importantly that it will go on, that love will survive even though we will not. And between now and then, we are here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here.”
(From “Auld Lang Syne”)
Before I forget, let me bring up my grievance here. Diet Dr Pepper, “the soda that tastes more like the Anthropocene than any other”, according to Green, is rated higher than Jurassic Park velociraptors. I mean, on one hand we have the concoction that tastes like pure evil had a baby with indigestion medicine. On the other hand there are velociraptors that can open locked doors in the most pants-shittingly terrifying way, even if they are modeled on a species completely different than chicken-like raptors just because “velociraptor” sounded infinitely cooler as a name for these ruthless predators. But even the chicken version of velociraptor beats Dr Pepper, diet or otherwise, any time.
“In fact, the first time I remember hearing my brother, Hank, curse came as we were watching Jurassic Park. When the velociraptors turned the door handle, I heard my ten-year-old brother mutter, “Oh, shit.”
Green’s essays can be a bit of a hit or miss for me, mostly depending whether I care at all about things he writes about, often seeming almost like a Wikipedia article (into the depth of which I’ve been known to get lost for hours at a time) but one thing the man can certainly do is spin a quotable phrase.
“We’re the only part of the known universe that knows it’s in a universe. We know we are circling a star that will one day engulf us. We’re the only species that knows it has a temporal range.”
(From “Humanity’s Temporal Range”)
———
“When you measure time in Halleys rather than years, history starts to look different. As the comet visited us in 1986, my dad brought home a personal computer—the first in our neighborhood. One Halley earlier, the first movie adaptation of Frankenstein was released. The Halley before that, Charles Darwin was aboard the HMS Beagle. The Halley before that, the United States wasn’t a country. The Halley before that, Louis XIV ruled France.”
(From “Halley’s Comet”)
There’s nothing like listening to an essay on Canada geese while walking by a lake and hopping around the prodigious excrement output of those geese while carefully trying to stay out of the way of particularly irritable-looking ones. On my long nature walks Canada geese and I maintain an uneasy state of mutual neutrality, meaning they kindly refrain from eating me alive and I maintain a small degree of healthy caution at all. (Hey, I was treed as a small kid by an angry rooster, and those geese can act way angrier).
“A single Canada goose can produce up to one hundred pounds of excrement per year, which has led to unsafe E. coli levels in lakes and ponds where they gather.”
Green is quite candid in these essays, not hiding his struggles with anxiety and depression, and brings in an interesting combination of pessimism and optimism, often within the same passage, with a hefty dose of irony interspersed with soft humor and occasional quite pointed observations.
“For many species of large animals in the twenty-first century, the single most important determinant of survival is whether their existence is useful to humans. But if you can’t be of utility to people, the second best thing you can be is cute. You need an expressive face, ideally some large eyes. Your babies need to remind us of our babies. Something about you must make us feel guilty for eliminating you from the planet.”
I quite liked a few of these essays — unexpectedly one on viral meningitis, the awful experience that apparently I had in common with Green. The guy understands the blinding incapacitating pain of a true headache that makes you wish you were dead instead.
“I can tell you that having meningitis involves headaches, but that does little to communicate the consciousness-crushing omnipresence of that headache. All I can say is that when I had viral meningitis, I had a headache that made it impossible to have anything else. My head didn’t hurt so much as my self had been rendered inert by the pain in my head.”
————
Some essays I really enjoyed; the others I listened to without them leaving any memorable impression on me. I suppose it’s the pitfall of such a hodgepodge collection — you can’t connect with it all. But overall it was good, even though I’m still unhappy about velociraptors ranking below diet Dr Pepper.
So I give this collection of reviews about random things in our world 3.5 stars.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
July 25, 2022
oh john green.... how could i not give this book five stars?
for a non-ficiton book written during the pandemic, even at several times ABOUT the pandemic, i was expecting this to be a lot more dismal. there were so many things about this that i liked: the short chapters that were good to devour a few at a time, and come back to it at a later time. the book was just as informative as it was meditative. but most of all, i love that this book had an optimistic, hopeful tone that didn't at all come off as manufactured or contrived.
i can definitely see myself revisiting this down the road (and getting to re-experience all my favorite quotes that i tabbed, which was plentiful), and i'm sure the audiobook would be a great avenue for that.
for a non-ficiton book written during the pandemic, even at several times ABOUT the pandemic, i was expecting this to be a lot more dismal. there were so many things about this that i liked: the short chapters that were good to devour a few at a time, and come back to it at a later time. the book was just as informative as it was meditative. but most of all, i love that this book had an optimistic, hopeful tone that didn't at all come off as manufactured or contrived.
i can definitely see myself revisiting this down the road (and getting to re-experience all my favorite quotes that i tabbed, which was plentiful), and i'm sure the audiobook would be a great avenue for that.
August 10, 2022
4 stars!
I have to admit, when I found out John Green was releasing an adult nonfiction book, my very first thought was “I’m not smart enough to read it”. And then I found out the book was a collection of essays about the current geologic age and I was immediately relieved because I knew I could handle that. I listened to the audiobook which is narrated by Green and I thought it was fantastic. We got to hear all his thoughts and insights as he intended and it was a great experience.
So many topics were covered in this book, everything from dinosaurs, to a feud with a creature in his garden, to feelings about living in a pandemic. When I was listening I experienced a range of emotions. There were so many times when I was laughing out loud, and one time when I teared up. I think this is a really excellent book and I can see myself recommending it to a lot of people.
I give this book 4 stars.
