book review on less

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Less by Andrew Sean Greer review – a literary skewering of stealthy genius

T wo thirds of the way through Andrew Sean Greer’s latest novel, he risks letting his novelist hero – white, gay, knocking 50 – describe his latest novel, which has been turned down by his publisher. “It was about a middle-aged gay man walking around San Francisco. And, you know, his … his sorrows … ” “A white middle-aged American man walking around with his white middle-aged American sorrows?” replies his lesbian friend. “It’s a little hard to feel sorry for a guy like that.” Greer can afford this moment of metafiction because, by this third act of the novel, his hero has won us over, for all that he enjoys most of the blessings of existence.

Despite its lampooning of the literary world, Less won this year’s Pulitzer prize for fiction , prompting its publication in Britain. It introduces us to minor novelist Arthur Less as he finds himself abruptly single, having coasted through a studiedly casual not-quite-relationship with a vain younger man for several years. Less is “an author too old to be fresh and too young to be rediscovered, one who never sits next to anyone on a plane who has heard of his books”. The younger man, who happens also to be the son of his arch enemy, announces his engagement to someone else.

While still not acknowledging to himself that he was in love all along and that his heart is cracked, if not quite broken, Less accepts a slew of writerly invitations that conveniently slot together to provide a round-the-world trip. Not only will he thus avoid the wedding, but sidestep the pain of turning 50 in company.

The various stages of this journey lend the novel its structure and, as is customary, provide both a parade of colourful characters and a voyage of self-discovery. They also neatly illustrate the scrabble-and-make-do that most freelance writers must resort to in order to survive, all those little jobs that make you feel like an author but that are not quite writing – “the crazy quilt of a writer’s life: warm enough, though it never quite covers the toes”.

Greer mercilessly skewers the insecurity of authors as well as the vanity of the literary industry’s self-absorption in the face of its irrelevance to most people’s lives. The stealthy genius of this novel is that it simultaneously tells the life story of a basically sweet man whom the industry has eaten alive. Less’s undoing, perhaps, is that he has been loved by a genius – he passed his youth as the lover of a celebrated poet – so has fallen into the habit of seeing himself as on the periphery of things. A twink -turned-daddy, he has yet to make the adjustment from kissed to kisser, and wreaks emotional havoc on anyone drawn in by his air of baffled innocence.

We first meet him in New York, where he has the humiliation of chairing a huge event for a wildly successful and wildly overrated science fiction writer. His next stop is Mexico, where he must take part in a panel discussion about his former lover’s genius. Then Italy, where an earlier novel of his, apparently brilliant in translation, is up for an obscure but well funded award: a sequence that catches particularly well the artificial camaraderie and false modesty of rivals thrown together for a prize. And so on to Germany, where he teaches a writing course entitled Read Like a Vampire, Write Like Frankenstein. There he has a fling with a besotted business student and it is from the intimate details the narrator lets slip about the way Less kisses (“like someone who has just learned a foreign language and can only use the present tense and only the second person. Only now, only you”) that the reader begins to suspect this story is being told not by some omniscient figure but by a character in it whom Less has underestimated. And then on to Paris, an ever less romantic journey across the desert in Morocco, a nightmarish food article he researches in Japan, and finally an Indian writing retreat. Here he plans to polish the rejected novel to perfection but, as the past reaches out to reclaim and challenge him, he is actually being prepared, we realise, finally to fall in love.

Novels about novelists are always a risk, but Less is about anyone who has allowed their calling to define them at the expense of their humanity. Writers may blush in the mirror it holds up to them, but many readers will find it as endearing as the very best of Armistead Maupin .

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By Andrew Sean Greer

'Less' by Andrew Sean Greer is an award-winning novel that has readers' reviews on every end of the spectrum. Find out the pros and cons of this modern satire in this review.

About the Book

Article written by Onyekachi Osuji

B.A. in Public Administration and certified in Creative Writing (Fiction and Non-Fiction)

‘ Less ‘ by Andrew Sean Greer sparked controversies and mixed reactions when it won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Some reviewers were harsh in their conclusion that the book won the prestigious prize because of white male privilege, while other reviews believed that it was a well-deserved win because of the poetic flow of its narration.

But controversies aside, this article will be my personal opinion about the book, which I intend to be as objective as possible.

If there is one thing that makes ‘ Less ‘ by Andrew Sean Greer deserving of the Pulitzer Prize it won, it is the style. The novel is so lyrical. Literary devices flow so seamlessly that one may be deceived into thinking it was an effortless piece of writing.

‘ Less ‘ by Andrew Sean Greer is prose that reads beautifully like a poem and conjures dramatic scenes in a reader’s mind. There is no gainsaying the creativity showcased in the novel. It easily rates five out of five stars for me.

The plot is a lighthearted plot that should make one laugh all through. But I would not give full marks when it comes to the plot because of the way the writer tries to make trivial issues appear so serious, as if urging readers to feel sorry for the protagonist.

So, a lover you’ve been with is getting married to someone else? Yes, we understand that that hurts. But come on! Why are you making it look like a tragic natural disaster for the protagonist when he agreed with his lover that it was just casual sex all the while? And hey, Arthur Less, do you realize that you’re actually among the elite few? I mean, how many other heartbroken people get to hop on a plane and enjoy all-expense paid trips to several choice destinations around the world? As the character Zohra says, it’s hard to feel sorry for such a guy.

Structure of the Novel

The structure of ‘ Less ‘ is one of the things I love about the novel. First of all, it is not so voluminous, barely two hundred pages long, and can be read in a few hours. The length of a novel is one of the things that encourages people to pick it up to read, especially lazy readers or busy readers.

Another thing I love about the novel is the play on words in the title of each chapter. The novel has eight chapters, and each chapter’s title is derived from the protagonist’s name Arthur Less. So the first chapter is titled ”Less At First,” the last chapter is ”Less at Last,” and the chapters in between are titled Less with the derivative noun of the country Arthur Less is visiting at the time. For instance, “Less Mexican,” “Less German,” “Less Moroccan,” “Less Indian,” etc.

Apart from the protagonist, Arthur Less, the characters in this novel are not well developed. The author leaves a lot to be desired in his portrayal of the characters in ‘ Less .’ For instance, the character Robert is one with an interesting story of sexuality in ‘ Less .’ It would have made for a better read if he gave some details about how Robert got to be in a passionate heterosexual marriage at first and then come out as gay.

There are many scenes in the novel that are hilarious and will have readers laughing hard. The author’s ability to place the protagonist in awkward situations is an enjoyable read.

The only thing that prevents this novel from getting full marks for humor from every reader is that the humorous scenes are sometimes not depicted with clarity.

Unrealized Potentials

The most disappointing thing about ‘ Less ‘ by Andrew Sean Greer is that it takes readers to various countries around the world but ends up teaching readers so little about all those destinations. It did not showcase the exotic tourist attractions nor the educative everyday lives of people in these places.

A novel set in five continents, nine countries, and scores of cities ended up being so bland in terms of travel enlightenment. Talk about unrealized potential!

