Schwarzenegger, now 75, is a hard figure to categorize. Many observers see him as a hypermasculine cliche, with a robotic accent and an empty head. Others, after his period as governor of California, see him as a chameleon who spouted conservative rhetoric while implementing liberal policies. All these people will probably be surprised by Be Useful, where he distils his experiences into a self-help manual. He is worried about the growing number of lost, lonely, and depressed people, which he ties to a lack of purpose and will. The book is not an autobiography – he has already written the story of his life, in the 2012 book Total Recall – although he often draws on personal stories and anecdotes. Success, he says, is whatever each person wants it to be, but the common requirements are a clear vision, hard work, resilience, a capacity for continual learning, and ultimately, a willingness to use success as a way to help others.
As Governor, he increased funding for vocational training, and believes that many people find their life purpose in making and building things. He has little time for self-indulgent college degrees that produce only self-important chatterers. As for goals, he advises against having a Plan B – it always leads to the failure of Plan A. Life, he says, should be about doing things, not about talking about doing things or, even worse, simply complaining.
His references to his achievements can seem boastful, although he makes a point of thanking his mentors, his Hollywood colleagues, his friends, and even his ex-wife. He now lives alone, but it seems to be an enjoyably solitary life rather than a lonely one, and he continues to receive calls from movie directors.
Some readers might argue with his view that success is a matter of positive thinking while ignoring structural impediments. In any case, Be Useful is a good read, and Schwarzenegger does not shy away from using colorful language to get his point across. His argument that depression, polarization and loneliness is eating away at the country’s human fabric is hard to deny. The book might not have all the answers for social recovery but it is not a bad place to start.
The Sister: The extraordinary story of Kim Yo Jong, the most powerful woman in North Korea
by Lee Sung-Yoon
Pan Macmillan, $37
North Korean politics is a dark labyrinth, and lurking in the shadows is a bloody-handed woman who has, through dynastic circumstances, emerged as a major power. Kim Yo Jong is the younger sister of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and, at the moment, is the likely heir apparent. Lee, a US-based academic who has been studying and writing about North Korea and the Kim family for many years, notes that she holds only a minor position in the government hierarchy. But her power, which includes the ability to sentence anyone to death for any reason, stems from being “First Sister” and a key member of the royal family. She initially made headlines as North Korea’s representative at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea and since that time her profile has increased. She now makes public statements about regime policy, especially regarding foreign affairs. The Kim family has always had a reputation for bellicosity, but Kim Yo Jong has taken it to a new level, with barrages of personal insults and threats delivered in a tone of vicious sarcasm. Her rants against South Korea indicate an unmitigated hatred.
Within North Korea, she backs up her words with ruthless action, removing anyone who might one day be a threat to her or the family. She apparently once had some senior North Korean officials sent to prison because “they got on her nerves”. Unsurprisingly, all those around her now spend a good deal of their time telling her that she is wonderful, insightful, brave, etc etc. Lee believes that she enjoys being feared and has a wide streak of cruelty. Sometimes, she makes her brother look like the sensible and restrained member of the family.
Lee is unsurprised by this behavior, as she was called “princess” in her childhood and learned the art of disdain at her father’s knee. As chief propagandist, she has cemented the power of the dynasty, emphasising the mythical idea of the “Mount Paektu Bloodline” that began with North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung. So far, Kim Jong Un has been entirely supportive of everything she has done, but the long term is unclear. There is some evidence that Kim Jong Un would prefer his daughter as a successor. If Kim Jong Un was to pass away while his daughter was still young – an unpleasant accident while inspecting a military site, perhaps – could Kim Yo Jong emerge as a regent? There are many possibilities, and none of them are good.
Lee acknowledges that Kim Yo Jong can put on a charming face for international media consumption, replacing her attack-dog demeanour with understated fashion. But he warns commentators to be wary. She is, quite simply, an extremely dangerous person and would be even more threatening in the top position. It is a worrying but unavoidable conclusion.
Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP
By Patrick Ruffini
Simon & Schuster, $35
America’s political landscape is changing and Ruffini, who has had a long career working as a pollster and analyst on the Republican side, tries to make sense of it all. His focus in The Party of the People is on the trends of the past two decades, as wealthy, college-educated voters have moved solidly towards the Democrats while a large section of the white, working-class group have gravitated to the Republicans. Ruffini, while not quite a Never Trumper, does not hide his personal dislike of Trump although he appreciates that he was able to intuitively recognize these changes and articulate a message that resonated. He had originally thought that Trump’s victory in 2016 was an aberration but the fact that he received 12 million more votes in 2020, including millions of non-white voters, made him think again. The Republican Party was no longer the province of the country club set or Wall Street plutocrats. It has become something else, and the transformation is continuing.
