by Jorge Ramos translated by Ezra E. Fitz ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2018
Repetitive in places but not fatally so—a forceful, readable manifesto.
The celebrated Mexican-American journalist takes on the anti-immigration tenor of the Trump era.
On Aug. 25, 2015, Donald Trump had the author removed from a press conference in Iowa, telling him, “go back to Univision.” Already well-known for his role as anchor at that network, Ramos (Take a Stand: Lessons from Rebels, 2016, etc.) was thrust further into the spotlight following the incident, an experience that also led him to further soul-searching regarding his status as a legal immigrant in an increasingly anti-immigrant political and social landscape. Here, the author attempts to synthesize his thoughts about our present state of affairs and how, “to many people, I represent the Other.” The concept of the Other recurs throughout the book, which contains much similar material to his previous one and suffers from repetition and uneven organization near the end. Nonetheless, Ramos’ message is powerful and vital. “Almost all of us here are either immigrants or the descendants of foreigners,” writes the author, “and that has always helped us to cross borders and exceed the limits of what we thought was possible.” In brief chapters, some of which have been previously published or reworked, Ramos uses both personal storytelling and concrete data to demonstrate the absolute necessity of immigrants to the success of the U.S. as a nation. (In strictly economic terms, one estimate notes that immigrants “pay $90 billion in taxes, while using only $5 billion in public benefits.”) Of course, in the current climate of fake news, facts and figures are often ignored or distorted—something Ramos fully recognizes—but he diligently hammers them home anyway. Among other topics in these essays, the author discusses the proposed border wall, “the geography of stupidity”; Barack Obama’s lamentable deportation track record; his disappointment with the Latino voter turnout in the 2016 election; the tenuous status of undocumented workers (he dedicates the book to “the Dreamers, my heroes”); and the prospects for his children’s future.
Repetitive in places but not fatally so—a forceful, readable manifesto.Pub Date: March 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-56379-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Vintage
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
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by Jorge Ramos & illustrated by Akemi Gutierrez
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by Jorge Ramos
by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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by Jon Krakauer
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by Jon Krakauer
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SEEN & HEARD
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