by Janet Colbert ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 29, 2017
An impassioned, if sometimes-scattered, attack on the spread of opioids and their impact on communities.
An antidrug activist recounts her efforts to fight overprescription of opioid drugs in Florida.
In this debut, Colbert recounts the efforts of her organization, STOPPNow (Stop the Organized Pill Pushers Now), to close down “pill mills”—medical clinics that prescribe and dispense large quantities of painkillers—and to strengthen the laws regulating addictive prescription drugs. She explains the origins of her devotion to the cause (as a neonatal nurse, she treated many babies who were born with withdrawal symptoms) and she shares stories of other activists who’ve lost loved ones to overdoses and other drug-related fatalities. The book describes meetings with state and federal legislators, and Colbert’s sense of frustration is palpable as she tells of years of unsuccessful efforts to implement regulations. Her accounts are interspersed with emails to and from government officials. In text and photographs, she documents her organization’s protests outside clinics and its attempts to raise awareness of the scope of the opioid epidemic. The book’s second half consists of transcripts from the murder trial of a high-prescribing doctor, annotated by Colbert, who observed most of the trial personally. Appendices contain the Centers for Disease Control’s current recommendations for prescribing opioids and a letter from former Surgeon General Vivek Murthey. Colbert’s passion for her cause is evident throughout this book, and she makes a convincing case for the complicity of medical professionals who profit from dispensing large quantities of drugs. At one point, for instance, she points out that there are “more [clinics] than McDonalds” in Broward County. The excerpts from her correspondence also make it clear that she doesn’t mince words when she fights for what she believes (“You should be ashamed to hold or run for office in our state if you have no intention of closing the pain clinics,” she wrote in 2010 to then-Florida Gov. Charlie Crist). However, the text isn’t always well-organized; the many anecdotes that make up the book’s first half often feel unconnected to one another, and the amount of space that Colbert gives to trial transcripts seems excessive.
An impassioned, if sometimes-scattered, attack on the spread of opioids and their impact on communities.Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4809-7562-0
Page Count: 484
Publisher: Rosedog Books
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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