I have to admit, when I found out John Green was releasing an adult nonfiction book, my very first thought was “I’m not smart enough to read it”. And then I found out the book was a collection of essays about the current geologic age and I was immediately relieved because I knew I could handle that. I listened to the audiobook which is narrated by Green and I thought it was fantastic. We got to hear all his thoughts and insights as he intended and it was a great experience.
So many topics were covered in this book, everything from dinosaurs, to a feud with a creature in his garden, to feelings about living in a pandemic. When I was listening I experienced a range of emotions. There were so many times when I was laughing out loud, and one time when I teared up. I think this is a really excellent book and I can see myself recommending it to a lot of people.
I give this book 4 stars.
June 11, 2026
I’m reviewing a book about reviews, makes me want to scream mama I made it.
I dream about having a conversation with John Green. He’s my favourite male author and also my favourite teacher on YouTube. I have this irrational fear of being stopped in the street and asked to name five countries in Asia. I see so many videos like that on Instagram. I hated geography in school, but I don’t think my knowledge is actually that bad, but then again that’s probably what everyone who flopped on camera once thought 💀 I shrink at the idea of publicly embarrassing my entire ancestry like that. So I started watching Crash Course’s series on geography, then moved on to the series Green hosts on world history and literature, and ever since then my admiration for him has only grown.
❝ There is some comfort for me in knowing that life will go on even when we don’t. But I would argue that when our light goes out, it will be Earth’s greatest tragedy, because while I know humans are prone to grandiosity, I also think we are by far the most interesting thing that ever happened on Earth. ❞
This book is magic. The magic of the human experience. It’s witty, informative, and incredibly heartwarming. I’ve read it twice now and both times I’ve been left in a state of wonder. At Green’s mind. At his iridescent way of seeing the world. At the strange and humbling beauty of everything around us.
From how The Great Gatsby became a modern classic, to the history of Dr Pepper, teddy bears and Piggly Wiggly, to scratch ‘n’ sniff stickers. And while every essay opens a small doorway into something larger, it's the dive into personal moments that has me applauding Green's vulnerability.
❝ But most days I would lie and tell her that school was fine. I didn’t want my hurt to travel through to her. On those days, I would go into my room and pull the pink sticker book out from my bookcase, and I would scratch the stickers, close my eyes, and inhale as deeply as I possibly could.❞
I’ve never had scratch ‘n’ sniff stickers comfort me as a child when I couldn’t tell my mother I was being bullied, but on days I was sad, I would get lost in books and daydreams filled with something softer, something happier than whatever was happening in real life.
There are also moments that feel like a collective experience, like how some of us have been slightly misled about the true image of velociraptors for most of our lives. I can’t believe I grew up terrified of what were essentially exotic chickens.
This book is not just a reflection on the Anthropocene. It’s also a reflection on a life, a letter to one’s future self and an invitation to examine your own. It makes me wonder what moments in a life are worth five stars and which memories are only one star.
The fascinating thing about this book is that, because of its subjective nature, you probably won't agree with all of Green's ratings. Green gave Monopoly one and a half stars. Well, I give it five.
Not because of the game itself, but because it takes me back to a time when there weren't vast stretches of water between me and some of my favourite people in the world. I hadn't thought about those wondrous nights in years. The excitement. The laughter. The accusations of cheating flying across the room and alliances that formed and dissolved within minutes. The way we shared so much around a game. The simple joy of being together. It’s fascinating how impossible it is to separate an object from the life we've lived around it.
Obviously, I’m not trying to review my life here 🙈, but for the little corner The Anthropocene, Reviewed now occupies in it, I give it, and by extension books in general, five stars. ✨✨
༄ Favourite Chapters ༄
🖥️ The Internet
🔍 Googling Strangers
🎶 You'll Never Walk Alone
🥤 Diet Dr Pepper
👃🏾✨ Scratch 'n' Sniff Stickers
🎬 Harvey
🌅 Sunsets
🧸 Teddy Bears
🏫 The Academic Decathlon
🦖 Velociraptors
🦠 Staphylococcus aureus
⭕️ Hiroyuki Doi’s Circle Drawings
🌌 Our Capacity for Wonder
🏪 Piggly Wiggly
🌳 Sycamore Trees
📱 The Notes App
⌨️ The Qwerty Keyboard
🏎️ Super Mario Kart
🎲 Monopoly
🚶♂️➡️Three Farmers On Their Way To A Dance
༄ Quotes I want tattooed on my skin ༄
❝ I suppose you are reading this in my future. Maybe you are reading in a future so distant from my present that “this” is over. I know it will never fully end—the next normal will be different from the last one. But there will be a next normal, and I hope you are living in it, and I hope I am living in it with you.
A scene in the movie adaptation of my book The Fault in Our Stars was filmed on a bench in Amsterdam; that bench now has hundreds of Google reviews. (My favorite, a three-star review, reads in its entirety: “It is a bench.”)
I know we’ve left scars everywhere, and that our obsessive desire to make and have and do and say and go and get—six of the seven most common verbs in English—may ultimately steal away our ability to be, the most common verb in English.
Scrolling through his friends, I find his parents’ profiles, and discover that they are still married. He is alive. He likes terrible, overly manufactured country music. He is alive. He calls his girlfriend his bae. Alive. Alive. Alive.
It could’ve gone the other way, of course. But it didn’t. And so I can’t help but give the practice of googling strangers four stars.
Staphylococcus doesn’t want to harm people. It doesn’t know about people. It just wants to be, like I want to go on, like that ivy wants to spread across the wall, occupying more and more of it. How much? As much as it can. It’s not staph’s fault that it wants to be. Nonetheless, I give Staphylococcus aureus one star.
