Preaching to the choir? Yes, but it’s a sermon that seemingly requires constant reiteration.
A depressingly cogent litany of the current president’s unbelievably spectacular failures.
Following his recent memoir, From the Left, longtime journalist Press, host of an eponymous show and former host of Crossfire, lays into Donald Trump and the “chaos and corruption [that] have become our new normal.” To be sure, the author could have likely extended this book out another couple hundred reasons, but the portrait on offer here is ugly enough as it is. Divided into sections such as “Trump’s Disastrous Acts as President,” “Trump Fans the Flames of Racism,” and “Trump’s Impeachable Offenses,” the book is a solid resource for the millions of Americans attempting to keep track of the near-daily lies and half-baked Twitter tirades. Press ably limns his subject’s myriad faults—pathological lying (“whatever demonstrable falsehood bubbles up to the surface of his brain is always, for him, the right thing to say at that moment”), laziness, racism, sexism, rampant xenophobia, obsession with Hillary Clinton, addiction to Fox News, inability to understand even the most basic elements of governance—and unprecedented attacks on some of the most important institutions in the U.S., including health care, the media, an open internet, and the social safety net. The author also delves into “Trump’s Cabinet of Thieves,” a who’s who of corruption and incompetence: They’re all here, from Scott Pruitt to Ryan Zinke to Rick Perry to Betsy DeVos. Trump devotees and hard-right Republicans will no doubt find fault with the book—or not read it—but Press is beyond reproach in his research and documentation. And as for that single reason for Trump to stay? You guessed it: Vice President Mike Pence, who “would be even more dangerous” as president. As the author writes, “he’s even more conservative than Trump—former GOP congressional staffer Mike Lofgren calls him ‘as far right as you could go without falling off the earth”—and a lot more effective.”
Preaching to the choir? Yes, but it’s a sermon that seemingly requires constant reiteration.Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-30647-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2018
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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