Vigilant Corpse’s Reviews > The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a human-centered planet > Status Update

I need more essay collections by John Green, I know I will feel the loss and absence in my bones the moment I finish this amazing book. It's just so rich, humane, and I get to learn and understand so much our kind, our coming, and the nature of humanity. The perseverance, the strength, the brutality and all the depravity, that makes us, us. Such a gem of a collection, there's always something to take from each essay.

This collection is such a delight!

Missed reading these essays. Still as humorous and insightful as I remember.

I never knew John Green could come up with such nuanced, emotional and intricate pieces of vignettes. So so different and for me, better, than his other YA popular boos. Such an important and warm yet critical collection.

"It can sometimes feel like loving the beauty that surrounds us is somehow disrespectful to the many horrors that also surround us. But mostly, I think I’m just scared that if I show the world my belly, it will devour me. And so I wear the armor of cynicism, and hide behind the great walls of irony, and only glimpse beauty with my back turned to it, through the Claude glass."

Loving this so much. So insightful, nuanced and warm.

Throughout the essays Greene effectively displays how us humans have shaped the world and our own very imaginations via artificiality. Because, that's what thrills us rather than delving in actuality. How our assumptions, ideas and the portrayal of media regarding things can dilute with the actuality and authenticity of them. Through the lens of media and such, humans tend to make their imaginations the 'reality'.

Really liking how John Greene speaks about the little details of life, little subtle moments that we often brush past but they had done many things for us, in shaping us for who we are and providing us sanctuary and/or places of terror. How through everything, he critiques and comments on the beauties and brutalities of mankind and humanity. At times adding historical lens or simply by expressing his own experiences.

This is the part 2 of my update. All the essays I read here so far emphasizes on the central idea of humans and how everything around is controlled and maintained by humans, how human emotions, cruelty and actions effect our day to day lives, but in all that, there is a striking lingering sensation of hope that displays humanity and compassion for the mankind. Very well written and thoughtful, indeed.