I hope you never find yourself on the floor of your kitchen. I hope you never cry in front of your boss desperate with pain. But if you do, I hope they will give you some time off and tell you what Bill told me: Now, more than ever, watch Harvey.
I give CNN two stars.
Nothing that sweet can be truly virtuous.
Many days, a group of kids would throw me to the ground and then grab me by my limbs and pull on me as hard as they could. They called this “the abominable snowman.” Other times, garbage was poured on my head as I sat at my desk. Aside from the physical pain, it made me feel small and powerless. But I didn’t really resist it, because many days it was the only time I had any social interaction. Even when there was wet garbage on my head, I tried to laugh, like I was in on the joke.
Every night, still, I say his name and ask God for mercy. Whether I believe in God isn’t really relevant. I do believe, however tenuously, in mercy.
One of the strange things about adulthood is that you are your current self, but you are also all the selves you used to be, the ones you grew out of but can’t ever quite get rid of.
Looking out at this river reminds me of sitting at the edge of that creek with Todd, and how his love helped carry me through those years, and how in some ways it is still carrying me. I wonder if you have people like that in your life, people whose love keeps you going even though they are distant now because of time and geography and everything else that comes between us.
Todd and I have both floated down through the decades—he’s a doctor now—but the courses of our lives were shaped by those moments we shared upstream.
It is a sunset, and it is beautiful, and this whole thing you’ve been doing where nothing gets five stars because nothing is perfect? That’s bullshit. So much is perfect. Starting with this. I give sunsets five stars.
Home is a teddy bear, but only a certain teddy bear at a certain time.
On the CompuServe Teen Forum, nobody knew anything about me. They didn’t know that I was a miserable, cringingly awkward kid whose voice often creaked with nervousness. They didn’t know I was late to puberty, and they didn’t know the names people called me at school. And paradoxically, because they didn’t know me, they knew me far better than anyone in my real life.
Outside, the world continues. The river, even overflowing its banks, still meanders.
I’m scared to even write this down, because I worry that having confessed this fragility, you now know where to punch. I know that if I’m hit where I am earnest, I will never recover.
Fitzgerald wrote to a friend, “Of all the reviews, even the most enthusiastic, not one had the slightest idea what the book was about.”
We need to find a way to survive ourselves—to go on in a world where we are powerful enough to warm the entire planet but not powerful enough to stop warming it.
“The miracle of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” for me is how well it works as a funeral song, and as a high school graduation song, and as a we-just-beat-Barcelona-in-the-Champions-League song. As former Liverpool player and manager Kenny Dalglish said, “It covers adversity and sadness and it covers the success.” It’s a song about sticking together even when your dreams are tossed and blown. It’s a song about both the storm and the golden sky.”
Gatsby is a critique of the American Dream. The only people who end up rich or successful in the novel are the ones who start out that way. Almost everyone else ends up dead or destitute. And it’s a critique of the kind of vapid capitalism that can’t find anything more interesting to do with money than try to make more of it.
Still, I’m fond of our capacity for wonder. I give it three and a half stars.
Those pictures remind me that my kids are not just growing up but also growing away from me, running toward their own lives.
It’s the only category of soda not named for what it tastes like, which to my mind is precisely why Dr Pepper marks such an interesting and important moment in human history.
I give Diet Dr Pepper four stars.
Like the velociraptor, I have a large brain for my geologic age, but maybe not large enough to survive effectively in the world where I find myself. My eyes still believe what they see, long after visual information stops being reliable.
But when people point out the bias of AC settings in office buildings—especially when women point it out—they’ve often been mocked for being overly sensitive.
When I was in the hospital, the infectious disease doctors made me feel very special. One told me, “You are colonized by some fascinatingly aggressive staph.”
We were the sixth best Academic Decathlon team in the nation, we were getting just the right amount of utility out of our Zimas, and we loved each other. Rivers keep going, and we keep going, and there is no way back to the roof of that hotel. But the memory still holds me together. I give the Academic Decathlon four and a half stars.
And ridiculous cruelty is still cruel.
I thought of myself as a person without a specialty. But as it turned out, my specialty just hadn’t been invented yet, because I am—please forgive the lack of modesty here—really, really good at googling strangers.
“The end of man is knowledge, but there is one thing he can’t know. He can’t know whether knowledge will save him or kill him.” - Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men ❞
I dream about having a conversation with John Green. He’s my favourite male author and also my favourite teacher on YouTube. I have this irrational fear of being stopped in the street and asked to name five countries in Asia. I see so many videos like that on Instagram. I hated geography in school, but I don’t think my knowledge is actually that bad, but then again that’s probably what everyone who flopped on camera once thought 💀 I shrink at the idea of publicly embarrassing my entire ancestry like that. So I started watching Crash Course’s series on geography, then moved on to the series Green hosts on world history and literature, and ever since then my admiration for him has only grown.
❝ There is some comfort for me in knowing that life will go on even when we don’t. But I would argue that when our light goes out, it will be Earth’s greatest tragedy, because while I know humans are prone to grandiosity, I also think we are by far the most interesting thing that ever happened on Earth. ❞
This book is magic. The magic of the human experience. It’s witty, informative, and incredibly heartwarming. I’ve read it twice now and both times I’ve been left in a state of wonder. At Green’s mind. At his iridescent way of seeing the world. At the strange and humbling beauty of everything around us.
From how The Great Gatsby became a modern classic, to the history of Dr Pepper, teddy bears and Piggly Wiggly, to scratch ‘n’ sniff stickers. And while every essay opens a small doorway into something larger, it's the dive into personal moments that has me applauding Green's vulnerability.
