Why the best way to happily take on the challenges of modern life is to turn them into games.
Bogost (Media Studies and Interactive Computing/Georgia Institute of Technology; How to Talk About Video Games, 2015, etc.) disputes the common view that playing games is merely a way to escape the trials and tribulations of life. Underlying the author’s narrative is his rejection of the popular idea that happiness and pleasure are the results of escaping from the pressures of life. For him, rules are what make games fun; they provide a safe space in which a player can explore new possibilities and opportunities. As the author notes, looking at things in unconventional and whimsical ways can replace—or at least enhance—the tedium of routine. These kinds of mental tests provide zest to life and are pleasurable for their own sakes. The author examines games through the lenses of many disciplines, including metaphysics, aesthetics, psychology, and, most prominently, philosophy. Take the case of the humble stick. Recently inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York, along with the skateboard and the baby doll, the stick was chosen because it is “very open-ended, all natural, the perfect price.” However, Bogost digs deeper and sees it a bit differently. Sticks have properties such as length, breakability, woodenness, and sharpness, which define their potential and thus, subtly, rules for their use. Rules limit the open-endedness by establishing possible spaces in which working within them evokes creativity. It is no longer simply escapism but “a kind of craftsmanship.” Freedom then becomes “an opportunity to explore the implications of inherited or invented limitations.” Limits also involve humility—not necessarily looking for happiness in ourselves but in pursuing greater respect “for the things, people, and situations around us.” Though some readers may think Bogost takes play too seriously, his arguments are thoughtful and useful for approaching ordinary experiences.
A delightful book that promotes playfulness with a purpose.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-465-05172-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Basic
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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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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“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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