A readable and wide-ranging playbook for government workers wanting to change the world.
Bell sounds a call for government workers to use their “superpowers” for workplace change.
“The US government helped to build, and in many cases continues to maintain, systems of oppression,” the author writes at the outset of her book, immediately setting the eye-opening tone; “Our country is falling short of the promise of liberty and justice for all.” In her view, the front line of resistance to these systems of oppression is perhaps an unlikely one: the rank-and-file government workers she refers to as “herocrats.” Faced with the whole gamut of the world’s problems, from climate change to poverty to global pandemics to rampant wealth inequality (and all too aware that many of these issues affect marginalized groups first and worst), these herocrats have their hands full and often face ingrained institutional obstacles as well as personal challenges (“herocrats don’t just point their finger outward; they also examine the roles they play,” asserts Bell). In concise chapters offering pointers, explanations, and personal stories, the author advises readers on productive steps herocrats can take. Bell is unflagging in her passion for justice—and also in her narrative cheerfulness, which bubbles throughout her book. This is a strong call to action that invariably makes said action seem like good, invigorating fun. There are quite a few sentiments in these pages that many readers may energetically reject—proclamations like “Ultimately, nobody really does anything important alone.” Some readers may balk at the idea of government workers engaged in ideological crusades (“dismantling the house” as Bell puts it, in order to “speak the truth” and effect change), and the author at times seems to advocate for her herocrats to pursue these agendas regardless of their roles as members of teams (“Although the day-to-day work of herocrats involves collaborating with people, the end goal … is to create more equitable and just communities by changing systems, policies, and cultures in their organizations”). Still, the broader picture Bell paints about combatting institutional biases is inspiring.
A readable and wide-ranging playbook for government workers wanting to change the world.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781634896412
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Wise Ink Creative Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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