A historical document that remains a powerful call to action.
A republication of an early environmentalist tract, written for the first Earth Day in 1970.
In his introduction, financier and consultant Meier lays out his bona fides as “assistant to one of the world’s greatest and most conscientious industrialists, Howard Hughes.” Through his work, Meier encountered numerous instances of environmental degradation and—inspired by earlier whistleblowers and polemicists, such as Rachel Carson and Seymour Hersh—decided to document his findings. Many of the material will be familiar to readers acquainted with environmental writings from the period; the book includes cries against the use of DDT and dismay over the rise of smog in major cities; pollution is described as a toxic menace, with Lake Erie receiving particular attention as a site “littered with dead fish and rotting refuse, and the dark waters contain lethal doses of industrial poisons and noxious bacteria.” Meier similarly describes the “great rivers” of the United States as “open sewers” for industrial waste. Although some sections are only interesting from a historical perspective, many remain upsettingly relevant, including those that address the need to eliminate coal mining and coal usage, the byproducts of nuclear reactors, and the growing power of lobbyists who obstruct real legislative change. Particularly prescient is the tract’s then-early call for efficient electric vehicles and electric-powered mass transit systems. Although the language sometimes aims for shock value (“The automobile is America’s leading menace. It disfigures the landscape. It contaminates the air. It kills people, plants and animals”), each chapter concludes with thoughtful, researched solutions, and some readers may despair at how few of them have been undertaken. Reflecting on how society addressed environmental challenges more than a half century ago is also engaging and instructive. The book’s enduring relevance points to the continued importance of its message, and the author’s urgently articulated desire to act will still register with new readers.
A historical document that remains a powerful call to action.Pub Date: July 4, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 111
Publisher: Meier Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
For fans only.
The hoodie-and-shorts-clad Pennsylvania senator blends the political and personal, and often not nicely.
Fetterman’s memoir addresses three major themes. The first—and the one he leads with—is depression and mental illness, which, combined with a stroke and heart trouble, brought him to a standstill and led him to contemplate suicide. The second is his rise to national-level politics from a Rust Belt town; as he writes, he’s carved a path as a contentious player with a populist streak and a dislike for elites. There are affecting moments in his personal reminiscences, especially when he writes of the lives of his working-class neighbors in impoverished southwestern Pennsylvania, its once-prosperous Monongahela River Valley “the most heartbreaking drive in the United States.” It’s the third element that’s problematic, and that’s his in-the-trenches account of daily politics. One frequent complaint is the media, as when he writes of one incident, “I am not the first public figure to get fucked by a reporter, and I won’t be the last. What was eye-opening was the window it gave into how people with disabilities navigate a world that doesn’t give a shit.” He reserves special disdain for his Senate race opponent Mehmet Oz, about whom he wonders, “If I had run against any other candidate…would I have lost? He got beaten by a guy recovering from a stroke.” Perhaps so, and Democratic stalwarts will likely be dismayed at his apparent warmish feelings for Donald Trump and dislike of his own party’s “performative protests.” If Fetterman’s book convinces a troubled soul to seek help, it will have done some good, but it’s hard to imagine that it will make much of an impression in the self-help literature. One wonders, meanwhile, at sentiments such as this: “If men are forced to choose between picking their party or keeping their balls, most men are going to choose their balls.”
For fans only.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593799826
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.
Enduring the unthinkable.
This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063489790
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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