Anthropocene. I've never heard that word before. But it means: 

Wow. I really loved this book! When Storygraph's Onboarding Reading Challenge had a prompt for reading your least read genre, I thought it would be short stories, or nonfiction. But it was essays. I didn't think I had any other essay books other than Virginia Woolf, and I didn't want to read those right now. But when I saw John Green's book, The Anthropocene Reviewed, was an essay book, I was intrigued, and excited to pick it up as an audiobook, which is narrated by John Green himself. Listening to authors reading their own book is always a delight, especially if it is their memoir or autobiography. I was surprised by how meta this book was, the way it referenced that this was an audiobook while I was listening to it, and some nature sounds as well. It made the audiobook experience very engaging! Some essays were very engaging and interesting, and John Green covers a lot of topics in here that I was very interested in, like shows, memories, grief, COVID-19, chronic illness, anxiety, and just a lot of other random little things that I've experienced or remembered that I was not expecting him to reference in this book. The other essays were a little too random for me, but overall, I related a lot to the topics that were discussed in this book. I also really liked the way that he rated the essays after talking about them. Listening to this book from a perspective where we are out of COVID-19 and listening to him talk about a 'new normal' made this book a totally new experience! And for that, I give The Anthropocene Reviewed 4.5 stars!

I liked this read and it was a nice surprise that John Green narrated his own audiobook. I liked listening because it was almost like I was watching another Crash Course History video. It was very relaxing and I find that I agreed with a lot of things he wrote about the Anthropocene. He touched on a lot of common aspects of the current times. I wonder about a lot of the things he wonders about with life and nature too. The only reason I didn’t rate it 5 stars is because it felt a little drawn out, like it should have been shorter, but otherwise, was very pleasant. 

I don't much like John Green's fiction. I don't actively DISlike it, but it always seems to be a bit too light on the plot and characterization end and too heavy handed on the philosophical end. They're fine if not a bit heady, but John Green was made for nonfiction. We love his Crash Courses, his YouTube videos, his real life advocacy, and his podcasts. And this is that. Even down to its cadence and organization, this is just John Green having a highly consumable conversation with the reader that also helps them feel more encouraged about this life, even despite the many moments that suggest we should be panicking, even despite the occasional, poorly-veiled social advocacy moments.. He delivers a peacful philosophy despite it all. This is officially a new favorite book of mine. I need to go get a physical copy now.

While I don't include audiobook performance in my star rating of a book itself, I have the unique experience here of being able to critique the same person twice. Because John Green is an incredibly gifted speaker, and because I believe that audiobooks voiced by the author themselves have the potential to be the best of their kind, there's nothing about this narration that didn't hit the mark. I give John Green reading his own book the Anthropocene Reviewed... 5 stars.

"The Anthropocene Reviewed"

Method: audiobook by the author

One thing about me is: I love a theme. Themed events, themed locations, themed decor: give me something with a clearly-stated uniting category attached to it and I will be happy. And never more so than when it comes to collections of writings - be they essays, poems, short stories, letters, what have you - give me a clear overarching connection and I will be happy.

As themes go, "The Anthropocene" is broad enough to potentially be self-defeating. If it could be anything about human life (which in a piece of media made for humans essentially means 'anything at all', since everything we communicate about will always come back to us), what's the point in having a theme at all? Maybe that's me being too simplistic, but honestly the broadness of this theme does brush against the reason why I love them so much - I like being able to categorise things, and (to a somewhat lesser extent) to compartmentalise them, and a theme like this doesn't really allow for that sort of thing.

But my own personal taste in theming aside, I freaking loved this book. From the opening review of the song "You'll Never Walk Alone" from the musical 'Carousel' - a song I also have a personal connection to, with my very first time performing in a stage show having been as one of the Snow children who appears onstage during this song, in an experience which helped spark the love of theatre that has had such a profound influence on my life - I was hooked. My favourite reviews are the ones on the 1950 drama film "Harvey" (which serves as a deeply personal and empathy-facilitating explorarion of Green's experience with depression) and on the folk song "Auld Lang Syne" (which serves as a beautiful tribute to the work of his departed friend and mentor Amy Krouse Rosenthal, and has given me a variation on the song to sing which I will remember for the rest of my life).  This book has so many interesting, at times hilarious and at times profound reviews in here that are well worth reading - it's just that I love these two most, in equal measure. 

One of my favourite things about art is how it begets more art - both from a creative perspective (artists, writers, musicians, etc. being inspired by those who came before them and by their contemporaries), and from an audience perspective (one of my favourite examples of this is finding music for the first time through great needledrops in film and television). And to me, this book is at its best when it highlights some of the beautiful and strange and intriguing things that humans have created. I personally lean more towards the artistic ones, but the exploration of some of the more pragmatic human creations, such as vaccines, is also excellent -  informative and evocative, in equal measure. 

And this book does what so many of the books I deeply love do - it makes me want to write more, and it makes me want to participate more in the world. It makes me want both, in equal measure. 

I give "The Anthropocene Reviewed" four and a half stars. 

I liked it! I learned a lot about John and about his life but also about the world. Some essays were super interesting, some really not my thing. It moved me a lot in several parts and I did cry like, 4-5 times. The through line with the star reviews was nice, but it is a short story collection and maybe I just prefer Mr. Green's long story formats. Since I did very much enjoy myself though, it is a solid 4 stars. A good book club discussion book, just because of the small separate stories though! 

Formatting would have benefited greatly with the use of footnotes, which in turn would have helped with pacing and flow.

I found myself reading an essay or two about topics I had varying levels of interest in, and on to the next essay I would read the title and often put the book down because I had had enough of the meandering stream of consciousness associations for that session.

There were some things that I found value in, but it wasn’t really my cup of tea.

I was thoroughly surprised by this book. I went in open minded, but I fully expected not to enjoy this book. I don't usually read nonfiction books. I don't go out of my way to find nonfiction books and beyond that general hesitation with nonfiction, the premise of the book didn't really interest me all that much when going into it. But I surprisingly really liked it. I did start to feel a little bored with the book near the end of it. But overall I really enjoyed it and would recommend.