The Anthropocene Reviewed (Signed Edition): Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

by John Green

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

For many of us, the world is a curious place. For John Green, it’s an even MORE curious place. And who better to explore with us the Anthropocene age? What’s that you say? Well, let Green take your hand and lead us down the rabbit hole.

Goodreads Choice winner for Nonfiction 2021 and instant #1 bestseller! A deeply moving collection of personal essays from John Green, the author of The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down.

“The perfect book for right now.” –People

“The Anthropocene Reviewed is essential to the human conversation.” –Library Journal, starred review

The Anthropocene is the current geologic age, in which humans have profoundly reshaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his groundbreaking podcast, bestselling author John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale—from the QWERTY keyboard and sunsets to Canada geese and Penguins of Madagascar.

Funny, complex, and rich with detail, the reviews chart the contradictions of contemporary humanity. As a species, we are both far too powerful and not nearly powerful enough, a paradox that came into sharp focus as we faced a global pandemic that both separated us and bound us together.

John Green’s gift for storytelling shines throughout this masterful collection. The Anthropocene Reviewed is a open-hearted exploration of the paths we forge and an unironic celebration of falling in love with the world.

This is a signed edition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780525555216
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/18/2021
Edition description:	SIG
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

John Green is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of books including Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars, and Turtles All the Way Down. His books have received many accolades, including a Printz Medal, a Printz Honor, and an Edgar Award. John has twice been a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and was selected by TIME magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. He is also the writer and host of the critically acclaimed podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed. With his brother, Hank, John has co-created many online video projects, including Vlogbrothers and the educational channel Crash Course. He lives with his family in Indianapolis, Indiana. You can visit John online at johngreenbooks.com.

Read an Excerpt

From the Introduction
 
When I reviewed books, “I” was never in the review. I imagined myself as a disinterested observer writing from outside. My early re­views of Diet Dr Pepper and Canada geese were similarly written in the nonfictional version of third-person omniscient narration. After Sarah read them, she pointed out that in the Anthropocene, there are no disinterested observers; there are only participants. She explained that  when people write reviews, they are really writing a kind of mem­oir—here’s what my experience was eating at this restaurant or getting my hair cut at this barbershop. I’d written 1,500 words about Diet Dr Pepper without once mentioning my abiding and deeply personal love of Diet Dr Pepper.

Around the same time, as I began to regain my sense of balance, I reread the work of my friend and mentor Amy Krouse Rosenthal, who’d died a few months earlier. She’d once written, “For anyone trying to discern what to do w/ their life: PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU PAY ATTENTION TO. That’s pretty much all the info u need.” My attention had become so fractured, and my world had become so loud, that I wasn’t paying attention to what I was paying attention to. But when I put myself into the reviews as Sarah suggested, I felt like for the first time in years, I was at least trying to pay attention to what I pay attention to.

•••
 
This book started out as a podcast, where I tried to chart some of the contradictions of human life as I experience it—how we can be so com­passionate and so cruel, so persistent and so quick to despair. Above all, I wanted to understand the contradiction of human power: We are at once far too powerful and not nearly powerful enough. We are power­ful enough to radically reshape Earth’s climate and biodiversity, but not powerful enough to choose how we reshape them. We are so powerful that we have escaped our planet’s atmosphere. But we are not powerful enough to save those we love from suffering.

I also wanted to write about some of the places where my small life runs into the large forces of the Anthropocene. In early 2020, after two years of writing the podcast, an exceptionally large force appeared in the form of a novel coronavirus. I began then to write about the only thing I could write about. Amid the crisis—and writing to you from April of 2021, I am still amid it—I find much to fear and lament. But I also see humans working together to share and distribute what we collectively learn, and I see people working together to care for the sick and vulner­able. Even separated, we are bound up in each other. As Sarah told me, there are no observers; only participants.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

"You'll Never Walk Alone" 9

Humanity's Temporal Range 13

Halley's Comet 23

Our Capacity for Wonder 29

Lascaux Cave Paintings 35

Scratch 'n' Sniff Stickers 41

Diet Dr Pepper 47

Velociraptors 51

Canada Geese 55

Teddy Bears 61

The Hall of Presidents 67

Air-Conditioning 73

Staphylococcus aureus 79

The Internet 85

Academic Decathlon 89

Sunsets 95

Jerzy Dudek's Performance on May 25, 2005 101

Penguins of Madagascar 107

Piggly Wiggly 113

The Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest 121

CNN 127

Harvey 133

The Yips 139

Auld Lang Syne 145

Googling Strangers 153

Indianapolis 159

Kentucky Bluegrass 165

The Indianapolis 500 169

Monopoly 175

Super Mario Kart 181

Bonneville Salt Flats 185

Hiroyuki Doi's Circle Drawings 191

Whispering 195

Viral Meningitis 199

Plague 205

Wintry Mix 215

The Hot Dogs of Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur 223

The Notes App 231

The Mountain Goats 237

The QWERTY Keyboard 239

The World's Largest Ball of Paint 245

Sycamore Trees 251

"New Partner" 257

Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance 263

Postscript 271

Notes 279

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/07/2021

YA novelist Green (Turtles All the Way Down) makes his adult debut with this perfectly calibrated collection that reviews and rates various aspects of the current epoch. Taking on the style of a Yelp review, Green assigns a five-star rating to each topic he covers. “Our Capacity for Wonder,” for example, gets three and a half stars (due to humans’ general lack of attentiveness), while Diet Dr. Pepper gets four—Green loves the drink, but finds consuming it feels like “committing a sin.” His review of the video game Mario Kart gives way to a discussion of privilege and a consideration of the role videos games played in the male friendships of his youth: “We didn’t need to talk about Mario Kart, but we needed Mario Kart to have an excuse to be together,” while CNN gets two stars for its failure to report “background information that allows us to understand why the news is happening.” Each short review is rich with meaning and filled with surprises—”Sunsets,” for example, draws on several poems to ask “what should we do about the clichéd beauty” of a setting sun— and together, they amount to a resonant paean to hard-won hope. Green’s legions of fans will be delighted. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Anthropocene Reviewed

★ “The book is a review of humanity: how we grow, how we build, how we destroy, and how we observe ourselves. Many books succeed at making the personal universal, but this one also makes the universal personal.