❝ But most days I would lie and tell her that school was fine. I didn’t want my hurt to travel through to her. On those days, I would go into my room and pull the pink sticker book out from my bookcase, and I would scratch the stickers, close my eyes, and inhale as deeply as I possibly could.❞
I’ve never had scratch ‘n’ sniff stickers comfort me as a child when I couldn’t tell my mother I was being bullied, but on days I was sad, I would get lost in books and daydreams filled with something softer, something happier than whatever was happening in real life.
There are also moments that feel like a collective experience, like how some of us have been slightly misled about the true image of velociraptors for most of our lives. I can’t believe I grew up terrified of what were essentially exotic chickens.
This book is not just a reflection on the Anthropocene. It’s also a reflection on a life, a letter to one’s future self and an invitation to examine your own. It makes me wonder what moments in a life are worth five stars and which memories are only one star.
The fascinating thing about this book is that, because of its subjective nature, you probably won't agree with all of Green's ratings. Green gave Monopoly one and a half stars. Well, I give it five.
Not because of the game itself, but because it takes me back to a time when there weren't vast stretches of water between me and some of my favourite people in the world. I hadn't thought about those wondrous nights in years. The excitement. The laughter. The accusations of cheating flying across the room and alliances that formed and dissolved within minutes. The way we shared so much around a game. The simple joy of being together. It’s fascinating how impossible it is to separate an object from the life we've lived around it.
Obviously, I’m not trying to review my life here 🙈, but for the little corner The Anthropocene, Reviewed now occupies in it, I give it, and by extension books in general, five stars. ✨✨
༄ Favourite Chapters ༄
🖥️ The Internet
🔍 Googling Strangers
🎶 You'll Never Walk Alone
🥤 Diet Dr Pepper
👃🏾✨ Scratch 'n' Sniff Stickers
🎬 Harvey
🌅 Sunsets
🧸 Teddy Bears
🏫 The Academic Decathlon
🦖 Velociraptors
🦠 Staphylococcus aureus
⭕️ Hiroyuki Doi’s Circle Drawings
🌌 Our Capacity for Wonder
🏪 Piggly Wiggly
🌳 Sycamore Trees
📱 The Notes App
⌨️ The Qwerty Keyboard
🏎️ Super Mario Kart
🎲 Monopoly
🚶♂️➡️Three Farmers On Their Way To A Dance
༄ Quotes I want tattooed on my skin ༄
❝ I suppose you are reading this in my future. Maybe you are reading in a future so distant from my present that “this” is over. I know it will never fully end—the next normal will be different from the last one. But there will be a next normal, and I hope you are living in it, and I hope I am living in it with you.
A scene in the movie adaptation of my book The Fault in Our Stars was filmed on a bench in Amsterdam; that bench now has hundreds of Google reviews. (My favorite, a three-star review, reads in its entirety: “It is a bench.”)
I know we’ve left scars everywhere, and that our obsessive desire to make and have and do and say and go and get—six of the seven most common verbs in English—may ultimately steal away our ability to be, the most common verb in English.
Scrolling through his friends, I find his parents’ profiles, and discover that they are still married. He is alive. He likes terrible, overly manufactured country music. He is alive. He calls his girlfriend his bae. Alive. Alive. Alive.
It could’ve gone the other way, of course. But it didn’t. And so I can’t help but give the practice of googling strangers four stars.
Staphylococcus doesn’t want to harm people. It doesn’t know about people. It just wants to be, like I want to go on, like that ivy wants to spread across the wall, occupying more and more of it. How much? As much as it can. It’s not staph’s fault that it wants to be. Nonetheless, I give Staphylococcus aureus one star.
I hope you never find yourself on the floor of your kitchen. I hope you never cry in front of your boss desperate with pain. But if you do, I hope they will give you some time off and tell you what Bill told me: Now, more than ever, watch Harvey.
I give CNN two stars.
Nothing that sweet can be truly virtuous.
Many days, a group of kids would throw me to the ground and then grab me by my limbs and pull on me as hard as they could. They called this “the abominable snowman.” Other times, garbage was poured on my head as I sat at my desk. Aside from the physical pain, it made me feel small and powerless. But I didn’t really resist it, because many days it was the only time I had any social interaction. Even when there was wet garbage on my head, I tried to laugh, like I was in on the joke.
Every night, still, I say his name and ask God for mercy. Whether I believe in God isn’t really relevant. I do believe, however tenuously, in mercy.
One of the strange things about adulthood is that you are your current self, but you are also all the selves you used to be, the ones you grew out of but can’t ever quite get rid of.
Looking out at this river reminds me of sitting at the edge of that creek with Todd, and how his love helped carry me through those years, and how in some ways it is still carrying me. I wonder if you have people like that in your life, people whose love keeps you going even though they are distant now because of time and geography and everything else that comes between us.
Todd and I have both floated down through the decades—he’s a doctor now—but the courses of our lives were shaped by those moments we shared upstream.
It is a sunset, and it is beautiful, and this whole thing you’ve been doing where nothing gets five stars because nothing is perfect? That’s bullshit. So much is perfect. Starting with this. I give sunsets five stars.
Home is a teddy bear, but only a certain teddy bear at a certain time.
On the CompuServe Teen Forum, nobody knew anything about me. They didn’t know that I was a miserable, cringingly awkward kid whose voice often creaked with nervousness. They didn’t know I was late to puberty, and they didn’t know the names people called me at school. And paradoxically, because they didn’t know me, they knew me far better than anyone in my real life.
Outside, the world continues. The river, even overflowing its banks, still meanders.
I’m scared to even write this down, because I worry that having confessed this fragility, you now know where to punch. I know that if I’m hit where I am earnest, I will never recover.
