Book reviews

Columbine by Dave Cullen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There were 11 school shooting incidents in the U.S. in the same month that I read Columbine (January 2018). That the number of shootings has actually accelerated since the April 20, 1999 attack at Columbine High School, is testament to both the gun epidemic in the United States, and a broad failure to apply lessons learned from Columbine.

As author Dave Cullen sees it, the significant takeaway on Columbine is how important early detection is for teen depression. Eric Harris was a psychopath but not necessarily beyond control. He conscripted Dylan Klebold, who spent the last years of his short life mired in depression, anger and sadness. Early detection and treatment would likely have stopped the attack from happening or even from being planned at all. There’s no way to ever know for certain, but Cullen’s plea for better help for troubled teens stands against a backdrop of dozens upon dozens of school shootings since 1999.

Cullen also holds out blame for the media for sensationalizing these types of attacks, for giving the killers the fame and notoriety that many of them seek. Local media in and around Littleton, Colorado ran stories on the shootings every day for months after. Cullen offers deliberately ghoulish advice to would-be killers to make his point: you need to go big to crack the top ten (up the body count) or go all-in for “performance violence”–spectacle murder.

Today the spectacle murders have left as many as 58 people dead at the hands of a single individual, the usual empty “thoughts and prayers” offered, while help for those that need it most goes unfulfilled, and the guns continue to pile up.

Against this, Columbine offers little hope. Cullen has researched his subject exhaustively, starting at the school less than an hour after the attack started, and kept researching and interviewing for years after, compelled to determine why and what to do with that knowledge.

He deconstructs the myths that quickly built up around the shootings–that the killers were victims of bullying, that they targeted jocks, that they were Goths or it was “The Trenchcoat Mafia” behind them. What he found is a lot simpler than all of that. Eric Harris was a full-blown psychopath and used his charm to recruit others in his nihilistic plan to exterminate “inferior” humans. He convinced others to secure weapons and supplies, but it was Klebold that he was most successful with, tapping into the existential despair of his friend and conscripting him as an ally against everyone else. The world.

While Columbine is remembered as a shooting, Cullen points out that it is only Harri’s incompetence at bomb-making that really made it that way. The intricate plans, had they worked, would have seen propane gas bombs explode in multiple locations, such as the cafeteria, to maximize casualties. Harris further planned on covering exits to pick off survivors. He wanted to kill hundreds, to destroy the school because he could not destroy the entire world.

But the bombs all fizzled.

They still killed 13 before killing themselves and Cullen details how the families of victims handled the aftermath and–in some of the few hopeful moments in the story–how some survivors overcome the shooting to triumph over the tragedy.

Columbine is not an easy read and given the climate today, it is hard to remain hopeful that anything has changed for the better (one thing that did change was the idea of creating a “perimeter defense” around the area of the shooting. This setup allowed the killers to freely wander the school for over an hour before SWAT teams entered, shooting any and all they encountered. That doctrine has been abandoned in favor of going in as soon as possible to take out the threat). Even Cullen himself admits to depression following his immersion into the story.

All this is before you even take into account all the information suppressed by local law enforcement. They knew about Harris early on, but ultimately did nothing and later covered it up. This serves to further underscore how important early detection is. The killers extensively recorded and spoke of their plans, and were largely ignored.

The book is a tough read, but it’s an important one. Too many people slip through the cracks. Cullen vividly details the events of Columbine as both lesson and warning. Highly recommended.

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A Complaint Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted by Will Bowen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It would be wrong, of course, to complain about this book.

But I do have one minor concern, if I may. While author Will Bowen issues the challenge of going complaint-free for 21 days, he only addresses verbally complaining to others–face to face, like in the olden days before social media. He doesn’t specifically say if complaining on Twitter or Facebook or anywhere online still counts. I think it would, but the clarification would be nice.

Also, declaring sarcasm as complaining-with-humor (which is more or less true) would make this challenge nigh-impossible for me. I love sarcasm the way Jupiter loves gravity.

Still, I want to try, because the numerous examples of people forsaking all manner of complaining (except in their thoughts, as Bowen admits trying to police the 70,000-odd thoughts we have on average per day would be…daunting) provide compelling reasons to go complaint-free. It’s not just turning off negativity, it’s about opening yourself up to the positive, to thinking beyond problems, instead of just dwelling on them. Bowen admits that it is, to a degree, committing to a kind of self-delusion, but he asserts that those complaining are equally delusional, just in a negative, counter-productive way.

Not every story told in the book worked for me. The opening story, in which Bowen’s beloved dog is mortally injured in a hit and run, left me with too many unanswered questions. Bowen drives after the truck responsible and confronts the owner at the front step of his home. The driver is dismissive, noting how he doesn’t care and if Bowen tries to clock him in revenge, that’s assault. Bowen leaves, still in a rage, but ultimately realizes the driver has undoubtedly suffered pain in his life, enough to make him indifferent to killing an innocent dog, and he makes peace with himself over what happened. This is fine for Bowen.

But I was left wondering what an apparently unchecked sociopath like that driver would go on to do, having emerged from the incident without any repercussions. I’m not concerned about meting out punishment–the driver obviously needed help–but without any consequences for remorselessly taking out a cherished family pet, what might the driver do in the future?

Still, this story comes early and Bowen otherwise capably builds a case for going complaint-free, even as he notes how tough it is. Most people take 8-10 months before they get to 21 days in a row (the number of days was chosen as Bowen says it’s how long it takes for something to become a habit).

