Interviews with numerous individuals, many of them celebrities, on how they have coped with adversity. Interviewer Wholey, former host of PBS's Late Night America and author of Are You Happy? (1986) and The Courage to Change (1984)—which used celebrity interviews to explore happiness and alcohol, respectively—has edited out his questions here, believing they would intrude on the ``truly inspirational'' stories his subjects have to tell. The result, though, is an often curiously flat narration of some absolutely awful personal experiences—incarceration in Auschwitz and Dachau, devastating illnesses, disfiguring and disabling accidents, etc. Among the celebrities who speak with Wholey are Jim Brady, brain-damaged in John Hinkley's assassination attempt on President Reagan, and Betty Ford, who has faced both cancer and drug addiction. Wholey also talks with Robert Bork, who lost his bid for a Supreme Court seat; former American Univ. president Richard Berendzen, who faced disgrace after making indecent telephone calls; and Nixon advisor Charles Colson, sent to prison during the Watergate investigation. The author's arrangement of his subjects' stories into such categories as ``Suffering,'' ``Loss,'' ``Attitude,'' and ``Acceptance'' appears somewhat arbitrary but does give him room, in brief introductions, to insert his own insights into facing personal disaster. The penultimate section, ``Support and Wisdom,'' excerpts comments from various interviews and intends to be morale-boosting, while the last section, ``Final Thoughts,'' could have been called ``Random Thoughts''—it contains brief pieces by assorted experts on AIDS, the rights of the disabled, and the hospice movement, as well as an unfocused essay by Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan. Even with the celebrity gloss, essentially uninspired and uninspiring.
Pub Date: May 29, 1992
ISBN: 1-56282-985-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1992
In the latest leg of an idiosyncratic intellectual journey, Pellegrino looks at the stories of the Old Testament through the lenses of genetics, paleontology, and archaeology. Pellegrino (Unearthing Atlantis, 1990, etc.) has an autodidact's omnivorous curiosity to match his high-flying imagination. In this new hodgepodge, he expands on the speculations he put forward in his previous expedition into antiquity, in which he hypothesized that the volcano-buried Minoan city of Thera was the inspiration for the legendary Atlantis. Here he conjectures that when an eruption in the second millennium b.c. obliterated the Minoan civilization, its long-distance effects may have been responsible for the plagues of Egypt and the Aegean diaspora that brought the Philistines to Canaan. He also annexes other theories having to do with the contentious ``Mitochondrial Eve'' hypothesis (based on mitochondrial DNA research, it theorizes that genetic the mother of us all lived between 250,000 and 140,000 b.c.) and the Ark of the Covenant's wanderings. Using diverse scientific sources and historical perspectives—Sumerian clay tablets, Egyptian steles, the writings of Herodotus, and, naturally, the Bible—he ``telescopes'' anthropological and archaeological theories to fit Biblical myths like those of Noah and Nimrod, compressing patterns of history into oral tradition's legends. With a natural sense of storytelling, he blends theories of antiquity with the adventures of field work: He is best describing the modern difficulties of conducting digs in Gaza, Jericho, and Iraq (where he radically situates the Biblical Cities of the Plain destroyed by God's wrath). There is, however, a good deal of padding by this accidental archaeologist: reconstructed dialogue, digression, repetition, and flights of fancy that leave solid ground far below. For all its interdisciplinary breadth and originality, this reads like a beery breeze-shooting session with a college prof. (16 pages of b&w drawings, maps, not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-40006-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An interesting but inconclusive look at the relationship between religion and money in contemporary America. Wuthnow (Social Sciences/Princeton; Sharing the Journey, p. 59, etc.) asks: What is the effect of religious belief on economic choices? Jesus cautioned that a person could not serve two masters- -both God and money. Yet, according to Wuthnow, that is precisely what many American synagogue- and churchgoers and professed believers are attempting to do. In the postindustrial era, people are working more hours than ever before and, under tremendous pressure to perform and gain ever more material goods, enjoying it less. What impact does religion have? Does it affect the careers people choose? Very little, according to the author, who bases his work on a wide variety of sources (including surveys and interviews). What religion might do, however, is make people happier on the job. It also influences workplace ethics, helping to determine whether one will be honest or willing to cut corners. Statistical comparisons of people of various moral stances, and of churchgoers to the population at large, also indicate that religious commitment influences people's attitudes toward money (showing it is as much the province of priest and rabbi as it is of economist and businessman), charitable giving, environmental consciousness, and opinions and actions concerning the economically disadvantaged. In the end, Wuthnow's answers are all mixed bags, demonstrating that Americans are at once deeply spiritual and profoundly secular. He also criticizes current religious leadership for reshaping modern religion so as to not afflict the consciences of their consumerist, capitalist congregants. Appendices on methodology will be helpful to serious students. Straightforwardly written in accessible prose, the book will appeal primarily to students and scholars of religion. There is, however, enough to attract the interested layperson as well.
Pub Date: Sept. 21, 1994
ISBN: 0-02-935628-8
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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