Fitzgerald wrote to a friend, “Of all the reviews, even the most enthusiastic, not one had the slightest idea what the book was about.”
We need to find a way to survive ourselves—to go on in a world where we are powerful enough to warm the entire planet but not powerful enough to stop warming it.
“The miracle of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” for me is how well it works as a funeral song, and as a high school graduation song, and as a we-just-beat-Barcelona-in-the-Champions-League song. As former Liverpool player and manager Kenny Dalglish said, “It covers adversity and sadness and it covers the success.” It’s a song about sticking together even when your dreams are tossed and blown. It’s a song about both the storm and the golden sky.”
Gatsby is a critique of the American Dream. The only people who end up rich or successful in the novel are the ones who start out that way. Almost everyone else ends up dead or destitute. And it’s a critique of the kind of vapid capitalism that can’t find anything more interesting to do with money than try to make more of it.
Still, I’m fond of our capacity for wonder. I give it three and a half stars.
Those pictures remind me that my kids are not just growing up but also growing away from me, running toward their own lives.
It’s the only category of soda not named for what it tastes like, which to my mind is precisely why Dr Pepper marks such an interesting and important moment in human history.
I give Diet Dr Pepper four stars.
Like the velociraptor, I have a large brain for my geologic age, but maybe not large enough to survive effectively in the world where I find myself. My eyes still believe what they see, long after visual information stops being reliable.
But when people point out the bias of AC settings in office buildings—especially when women point it out—they’ve often been mocked for being overly sensitive.
When I was in the hospital, the infectious disease doctors made me feel very special. One told me, “You are colonized by some fascinatingly aggressive staph.”
We were the sixth best Academic Decathlon team in the nation, we were getting just the right amount of utility out of our Zimas, and we loved each other. Rivers keep going, and we keep going, and there is no way back to the roof of that hotel. But the memory still holds me together. I give the Academic Decathlon four and a half stars.
And ridiculous cruelty is still cruel.
I thought of myself as a person without a specialty. But as it turned out, my specialty just hadn’t been invented yet, because I am—please forgive the lack of modesty here—really, really good at googling strangers.
“The end of man is knowledge, but there is one thing he can’t know. He can’t know whether knowledge will save him or kill him.” - Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men ❞
June 21, 2026
“We all know how loving ends. But I want to fall in love with the world anyway, to let it crack me open. I want to feel what there is to feel while I am here.”
I got sort of sick of John Green's YA novel voice--his clever boarding school witticisms, his quirky wise-cracking heroes that all sound alike, but knew I had to listen to John Green's actual voice reading this book, as I read many books on climate change and the Anthropocene, most of them grim and frightening. I find in this book that like me, Green is near despair about the state of the world, but chooses hope. Green is maybe as well know for his Vlog Brothers podcast with his brother Hank as his YA, though The Fault in Our Stars, about a romance between two adolescents with cancer, was clearly an international sensation. I have seen some of his podcasts, and video-casts, and understand that most of this book is culled from one of those podcasts.
I wanted to see how a clever guy like Green would approach the End of the World as We know It. Would he make light of it in some way? But Green goes the way of science as he talks of his own serious illnesses, his OCD, his depression, and tries to balance those traumas with his love of his wife and kids and so many nerdy relatable topics as to possibly suggest to any casual reader think he really is making silly asides to distract us from our global traumas. But he is not. He is trying to engage with us in as many ways as he knows, and it works.
Green jumps from topic to topic that he has become obsessed about and connects them to the Anthropocene in seemingly whimsical, meandering trips through: Halley's Comet, the Lascaux Cave Paintings, Air-Conditioning, The Yips, Monopoly, Hiroyuki Doi's Circle Drawings and Penguins of Madagascar, rating them along the way consistent with the five star rating system he also identifies as ubiquitous in our age.
"I am thoughtful—full of thoughts, all the time, inescapably, exhaustingly."
Green weaves in truly frightening science about the times we are living in, from Covid to Cholera and The Plague, so he is not using any topic to merely escape. Monopoly is a game about capitalism, a warning, for instance. Are you worried about the remaining freshwater resources on the planet? One third of the drinkable, freshwater usage in the US goes to watering lawns (time for this practice to end? I say so, but have said so for fifty years)!!!
The most moving and heart-breaking couple of essays are about his OCD obsession with signing over 400 thousand pieces of paper to slip into copies of Fault, to calm himself (as Doi did circles), and the story of the last recording, in 1987, of the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, a bird now extinct for decades. Since we have the podcast and this audiocast, Green plays this call, which begs for a response from a mate but of course hears none:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2KH5...
I listened to this book during the week when my friend Ann came to my comics class, which I actually zoomed from Grand Lake, at the western entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park, seeing for the first time the devastation of the two worst forest fires in Colorado history (that came perilously close--eleven miles--to joining forces and doing even more damage). This is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, where we saw herds of elk, deer, moose, and gorgeous landscapes somewhat obscured by the smoke from million acre fires in Oregon and California. The last time I was here, three years ago, at my sister's cabin, we also breathed that western forest fire smoke as we hiked here.
Here we see the place in the Columbine area of Grand Lake where fifty+ homes burned to the ground and some are being rebuilt, where a now blackened landscape with sentinel trees bearing testimony to climate devastation, and new grasses and flowers at the same time. Trauma is my theme of this little road trip, and recovery, the things we do as John Green has done to hold on to life and laughter and love. Such as the families we bring together on this trip.
