The same team that brought you Stephen Hawking: A life in Science has decided to defend Albert Einstein against assorted revisionist treatments. Principal among Einstein's critics are those who say Einstein's first wife, Mileva Maric, is not given credit for her contributions to special relativity theory and that, in general, she had a rough time. (Their illegitimate daughter was placed for adoption and subsequently lost to history; Einstein's mother loathed Mileva for her peasant origins, etc.) Since the authors find nothing good to say about her, quoting sources describing her as unattractive, distrustful, and noting that she never did get her degree, they can hardly be credited with unbiased views. On the other hand, they are prepared to say that Einstein himself may have suffered schizophrenia—following a notion of psychiatrist Anthony Storr that seems off the wall. Be that as it may, they do manage to bring off a colorful description of the life for which the adjective peripatetic hardly suffices. Poor Maleva and the later-born sons followed along, making do and making Poppa as comfortable as possible. The chapters interleave the life with popular accounts of the major work, underscoring the papers produced in 1905, the "annus mirabilus," that launched Einstein's reputation. The paper on the photelectric effect earned Einstein the Nobel in 1922—proceeds of which he had agreed years before to give to Maleva after their divorce. In due course, we meet the physicists and astronomers who would later verify the accuracy of general relativity by measuring the bending of starlight near the sun during an eclipse. Following Einstein's rejection of quantum theory in the 1920's, the authors trace the personal eclipse of Einstein's creative career and ascent to the role of elder statesman and charming Princeton eccentric. Certainly some new and interesting details here, and accurate, acessible explanations of theory. But please, Einstein's life needs no apology!
Pub Date: March 22, 1994
ISBN: 0743263898
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1994
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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