Review of Less

Book Title: Less

Book Description: 'Less' by Andrew Sean Greer combines lyrical prose and endearing humor in a critically acclaimed narrative.

Book Author: Andrew Sean Greer

Book Edition: First Edition

Book Format: Hardcover

Publisher - Organization: Little, Brown and Company

Date published: July 18, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-316-39413-9

Number Of Pages: 290

Less by Andrew Sean Greer Review: A Poetic Prose with Drama

The novel  Less  by Andrew Sean Greer is so wonderfully crafted. It won prestigious awards amidst mixed reactions and reviews. One of the best qualities of the novel is the writing style—it is lyrical, poetic, and enjoyable, and the humor is endearing too.  But on the flip side, one thing that detracts from the novel is the forced sadness and gloominess over trivial issues, whilst the protagonist and the narrator become annoying at many points in the novel.

• Poetic Narration
• Inspirational Dialogues
• Endearing Protagonist
• Poorly-Explored Settings
• Undeveloped Characters

About Onyekachi Osuji

Onyekachi was already an adult when she discovered the rich artistry in the storytelling craft of her people—the native Igbo tribe of Africa. This connection to her roots has inspired her to become a Literature enthusiast with an interest in the stories of Igbo origin and books from writers of diverse backgrounds. She writes stories of her own and works on Literary Analysis in various genres.

Cite This Page

Osuji, Onyekachi " Less Review ⭐ " Book Analysis , https://bookanalysis.com/andrew-sean-greer/less/review/ . Accessed 5 April 2024.

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Booklover Book Reviews

Less (a Novel) by Andrew Sean Greer: Uncommon narrative

Less (a Novel) by Andrew Sean Greer is a life-affirming story about the writing life that I highly recommend to those with strong literary leanings. Read my review.

Less Book Synopsis

WHO SAYS YOU CAN’T RUN AWAY FROM YOUR PROBLEMS?

Arthur Less is a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the post from an ex-boyfriend of nine years who is engaged to someone else. Arthur can’t say yes – it would be too awkward; he can’t say no – it would look like defeat. So, he begins to accept the invitations on his desk to half-baked literary events around the world.

From France to India, Germany to Japan, Arthur almost falls in love, almost falls to his death, and puts miles between him and the plight he refuses to face. Less is a novel about mishaps, misunderstandings and the depths of the human heart.

( Hachette Australia )

Genre:  Literature, Drama, Humour, Romance, Adventure

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BOOK REVIEW

Less…. don’t you just love the brevity yet gravitas of Andrew Sean Greer’s title.

Literary awards are rarely sufficient motivation for me to choose one book over another. The enjoyment of literature is notoriously subjective. But since this was already on my wishlist, its recent Pulitzer Prize firmed up my decision to purchase.

What immediately struck me about Less (a Novel) was its unusual narrative structure; predominantly first-person present tense (identity undisclosed) yet omnipresent.

From where I sit, the story of Arthur Less is not so bad. Look at him: seated primly on the hotel lobby’s plush sofa, blue suit and white shirt, legs knee-crossed so that one polished loafer hangs free of its heel. The pose of a young man.

But on occasion more like third-person. It is both confounding and intriguing.

It is clear this narrator is a person in Arthur’s life (and thus a character mentioned within the novel), but it is not plausible this person is observing him in the present tense. The only way it works is if that narrator, at some later point having heard of Arthur’s travel tales, is imagining observing him in those situations. It took a little while for me to get my head around this; to stop fighting it.

The quirky wins

Eventually, the quirkiness and lyricism of the narrator’s observations and their ironic and conversational tone won me over.

Once in his twenties, a poet he had been talking with extinguished her cigarette in a potted plant and said, “You’re like a person without skin.” A poet had said this. One who made her living flaying herself alive in public had said the he , tall and young and hopeful Arthur Less, was  without skin . But it was true.

I found myself highlighting countless passages, admiring the subtle yet potent irony woven into this narrative’s fabric.

There are always a few drops left in the bottle of indignity.

Ron Charles of The Washington Post called Less   ‘the funniest novel of the year’ .

With regards to its subject matter, this novel is effectively preaching to the converted. Less is about writers, writing and the broader challenges of a career and life involving creative personas. Literary references abound.

“He kisses—how do I explain it? Like someone in love. Like he has nothing to lose. Like someone who has just learned a foreign language and can use only the present tense and only the second person. Only now, only you.

While Arthur’s rudderlessness limits the extent one invests in his plight, his eclectic travel experiences and the intrigue surrounding the narrator’s identity make for compelling reading. Recent events have also injected an additional, delightful stroke of serendipity to this tale.

But it is the more serious emotional and philosophical depths plumbed by Greer’s narrator, combined with his lead character’s absence of expectation, that ultimately make this novel life-affirming.

Andrew Sean Greer’s Less is a title I highly recommend, but only to those with strong literary leanings.

BOOK RATING:  The Story 4 / 5 ; The Writing 4.5 / 5  — Overall 4.25

Get your copy of Less from:

Bookshop US Amazon Booktopia AU

Will there be a Less book sequel?

Yes, a sequel has been published, titled Less is Lost .

If you like the sound of Less , you may also enjoy: Hotel Silence by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir  /  The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman  /   A Replacement Life by Boris Fishman  /   A Theatre for Dreamers by Polly Samson  /  Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfar

About the Auther, Andrew Sean Greer

Andrew Sean Greer is the bestselling author of five works of fiction, including The Confessions of Max Tivoli , which was named a best book of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune. He won the California Book Award, New York Public Library Young Lions Award and O Henry Award for short fiction. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Public Library. Greer lives in San Francisco. He has travelled to all of the locations in this novel, but he is only big in Italy.

Check out Andrew Sean Greer’s website and connect with him on Twitter .

Related reading:

• Finally, a comic novel gets a Pulitzer Prize. It’s about time – Washington Post
• Pulitzer Prize Winner Andrew Sean Greer Shares How He Wrote an Award-Winning Novel – Esquire

Other Less reviews

“This is a very funny and occasionally wise book.” –  Kirkus Reviews

“Greer mercilessly skewers the insecurity of authors as well as the vanity of the literary industry’s self-absorption in the face of its irrelevance to most people’s lives. The stealthy genius of this novel is that it simultaneously tells the life story of a basically sweet man whom the industry has eaten alive… Novels about novelists are always a risk, but Less is about anyone who has allowed their calling to define them at the expense of their humanity.” –  The Guardian

“Arthur’s wanderings as he makes his way from disaster to disaster are hilariously, brilliantly harrowing. But laughter is only a part of the joy of reading this book. Greer writes sentences of arresting lyricism and beauty.” – NYTimes

“While the book is intended to be funny, at times it feels like a middle-aged man’s  A Series of Unfortunate Events .” – KenyonReview

“A charming novel about a middle-aged odyssey taken by the most amiable of heroes” – The Independent

” Wise, generous of spirit and beautifully written… Arthur Less may be in the throes of a midlife crisis, but his heart-warming adventures leave one longing for more. ” – The Spectator

The Pulitzer judges and I do not always agree though…. For example, see my review of the much-lauded Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout .

