A wide-ranging appeal for a saner way of living.
With a background that spans science, philosophy and humanitarian service, Robinson has the ability to grasp some of the country’s most pressing problems, filter them through observant, objective eyes and make recommendations for ways to set things right. Robinson focuses on America’s materialism as a root cause of malaise, which is hardly new territory, but he expands the palette to include a discussion of our changing workplace, the growth and importance of nonprofits (the “third sector”), our consumptive attitude toward energy and the weakness of political leaders who focus more on raising money for re-election than on serving their constituents. Robinson acknowledges widespread societal unrest but, with a hint of cockeyed optimism, writes that “suffering is not all bad, because it tells us that something is wrong, and if we just listen, it will direct our lives in new ways.” The most intriguing, provocative section of Robinson’s book is the final chapter, in which the author details “ten remedies” that could move the United States forward in a radically new direction. His first remedy, “Sing a New Song: Craft a singable national anthem,” seems a bit trivial, if only because it lobbies for replacing “The Star-Spangled Banner” with a tune that “would have all of America singing not only better, but all together.” This, writes Robinson, might lead to Americans “cooperating on even more things, such as sane driving or going to school meetings.” Subsequent remedies are to be taken more seriously. The author proposes, for example, a “high-exemption flat tax,” changing the gross domestic product (GDP) to the “GDWB” (gross domestic well-being), taxing waste and not work, imposing public funding of political campaigns and living by the rules of a “civil economy” that brings equity to inequality. Robinson writes well and thoughtfully; his impassioned argument has spiritual overtones that can be inspirational at times, even if some of his ideas stretch the boundary of realism. In an era when both the U.S. and the world are witnessing unprecedented upheaval, Robinson’s innovative, thoughtful treatise may be on to something.
Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2011
ISBN: 978-1466338838
Page Count: 254
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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