by Dan Savage ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 28, 2013
At turns serious and humorous, this multifaceted collection of essays will entertain both longtime Savage fans and new...
Personal and political essays from the columnist and gay rights advocate.
Though Savage may best be known as an advice columnist, he is as opinionated about gun violence, Obamacare and assisted suicide as he is about sex education, same-sex marriage and bisexuality. Despite the wide range of subject matter, his general approach to each topic, which can be boiled down to "the more freedom, the better," is consistent. This consistency, along with his technique of frequently giving examples from his personal life, prevents the essays from becoming disjointed. Savage is no stranger to controversy, and he recants his previous stance on male bisexuality, sets the record straight on his part in Rick Santorum's "Google Problem," and tells readers what happened when he invited Brian Brown, head of the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage, over for dinner. Though the political essays are incisive, Savage is at his most interesting and provocative when discussing sexuality. He argues that gay people should not race to portray themselves as exclusively wholesome when criticized as sexually depraved, and he writes that rushing to emphasize "PTA meetings and baking cookies" glosses over the fact that "we are different…gay people seem to have a much easier time reconciling love and lust, commitment and desire." Savage sees comfort and openness with sexuality as something straight people should emulate, not fear, and encourages readers to be open to "monogamish" relationships as a way of saving relationships that might otherwise be destroyed over one incident of infidelity. Some essays are weaker than others: “Sex Dread,” about sex education in America, is underdeveloped, and “The Choicer Challenge” has as much material in the footnotes as in the text, which is distracting.
At turns serious and humorous, this multifaceted collection of essays will entertain both longtime Savage fans and new readers.Pub Date: May 28, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-525-95410-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
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by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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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
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by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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