Comments on: In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (review: 2.5/5)

By: Mark Larson

Mark Larson — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:18:45 +0000

I don’t think I’ll ever read OD now. I know another friend who’s been working on it for about a year now…

By: Kevin Bleier

Kevin Bleier — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:33:37 +0000

Appreciate the review here, Mark. Glad you didn’t tackle The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which is probably 200% more bloated than this one (which I thought was more readable … but I didn’t finish this one either).

And I really want to like Michael Pollan too … love the ideas, but would also agree that you can read his articles or find him in radio discussions.

Even more frustrating for me (as a science teacher) is trying to find selections for students to read to get across his basic points. Holy crap … I tried last year with the above-mentioned book, and I think I had 10 pages with 2-3 lines per page underlined for them to read, then skip on to the next selection.

Yeesh.

By: Mark Larson

Mark Larson — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:28:42 +0000

Hopefully I didn’t totally scare you away from it. Maybe skim the last 50 pages in the library?

By: Seth

Seth — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:07:40 +0000

I was very close to purchase after seeing Pollan’s talk on YouTube and a recent NightLine appearance. Thanks for steering me in the opposite direction.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:22:14 +0000

Dude, the Pareto-analysis is Shazam!

(Thinking Big Thoughts . . .)

By: Mark Larson

Mark Larson — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:39:00 +0000

Maybe there’s a Pareto thing at work here: 80% of the information-value comes from maybe 20% of the book (the parts that make a good article).

But when it comes to financial returns on your ideas, 80% will come from the book and the attention (speaking, consulting, etc.) it generates. It’s a matter of taking that 20% and making it hefty enough for a hardback…

(Thanks for catching the typo!)

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:05:49 +0000

The phenomenon of the overblown magazine article is a common one in other areas, too. Two examples with which I’m familiar:

1. Sports books. There are a few (e.g. Moneyball, A Season on the Brink, Levels of the Game) that truly deserve long-form treatment. But many run-of-the-mill books don’t actually have that much narrative or thematic drive in them. You put a serviceable writer (e.g. John Feinstein) onto a topic and let him go until he’s got 400 pages. This *is* a great recipe for producing a book per year (cf. John Feinstein), but it’s not a great recipe for consistently producing *good* books.

2. Many of the most influential ideas in the social sciences have been promulgated in pathbreaking articles, e.g. “The Tragedy of the Commons” or “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” But many of these ideas *don’t* work nearly as well when expanded to book length. Or rather, the book-length treatments don’t tell us that much more than the shorter articles did.

The big impetus, of course, is that a magazine or journal article usually has a limited shelf life and a limited ability to repay its author over the long run, whereas books immediately address both of those concerns.

(By the way, “street” should be “streetlight,” I think.)