by Lillian Ross ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 27, 2015
Readable and rewarding and, though more than a touch old-fashioned, full of exemplary reporting.
An anthology of New Yorker stories form a living bridge to journalism’s golden age—which, as it happens, wasn’t all that long ago.
Ross, no relation to legendary editor Harold Ross, began working at the magazine in 1944. She was paid less than any male counterpart, but she was lucky to have the job, since said editor had a strong aversion to women reporters to begin with and hired them only when World War II took the men away to battle. Ross the reporter had a less frightful mentor in managing editor William Shawn, who paid her the same as the men and stuck up for her when she turned in a controversial piece about the Miss America contest, open to all young women who were “high school graduates, were not and had never been married, and were not Negroes.” Score one for the author, who closes her introduction with an old-fashioned manifesto that many modern practitioners will ignore or puzzle over—to wit, write only about people who want to be written about, and don’t use what she charmingly calls a “tape recorder.” Some of the entries have a fustiness that cannot survive the passing years, and some are nearly parodic in sounding just like what a New Yorker human-interest piece is supposed to sound like: “Eastwood’s appearance in the kitchen, where Paco the parrot greeted him with repeated I love yous, didn’t seem to slow down the lunch preparations that were under way.” Some are classics, however, including her much-anthologized piece on John Huston’s travails in making the 1951 film The Red Badge of Courage. It’s worth noting that Ross is writing for the magazine today, though the anthology tilts heavily in favor of work that appeared before anyone ever heard of Tina Brown or Jill Lepore, the latter of whom Ross singles out for praise.
Readable and rewarding and, though more than a touch old-fashioned, full of exemplary reporting.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1600-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
Share your opinion of this book
More by Lillian Ross
BOOK REVIEW
by Lillian Ross
BOOK REVIEW
edited by Lillian Ross
BOOK REVIEW
by Lillian Ross
More About This Book
PERSPECTIVES
by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
Awards & Accolades
Likes
18
Our Verdict
GET IT
Google Rating
Kirkus Reviews'
Best Books Of 2016
New York Times Bestseller
Pulitzer Prize Finalist
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
Share your opinion of this book
by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Share your opinion of this book
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.