There really isn’t an effective counter-argument to be made for going complaint-free, unless you see anger, negativity and bitterness as strengths. Maybe if you’re The Incredible Hulk.

The book itself is a quick, easy read, and the stories shared by others are all so positive you can’t help but feel compelled to at least try. Being very much a “get it down in writing” kind of guy, I would have liked a bit more on the nuts and bolts of going complaint-free, and some of Bowen’s advice for dealing with complaint triggers is presented a bit glibly (“Get a new job! Drop your friends! Spend less time with your family!”), even if the advice is ultimately accurate.

Going complaint-free, especially with the veritable storm of negativity the media surrounds us with every day, is an immense challenge, but Bowen makes the reward sound worth it. Recommended.

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One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Much like the small steps the Kaizen technique recommends, this is a small book that is quickly read, all the better to start applying its suggestions for self-improvement.

Like the ancient expression “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” the Kaizen technique is one in which improvement is seen as a gradual process, where small steps lead (eventually) to big changes. The book covers several aspects of the technique, ranging from asking “small questions” to small rewards, small actions and so on. Each chapter includes tips and examples using patients of Robert Maurer’s.

Kaizen is appealing in its simplicity and logic. When we attempt major changes (think of New Year resolutions to lose a lot of weight or give up a bad habit or addiction) we usually trigger our brain’s fight or flight response, leading to anxiety and even fear. The body refuses to cooperate. The brain goes “Nope!” and suddenly that Boston Cream you swore you’d never touch has vanished from its plate.

Instead of going cold turkey, the Kaizen technique goes to the opposite end by promoting change through small increments, sometimes so small they may seem silly. In the donut example above (mmm, donuts…) you wouldn’t just give up Boston Creams immediately. Instead, you’d buy one as usual, sit down and then skip the first bite (Kaizen doesn’t tell you what to do with that bite so you’re on your own for that). The next donut skip the first two bites and so on. Eventually you’ll get to where you aren’t ordering the donut at all–and not missing it.

I’ve used this technique myself when I started running, adopting the well-known Couch to 5K plan. The first few runs were so brief (they were more walking then running) that it felt entirely effortless. How could I not continue? By the time I reached Week 7 of 9, it was the middle of summer, blazing hot and I struggled to meet that week’s goal–but I persevered, because I had spent nearly two months slowly building to that point and it wasn’t nearly as daunting as it would have been otherwise.

One Small Step Can Change Your Life is easy to read, easy to follow and lays out the case for Kaizen in a direct and accessible manner. I really can’t see how anyone couldn’t gain some benefit from adopting its technique for at least some aspect of his or her life. Recommended.

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Take Off Your Pants! Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing by Libbie Hawker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are plenty of books out there explaining how and why you should outline your novel. It always seems like drudgery to me and so I’ve avoided it, for the most part.

As I write this review, my attempt at National Novel Writing Month 2017 is a smoking ruin. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. It was never smoking at all, more a damp lump of coal that never caught fire. In the vernacular of Libbie Hawker’s book, I wore my pants, refused to take them off (commit to an outline) and stalled before I could get anything going. This was also my experience on several dates ten years ago.

It’s been even worse, too–sometimes I’ve committed thousands of words to a story before realizing that it was going nowhere.

Having just gone through another stall-out, I was more receptive to the idea of outlining.

Hawker’s book is brief, more a bookling than a book, but the brevity works as a strength because you’ll whip through it quickly and be able to apply its lessons all the sooner. Hawker also smartly realizes many will read the book through first before going back and using it as reference, noting where to keep a bookmark so you can jump back in when you’re ready to go.

The process she uses for outlines is simple and leans heavily on using the hero’s journey as your story’s template. She provides some wiggle room but there is a basic assumption that you will be writing about a flawed main character (or several) who is thwarted by one or more antagonists, and ultimately overcomes their flaw or at least fails to in an interesting way, completing the character arc/journey.

And she makes it seem tantalizingly simple, extolling the twin benefits of locking down your story in advance (while still leaving plenty of space to be creative once you start writing scenes and chapters) and cranking out a completed first draft significantly faster than the pants-wearing method (she has completed first drafts in as little as three weeks). Hawker references several well-known novels (an eclectic group, ranging from Lolita to Charlotte’s Web), as well as her own work to provide examples of the different parts of the outline.

In brief, she says every well-constructed novel has a Story Core that consists of a flawed character who wants something, is thwarted, struggles to overcome their flaw, then ultimately fails or succeeds. The Story Core is built on a structure she compares to a three-legged stool, consisting of Character Arc, Theme and Pacing. It sounds simple and really, it is. As mentioned above, it’s the hero’s journey, a story archetype that has been around for thousands of years. As Hawker notes, your story will shine not because it’s outrageously original, but because it’s well-told and in a voice that is distinctly your own.

Even as I was still going through Take Off Your Pants! I was imaging the outline of my still-unfinished NaNoWriMo 2014 novel, a story that is pretty solid in some ways, but a bit of a meandering mess in others. Applying Hawker’s outlining methodology, I can see what’s missing from the story and identify entire scenes that can be chucked (goodbye, thousands of words, *sob*).

Take Off Your Pants! is highly recommended to those with a fear of outlining but still willing to take another look at it. I think it’s made me a convert.

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