The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

After reading it in school a couple of years ago, my son recommended Anthropocene. I finally got around to borrowing a copy from my local library. I read The Fault in our Stars a long time ago and it was different to read nonfiction work by Green.

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“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

About The Book 📚

Title: The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

Author: John Green

Publication Date: 2021

Publisher: Dutton

Genre: Autobiography/Memoir, Essays, Nonfiction

Pages: 293

Content Warnings: mental illness, death, grief, suicidal thoughts, medical content, child death, chronic illness, cancer, pandemic, bullying, alcohol, animal death, racism

About The Author

John Green was born in 1977, grew up in Orlando, Florida and Birmingham, Alabama.
Earned a B.A. in English and Religious Studies from Kenyon College.
Worked at Booklist Magazine after graduating from college.
Looking for Alaska was his debut novel, published in 2005.
Won the Michael L. Printz Award in 2006
In 2007 he started the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel with his brother Hank Green.
Published An Abundance of Katherines (2006), Let it Snow (2008), Paper Towns (2008), Will Grayson, Will Grayson (2010), The Fault in our Stars (2012), Turtles all the Way Down (2017), and The Anthropocene Reviewed (2021).
“In June 2014, the movie adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars was released.”
“Fox 2000 and Temple Hill released Paper Towns in the summer of 2015″
“The limited series adaptation of Looking for Alaska was released on Hulu on October 18th, 2019.”
“A Netflix adaptation of Let It Snow was released on November 8th, 2019.”
“The movie adaptation of John Green’s book Turtles All the Way Down will be released on streaming this Spring 2024 on MAX.”
He currently lives in Indianapolis with his family.
https://www.johngreenbooks.com/bio

My Review

› Anthropocene is “the period of time during which human activities have had an environmental impact on the Earth regarded as constituting a distinct geological age.”

The Anthropocene Reviewed is hard to describe. It’s a collection of essays adapted from his podcast about a wide assortment of topics in which John Green gives each a rating out of five and connects them to his personal experience. What his book is about according to John.

The Anthropocene Reviewed animated

› “It has taken me all my life up to now to fall in love with the world, but I’ve started to feel it the last couple of years. To fall in love with the world isn’t to ignore or overlook suffering, both human and otherwise. For me anyway, to fall in love with the world is to look up at the night sky and feel your mind swim before the beauty and the distance of the stars.”

› Green gives a rating out of 5 to:
– the song “You’ll Never Walk Alone”

– Humanity’s Temporal Range (length of time a species has been around)
did you know alpacas have been around 40 times longer than humans?

– Halley’s Comet (returning June 19, 2061)

– Our Capacity for Wonder
“Marveling at the perfection of that leaf, I was reminded that aesthetic beauty is as much about how and whether you look as what you see. From the quark to the supernova, the wonders do not cease. It is our attentiveness that is in short supply, our ability and willingness to do the work that awe requires.”

– the Lascaux Cave Paintings

– Scratch & Sniff Stickers

– Diet Dr Pepper
My favourite drink.
I didn’t know it was a combo of 23 flavours.

– Velociraptors
They were not smarter than dolphins, were the size of a turkey and were feathered. Oh! And dinosaurs didn’t even live in the Jurassic age, they lived in the Cretaceous age. Jurassic Park lied.

– Canada Geese (as a Canadian I found this funny)

– Teddy Bears

– The Hall of Presidents

– Air-Conditioning

– Staphylococcus Aureus

– the Internet

– the Academic Decathlon

– Sunsets
“All I can say is that sometimes when the world is between day and night, I’m stopped cold by its splendor, and I feel my absurd smallness. You’d think that would be sad, but it isn’t. It only makes me grateful.”

– Jerzy Dudek’s Performance on May 25, 2005

– the movie Penguins of Madagascar

– Piggly Wiggly
Interesting facts about how grocery stores have changed.

– The Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest

– CNN

– the movie Harvey

– The Yips
“In sports, the yips are a sudden and unexplained loss of ability to execute certain skills in experienced athletes.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yips

– Auld Lang Syne

– Googling Strangers

– Indianapolis

– Kentucky Bluegrass

– The Indianapolis 500

– Monopoly
I had no idea the original game was the complete opposite of what it is today.

– Super Mario Kart

– Bonneville Salt Flats

– Hiroyuki Doi’s Circle Drawings

– Whispering

– Viral Meningitis

– Plague
“Crisis does not always bring out the cruelty within us. It can also push us toward sharing our pains and hopes and prayers, and treating each other as equally human.”

– Wintry Mix

– The Hot Dogs of Baejarins Beztu Pylsur

– The Notes App

– Mountain Goats

– The Qwerty Keyboard

– The World’s Largest Ball of Paint

– Sycamore Trees

– “New Partner”

– Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance

› John Green’s average rating: 3.5

› “the way through is together”

› Ironically, I’m no longer giving star ratings here on my blog. I will continue to do that on Goodreads and The Story Graph.

› Final Thoughts
• The Anthropocene Reviewed is an informative, entertaining, and thought-provoking collection of short essays. I recommend this to people who want to keep a book beside the bed to read in the morning and to those interested in humanity’s impact on the planet.