Although occasionally tendentious—McCraw clearly loves his employer—this is a passionate, important defense of the First...
The deputy general counsel of the New York Times debuts with a personal and professional account of the profound changes in journalism and of the threats he perceives to the First Amendment, threats intensified by the cries of “fake news!” that emanate from the White House and echo around the country.
McCraw, who has been at the Times for more than 15 years, mixes memoir, history, and politics, stirring in a bit of self-effacement (he thought Donald Trump was incapable of winning the 2016 election) with a dash of self-congratulation: He writes extensively about a viral letter he wrote to Trump’s attorneys about a Times story giving voice to two women who had accused the candidate of sexual impropriety. The author briefly tells the story of his own background, but mostly, he maintains a sharp focus on a number of key developments and issues. He writes about the 1964 New York Times Company v. Sullivan case, which made suing the press for libel much more difficult (a 9-0 decision in favor of the Times Company); the president’s tax returns; WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden; the Harvey Weinstein case and the #MeToo movement; the Freedom of Information Act; and the kidnapping of journalists in dangerous parts of the world. Most affectingly, he discusses the wonders of the First Amendment and how we must protect it. Periodically, McCraw expresses disbelief and horror about an American president who blasts the free press and identifies journalists as the enemies of the people. He notes with alarm, as well, how the very wealthy (and very conservative) are funding anti-media lawsuits. Here, he credits comedian John Oliver (whom he calls “brilliant”) for “outing” coal magnate Bob Murray on Last Week Tonight. Throughout, the author highly praises journalists working for the Times.
Although occasionally tendentious—McCraw clearly loves his employer—this is a passionate, important defense of the First Amendment and its absolute necessity in a democracy.Pub Date: March 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-18442-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: All Points/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2019
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
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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