Ruffini sees the critical divide in politics as no longer income but university education (although wealth tends to be connected to education). He assembles a mass of data to support his points, noting that the wealthiest districts are nearly all held by Democrats. He also looks at the attitudes of the activists of the Democrat Party, who are somehow convinced that there is a Progressive majority in the country, a belief reinforced by living in an echo chamber. Their obsessiveness and arrogance often turns into open disdain for the working class, which they see as innately conservative and standing in the way of the Progressive agenda. This view is simply not supported by the data, says Ruffini. A large chunk of the moderate middle is needed for any electoral victory, and insulting the people there is not going to win them over. So it is no surprise that the white working class has gravitated to the Republicans and were particularly responsive to Trump’s message.
However, the white working class is slowly shrinking so the Republicans have to find additional support. There is an obvious path: Hispanic voters, who often have conservative values and dislike the way that Progressives refer to them as ‘Latinx’. Their priorities are pragmatic: decent jobs, public safety, healthcare, and good education for their kids. The picture with Asians is similiar, with access to the best universities being a key issue. They do not have much time for the Democrat obsessions of race, abortion, gender, and vague ideas of ‘equity’. Republicans have already made inroads into these groups and are working hard to extend and consolidate their support. The Republican coalition is now clearly multi-racial, and is likely to become even more so.
Ruffini makes an interesting detour into an early incarnation of this argument. There was an important book first published in 2004, The Emerging Democratic Majority by Ruy Teixeria and John Judis. It put forward the idea that growing minorities such as Hispanics could, if they continued to vote for Democrats, give the party a near-permanent hold on power. But that, as the authors emphasised, was a big ‘if’, and the Democrats would have to actively court Hispanics and other minorities. However, many Democrat activists ignored this crucial proviso, jumping straight to the ‘demographics is destiny’ argument. This has been a major source of annoyance for Teixeria in particular, and he has written several articles about it and about the need of the Democrats to return to the centre (sorry, Ruy, not going to happen).
As things stand, the two strongest groups for the Democrats are suburban women and black voters. Ruffini believes that the Republicans have a decent chance of luring some of these voters into their camp, and even small shifts would have major consequences. But the key problem is Trump, who repels as many people as he attracts. What the Republicans need, Ruffini suggests, is someone who can run with a Trumpesque agenda but does not generate the deep, personal antagonism. Is there such a Trump-lite person? We will have to wait and see.
Interesting ideas, but it must be said that there are areas where Ruffini might have dug a bit deeper in his research, especially in the connection he makes between having a university degree and being Progressive. Yes, graduates in gender studies, environmental issues and software development might swing hard to the left, but do accountants, engineers and tax lawyers? It seems a bit unlikely, and some relevant data would have been useful. Another question: how does the increase in the vote for Trump in 2020 square with the fact that many Trump-aligned congressional candidates failed to win in 2022? It feels as if there are some pieces missing in the jigsaw.
Nevertheless, The Party of the People is well worth a read. Ruffini keeps the jargon to a minimum and steers away from simplistic conclusions. The book does not answer every question it asks but it offers important, provocative food for thought.
Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator
By Keith Houston
Norton, $32
Houston is a writer with a taste for the esoteric, as he showed in his book about punctuation, Shady Characters. In his latest, he charts the development of the pocket calculator, delivering a fascinating, witty tale. The human search for reliable ways of counting has been long and circuitous, ranging from notches on bones to the abacus to clunky mechanical machines. Houston has a good time hunting down some of the attempts of the 19th century; most of them did not work very well, but they laid the groundwork for later improvements. War and navigation were the key drivers in the search for arithmetic accuracy, and the author introduces us to a cast of colorful characters along the way.
He takes a variety of fun detours, such as a discourse on the history of pockets and a discussion of the Curta, a hand-held calculating device of gears and wheels. Slide rules became essential tools for the numerically minded, and the development of crank-operated accounting machines was a huge step forward. But the real genesis of the pocket calculator came with the Casio line, which switched the focus from mechanics to electronics. The next major improvement was the addition of built-in formulae and logarithmic tools, which turned arithmetic into math.
Houston unpacks the breakthrough products, including the Hewlett-Packard HP-35 and the Texas Instruments TI-81. He believes that the heyday of the pocket calculator was the 1980s and ’90s. After that, cellphones and laptops became unbeatable competition. However, the fact that these digital advances integrated calculators into their operations meant that the idea lived on, albeit in another form. “The calculator is dead; long live the calculator,” he concludes.
An entertaining, informative story about a technology that defined an era.
