An engaging book that’s both scientifically exacting and philosophically stimulating.
Breivik, a professor of medicine at the University of Oslo, reconsiders the quest to eradicate cancer.
According to the Norwegian author, very few cancer researchers working today believe that the complete eradication of all forms of the disease is a plausible goal. Indeed, he says, it’s certain that in the future there will actually be more, not less, cancer in the world. Much of what the general public believes about cancer, he says, is either completely false or only partially correct; for example, he says, cancer is not the consequence of “just faults in the machinery,” but rather due to the natural selection of mutated genes. Of course, one can lower one’s chances of getting cancer through various lifestyle choices, but these measures provide little guarantee—an unflinching observation that’s characteristic of the author’s sobering analysis. Cancer becomes more likely as we age, and as lifespans continue to increase, so will cancer incidence; therefore, the only cure for cancer would have to be a cure for aging. “Either way—aging or cancer—we are doomed. But this gloomy fact is neither due to evilness nor bad luck. The cause of cancer is a fundamental consequence of the way we reproduce ourselves….We are temporary cell colonies made by our genes to pass them on to the next generation.” Breivik furnishes a remarkably accessible account of cancer in light of evolutionary theory while calmly debunking several widely held misconceptions about the disease. He also reflects deeply and critically on the interpretation of death as an evil to be overcome, rather than a natural, necessary part of life.
As the book goes on, Breivik does acknowledge the possibility that enormous leaps could be made in human longevity, either by advances in regenerative medicine or by artificial intelligence, that could permit consciousness to be preserved independent of our physical bodies. But he wonders, with lucidity and philosophical depth, if these are moral advancements as well as technological ones: “The solution to cancer is possible, but it does not include human beings. At least not people of flesh and blood….Aging, cancer, and death are fundamental aspects of being human. If we eliminate this circle of life, we eliminate ourselves.” This is, of course, both an unconventional and controversial view, but it’s one the author articulates with an impressive boldness and without sensationalism; indeed, readers will find that the entire work is a model of intellectual caution. The scientific descriptions of cancer are not mere simplifications designed for readers seeking easily digestible fare; such text will certainly challenge those who lack backgrounds in the relevant science. That said, the descriptions are as clear as one could hope, given the prohibitively technical nature of the subject matter. Overall, Breivik delivers an edifying book that reveals much about cancer (and the medical industry’s approach to it), but he also meditates profoundly on larger matters, including the very meaning of human life itself.
An engaging book that’s both scientifically exacting and philosophically stimulating.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9781632997616
Page Count: 214
Publisher: River Grove Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
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