Congratulations, By The Way was George Saunder's commencement speech at Syracuse University. It's mercifully short, and went viral, after which it got turned into a book.
The kindle formatting of the book is awful. It looks like a children's board book with just 4-6 sentences per page, completely disrupting the flow and feel of the speech. I for one, feel like he should have just posted the darn thing on a blog.
I don't object to the content --- of course you should be kind, and of course you should actually take some time to cultivate your kindness. But one thing you have to bear in mind is that fiction writers are essentially professional liars. As Charlie Stross once said: "Give me money and I'll tell you lies." So I suspect that he does regret the time he jumped into a river what monkeys have pooped in in Africa and gotten sick for days afterwards. I certainly would.
The book is also very vague on what kindness is. For instance, many people think it's kinder to lie to someone about how they look, or how smart they are, than to be honest and tell them that they suck. I actually think that a commitment to honesty, at least to the people you care about the most matters more and is kinder than the momentary feel of warmth. After all, if you make a habit out of lying to the people you love you eventually lose credibility and there is no kindness in that. (Then of course, I watch as my two sons tell each other lovingly that they're fat even when they both have BMIs well below the average, and maybe that kind of lying isn't that bad)
It's a quick read, you won't get much out of it, and it should have been a blog post.
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