A provocative, important repudiation of gig-economy capitalism that proposes utopian rather than dystopian solutions.
A contrarian rebuttal of the notion that wealthy Americans deserve everything they have and that the “poor are responsible for their own poverty.”
Building on her previous book, Squeezed: Why Our Families Can’t Afford America, journalist Quart, head of a nonprofit called the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, dissects the notion of bootstrapping, “a shorthand term I am using to describe…every-man-for-themselves individualism.” As the author amply demonstrates, that doctrine of individualism has been a long-standing, deeply ingrained trope in American life. To demonstrate that fact, Quart examines aspirational literary works by writers such as Horatio Alger and Laura Ingalls Wilder, the latter of whom, writes Quart, painted a portrait in her Little House series of rugged self-reliance even as her father “was not such a great farmer and thus leaned on his neighbors for help far more than Wilder tended to admit in her books.” Emerson and even Thoreau are called on the carpet and found wanting, too, before Quart moves on to modern rallying cries such as the mindfulness movement, carefully instilled in corporate culture not to produce generations of Buddhist saints but instead to urge people to become more productive. Within this system, far too many people rely on a “dystopian social safety net” in order to make it from paycheck to paycheck or even to stay alive, whether visiting warming stations to keep from freezing to death in winter or free dental clinics to offset the fact that “fewer than half of American dentists accept Medicaid.” Against these harsh realities, which she reports on cogently and without rancor, Quart proposes a more meaningful safety net of cooperative work and mutual aid, whereby workers pool their capabilities and time to produce needed and sustainable things while being their own bosses—a situation that, she notes, reflects dependence, independence, and interdependence all at once.
A provocative, important repudiation of gig-economy capitalism that proposes utopian rather than dystopian solutions.Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780063028005
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.
Enduring the unthinkable.
This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063489790
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.
Another chapter in a long fight against inequality.
Building on his Fighting Oligarchy tour, which this year drew 280,000 people to rallies in red and blue states, Sanders amplifies his enduring campaign for economic fairness. The Vermont senator offers well-timed advice for combating corruption and issues a robust plea for national soul-searching. His argument rests on alarming data on the widening wealth gap’s impact on democracy. Bolstered by a 2010 Supreme Court decision that removed campaign finance limits, “100 billionaire families spent $2.6 billion” on 2024 elections. Sanders focuses on the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, describing their enactment of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” with its $1 trillion in tax breaks for the richest Americans and big social safety net cuts, as the “largest transfer of wealth” in living memory. But as is his custom, he spreads the blame, dinging Democrats for courting wealthy donors while ignoring the “needs and suffering” of the working class. “Trump filled the political vacuum that the Democrats created,” he writes, a resonant diagnosis. Urging readers not to surrender to despair, Sanders offers numerous legislative proposals. These would empower labor unions, cut the workweek to 32 hours, regulate campaign spending, reduce gerrymandering, and automatically register 18-year-olds to vote. Grassroots supporters can help by running for local office, volunteering with a campaign, and asking educators how to help support public schools. Meanwhile, Sanders asks us “to question the fundamental moral values that underlie” a system that enables “the top 1 percent” to “own more wealth than the bottom 93 percent.” Though his prose sometimes reads like a transcribed speech with built-in applause lines, Sanders’ ideas are specific, clear, and commonsensical. And because it echoes previous statements, his call for collective introspection lands as genuine.
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9798217089161
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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