A beautiful composition that shows Cajal’s indelible contribution to science and art.
An in-depth biography of the Nobel laureate who “is considered the founder of modern neuroscience.”
In the late 1800s, Europe was rippling with activity in science, art, and politics. Against this backdrop, Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934) devoted himself passionately to the study of microscopic structures that comprise living tissue. Inspired by drawing and photography, he created innumerable images of objects he viewed through his microscope, and his legacy as a pioneering neuroscientist is entwined with his artistic achievements, which include drawings of neurons and other cells that are frequently displayed in major museums. In this deeply researched and intimate book, Ehrlich illuminates his subject’s life and work, hailing him as a “complicated and monumental man” who “produced the first clear evidence that the brain is composed of individual cells, later termed neurons, fundamentally the same as those that make up the rest of the living world.” The author delves deep, building on his research for his previous book, The Dreams of Santiago Ramón y Cajal. “From every source that I could find, writes Ehrlich, “I gathered every trace of him, every sliver of his life and scrap of his work, every piece of information about his science, his country, and his world.” In vivid detail, he describes Cajal’s emergence from childhood rogue to internationally celebrated scientist and chronicles unrelenting pursuit of knowledge within a volatile and rapidly changing world. Through colorful anecdotes about Cajal’s upbringing, education, career, marriage, and fatherhood, the author reveals his character in more detail than ever before, bringing him to life in clear and elegant prose. Cajal believed that scientific pursuit was indistinguishable from human self-discovery. Writes Ehrlich, he “provided a deeper account of our humanity, the story of how our brains became what they are.” The book includes photos and anatomical drawings.
A beautiful composition that shows Cajal’s indelible contribution to science and art.Pub Date: March 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-374-11037-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
For the author’s fans.
A Fox News journalist and talk show host sets out to prove that she is not “an empty St. John suit in five-inch stiletto heels.”
The child of devout Christians, Minnesota native Carlson’s first love was music. She began playing violin at age 6 and quickly revealed that she was not only a prodigy, but also a little girl who thrived on pleasing audiences. Working with top teachers, she developed her art over the years. But by 16, Carlson began “chafing at [the] rigid, structured life” of a concert violinist–in-training and temporarily put music aside. At the urging of her mother, the high achiever set her sights on winning the Miss T.E.E.N. pageant, where she was first runner-up. College life at Stanford became yet another quest for perfection that led Carlson to admit it was “not attainable” after she earned a C in one class. At the end of her junior year and again at the urging of her mother, Carlson entered the 1989 Miss America pageant, which she would go on to win thanks to a brilliant violin performance. Dubbed the “smart Miss America,” Carlson struggled with pageant stereotypes as well as public perceptions of who she was. Being in the media spotlight every day during her reign, however, also helped her decide on a career in broadcast journalism. Yet success did not come easily. Sexual harassment dogged her, and many expressed skepticism about her abilities due to her pageant past. Even after she rose to national prominence, first as a CBS news broadcaster and then as a Fox talk show host, Carlson continued—and continues—to be labeled as “dumb or a bimbo.” Her history clearly demonstrates that she is neither. However, Carlson’s overly earnest tone, combined with her desire to show her Minnesota “niceness…in action,” as well as the existence of “abundant brain cells,” dampens the book’s impact.
For the author’s fans.Pub Date: June 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-525-42745-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
An engaging childhood memoir and a deeply affectionate tribute to the author’s parents.
The bestselling author recalls her childhood and her family’s wartime experiences.
Readers of Winspear’s popular Maisie Dobbs mystery series appreciate the London investigator’s canny resourcefulness and underlying humanity as she solves her many cases. Yet Dobbs had to overcome plenty of hardships in her ascent from her working-class roots. Part of the appeal of Winspear’s Dobbs series are the descriptions of London and the English countryside, featuring vividly drawn particulars that feel like they were written with firsthand knowledge of that era. In her first book of nonfiction, the author sheds light on the inspiration for Dobbs and her stories as she reflects on her upbringing during the 1950s and ’60s. She focuses much attention on her parents’ lives and their struggles supporting a family, as they chose to live far removed from their London pasts. “My parents left the bombsites and memories of wartime London for an openness they found in the country and on the land,” writes Winspear. As she recounts, each of her parents often had to work multiple jobs, which inspired the author’s own initiative, a trait she would apply to the Dobbs character. Her parents recalled grueling wartime experiences as well as stories of the severe battlefield injuries that left her grandfather shell-shocked. “My mother’s history,” she writes, “became my history—probably because I was young when she began telling me….Looking back, her stories—of war, of abuse at the hands of the people to whom she and her sisters had been billeted when evacuated from London, of seeing the dead following a bombing—were probably too graphic for a child. But I liked listening to them.” Winspear also draws distinctive portraits of postwar England, altogether different from the U.S., where she has since settled, and her unsettling struggles within the rigid British class system.
An engaging childhood memoir and a deeply affectionate tribute to the author’s parents.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64129-269-6
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Soho
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