One of my sons witnessed with his own eyes, just before we left on this trip, a man mutilated by a train. He was literally feet from this killing, as he came home from a Chicago Fire again. He will never in his life unsee that, this his trauma (and the trauma of the man's family and friends, of course!). But hen e came to the door we gave him a big family group hug, and we are supporting him.
My friend Ann is the survivor of four different kinds of cancer--real and lasting trauma of various kinds--and I am helping her develop and publish a graphic memoir about it. She came to my class and told us she does stand-up and has never cried in all of this time. I don't have time for that, she says. My class loved her and will be part of making this book happen.
Again, trauma and art as hope, as Green makes clear in his book, which made me kind of fall in love with the clever nerd Green all over again.
“For me, finding hope is not some philosophical exercise or sentimental notion; it is a prerequisite for my survival.”
Great audiobook, great podcast essays, great message. One of my favorite books of the year, that I highly recommend.
I got sort of sick of John Green's YA novel voice--his clever boarding school witticisms, his quirky wise-cracking heroes that all sound alike, but knew I had to listen to John Green's actual voice reading this book, as I read many books on climate change and the Anthropocene, most of them grim and frightening. I find in this book that like me, Green is near despair about the state of the world, but chooses hope. Green is maybe as well know for his Vlog Brothers podcast with his brother Hank as his YA, though The Fault in Our Stars, about a romance between two adolescents with cancer, was clearly an international sensation. I have seen some of his podcasts, and video-casts, and understand that most of this book is culled from one of those podcasts.
I wanted to see how a clever guy like Green would approach the End of the World as We know It. Would he make light of it in some way? But Green goes the way of science as he talks of his own serious illnesses, his OCD, his depression, and tries to balance those traumas with his love of his wife and kids and so many nerdy relatable topics as to possibly suggest to any casual reader think he really is making silly asides to distract us from our global traumas. But he is not. He is trying to engage with us in as many ways as he knows, and it works.
Green jumps from topic to topic that he has become obsessed about and connects them to the Anthropocene in seemingly whimsical, meandering trips through: Halley's Comet, the Lascaux Cave Paintings, Air-Conditioning, The Yips, Monopoly, Hiroyuki Doi's Circle Drawings and Penguins of Madagascar, rating them along the way consistent with the five star rating system he also identifies as ubiquitous in our age.
"I am thoughtful—full of thoughts, all the time, inescapably, exhaustingly."
Green weaves in truly frightening science about the times we are living in, from Covid to Cholera and The Plague, so he is not using any topic to merely escape. Monopoly is a game about capitalism, a warning, for instance. Are you worried about the remaining freshwater resources on the planet? One third of the drinkable, freshwater usage in the US goes to watering lawns (time for this practice to end? I say so, but have said so for fifty years)!!!
The most moving and heart-breaking couple of essays are about his OCD obsession with signing over 400 thousand pieces of paper to slip into copies of Fault, to calm himself (as Doi did circles), and the story of the last recording, in 1987, of the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, a bird now extinct for decades. Since we have the podcast and this audiocast, Green plays this call, which begs for a response from a mate but of course hears none:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2KH5...
I listened to this book during the week when my friend Ann came to my comics class, which I actually zoomed from Grand Lake, at the western entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park, seeing for the first time the devastation of the two worst forest fires in Colorado history (that came perilously close--eleven miles--to joining forces and doing even more damage). This is one of the most beautiful places on the planet, where we saw herds of elk, deer, moose, and gorgeous landscapes somewhat obscured by the smoke from million acre fires in Oregon and California. The last time I was here, three years ago, at my sister's cabin, we also breathed that western forest fire smoke as we hiked here.
Here we see the place in the Columbine area of Grand Lake where fifty+ homes burned to the ground and some are being rebuilt, where a now blackened landscape with sentinel trees bearing testimony to climate devastation, and new grasses and flowers at the same time. Trauma is my theme of this little road trip, and recovery, the things we do as John Green has done to hold on to life and laughter and love. Such as the families we bring together on this trip.
One of my sons witnessed with his own eyes, just before we left on this trip, a man mutilated by a train. He was literally feet from this killing, as he came home from a Chicago Fire again. He will never in his life unsee that, this his trauma (and the trauma of the man's family and friends, of course!). But hen e came to the door we gave him a big family group hug, and we are supporting him.
My friend Ann is the survivor of four different kinds of cancer--real and lasting trauma of various kinds--and I am helping her develop and publish a graphic memoir about it. She came to my class and told us she does stand-up and has never cried in all of this time. I don't have time for that, she says. My class loved her and will be part of making this book happen.
Again, trauma and art as hope, as Green makes clear in his book, which made me kind of fall in love with the clever nerd Green all over again.
“For me, finding hope is not some philosophical exercise or sentimental notion; it is a prerequisite for my survival.”
Great audiobook, great podcast essays, great message. One of my favorite books of the year, that I highly recommend.
June 10, 2021
This turned out to be a great choice for my bedtime book. John Green writes YA books, most notably "The Fault In Our Stars", which was also a popular movie. I read that one during my years at B&N to stay abreast of the teen section, and liked it a lot, though YA is not my favorite genre. It was an emotional novel about two cancer patients who fall in love during their therapy, so of course it was sad in parts, but also well written and not sappy.
This is his first foray into writing for adults, based on a podcast of the same name he co-hosts with his brother. The Anthropocene is our present day era, so each essay takes some aspect of our society important to him, good or bad, he explains it, dissects it, then gives it a star rating between 1 and 5 at the end. My explanation makes it sound dull, and it's not at all. It's uplifting and inspiring and informative in the best way, as his subjects are eclectic and very personal to him.