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Reviews of Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio

by Andrew Sean Greer

Critics' Opinion:

Readers' Opinion:

• Literary Fiction
• Contemporary
• Humor & Satire
• Mid-Life Onwards

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About this Book

• Reading Guide

Book Summary

A breakout romantic comedy by the bestselling author of five critically acclaimed novels.

Who says you can't run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes - it would be too awkward - and you can't say no - it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world. QUESTION : How do you arrange to skip town? ANSWER: You accept them all. What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last. Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less is, above all, a love story. A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author The New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.

Excerpt Less

From where I sit, the story of Arthur Less is not so bad. Look at him: seated primly on the hotel lobby's plush round sofa, blue suit and white shirt, legs knee-crossed so that one polished loafer hangs free of its heel. The pose of a young man. His slim shadow is, in fact, still that of his younger self, but at nearly fifty he is like those bronze statues in public parks that, despite one lucky knee rubbed raw by schoolchildren, discolor beautifully until they match the trees. So has Arthur Less, once pink and gold with youth, faded like the sofa he sits on, tapping one finger on his knee and staring at the grandfather clock. The long patrician nose perennially burned by the sun (even in cloudy New York October). The washed-out blond hair too long on the top, too short on the sides—portrait of his grandfather. Those same watery blue eyes. Listen: you might hear anxiety ticking, ticking, ticking away as he stares at that clock, which unfortunately is not ticking ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

• Have you ever had days, weeks, years, like what Arthur Less is feeling — times when nothing, absolutely nothing, seems to be going your way? What's your solution?
• Everyone points to the books laugh-out-loud humor. What do you find particularly funny — dialogue, Arthur's haplessness and pratfalls, random observations, the entire tone of the book?
• How would you describe Arthur? Are you sympathetic to him, or is he primarily a self-pitying guy in midlife crisis? Does he exhibit any humanity or is he too self-indulgent to connect with others? Or do you find yourself falling and rooting for him? Does your attitude toward him change during the course of the novel?
• Talk about the writing seminar Arthur gives in Berlin —...
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Reader reviews, bookbrowse review.

Less is also a love story with many bittersweet moments. Thoughts of Freddy's marriage haunt Arthur, even as he takes a lover in Berlin and comes up with a plan to re-write his new novel, after his publisher rejects it. As he completes his global journey and comes to terms with "the tragi-comic business of being alive" this story wraps up with a warm-hearted and fitting conclusion. Overall, this is a charming tale, very well told... continued

Full Review (594 words) This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access, become a member today .

(Reviewed by Kate Braithwaite ).

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Beyond the Book

My favorite gay characters in literature.

With his portrait of Arthur Less, a lovable — if somewhat hapless — man on a trip round the world, Andrew Sean Greer gives more than a nod to Mark Twain's 1869 satire, The Innocents Abroad . Less, a middle-aged gay man, needs to radically re-write his own novel about "a middle-aged gay man walking about San Francisco." This self-conscious reflection on the concept of a gay character prompted me to recall some of the diverse LGBT characters I have known and loved over the years. Stephen Gordon is the hero of Radclyffe Hall's classic, The Well of Loneliness (1928). This story of an upper class girl who realizes from an early age that she is attracted to women was banned in Britain after an obscenity trial. Stephen, given a boy'...

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Review: Less by Andrew Sean Greer

Less  by Andrew Sean Greer is an absolute delight. One of my favorite books of this year. It’s a must-read!

Sometimes you just know you’re going to love a book. Whether it’s a good vibe, positive critical buzz, what have you, it can be love at first sight. And  Less  even surpassed my expectations. There’s so much to love with Less  from its comedic nature, impressive writing and in the end, a story full of heart.

The story is about Arthur Less, he’s about to turn 50 and his ex-boyfriend is now engaged to someone else. While he’s published several books, none of them have caught on like he expected. Still, he receives a series of half-baked literary invitations from around the world and this becomes his perfect excuse for not attending his ex’s wedding. And thus, begins an around-the-world-in-eighty-days fantasia that will take Arthur Less to Mexico, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India and Japan and put thousands of miles between him and the problems he refuses to face.  What could possibly go wrong? For more on the synopsis, click here .

This book also is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, which is such an impressive feat for the author! And I believe it’s so well-deserved for many reasons. Let’s take a closer look at Less .

Unique narrative style

Less is written from the viewpoint of a narrator. While at first, it seems the narrator is just a third-party teller of Less’ story that we see in so many other novels, as the book goes on, it becomes apparent the narrator knows Less in some type of fashion. However, the identity is kept a mystery until the final pages.

The prose is comedic, I literally laughed out loud at certain passages. The narrative switches from satire to poignant observations at different times in the story. For instance, Less is about to turn 50 but in many ways still acts much younger. When talking about youth with his friend:

[blockquote align=”none” author=””]“Strange to be almost fifty, no? I feel like I just understood how to be young.” “Yes! It’s like the last day in a foreign country. You finally figure out where to get coffee, and drinks, and a good steak. And then you have to leave. And you won’t ever be back.” [/blockquote]

Also, since the book travels to so many countries, there’s lots of colorful descriptions of each country. The countries receive their own chapters with plenty of content. Due to the writer traveling the world aspect, Less is compared to  Eat, Pray, Love but it’s a very different book. Still, though, if you enjoyed the travel in Eat, Pray Love , you’ll really like it in Less .

Keep in mind, while there is plenty of idyllic settings, much goes wrong with Less’ travels, which makes it all the more endearing.

Past relationships

As we get to know Less more, we learn he’s had two significant romantic relationships in his life. The first in his youth, with the much older Robert, a brilliant and award-winning poet. Their relationship was affection but riddled with complications, not least of all the age difference:

[blockquote align=”none” author=””]”When you’re fifty, I’ll be seventy-five. And then what will we do? Nothing to do but laugh about it. True for everything.” [/blockquote]

While he traveled and experienced so much with Robert, he also learned the drawbacks of living with a “genius.” For Arthur, it was like living alone where everything was sacrificed for Robert’s work. Still, even though it ended, Robert will always remain Less’ first love. And for a while, he thought his only love.

Then came along Freddy, the son of Arthur’s nemesis (which is an entertaining section). Arthur is about 15 years older than Freddy, the kind and handsome teacher. He believed it wasn’t love. Or was it? Because when Freddy said he met someone else, Arthur didn’t fight for him, which slowly becomes one of his biggest regrets.

This story takes you on a journey along with analyzing love, aging and last chance. Add it to your reading list immediately!

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Less (Greer)

Less   Andrew Sean Greer, 2017 Little, Brown and Co. 272 pp. ISBN-13: 978 0316316125 Summary Winner, 2018 Pulitzer Prize Who says you can't run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes — it would be too awkward — and you can't say no — it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world. QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town? ANSWER: You accept them all. What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last. Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less is, above all, a love story. A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author the New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy. ( From the publisher .)

