An engrossing exposé of scientific practice in America.
A science book discusses the deplorable state of the field in the United States, the result of bias, greed, and governmental dysfunction.
Ruscetti was skeptical of authority in all its forms from an early age and turned to a career in science, hoping that intellectual irreverence would find a home there. But he encountered a professional world dominated by naked careerism, blind dogma, propaganda, and bottomless vindictiveness. The author enjoyed a brilliantly accomplished career as a virologist, working for decades at the National Cancer Institute, and was part of the team that identified the first pathogenic human retrovirus, HTLV-1. While studying AIDS in the 1980s, he worked closely with Anthony Fauci—Ruscetti found him to be as mendacious as he was ambitious. The author claims that Fauci’s neglect and even repression of important research likely slowed down the fight against the deadly disease. Ruscetti convincingly blames governmental malfeasance for establishing a system that permits bureaucrats like Fauci and Robert Gallo—one of the author’s supervisors—to prosper: “People like Gallo and Fauci thrive because of a system put in place by President Richard Nixon, in which a few leading government scientists were given unprecedented control over funding decisions, while at the same time creating a subservient class of researchers who must vie for their approval.” Mikovits tells a similar story, if more personally harrowing—she claims that she was persecuted for her work demonstrating the contamination of blood and vaccine supplies. While her account is as lucidly compelling as Ruscetti’s, she can veer into conspiracy theory—she contends that Covid-19 was part of “a planned mass murder to cover-up tens of millions of people infected with animal retroviruses because of a contaminated blood supply and contaminated vaccines.” It’s worth noting that Ruscetti does not agree with her. For all her intellectual excesses, Mikovits’ remembrance is a powerful one and confirms Ruscetti’s account of the scientific community as one plagued by incompetence and venality. Especially during a time in which the authority of that community is a matter of dispute, the two scientists’ book—written with Heckenlively—is an important contribution to a gathering debate.
An engrossing exposé of scientific practice in America.Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5107-6468-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.
Enduring the unthinkable.
This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063489790
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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