A compelling read that’s aimed at a Canadian audience but will draw in anyone with an interest in practical aspects of...
A Canadian nurse with nearly 50 years’ experience sends out an alarm call to the general public about the future of her profession.
In this slim volume, Boucher gives readers a lot to unpack. She starts by briefly covering nurses’ duties (because, as she notes, “Even most colleagues I’ve talked to admitted that they didn’t fully understand what nurses do until they began their studies”) before describing various nursing specialties. She then turns to the profession’s benefits—competitive salaries, good benefits, and making a difference in people’s lives—as well as its challenges, including stress, and the fact that nursing shortages make everyone’s job more difficult. After briefly describing the education and training required, Boucher moves on to the most urgent issue for those on the job: avoiding burnout. One of the biggest problems that nurses face, she asserts, is the managerial practice of “floating,” in which they’re “moved from the departments they normally work in to an area that lacks adequate staff.” It can be demanding, and Boucher notes some simple ways to alleviate its difficulties, such as a uniform, hospital-wide color-coding system, so that every nurse knows what shelves contain which items in every department. The book finishes with a short chapter on what laypeople can do to help, and ends by challenging readers to “work together to elevate the nursing profession and cement its future.” All too often, when an expert writes about their work, the result is so dry or mired in jargon and technical detail that outsiders find it nearly impenetrable. However, Boucher’s prose is refreshingly engaging and thoughtful throughout. Her chapter on improving job retention particularly stands out; in it, she offers real-world examples of what has worked in real-world hospitals—the color-coding, for instance, in currently use in Ottawa—and then theorizes how ideas could go further and be more helpful. It quickly becomes evident that Boucher has thought about these issues in depth and that she cares for her fellow nurses deeply.
A compelling read that’s aimed at a Canadian audience but will draw in anyone with an interest in practical aspects of healthcare.Pub Date: April 24, 2025
ISBN: 9780995191020
Page Count: 46
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.
Another chapter in a long fight against inequality.
Building on his Fighting Oligarchy tour, which this year drew 280,000 people to rallies in red and blue states, Sanders amplifies his enduring campaign for economic fairness. The Vermont senator offers well-timed advice for combating corruption and issues a robust plea for national soul-searching. His argument rests on alarming data on the widening wealth gap’s impact on democracy. Bolstered by a 2010 Supreme Court decision that removed campaign finance limits, “100 billionaire families spent $2.6 billion” on 2024 elections. Sanders focuses on the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, describing their enactment of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” with its $1 trillion in tax breaks for the richest Americans and big social safety net cuts, as the “largest transfer of wealth” in living memory. But as is his custom, he spreads the blame, dinging Democrats for courting wealthy donors while ignoring the “needs and suffering” of the working class. “Trump filled the political vacuum that the Democrats created,” he writes, a resonant diagnosis. Urging readers not to surrender to despair, Sanders offers numerous legislative proposals. These would empower labor unions, cut the workweek to 32 hours, regulate campaign spending, reduce gerrymandering, and automatically register 18-year-olds to vote. Grassroots supporters can help by running for local office, volunteering with a campaign, and asking educators how to help support public schools. Meanwhile, Sanders asks us “to question the fundamental moral values that underlie” a system that enables “the top 1 percent” to “own more wealth than the bottom 93 percent.” Though his prose sometimes reads like a transcribed speech with built-in applause lines, Sanders’ ideas are specific, clear, and commonsensical. And because it echoes previous statements, his call for collective introspection lands as genuine.
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9798217089161
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
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