A model for translating books to the small screen (iPhone as well as iPad), and at a bargain price.
Al Gore’s 2009 book proves an ideal fit for an iPad app, one of the best that we’ve seen.
Gore has been at the forefront of global environmental issues for the last 20 years. His An Inconvenient Truth (2007) famously warned that we are all in for big trouble if we continue our gas-guzzling, resource-squandering, overpopulating ways. Four years later, he seems right on the mark, even if deniers and critics have twitted Gore for living a tad unsustainably himself. Our Choice is less dire: Now that we’ve made our bed, Gore seeks a way to help us unmake it, announcing in a book-opening video that we are indeed in a crisis, but that this, like so many other crises, can be solved if good thinking is put to work. But there’s a lot of unsustainability to undo for that to happen. As the author provocatively notes in a chapter devoted to politics, “The United States is still borrowing from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.” Fully leveraging the possibilities of multimedia, this app weds Gore’s original text to his video and audio narratives, his voice warm and engaging, a far cry from the much-lampooned stiff speechifying of old. Still photographs, many of which unfold, and graphs and charts round out the illustrations. So rich is the text, in fact, that, depending on bandwidth, it can take many hours for the app to download—so best to have the iPad plugged in. The package as a whole repays thorough exploration. The only demerit is a lack of hyperlinking, joining Gore’s text to the mountain of supporting information that is available elsewhere on the Internet, all hinted at in the extensive back-of-book sources.
A model for translating books to the small screen (iPhone as well as iPad), and at a bargain price.Pub Date: April 28, 2011
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Rodale
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 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
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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