A thorough guide best suited for people working in or responsible for safety and health aspects of these industries, or as a...
In the first of five books in a planned series, a trained occupational physician and retired consultant with the U.K.’s National Health Service uses firsthand accounts to provide an overview of traditional craft industries.
Using an encyclopedia format, Dasgupta (Disasters, 2011) describes typical crafts, such as sewing and basket weaving, but also stretches the definition of “craft” with entries such as lavender harvesting. The entries, which are randomly presented, fall into three general areas: decorative jewelry, clothing and housewares (embroidery, bangle-making and glass-making); harvesting of crops (sugar cane, coffee, tea); and industrial goods (plastics, rope-making and brick-making). Each chapter follows a similar structure and format, starting with historic origins of the craft, followed by a list of products and chemicals used, the cultural and social impact of each industry and a list of health and safety hazards. Large color photos also depict activities involved in the practice of the craft. The descriptions of the cultural aspects are a strength of the book, as Dasgupta emphasizes how developing countries still depend heavily on handmade goods, providing the reader with an understanding of the important role carried out by people who continue to work in handmade and traditional craft industries at a time when other industries are dominating the marketplace. However, each two-page entry is too brief to be instructional for those interested in taking up the craft as a hobby or as a profession, and there isn’t a clear grouping of the entries to provide organization and needed context for the collection as a whole. The health issues listed are too general in some chapters—such as injuries due to slips and falls—and could apply to any profession.
A thorough guide best suited for people working in or responsible for safety and health aspects of these industries, or as a starting point for those wanting to learn more.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2011
ISBN: 978-1456792336
Page Count: 54
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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