by Fritjof Capra ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 30, 2007
Carefully considered portrait of a true Renaissance man—polemics and all.
The painter’s true greatness was as a scientist.
So says Capra (The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living, 2004, etc.), who begins by noting that Leonardo’s scientific investigations have been overshadowed by his other work. They have also been overshadowed by Isaac Newton, whom the author sets up as an avatar of the mechanistic model for scientific work, the antithesis of Leonardo’s “holistic and ecological” approach. Leonardo’s failure to publish his findings also delayed recognition of his scientific work until long after his death. The case for Leonardo as scientist rests largely on his mirror-written notebooks, some 6,000 pages of which survive. His science is visually oriented, Capra contends; drawings in the notebooks contain object lessons in anatomy, geology, mechanics and a host of other disciplines. A concise summary of Leonardo’s life and major work leads to the meat of Capra’s argument. Leonardo’s acceptance of the paradigms of his age does not invalidate his science, the author avers, but rather gives us a context in which to understand it better. He was familiar with Aristotle, Pliny, Ptolemy and the other accepted authorities of classical times, but his paintings and drawings show that he was concerned with finding out things for himself, observing the world as it really was. The drawings are not just studies, but scientific diagrams, Capra asserts. Quotations and illustrations from the notebooks make a formidable case for Leonardo’s empirical knowledge of many natural phenomena that would not be recognized for years to come. It’s possible to accept all this but not share the author’s conviction that Newton et al. somehow got everything wrong. But Capra argues eloquently for his vision of science.
Carefully considered portrait of a true Renaissance man—polemics and all.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-385-51390-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2007
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
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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