Outrage Machine: How Tech Amplifies Discontent, Disrupts Democracy – And What We Can Do About It
By Tobias Rose-Stockwell
Legacy, $23
When the internet first appeared, many observers thought it would bring people together through the exchange of information, news, and opinions. While that is true, it has also become a collection of dangerous echo chambers where minor disagreements quickly escalate into savage confrontations. Rose-Stockwell, a journalist specializing in technology issues, delves into how this happened. There are evolutionary reasons, he notes, for the human brain to focus on urgent, emotional signals, and a crucial aspect of civilization is that it tamps down instinctive responses in favor of moderation and tolerance.
Social media aims at the primal parts of the psyche, including a desire to be part of a tribal in-group. The companies that run social media quickly realized that there was money to be made by promoting extremism on both sides of the political spectrum and, conversely, little profit in asking people to think rather than feel. Rose-Stockwell examines the key words, phrases, images, and ideas that are used to keep people glued to their screens, simmering with anger and fear. Eventually, the brain accepts outrage as the norm, and social ties contract to a small circle of the like-minded.
There are, says Rose-Stockwell, ways to reverse this pattern—e.g., think before you post, keep track of how much time you spend on social media, and seek to build relationships instead of shouting at strangers. These are solid ideas, but there is a sense of too little, too late. Like most addictions, the process of recovery begins with an acceptance that there is a problem, and it seems unlikely that the chronically outraged would do that. There is a way out of the anger trap, but you have to want to leave. Rose-Stockwell capably diagnoses the illness, but the remedy remains elusive.
Based on solid research, this is a disturbing examination of the destructive impact of social media.
Our clothes, according to this disturbing book, could be slowly undermining our health. Fast-fashion garments often have a cocktail of dangerous chemicals embedded in the fabric, and there is no effective national regulation of them. Wicker, founder and editor-in-chief of EcoCult, first became aware of this issue when investigating health problems reported by airline employees, mainly rashes and eye irritations but sometimes much more serious concerns. The cause was traced back to new uniforms that, like most garments sold in the U.S., had been produced overseas. This led Wicker to look more broadly at the clothing industry, and she discovered that nearly everything contained harmful chemicals, ranging from fungicides to anti-wrinkle additives. Many dyes, especially those used to produce neon colors, are used in dangerous quantities, and toxins can be absorbed through the skin or even inhaled.
Wicker supplies a useful glossary of chemicals and notes that one of the most common is formaldehyde, which is harmless in small doses but carcinogenic when used intensively. People with allergies are often the first affected, but there are links to broader health issues, and Wicker has a long list of horror stories. Even more, in the countries where the garments are produced, there are cases where entire communities have been poisoned by toxic fumes or contaminated water. Wicker points to some clothing companies that have started to detoxify their products, but others are seemingly willing to prioritize profits over customer health.
She argues for stronger regulation to ensure transparency and a higher level of safety, with an expansion of the oversight of the Consumer Product Safety Commission to include clothing. At another level, consumers can help themselves by avoiding cheap knockoffs, buying natural fabrics, minimising dry-cleaning, and staying away from garments that have been heavily dyed. Also, writes the author, trust your nose: if something smells bad, it probably is.
Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture
By Sara Petersen
Beacon Press
Being a mother has always been a difficult job, but it has become even more so in the age of social media. Petersen, a journalist who has been studying and writing about mommy blogging since the early days, introduces us to the more recent phenomenon of momfluencers, who present their role as mothers on various sites – mainly Instagram – to sell sponsored products or sometimes their own product lines. Their mothering lives look perfect: clean and stylish houses, cute and well-behaved children, handsome and affluent husbands. The images and the accompanying stories set standards that few women can achieve, though many women want to.
Petersen admits to being of two minds about momfluencers. As a mother of three, she finds it hard to resist the allure of domestic perfection, but she readily acknowledges that the picture has more to do with marketing than reality. Within the burgeoning industry, there are numerous types of momfluencers, such as the “trad mom,” the “cool mom,” and the “minimalist mom.” As the author notes, “the single feature that unites most of them is a celebration of the nuclear family and traditional gender roles.” The industry is also predominantly White, which has led to a backlash. Petersen looks at several sites developed by women of color aimed at presenting a more realistic picture as well as sites for women to share snarky comments about momfluencers.
In the final pages of the book, Petersen stumbles onto the best way to escape from the momfluencers and their envy-generating performances. On a holiday with her happily imperfect family, she deleted the Instagram app. She did not want to know, “and the not knowing was bliss.” It is a fitting end to her investigation of this key part of the social media landscape.
The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Essays on Desire and Consumption
By Katy Kelleher
Simon & Schuster
A love of beauty is an essential part of being human, writes Kelleher, a freelance journalist who specialises in design and visual culture. She admits that for her, the study of beauty is more than a profession, and she notes that her desire for lovely things rescued her from the depths of depression at several points in her life. However, she also realises that many of the things she loves have problematic stories behind them, which she explores while trying to find the roots of her own desires. The mining of gemstones often involves environmental degradation, and most diamonds are unearthed by workers who endure slavelike conditions. Kelleher also loves perfume, but it has a troubling history. Whales were slaughtered for their ambergris, which was the basis of expensive scents for a long time, and other animals were likewise exploited. Many cosmetics have equally unsavory origins. The red coloring of lipstick, for example, comes from the shells of crushed bugs.