Each essay was easily read in the time it took for me to nod off, sometimes 2 or 3 of them. Green is everything I look for in an essay writer, funny, honest, descriptive, and able to make obscure thoughts clear and understandable. I consider E.B. White a master of the essay, and Green is right up there with him. I hope this isn't the last of the Anthropocene collection, as there is no end of subjects to write about.
Recommended to everyone, teens included.
This is his first foray into writing for adults, based on a podcast of the same name he co-hosts with his brother. The Anthropocene is our present day era, so each essay takes some aspect of our society important to him, good or bad, he explains it, dissects it, then gives it a star rating between 1 and 5 at the end. My explanation makes it sound dull, and it's not at all. It's uplifting and inspiring and informative in the best way, as his subjects are eclectic and very personal to him.
Each essay was easily read in the time it took for me to nod off, sometimes 2 or 3 of them. Green is everything I look for in an essay writer, funny, honest, descriptive, and able to make obscure thoughts clear and understandable. I consider E.B. White a master of the essay, and Green is right up there with him. I hope this isn't the last of the Anthropocene collection, as there is no end of subjects to write about.
Recommended to everyone, teens included.
January 14, 2022
My first one star of the year arrived earlier than I would have wished. John Green's schtick in trying very, very hard to come across as a thoughtful, humble, wonderstruck guy does not fly with yours truly.
I know how nice guys think, and John Green is not a pukka nice guy. He is very good at pretending to be one, and has polished his trade, both in terms of writing and also socialising, to a perfection I can only dream of.
Nevertheless, apart from 3 or 4 'essays' if such short on substance and formatting can be called that, the book didn't work for me. I DNFed it. I had also DNFed another book, L'ombre jaune, by Henri Vernes, who has been a worse writer than Green, but also had a better life than him.
But I had to register this book before I forgot its existence. This book is as forgettable as New Coke's taste, and as ignorable as the tissue paper one gets from the KFC near where I live.
The Greens, I will watch you on Tuesday, because your internet presence, unfunny often as it is, is much more welcome in my house than your books.
I know how nice guys think, and John Green is not a pukka nice guy. He is very good at pretending to be one, and has polished his trade, both in terms of writing and also socialising, to a perfection I can only dream of.
Nevertheless, apart from 3 or 4 'essays' if such short on substance and formatting can be called that, the book didn't work for me. I DNFed it. I had also DNFed another book, L'ombre jaune, by Henri Vernes, who has been a worse writer than Green, but also had a better life than him.
But I had to register this book before I forgot its existence. This book is as forgettable as New Coke's taste, and as ignorable as the tissue paper one gets from the KFC near where I live.
The Greens, I will watch you on Tuesday, because your internet presence, unfunny often as it is, is much more welcome in my house than your books.
September 5, 2025
This ambitiously titled book aspires to be a collection of essays on the predominant influence of humans on the environment and climate but falls far, far short and ends up a poorly edited assortment of the author's random musings on little relevant topics.
A few general statements on climate change and the covid pandemic are not enough to hold together the rambling thoughts on varied subjects, many of which are outdated and not in the least interesting to people outside the United States, or even immigrants in the United States. I didn't find much that engaged my attention through the book and any empathy I might have had for shared opinions took a firm step back in the face of comments seemingly manufactured for a target audience.
🌟1/4
[Half a star for the premise; 1/4 star for the stories and content; 1/4 star for the writing; 1/4 star for the description of the world; zero stars for development of characters and perspectives - 1 1/4 stars in total.]
A few general statements on climate change and the covid pandemic are not enough to hold together the rambling thoughts on varied subjects, many of which are outdated and not in the least interesting to people outside the United States, or even immigrants in the United States. I didn't find much that engaged my attention through the book and any empathy I might have had for shared opinions took a firm step back in the face of comments seemingly manufactured for a target audience.
🌟1/4
[Half a star for the premise; 1/4 star for the stories and content; 1/4 star for the writing; 1/4 star for the description of the world; zero stars for development of characters and perspectives - 1 1/4 stars in total.]
March 23, 2022
i remember thinking john green books were overrated when i was fourteen. i’m not sure how much of that was true and how much of that was my own need to call everything popular vapid and plastic, but in comparison this book certainly deserves the praise it’s received. it’s a delightful and meditative look at life that keeps a brisk pace and covers plenty of zany, well-researched topics, from piggly wiggly origin stories to misrepresentation of velociraptors in jurassic park to whispering, as a concept. it’s eclectic and fun, but also has a lot of depth, captured succinctly and simply. i really like books that can make serious themes accessible; this one is great for that.
4.5 stars. i really liked this, and i have a feeling i’ll return to it—so rounding up instead of down this time.
4.5 stars. i really liked this, and i have a feeling i’ll return to it—so rounding up instead of down this time.
Did Not Finish
September 4, 2021Wow! John Green must have spent A LOT of time watching Nat Geo and wiki-ing. So have I. I wish I had his conviction of a white rich man to spin all the trivia I know into a series of banal and sappy essays where I talk like I am an expert on every thing in this world via reciting easily googlable factoids. But alas, I have a full-time job.
John Green's following is still strong, judging by the average rating of this drivel. I can understand why kids would be impressed by it, but I am stunned this is an adult book?
John Green's following is still strong, judging by the average rating of this drivel. I can understand why kids would be impressed by it, but I am stunned this is an adult book?
August 19, 2021
The inherent and possibly intentional ridiculousness of having to write a review for this whole book is hilarious— and stupid. It's a truly, freely, un-ironic, heart-felt examination of what we love, how we love it, and who we love it with. It's humanity reviewed, renewed, examined and explained. The final "chapters" are almost entirely memoir, reflecting John's own participation in The Anthropocene. It's contemporary and classic and entirely, totally timely. It's the best, calmest, most responsible response to this hellish, extended age of lockdown and uncertainty. Hope may be the thing with feathers, but John Green is the giver of that hope.
