Dense with digressions but intermittently fascinating.
An academic explores the science and relevance of parasitic invaders.
Janovy, emeritus biology professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, believes these “animals that live in and on other animals” can be studied for the lessons to be learned from their biological and behavioral activity. He expounds on a “general theory of infectivity” in chapters introducing a team of parasite hunters who study the life cycles, transmission, and resilience of parasites, predominantly ones not found in humans. Among them is a microscopic fluke found in the ovaries of buffalo fish in a lake in northern Texas and southern Oklahoma that has persistently baffled and subsequently outlived generations of scientists. Elsewhere, Janovy compares the plains killifish and the free-swimming larval worms that follow it to social media platforms such as Tik Tok, all of them successfully dealing with—and seeming to thrive on—constant change. Janovy’s professional research is impactful and relevant; having spent “many hours with mosquitoes and starlings,” he equates their official designation as detrimentally “invasive” and predatory to the ostracizing of queer, immigrant, and ethnic communities. Other studies correlate human behavioral aberrations with infectious agents like Covid-19. Janovy introduces parasitologists who scrutinize the parasitic life cycle, and he draws correlations between the invasive activity of biological agents and the “parasitic ideas” that can infect cultural ecosystems with “perceived economic and cultural threats.” Drawing on previously published resource material, a half century of biological scientific experience, and academic observational research, Janovy attempts to make “mental extensions” connecting his research to the influence of biological (and social) parasitism on everyday human life in terms of abundance, diversity, and methods of survival. Readers intrigued by the intersection of science and society will be particularly interested in this verbose but generally cohesive study connecting the biology and behavior of parasites to human nature.
Dense with digressions but intermittently fascinating.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9781728292526
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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
PERSPECTIVES
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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