Kelleher saves some of her sharpest barbs for silk, a fabric she has desired since she was young. The production of silk involves the careful unwrapping of silkworm cocoons, usually done by children. Even marble, whether in sculptures or tabletops, is dangerous to miners and masons, leading to numerous health problems. For Kelleher, all this creates terrible moral dilemmas, but she eventually came to terms with the duality. “I came to accept that desire and repulsion exist in tandem and that the most poignant beauties are interthreaded with ugliness,” she writes. “There is no way to live without causing harm. Despite all that, we keep trying. At least, I do.” Though occasionally pretentious and self-indulgent, the author has plenty of interesting things to say in her ruminations about beautiful things with dark origins.
When The Heavens Went On Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach
By Ashlee Vance
HarperCollins, $29
There was a time when the Space Race was run by superpower states vying for advantage and prestige with massive rockets. These days, it is between private companies looking for next-gen profits. Vance, a business columnist who combines enthusiasm with solid research, believes that the pivotal year was 2008, when Elon Musk’s SpaceX became the first private company to build a low-cost rocket and launch it into orbit. Other billionaires poured money into space ventures but within a few years the venture capitalists had jumped on board. The unifying theme was a belief that the Old Space agencies had become mired in suffocating bureaucracy and were unaware of the advances made in consumer electronics and off-the-shelf equipment.
“Trying out an idea in space no longer required congressional approval or some wild-eyed dreamer willing to risk his personal fortunes,” says Vance. “It just required a couple of people in a room agreeing that they’re willing to spend someone else’s money on a huge risk.”
He follows several companies that made advances with small rockets launching mini-satellites for purposes ranging from weather forecasting to advanced communications. They show a remarkable streak of ingenuity, often working with little more than shoestring budgets and a vision of the future. There have also been space flights for tourism, although they have had more to do with gaining publicity than making a profit.
Vance was able to visit several launch sites and interview most of the key players. Several of them are alarmingly eccentric but they all have the sense of being part of something historic. One of the most interesting ideas is for a space-based Internet to connect people without access to fibre-optic cables, which would require a network of thousands of satellites. Difficult, but the use of the SpaceX Starlink system during the Ukraine war shows the potential. Although some of Vance’s stories go on for longer than needed he captures “the spectacular madness of it all”, making When the Heavens Went on Sale an energetic, colorful account.
Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital
by Elise Hu
Penguin, $28
There is a common Korean phrase, bbali bbali, which essentially translates to ‘hurry hurry’. Hu, American-born to Taiwanese parents, believes it sums up South Korea’s rush into hypermodernity. When she first arrived in Seoul to establish a bureau for NPR she was stunned by the cult of beauty that grips young Korean women. The aim of Western cosmetics is often to accentuate features but in Korea the goal is skin that seems so perfect it needs nothing else. This naturalism is built on intensive research and marketing by the skincare firms, which provide a continuing procession of products. Some young women spend nearly their entire income on beauty products, and what is left is used for clothes and accessories.
Beyond this, there is the huge business of cosmetic surgery, which can amend any part of the body. There is no stigma in having work done; indeed, it is paraded. Doting parents often give their daughters an operation which creates an eyelid crease resulting in a large, almond-shaped eye, as a reward for graduating from high school. All this is not about self-expression but an aspiration towards perfection: blemish-free skin, long shining hair, a narrow nose, a perfectly symmetrical face, a delicate jawline, and legs shaped to meet a mathematical formula. It ultimately leads to a sameness of look but Korean women see it as a necessary investment for social success, and the few who buck the trend face ostracism. Looking at this endless commodification of the female body, Hu asks: “where do you draw the line when previously impossible changes become possible?”
She also notes that some women, obsessed with the filtered faces on Snapchat and Instagram, want to be ‘improved’ to look like their digital images. These trends, pushed along by social media, K-pop and Korea’s export marketing machine, are having a global impact. The beauty business is targeting more men (although it is marketed as ‘grooming’ rather than cosmetics) and, worryingly, children as young as five or six.
Even though Hu found much to like and admire about Korea she is unsure about where all this is going. But she hopes that there will be a turn away from relentless superficiality, with some seeds of it starting to emerge. Perhaps eventually women will be valued for their minds and souls rather than the shape of their face. Until then, Flawless is a fascinating and disturbing book, woven with threads of dark humor and personal experience.
Derek Parker writer 