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NO MORE NICE GIRLS

COUNTERCULTURAL ESSAYS

The former Village Voice writer and editor (Journalism/NYU) collects almost 30 essays and book reviews spanning the 80's. All but a handful from the Voice, these widely disparate pieces are somewhat unified by Willis's unswerving faith in the countercultural pursuit of pleasure. At best, Willis's feminist libertarianism means dissent from the feminist orthodoxies about sex and pornography. A number of excellent pieces decry the sexual conservatism of mainstream feminists, expose the simple-mindedness of antiporn theorists, and rescue Freud from the know-nothing onslaught. Willis's articles on divorce, abortion, and the ``fetal-rights movement'' brilliantly articulate the issues while making her own views clear and persuasive. Her anti-family posturing, though, seems a hippie- communal leftover and doesn't really follow from her own line of reasoning. Similar knee-jerkism mars essays on race, Simone de Beauvoir, and a long, pointless memoir of a cross-country bus trip. The author's self-absorption also intrudes on otherwise excellent essays about feminist history, the 60's, and the Pollard/Israeli spy case. Committed to ``transforming people's consciousness,'' Willis is at her best when concerned with human freedom and dignity—the autonomy of our bodies, and the attendant risks involved. She wisely debunks the anti-drug hysteria and provides an absolutist defense of Salman Rushdie's blasphemy. Willis is at her weakest when she relies on politically correct rhetoric—``her women's group,'' ``patriarchal society.'' Those who remember her as a devoted guide to the 60's in Beginning to See the Light will find much of the same verve here in discussions of sex and drugs, but nothing about her strongest subject, rock 'n' roll. Despite the rhetorical excesses and some padding (two throwaway pieces about Picasso and Warhol): a must-browse for readers interested in feminism and the culture wars.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-8195-5250-X

Page Count: 298

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1992

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WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

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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GOOD ECONOMICS FOR HARD TIMES

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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