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Book Reviews

'less' offers more in andrew sean greer's follow-up to his pulitzer-winning novel.

Maureen Corrigan

Less is Lost, by Andrew Sean Greer Little, Brown hide caption

Why do we underrate comedy when we need it so badly? When Andrew Sean Greer's novel Less won the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 there was a dismissive shrug on the part of some critics. After all, the Pulitzer is usually awarded to a novel that's not as much fun to read as Less was.

A satire of the pretensions of the literary world, Less chronicled the efforts of its hero — the white, gay, American, minor writer, Arthur Less — to outrun his impending 50th birthday and the wedding of his former partner by accepting every invitation to every literary conference, junket, writer's retreat and festival that came his way. Naturally, when news of a sequel to Less was announced, more dismissive shrugging ensued, as though no one remembered acclaimed sequels written by the likes of John Updike , Philip Roth and Hilary Mantel .

Less is Lost picks up with Arthur Less now living with that aforementioned partner, Freddy Pelu, who left his new husband to return to Less. You'd think that demonstration of love would be enough, but Less is a chronically uncertain person, prone to what Freddy, who acts as our occasional narrator, calls a "clumsiness of the heart." The death here of Less' first love, the famous poet Robert Brownburn, only deepens Less's uncertainty, since it turns out that Less owes a decade of back rent on the San Francisco bungalow he's been living in that was owned by Brownburn.

Fortunately, for a writer so minor he's often confused with another minor writer of the same name (even though the other guy is African American), Less has lately been receiving a strangely high number of invitations for lucrative literary gigs — public lectures, glossy writing assignments, and the like. So Less hits the road again — this time in the U.S. Both he and Freddy assume that a separation may clarify their relationship.

Less' first assignment is in Palm Springs, where he'll write a profile of the science fiction writer H.H.H. Mandern, who appeared in the first novel. Here's Greer's skewering description of Mandern:

A bestselling author since his first book, Incubus , came out in 1978 ... H.H. H. Mandern instantly became a towering figure in the world of books, with ... his striped Vincent Price beard ... [and] rock-star behavior such as  ... setting money on fire. ... But nothing stopped his output: a novel, sometimes two a year, and not just any novels but six-hundred-page portraits of interstellar war and alien empire-building that would take a normal human being a year just to type ."

Mandern, always cranky, uses the profile as a bargaining chip to make Less drive him and his pug dog in a decrepit camper van through the Mojave desert for a reunion with his estranged daughter. Thus begins a travelogue through the West and South where, among other misadventures, Less is repeatedly greeted by the proprietors of RV parks with variations on this question, here asked by a lady in Louisiana:

"Now, you're not from around here are you, honey?" ... "No. ..." [answers Less] "See, I thought from how you sounded, you was from the Netherlands.

Less, we're told, "knows what this means. ... and he has never known what to say. Because the question [this woman] is really asking, without at all knowing she is asking it, without meaning anything in the world except that she detects a linguistic flourish, is Are you a homosexual ?"

The question you may well be asking at this point is: Is Less Is Lost as good, as funny, as poignant as its predecessor? To which I would happily answer: Yes, at least!

There are extended comic passages here about Less' Walloon ancestry and a mediocre gay men's chorus singing Leonard Cohen songs that I read aloud, laughing, to anyone I could waylay. But comedy also arises out of pain and Greer smoothly transitions into the profound, such as in this rumination by Less about the empty encounter he has on the trip with his long-lost father:

The moment holds neither disappointment nor delight. Realizing we are no longer in love is not the heartbreaking sensation we imagine when we are in love — because it is no sensation at all. It is a realization made by a bystander.

Greer has said in interviews that this sequel is the end of Less. That would be a shame. Greer should add even more to Less' saga and take him as far as he can go.

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LESS IS LOST

by Andrew Sean Greer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 20, 2022

If you loved the first one, you might love this, though it is a bit less fresh and a tad slow.

The notorious “middle-aged gay white novelist” Arthur Less is on the road again, this time stateside.

It feels churlish to dislike this book, which deploys all the tropes and tricks and brings back many of the characters that won its predecessor, Less , the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2018. The narrator/puppet master, Freddy Pelu, whose identity was concealed until the end of the first book, has now spent a decade living in bliss with Less in San Francisco in a lovely home they call the Shack. Freddy gets back in the narration biz to tell the story of Less’ abrupt departure on a cross-country tour to raise desperately needed funds, as the estate of his old lover, the freshly dead poet Robert Brownburn, has presented him with a bill for 10 years of back rent for the Shack. And off he goes, this time through the American Southwest, South, and Middle Atlantic, driving a camper van named Rosina with a black pug named Dolly, affecting baseball caps and other Walmart-wear in hopes of appearing less Dutch. (“You from the Netherlands?” is one of the many ways people present their suspicion that he's gay.) As in Book 1, we get plenty of inside humor about all aspects of the writer’s life—prize committees, foundation grants, literary agents (Less’ is known as “Hello-I-have-Peter-Hunt-on-the-line-please-hold”), and writers with the same name. Yes, there is another Arthur Less, but unlike ours, who is shelved in Queer Authors, the other is shelved in Black Authors. Both are too small-time for General Fiction. Greer does sometimes write beautifully about life (a touching moment occurs when Less realizes he has to go through Robert’s death without Robert) and about fiction. “Robbery: friends mined for stories; lovers for sentiment; history for structure; family for secrets; small talk for sorrow; sorrow for comedy; comedy for gold.” “It's protagonists all the way down.” And, of novelists: “For are we not that fraction of old magic that remains?” Best case scenario, yes, but it's getting a little fractional this time.

Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-316-49890-6

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022

LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

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New York Times Bestseller

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

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Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2022

Pulitzer Prize Winner

DEMON COPPERHEAD

by Barbara Kingsolver ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 18, 2022

An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.

Inspired by David Copperfield , Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South.

It’s not necessary to have read Dickens’ famous novel to appreciate Kingsolver’s absorbing tale, but those who have will savor the tough-minded changes she rings on his Victorian sentimentality while affirming his stinging critique of a heartless society. Our soon-to-be orphaned narrator’s mother is a substance-abusing teenage single mom who checks out via OD on his 11th birthday, and Demon’s cynical, wised-up voice is light-years removed from David Copperfield’s earnest tone. Yet readers also see the yearning for love and wells of compassion hidden beneath his self-protective exterior. Like pretty much everyone else in Lee County, Virginia, hollowed out economically by the coal and tobacco industries, he sees himself as someone with no prospects and little worth. One of Kingsolver’s major themes, hit a little too insistently, is the contempt felt by participants in the modern capitalist economy for those rooted in older ways of life. More nuanced and emotionally engaging is Demon’s fierce attachment to his home ground, a place where he is known and supported, tested to the breaking point as the opiate epidemic engulfs it. Kingsolver’s ferocious indictment of the pharmaceutical industry, angrily stated by a local girl who has become a nurse, is in the best Dickensian tradition, and Demon gives a harrowing account of his descent into addiction with his beloved Dori (as naïve as Dickens’ Dora in her own screwed-up way). Does knowledge offer a way out of this sinkhole? A committed teacher tries to enlighten Demon’s seventh grade class about how the resource-rich countryside was pillaged and abandoned, but Kingsolver doesn’t air-brush his students’ dismissal of this history or the prejudice encountered by this African American outsider and his White wife. She is an art teacher who guides Demon toward self-expression, just as his friend Tommy provokes his dawning understanding of how their world has been shaped by outside forces and what he might be able to do about it.

Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-06-325-1922

Page Count: 560

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: July 13, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022

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In ‘Less Is Lost,’ a lovable, hapless hero returns

Haplessness isn’t necessarily a quality we put up with in other people. We want them to keep it together. We want them to grab a clue. We bridle at how exhausting they are. “It’s not that hard!” we want to tell them. And yet, on the page, under the right conditions, haplessness is the thing we gather around like a biomass stove and gently warm our hands over. Indeed, if Andrew Sean Greer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “ Less ” is any guide, we will follow the most innocent of innocents abroad and watch him falter again and again — so long as the faltering is presented with a tenderly bracing wit and the sort of narrative cunning that conceals the globe-trotting love story in which it’s engaged.

Now, having postulated all this: How do we feel about a second round of haplessness? In “ Less Is Lost ,” our hero Arthur Less, “a middle-aged gay white novelist nobody’s ever heard of,” is seemingly calamity-free, living in San Francisco with his beloved partner Freddy. But upon the death of his former lover, he learns he owes 10 years of back rent and has only a month to come up with the sum. It’s a storm that sends him scrambling, in a fashion already familiar to “Less” readers, toward every port.

Review: 'Less,' by Andrew Sean Greer

First he signs on as a judge for an unnamed major prize. (“My advice is not to bother reading anything,” his agent tells him.) Then he travels to Palm Springs, Calif., to interview a famous sci-fi writer, only to be dragged by said writer into the desert for an impromptu family reunion. He inadvertently ingests a psychedelic drug and floods an archaeological site, then finds himself hurtling across the country in a conversion van named Rosina with a black pug named Dolly and an itinerary that may or may not include hooking up with an itinerant theatrical troupe that’s adapted one of his stories and reuniting with the deadbeat father who abandoned him as a child. Accidents and misunderstandings abound, and it is no spoiler to report that Less, at story’s end, cries, “I made a fool of myself!” For that, of course, has been the whole point.

At least twice the book nods in the direction of Cervantes, who surely learned, by putting his Quixote through so many perils, that the picaresque carries perils of its own. If you make a mock hero charge at enough windmills, the reader may tire of both windmills and mock heroes. (Not everyone has gotten to the end of Cervantes.) And indeed, in clumsier hands, the episodic humiliations of Less, “this slapstick, ridiculous, zigzagging queer,” might quickly pall.

Finally, a comic novel gets a Pulitzer Prize. It’s about time.

But Greer’s thirst for the nomad’s landscape remains undimmed: “The sun, monarch of the Southwest, has been exiled behind the peaks, and the whole valley can now relax into this cantaloupe horizontal glow, which brings out the intricate tooled leatherwork of the mountainside.” And his scene-setting touch is as funny and economical as ever, whether it’s the California columbarium with the see-through nooks or the Maine inn run by the oldest living whaler’s widow or the Alabama roadside bar where an ominous man in an eye patch breaks into karaoke.

To be sure, it’s a curious sort of America our hero traverses. No Trump signs, no MAGA hats. No election deniers, no anti-vaxxers, no covid against which to be vaxxed. And while there’s a splendidly tense sequence of a Black tour guide educating her writhing audience in the realities of sharecropping, I think Greer knows that his gifts, like those of the British comic novelists he clearly admires, flourish best in ahistoric climes. The people and places rising up through “Less Is Lost” could be transported back or forward a few decades without too much trouble and without losing any of their crisp outlines. Spend enough time in their company and you may fall back on the adage that the journey is as important as the destination.

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But, as with his earlier volume, Greer has his own destination in mind and, in its final section, “Less is Lost” circles back to a ringing reaffirmation of love — while managing, without too much fuss, to call up our better angels. That hapless guy you avoid in real life? The wretch for whom “ordering a deli sandwich and wrestling an alligator held equal levels of terror”? The one who doesn’t know if his money is coming or going and seems incapable of learning no matter how often he’s schooled? Turns out that, mediated through the page, he becomes something not exactly Less but more: an eternally hopeful figure who can say, without irony, “America looks fine from here,” and whose heroism is both mock and the real deal. “I always think of him as the bravest man I know,” writes his partner, “for who can guess what feats of valor he has overcome simply to arrive at your door?”

Louis Bayard is the author of “Jackie & Me” and “The Pale Blue Eye.”

Less Is Lost

By Andrew Sean Greer

Little Brown. 257 pp. $29

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Less (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): A Novel (The Arthur Less Books, 1) Paperback – Special Edition, August 2, 2022

• Book 1 of 2 The Arthur Less Books
• Print length 272 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Back Bay Books
• Publication date August 2, 2022
• ISBN-10 0316479284
• ISBN-13 978-0316479288
• See all details

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Back Bay Books; Special Edition (August 2, 2022)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 272 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316479284
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316479288
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.11 pounds

About the author

Andrew sean greer.

Andrew Sean Greer is the bestselling author of seven works of fiction, including The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which was named a best book of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune. He is the recipient of the Northern California Book Award, the California Book Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, the O Henry award for short fiction and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Public Library. His novel Less won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it's follow-up, Less Is Lost, is out Sept 2022. Greer lives in San Francisco and Milan.

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10 books to add to your reading list in April

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Critic Bethanne Patrick recommends 10 promising titles, fiction and nonfiction, to consider for your April reading list.

April’s book releases cover some difficult topics, including Salman Rushdie discussing his 2022 maiming, Leigh Bardugo’s fiction about the dark arts and Ada Limón’s poetry anthology about our fragile world. However, like April, there is also sunshine: Leif Enger’s wild Great Lakes love story, Helen Tworkov’s beautiful memoir of Buddhism and a collection of the inimitable Maggie Nelson’s essays. Happy reading, happy spring!

I Cheerfully Refuse: A Novel By Leif Enger Grove Press: 336 pages, $28 (April 2)

An unusual and meaningful surprise awaits readers of Enger’s latest, which takes place largely on Lake Superior, as a man named Rainy tries to reunite with his beloved wife, Lark. While the world around this couple, a dystopian near-future American where billionaires control everything, could not be bleaker, the author’s retelling of the myth of Orpheus (who went to the underworld to rescue his wife) contains the authentic hope of a born optimist.