I give this book five stars.
I give this book five stars.
August 5, 2025
ੈ♡˳ rating: 5/5 stars
ੈ♡˳ summary:
the anthropocene reviewed is a collection of deeply personal essays where John Green reviews different aspects of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale. From the marvel of sunsets to the heartbreak of pandemics, from the complexities of love to the joy of scratch-and-sniff stickers, Green takes readers through moments that shape our shared existence with curiosity, grief, humor, and wonder.
ੈ♡˳ thoughts:
this book cracked me open in the gentlest, most john green way possible. like yes, it's literally a book of reviews, but it's also a love letter to being human. every little essay felt like a quiet moment of connection—some of them made me laugh, others had me tearing up out of nowhere. but the one thing they all did was make me feel seen.
john green has this incredible ability to take something small and seemingly random—like canada geese or teddy bears—and turn it into a reflection on the human condition. it’s poetic without trying too hard, philosophical without being pretentious, and honest in a way that just hits different.
i know some people say it's just him rambling, but honestly? it’s the kind of rambling that makes you feel a little less alone. it made me nostalgic, hopeful, and more okay with the messiness of being alive.
as someone who lived through the “lost years” of the pandemic as an adult, i felt this book deep in my soul. it captured so many emotions i didn’t know how to name. and even now, long after finishing it, i keep thinking about the little lessons tucked in between reviews of viral meningitis and hot dog eating contests.
if you’re looking for a book that’ll remind you why you care, why you love, why it’s okay to be soft in a hard world—this is it.
ੈ♡˳ fave quotes:
➼ “we all know how loving ends. but i want to fall in love with the world anyway, to let it crack me open.”
➼ “hope is the correct response to the strange and terrible miracle of consciousness.”
➼ “what i love about science is that as it takes your breath away, it also grounds you. it reminds you that you are small, but also that you are connected.”
➼ “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
ੈ♡˳ summary:
the anthropocene reviewed is a collection of deeply personal essays where John Green reviews different aspects of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale. From the marvel of sunsets to the heartbreak of pandemics, from the complexities of love to the joy of scratch-and-sniff stickers, Green takes readers through moments that shape our shared existence with curiosity, grief, humor, and wonder.
ੈ♡˳ thoughts:
this book cracked me open in the gentlest, most john green way possible. like yes, it's literally a book of reviews, but it's also a love letter to being human. every little essay felt like a quiet moment of connection—some of them made me laugh, others had me tearing up out of nowhere. but the one thing they all did was make me feel seen.
john green has this incredible ability to take something small and seemingly random—like canada geese or teddy bears—and turn it into a reflection on the human condition. it’s poetic without trying too hard, philosophical without being pretentious, and honest in a way that just hits different.
i know some people say it's just him rambling, but honestly? it’s the kind of rambling that makes you feel a little less alone. it made me nostalgic, hopeful, and more okay with the messiness of being alive.
as someone who lived through the “lost years” of the pandemic as an adult, i felt this book deep in my soul. it captured so many emotions i didn’t know how to name. and even now, long after finishing it, i keep thinking about the little lessons tucked in between reviews of viral meningitis and hot dog eating contests.
if you’re looking for a book that’ll remind you why you care, why you love, why it’s okay to be soft in a hard world—this is it.
ੈ♡˳ fave quotes:
➼ “we all know how loving ends. but i want to fall in love with the world anyway, to let it crack me open.”
➼ “hope is the correct response to the strange and terrible miracle of consciousness.”
➼ “what i love about science is that as it takes your breath away, it also grounds you. it reminds you that you are small, but also that you are connected.”
➼ “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
September 14, 2021
This book wasn’t terrible by any means, it just wasn’t for me. In my opinion, John Green did not offer me anything new or interesting to reflect on in his own reflections about our current moment and era. I found a lot of the essays to be either boring or very run-of-the-mill observations that literally any liberal-minded writer could have written.
I did enjoy learning about some stories or facts I previously didn’t know about, though. And I did personally relate to and agree with a lot of his observations, reflections, and opinions on different topics of humanity. I think I was just expecting something a little more profound than an echo chamber of my current mindset when I decided to start listening to this audiobook.
However, with that said, I think this book will be great for readers who haven’t previously embraced the contemporary frame of mind that I’ve come to learn and recognize as “optimistic nihilism” (from an old Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell video on YouTube) and that I’ve also noticed has become increasingly popular within the culture over the last couple of years. Life is ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of the universe, but that’s precisely why life is beautiful and worth living. We get to continually create our own meaning out of it.
It feels oddly cringy and meta to review this book of reviews but I, unfortunately, give this book 2.5 stars.
I did enjoy learning about some stories or facts I previously didn’t know about, though. And I did personally relate to and agree with a lot of his observations, reflections, and opinions on different topics of humanity. I think I was just expecting something a little more profound than an echo chamber of my current mindset when I decided to start listening to this audiobook.
However, with that said, I think this book will be great for readers who haven’t previously embraced the contemporary frame of mind that I’ve come to learn and recognize as “optimistic nihilism” (from an old Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell video on YouTube) and that I’ve also noticed has become increasingly popular within the culture over the last couple of years. Life is ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of the universe, but that’s precisely why life is beautiful and worth living. We get to continually create our own meaning out of it.
It feels oddly cringy and meta to review this book of reviews but I, unfortunately, give this book 2.5 stars.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32,860 reviews