“This is a book about culture, about science and medicine, about Green himself, but really it surpasses these designations. It is essential to the human conversation. John Green whispered the truth of humanity onto the page, and as with all good secrets, you’ll need to lean in closely to hear.” –Library Journal, starred review

“The Anthropocene Reviewed is the perfect book to read over lunch or to keep on your nightstand, whenever you need a reminder of what it is to feel small and human, in the best possible way.” –San Francisco Chronicle

“There is something of the sermon in [Green’s] essays as he mixes curiosity and erudition with confession, compassion, and wit, searching for illuminating life lessons amid life’s dark chaos. His particular mix of irony and sincerity enables him to embrace both the sublime and the ridiculous.” –Booklist

“Lyrical and beautiful, funny and hopeful, intricate and entertaining all at once.... Green may have made his name by writing fiction (and for good reason), but this first foray into nonfiction is his most mature, compelling, and beautifully written book yet.” –Shondaland.com
 
“What Green is really telling us with these unexpected stories about Sycamore Trees, Canada Geese, and Dr Pepper is how much there is to love in the world and why that love is worth the effort.” –NPR.com

★ “Each short review is rich with meaning and filled with surprises and together, they amount to a resonant paean to hard-won hope.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review

★ “Each of the entries in The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet, is a small gem, polished to near perfection…. What unites them is [Green’s] uncanny ability to structure each piece as both a critique of human foibles and an embracing of them.” –Shelf Awareness, starred review

“If you’re looking for a little hope this summer look no further than John Green’s latest essay collection…. These personal essays explore humanity in every detail from funny and small to complex and powerful.” –Isaac Fitzgerald, TODAY Show Summer Reading Recommendations

“In his novels, John Green conjures richly imagined, heartfelt drama that lovingly explores the human condition. With The Anthropocene Reviewed, John pulls off the same magic trick while writing about the largest ball of paint...and it is glorious. Every page is full of insight. I loved it.” –Roman Mars, creator and host of 99% Invisible

“The Anthropocene Reviewed somehow satisfies all the contradictory demands I have for a book right now: it stimulates my brain while getting me out of my head while taking me to faraway places while grounding me in the wonders of my everyday. I’m so glad it’s here. I need it.” –Anna Sale, host of Death, Sex & Money and author of Let’s Talk About Hard Things

“If loving something out loud takes courage, and I think it does, John Green is Evel Knievel and The Anthropocene Reviewed is a series of ever-more-impressive motorcycle jumps.” –Latif Nasser, co-host of Radiolab

From the Publisher

★ 05/21/2021

In these essays, the Anthropocene is defined as the era in which humans decided that humanity was the most important influence on the world. It is a circuitous definition, the humor and despair of which is not lost on Green (Turtles All the Way Down). In his first foray into nonfiction, Green explores the joys, sorrows, and inconveniences of being human, through essays reviewing things he has encountered in his life, from Diet Dr Pepper to viral meningitis. Each review is less about its central object or circumstance and more about how it reflects on the user or observer (we also learn Green's true feelings on wintry mix). The book is a review of humanity: how we grow, how we build, how we destroy, and how we observe ourselves. Many books succeed at making the personal universal, but this one also makes the universal personal. With these essays, Green reveals his internal life in vignettes, with the hope that one of his stories will spark recognition and connection among readers. VERDICT This is a book about culture, about science and medicine, about Green himself, but really it surpasses these designations. It is essential to the human conversation. John Green whispered the truth of humanity onto the page, and as with all good secrets, you'll need to lean in closely to hear.—Ahliah Bratzler, Indianapolis

Library Journal

2021-05-18
The bestselling author offers a miscellany of essays on life and letters in an environmentally fraught time.

Green, who admits to a certain amount of OCD, opens charmingly with a telling instance: It took him 30 days to create a path through the woods behind his Indianapolis home to reach a treehouse less than a minute away: “It took me a month to build a fifty-eight-second walk in the woods.” He might well have conjured the critic Morse Peckham, who once observed that a futile activity isn’t so futile if it puts off recognizing its own futility. It’s one of few bookish allusions Green misses in this pleasing book of essays personal and cultural. The author notes that we are at a moment when everything is rated thanks to the pernicious influences of Amazon and Yelp and such; Green calls a bout of labyrinthitis “an unambiguously one-star experience.” The ratings continue: He gives humankind a four-star chance of surviving the present era of mounting catastrophes, the Anthropocene. His register of references is far-ranging. Among dozens of other topics, he discusses Shakespearean evocations of clouds, the origins of the “pathetic fallacy” in the writings of John Ruskin, and the world’s largest ball of paint, which can be found not far from Green’s home. There are fine moments throughout, as when the author writes appreciatively of Indianapolis as a place he loves “precisely because it isn’t easy to love” or when he ponders the social basis of genius, by which artists such as Michelangelo flourished because others were making advances in the study of human anatomy and Julius Caesar “became a dictator because…over time the empire’s soldiers felt more loyalty to their military leaders than to their civilian ones.” In a treat for die-hard fans, each copy from the first print run will be signed by the author.

A grab bag, but one that repays reading and reflection and a pleasure throughout despite occasionally dark moments.

Kirkus Reviews