The Familiar: A Novel By Leigh Bardugo Flatiron Books: 400 pages, $30 (April 9)

Bardugo departs from novels of dark academia in a standalone to make the hairs on your neck stand up, set in 16th century Spain. A hidden Sephardic Jew and scullery maid named Luzia Cotado matches wits with fellow servant Guillén Santángel. Luzia discovers a secret of Guillén’s, but she’s already fallen in love with him. And because he knows hers, too, they might both avoid the Spanish Inquisition. It’s a gorgeous tale of enchantments both supernatural and earthly.

The Sleepwalkers: A Novel By Scarlett Thomas Simon & Schuster: 304 pages, $28 (April 9)

A couple honeymoons at a Greek resort. What could go wrong? In Thomas’ hands, plenty – especially as the author has never written a comfortable story; her books, from “PopCo ” to “Oligarchy,” crackle with unreliable characters, as well as big philosophical ideas. In this case, the new marriage’s breakdown is chronicled through letters between the spouses, and sometimes bits of ephemera, that ultimately untangle a dark mystery relating to the title.

The Garden: A Novel By Clare Beams Doubleday: 304 pages, $28 (April 10)

Few novels of literary fiction are written as well as “The Garden,” let alone given its sadly relevant retro setting, a 1940s country-estate obstetrical program. Irene Willard walks through its gates having endured five miscarriages; pregnant again, she and her war-veteran husband George desperately hope for a live birth. But as Irene discovers more about the woman who controls all here, Dr. Bishop, she fears carrying to term as much as she once feared pregnancy loss.

Reboot: A Novel By Justin Taylor Pantheon: 304 pages, $28 (April 23)

David Crader, former teen TV heartthrob, just wants to reboot his career when his old show “Rev Beach” has a moment. His life has devolved through substance abuse, divorce and underemployment. But when he and colleagues launch a remake, devolution continues: The protagonist’s struggles are mirrored by climate-change issues, from flooding to wildfires. Despite that darkness, Taylor’s gift for satire might make this a must-read for 2024 beach bags.

You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World By Ada Limón (Editor) Milkweed Editions: 176 pages, $25 (April 2)

A wondrous artist herself, Limón is currently poet laureate of the United States, and this anthology is part of her signature project, “You Are Here,” which will also feature poetry as public art in seven national parks. Released in conjunction with the Library of Congress, the collection features 50 previously unpublished poems by luminaries including Jericho Brown, Joy Harjo, Carl Phillips and Diane Seuss, each focusing on a piece of regional landscape.

Like Love: Essays and Conversations By Maggie Nelson Graywolf Press: 336 pages, $32 (April 2)

While all of the pieces in Nelson’s new book have previously been published elsewhere, they’re made fresh here both through being collected and through their chronological placement. Readers can practically watch Nelson’s incisive mind growing and changing as she speaks with colleagues such as Hilton Als and Judith Butler, or as she writes about queerness, motherhood, violence, the lyrics of Prince and the devastating loss of a friend.

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder By Salman Rushdie Random House: 204 pages, $28 (April 16)

On Aug. 12, 2022, the author Salman Rushdie was speaking at upstate New York’s Chautauqua festival when a man rushed the stage and attempted to murder him. Rushdie, a target of Iranian religious leaders since 1989, was permanently injured. In this book, he shares his experience for the first time, having said that this was essential for him to write. In this way, he answers violence with art, once again reminding us all that freedom of expression must be protected.

Lotus Girl: My Life at the Crossroads of Buddhism and America By Helen Tworkov St. Martin’s Essentials: 336 pages, $29 (April 16)

Tworkov, founder of the magazine Tricycle, chronicles her move from a 1960s young-adult interest in Buddhism to travels through Asia and deep study in the United States of the different strands that follow the Buddha’s teachings. Tworkov mentions luminaries such as the artist Richard Serra, the composer Charles Mingus and the Dalai Lama, but she’s not name-dropping. Instead, she’s strewing fragrant petals from her singular path to mindfulness that may help us find ours.

The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War By Erik Larson Crown: 592 pages, $35 (April 30)

Even diehard Civil War aficionados will learn from Larson’s look at the six months between Lincoln’s 1860 election and the surrender of Union troops under Maj. Robert Anderson at Charleston’s Ft. Sumter. Larson details Anderson’s secret Christmas redeployment and explores this individual’s contradictions as a former slave owner who loyally follows Lincoln’s orders. The author also shares first-person perspective from the famous diaries of the upper-class Southerner Mary Chesnut. All together, the book provides a riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult.

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Why Not Push Back Retirement?

A new book offers a valuable assessment of the question but is less helpful as a guide to managing the costs and trade-offs of an aging society.

Work, Retire, Repeat , by Teresa Ghilarducci (University of Chicago Press, 264 pp., $25)

Before she exited the Republican primary race, Nikki Haley advocated gradually increasing the retirement age to match the growth in life expectancy. Her political rivals swiftly criticized her proposal, but it enjoys widespread support among those looking to rein in soaring entitlement costs . A new book by economist Teresa Ghilarducci, Work, Retire, Repeat , offers reasons to seek an alternative path to reform.

Pay-as-you-go retirement systems such as Social Security or Medicare use taxes on current workers to pay benefits to retirees. Even if individuals on average fully pay for what they later get, such an arrangement will not be sustainable if declining birth rates and rising life expectancy reduce the ratio of workers to retirees. In 1960, there were five workers for each retiree . By 2000, the ratio had fallen to three-to-one. By 2040, there will be only two workers for each retiree. Raising the retirement age would both reduce the cost of benefits and increase payroll tax revenues to pay for them.

But Ghilarducci’s book argues against pushing back retirement. She suggests that, whereas policymaking elites view retirement as boring, low-paid workers typically can’t wait for relief from “heavy lifting, crushing work schedules, arbitrary changes in work duties, and the fear of being laid off.”

Ghilarducci acknowledges that employment can be a valuable source of meaning, personal identity, achievement, social interaction, and structure in people’s lives. But she disputes the claim that the correlation of retirement with declining mental health proves that it is bad for people.

She argues instead that retirement often occurs for reasons that make people unhappy. Among workers with incomes below the median, 52 percent are forced into retirement before they’re ready—either by failing health, loss of employment, or the reluctance of employers to hire aging workers. In contrast, only 10 percent among the richest decile of Americans are forced into retirement. She maintains that retirement improves health in old age for those with physically arduous or psychologically demanding jobs and suggests that menial employment can get in the way of more meaningful life activities.

Ghilarducci notes that many seniors have no retirement savings to supplement Social Security and contrasts the situation of the “happy, healthy 75-year-old pediatrician who chooses to work” with “the 75-year-old janitor with ailing joints who must work for money to survive.” Delaying the retirement of those with the lowest incomes, she argues, would yield little additional savings for old age. Furthermore, raising the full retirement age is equivalent to a Social Security benefit cut, which takes proportionately more from poorer retirees, who can expect to live the fewest additional years.

Ghilarducci laments the shift by employers from defined-benefit pension plans to 401(k)s. She suggests such tax-deferred savings arrangements appeal mostly to the affluent, while subjecting retirees to risks of mismanaging investments and misjudging longevity. She argues that the absence of annuitization leads people to retire later than they would prefer, to avoid outliving their savings or putting too much aside.

