Utne Reader Book Reviews

World of Hurt
My Brother’s Keeper: Documentary Photographers and Human Rights
edited by Alessandra Mauro (Contrasto)

The first step in healing suffering is to witness it, and My Brother’s Keeper is a powerful lens into the visual vocabulary of human misery. A collection of documentary photographs from the 1880s to 2004 by some of the masters of the genre, the book unflinchingly depicts sweatshop workers, AIDS victims, civil rights marchers, and nuclear casualties, with short essays that help explain and interpret these searing images.

What’s the point, you might ask? Not to bum viewers out, or to shock them, though both reactions are understandable, but to show the often world-changing work of photographers who “have in common the decision . . . not to turn away but to commit themselves to precisely revealing violence that needed to be shown, to be corrected,” editor Alessandra Mauro writes in an opening essay.

The viewer faces, at a greater remove, the same dilemma. Sometime between the impulse to examine each photo and the urge to turn away, our humanity kicks in and correction seems not just possible but imperative.

—Keith Goetzman

The Geography Of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World
by Eric Weiner (Twelve)

It’s a smile-inducing concept: Armed with scientific rankings of the happiest countries, writer Eric Weiner sets out to find what makes them so darn joyous.
He hops planes to Iceland, where he visits Hilmar the Happy Heathen; Bhutan, which has an official Gross National Happiness policy; and Qatar, where he finds laughter elusive despite staggering wealth. For good measure, he even visits a markedly unhappy place, dour and dank Moldova. These and other destinations provoke humorous ruminations that at their best recall the witty travelogues of Bill Bryson and Tim Cahill. In the end the book wanders a bit, as if Weiner’s lost his bearings, but as in most travels, the journey is as important as the destination. —K.G.

Citrus: A History
by Pierre Laszlo (University of Chicago Press)

Where do scurvy and sabayon meet? Both the deadly seafarer’s disease (caused by vitamin C deficiency) and the gourmand’s finicky foam enliven Citrus: A History, in which Pierre Laszlo colorfully unpacks the cultural, economic, and gastronomic significance of the long-sought-after citrus fruits. It is a labor of love for Laszlo, a chemist whose gift for storytelling extends to the molecular level; he can’t help but add quick scientific explanations for how to protect citrus crops from the cold and why lemon tart tastes good. Laszlo has assembled a series of curious, captivating stories that touch on the commercialization of orange juice, intrigue in the race to discover vitamin C, and the author’s own mouthwatering recipe for fried Valencia oranges. —Danielle Maestretti