A demonstration of the power of social networking by a Google engineer named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of 2011.
As the head of marketing for Google Middle East and North Africa, Ghonim was so outraged by the State Security's beating to death of a young Egyptian named Khaled Mohamed Said that he created the Facebook page Kolona Khaled Said (“We Are All Khaled Said”). The website helped sparked the revolution ending Hosni Mubarak's presidency. Here, in sometimes hour-by-hour detail and with ample and extensive quotes from Facebook, the author recounts the events from its appearance in June 2010 to February 2011, when Mubarak stepped down. He also documents his own transformation from passive critic of the Mubarak regime to motivated activist whose "computer keyboard had become a machine gun, firing bullets with every keystroke.” The response to his page was immediate, and the numbers grew rapidly, establishing the site as a major voice of the Internet generation. From reading its posts, people realized that they were not alone in their fears and frustrations, and they began to add their comments, contribute content share in decisions about what actions might be taken. Ghonim credits the Tunisian revolution with finally giving young Egyptians the confidence to take to the streets. His own fears about concealing his identity were justified: He was arrested, blindfolded and handcuffed and interrogated in isolation for 12 days. Ghonim's Facebook page was not alone, however. Hundreds of other sites were launched to collect and disseminate news and images, and he credits these and Al Jazeera satellite TV and CNN with keeping the story of the Egyptian revolution alive. Questions remain: Is the revolution really over, or is another one against Egypt's entrenched military just beginning. If so, what role will social media play this time? A remarkable personal testament that will be cited by future historians of both Facebook and the Arab Spring.
Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-77398-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
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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