Instead, Ghilarducci proposes establishing a new system of mandatory personal accounts for individuals to purchase an approved set of defined-benefit pensions—funded by a three-percentage-point payroll tax hike, with additional public subsidies provided for low- and middle-income workers. She also endorses a further three-point increase of the payroll tax to restore the solvency of the current Social Security system.

Work, Retire, Repeat makes valuable points in assessing attempts to push back retirement for all Americans. It is less helpful as a guide to managing the costs and trade-offs of an aging society.

Ghilarducci points to a cross-national correlation between high spending on pensions with high spending on education and welfare benefits to claim that there “is no evidence ‘the old eat the young’.” But she ignores the burden of paying for expenditures, which falls mostly on workers. In reality, spending on pensions for the elderly dwarfs other welfare expenditures. Net of taxes , the more generous the benefits countries provide to their elderly members, the less aid they provide to poor non-retirees.

There is little popular appetite for a six percentage-point tax hike on American workers to expand funding for retirement, even if it were initially tied to a promise that individuals would have some control over the funds. Nor has the shift toward 401(k)s been as damaging as Ghilarducci suggests. Millennials already have more set aside for retirement than Generation X, and Gen X more than did the Baby Boomers.

Policy already excessively redistributes wealth from the young to the old. In 2019, though the median income of American households headed by adults over 75 was similar to those under 35 ($43,100 vs. $48,600), the median net worth of the former was much higher ($254,800 vs. $14,000). Retirees’ basic expenses are also much lower: unlike young adults, they generally do not bear the costs of raising children, commuting to work, or student loan debt—and the majority of seniors own their homes mortgage-free .

Due to the Supplemental Security Income program, poor seniors also possess a guaranteed income floor, which the working poor lack. The elderly do face higher medical costs , but Ghilarducci acknowledges that the subsidies and mandatory discounts on medical services enjoyed by Medicare beneficiaries often leave them better protected than many younger workers. She warns, implausibly, that “many high-income older workers earning $170,000 or more per year will retire into poverty because they lost their jobs and were pushed into an early, underfunded retirement.” In reality, the elderly who prove unable to provide for themselves are those who previously had the lowest incomes.

Rather than expanding public responsibility for ensuring a full retirement income for the middle class, policymakers should refocus Social Security on ensuring an income floor for the elderly poor, who Ghilarducci rightly suggests need the support most. The program is already the costliest item on the federal budget, and yet it leaves more elderly Americans in poverty than are found in nations with public-pension systems that cost half as much.

By allowing younger workers to opt for a lower payroll tax rate for the remainder of their careers, in return for a uniform safety-net benefit when they reach retirement, Social Security could be made more effective at preventing poverty while also being less of a burden on the young. Such a benefit structure would likely also motivate higher-earning workers to retire later than the poor—the arrangement for which Ghilarducci provides her strongest arguments.

Chris Pope is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Photo: Dilok Klaisataporn/iStock/Getty Images Plus

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Google's executive productivity advisor says these 2 common 'pitfalls' are making people less efficient at work

• A recent episode of Harvard Business Review's IdeaCast featured Laura Mare Martin. 
• Martin is the executive productivity advisor at Google.
• Martin said overcommitting and lack of intention can hinder a person's productivity.

Even the most diligent workers can struggle to finish all their tasks. Fortunately, Google's executive productivity advisor knows why.

Laura Mae Martin appeared on Tuesday's episode of the Harvard Business Review's IdeaCast , where she discussed how people can optimize their work days.

The first obstacle is overcommitting, Martin said.

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"So I think we all fall into that trap sometimes, and it's important to realize that that's not always going to set you up for the best output," Martin told HBR. "And so really being intentional about having space in your life and having space in your schedule, and I always tell people, shoot to under commit because you end up then committing at the right level."

To overcome overcommitting, Martin told HBR that identifying your top three priorities daily, weekly, and monthly can be helpful.

"It's important to actually label those things even as just a commitment to yourself, but then also beneficial is to share those with a team, a colleague, a spouse, whatever that is, because it helps just frame why you're doing the things you're doing and why it's OK to say no to things that don't really fall into those priorities," she said.

The second obstacle Martin flagged is being unintentional with time.

"And so that can mean, one, just fitting in work time wherever it falls. And so, 'I have meetings all morning, so I'm going to work in the afternoon,'" Martin said. "Well, is that when you produce your best results? Are you more of a morning person? Is that the best time to work on that task?"

Martin told HBR that once people become more intentional with their time, they should use it wisely to address projects or tasks.

Martin first spoke to BI in October 2021 when she shared advice on how senior executives can keep and raise productivity while working from home. She later gave tips on how people can approach emails, meetings, and other day-to-day office tasks while reaching peak productivity.

Her new book, "Uptime: A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and Wellbeing," hit shelves on April 2.

On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.

Watch: Microsoft CEO unravels ChatGPT, ethical AI, and going bust

• Main content

‘Scoop’ Review: Gillian Anderson and Billie Piper Go In for the Kill in an Engrossing Look Behind Prince Andrew’s Fall From Grace

The controversial royal claimed he couldn't sweat, but viewers might get clammy during director Philip Martin's taut dramatization of that infamous BBC Newsnight interview.

By Guy Lodge

Film Critic

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Underlining the enduring impact of the story, “Scoop” is the first of two projects this year inspired by the interview. The second, the Amazon miniseries “A Very Royal Scandal,” starring Ruth Wilson and Michael Sheen, will boast Maitlis’ own blessing as an executive producer. Martin’s film is differently authorized, handing the same credit to the less celebrated party whom it takes as its effective protagonist: Sam McAlister, the former “Newsnight” booker who doggedly secured the Prince’s participation in the interview, and from whose memoir Peter Moffat and Geoff Bussetil’s script has been drawn. It’s an instructive shift in perspective, making “Scoop” the story of a scrappy underdog fighting two mighty British institutions — not just the House of Windsor, in all its impenetrably protected prestige, but the BBC itself, initially presented here as a staid, even classist organization, hostile to intrepid outsiders.

In a canny stroke of casting, McAlister is played by Billie Piper , the former teen pop star who overturned a lightweight public image to become a heavily laureled actor of stage and screen. All bottle-blonde curls and unsubtly flaunted designer labels, she enters the film with brash something-to-prove energy, striding into the BBC headquarters to the strains of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” — which just so happens to be her ringtone too.

“Why don’t they see me as one of them?” McAlister sighs to her mother, while simultaneously berating her BBC cohorts for their principled snobbery, vocally wishing they had “half the instincts and a quarter of the contacts of the average tabloid paparazzo.” Specifically, she’s thinking of New York-based shutterbug Jae Donnelly (Connor Swindells), who’s been monitoring Epstein for years — and whose gotcha 2010 snapping of Prince Andrew in conversation with the disgraced financier is tensely portrayed in the film’s pre-credit prologue.

Nine years later, the men’s high-powered friendship is hardly news, but McAlister senses another shoe about to drop, courting the Prince’s private secretary Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes) for interview access. Thirsk plays coy, while “Newsnight” producer Esmé Wren (Romola Garai) isn’t sure they have a story. When Epstein is arrested for sex trafficking, both women take McAlister a lot more seriously.

If Piper gives “Scoop’s” first half a doughty, forceful heroine, it’s merely the fault of McAlister’s job description that her grip on the narrative loosens once the interview is fixed, and the emphasis shifts to the more public showdown between Maitlis and the Prince. Played with just the right temperature of dry, dour aggression by Rufus Sewell — his knife-like features convincingly blunted by prosthetics — he’s as foggy and evasive as Maitlis is precisely focused, but just snappish enough to bring some dramatic fizz and friction to an encounter we’ve already seen play out.

Martin and editor Kristina Hetherington cleverly tease out the ultimate dynamic of the broadcast, at one point cross-cutting between their respective rehearsals of questions and answers, before the film succumbs to the simpler pleasures of pop-cultural reenactment: There’s a tingle of camp to Anderson and Sewell’s faithful readings of exchanges that have already been endlessly memed, from the memorably banal “Pizza Express in Woking” alibi to the ludicrous no-sweat defense.

At this point, “Scoop” can offer no surprises to any viewers who were remotely acquainted with news media five years ago, though the simultaneous absurdity and horror of the interview — leaving its royal subject at once defeated and recalcitrant — startles us once more. Condensing the aftermath into a few short scenes and title cards, plus a montage of aghast social media reactions, the script finds a sense of victory in Andrew’s subsequent royal demotion, cheering the integrity and influence of the national broadcaster in holding power to account. (It’s a light irony that this celebration comes bound in a Netflix production.)

Reviewed at Netflix screening room, London, April 3, 2024. Running time: 102 MIN.

• Production: (U.K.) A Netflix presentation of a Lighthouse Film and Television production in association with Voltage TV. Producers: Radford Neville, Hilary Salmon. Executive producers: Sam McAlister, Sanjay Singhal. Co-producer: Eimhear McMahon.
• Crew: Director: Philip Martin. Screenplay: Peter Moffatt, Geoff Bussetil, based on the book "Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC's Most Shocking Interviews" by Sam McAlister. Camera: Nanu Segal. Editor: Kristina Hetherington. Music: Anne Nikitin, Hannah Peel.
• With: Billie Piper, Gillian Anderson, Keeley Hawes, Rufus Sewell, Romola Garai, Connor Swindells, Lia Williams.

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7 New Books We Recommend This Week

Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.

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Where are all the books about work? That question lands in our inbox from time to time, and no wonder: In terms of hours and paychecks and the sense of identity they impart, jobs are a consuming part of our lives that authors do indeed too often neglect. So this week we recommend three books that put the world of paid labor front and center: Adelle Waldman’s novel “Help Wanted” is set in a suburban box store, Hamilton Nolan’s “The Hammer” assesses the current state of union organizing, and Jane Kamensky’s “Candida Royalle and the Sexual Revolution” takes the measure of a proto-girlboss who went from starring in pornographic movies to launching her own production company with a feminist slant.

Also recommended this week: a look at Saddam Hussein’s state of mind as America and Iraq approached war in 2003, a study of African American literature as a reflection of Black history, a warning about the impacts of climate-fueled migration and, in fiction, Percival Everett’s sparkling riff on the story of Huck Finn, this time centering the character of Huck’s fellow runaway Jim. Happy reading. — Gregory Cowles

JAMES Percival Everett

In this reworking of the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” Jim, the enslaved man who accompanies Huck down the Mississippi River, is the narrator, and he recounts the classic tale in a language that is his own and with surprising details that reveal a far more resourceful, cunning and powerful character than we knew.

“Luxuriates in language. Everett, like Twain, is a master of American argot. … This is Everett’s most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful.”

From Dwight Garner’s review

Doubleday | $28

CANDIDA ROYALLE AND THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION: A History From Below Jane Kamensky

In 1984, Candida Royalle changed the porn industry when she co-founded the female-targeted Femme Productions. As Kamensky convincingly argues in this scholarly and engaging tribute, the performer, producer and director was more than a feminist pioneer; her life mirrored that of the sexual revolution itself.

“Her rigor and thoroughness demand that the reader take seriously an underdog who made her name in a stigmatized industry. This book is a labor of empathy that refuses to simplify or valorize its subject.”

From Rich Juzwiak’s review

Norton | $35

HELP WANTED Adelle Waldman

Waldman’s long-anticipated follow-up to her 2013 debut, “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.,” applies her sharp sense of relational drama and dark comedy to the retail work space. The big-box store is Town Square, and the cast of characters who toil there are as surprising and varied as the merchandise they stock.

“Waldman is skilled at building momentum and tension through intricacies of plot. The book shines whenever the group is together, concocting plans … in search of a shared sense of hope.”

From Alexandra Chang’s review

Norton | $28.99

THE HAMMER: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor Hamilton Nolan

The longtime labor reporter and former Gawker journalist’s lively account of the current landscape of the American labor movement paints colorful portraits of union organizers from across the country alongside a pointed critique of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

“Offers an impressive array of scenes from the front lines of the 21st-century economy. … As ‘The Hammer’ shows, the kind of solidarity that might naturally arise from shared frustrations on the conveyor belt doesn’t necessarily translate to the broader movement all on its own.”

From Willa Glickman’s review

Hachette | $30

THE ACHILLES TRAP: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq Steve Coll

Coll’s book stretches from Hussein’s earliest days in power to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, tracking the dictator’s state of mind with the help of 2,000 hours of rarely accessed audio from high-level meetings that Hussein “recorded as assiduously as Richard Nixon,” Coll says.

“Most of the story is vivid and sometimes even funny. … Unlike his main character, Coll succeeds in part because he has an eye for dramatic irony.”

From Noreen Malone’s review

Penguin Press | $35

ON THE MOVE: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America Abrahm Lustgarten

The climate is changing, says the author, a climate scientist — and drought, fire and heat waves are going to cause massive demographic shifts. To get a sense of the scale of these changes, the author examines studies and models that simulate future migration scenarios, and combines his insights with first-person reportage. The results are often alarming and admittedly speculative, but never less than compelling.

“The author’s eloquent personal insights … are astonishing as well as gripping, presenting an intimate understanding of why poor agricultural workers, beset by droughts and calamitous economic circumstances, risk everything.”

From Jon Gertner’s review

Farrar, Straus & Giroux | $30

THE BLACK BOX: Writing the Race Henry Louis Gates Jr.

In his latest book, the Harvard scholar shows how African American writers have used the written word to shape their reality despite constraints imposed on them from outside, using the metaphor of the box to reflect ordeals withstood and survived since Africans were first brought to this continent.

“The allure of this book, and the reason for its existence, are the narrative links he draws. … This is a literary history of Black America, but it is also an argument that African American history is inextricable from the history of African American literature.”

From Tope Folarin’s review

Penguin Press | $30

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Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .