A must for fans of Gardner, and for rationalists of all stripes.
America’s favorite skeptic (Visitors From Oz, 1998, etc.) presents another smorgasbord of common sense, practical criticism, and entertainment.
The subtitle only begins to do justice to the range of these essays from various periodicals, primarily Gardner's long-running column in the now-defunct Skeptical Inquirer. For many readers, the real fun will consist of watching the author turn his microscope on the pseudoscientific and irrational. You can practically see him shaking his head at some of the interpretations of the classic fairy tale he examines in “Little Red Riding Hood.” And his essay on Ernest Hemingway, which Gardner himself frankly describes as “a hatchet job,” will likely make even that writer’s admirers think twice about Hemingway’s brutal egotism. Nor does the author find much to admire in Indian guru (and messiah of theosophy) Krishnamurti. But Gardner’s full arsenal of indignation only becomes apparent in essays on medical or psychological quackery such as therapeutic touch, primal-scream therapy, and facilitated communication. The psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, whose work with autistic children was once considered definitive, does not escape Gardner's scorn for his contention that maternal coldness is at the root of autism. His exposé of primal-scream therapy concludes with a transcript of therapists bullying a young girl through a “reenactment” of her birth—a session that resulted in the child’s death. The menu is not restricted to debunking, however; Gardner displays his enthusiasms for GK Chesterton, L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, and mathematical puzzlements. His sense of humor peeks through in clerihews and parodies, as well as in occasional asides about his more serious subjects. There are copious notes for readers interested in following up the author's research.
A must for fans of Gardner, and for rationalists of all stripes.Pub Date: July 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-393-05742-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2003
Not only the definitive life, but a tour de force by a master.
One of history’s most prolific inventors receives his due from one of the world’s greatest biographers.
Pulitzer and National Book Award winner Morris (This Living Hand and Other Essays, 2012, etc.), who died this year, agrees that Thomas Edison (1847-1931) almost certainly said, “genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration,” and few readers of this outstanding biography will doubt that he was the quintessential workaholic. Raised in a middle-class Michigan family, Edison displayed an obsessive entrepreneurial spirit from childhood. As an adolescent, he ran a thriving business selling food and newspapers on a local railroad. Learning Morse code, he spent the Civil War as a telegrapher, impressing colleagues with his speed and superiors with his ability to improve the equipment. In 1870, he opened his own shop to produce inventions to order. By 1876, he had money to build a large laboratory in New Jersey, possibly the world’s first industrial research facility. Never a loner, Edison hired talented people to assist him. The dazzling results included the first commercially successful light bulb for which, Morris reminds readers, he invented the entire system: dynamo, wires, transformers, connections, and switches. Critics proclaim that Edison’s innovations (motion pictures, fluoroscope, rechargeable batteries, mimeograph, etc.) were merely improvements on others’ work, but this is mostly a matter of sour grapes. Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone was a clunky, short-range device until it added Edison’s carbon microphone. And his phonograph flabbergasted everyone. Humans had been making images long before Daguerre, but no one had ever reproduced sound. Morris rivetingly describes the personalities, business details, and practical uses of Edison’s inventions as well as the massive technical details of years of research and trial and error for both his triumphs and his failures. For no obvious reason, the author writes in reverse chronological order, beginning in 1920, with each of the seven following chapters backtracking a decade. It may not satisfy all readers, but it works.
Not only the definitive life, but a tour de force by a master.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9311-0
Page Count: 800
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
A book that describes what kangaroos do and offers unusually beautiful pictures of them doing it. One old male bending forward while scratching his back looks like nothing else found in nature- -except maybe a curmudgeonly old baseball manager with arthritis in the late innings of another losing game (in fact, baseball players would appear to be the only animals who scratch themselves as much as kangaroos do—bellies, underarms, Iwago captures every permutation of scratching). At other times, they look preternaturally graceful and serene. Some of Iwago's (Mitsuaki Iwago's Whales, not reviewed) photographic compositions flirt with anthropomorphism and slyly play to our urge to see ourselves in the animals. But kangaroos are so singular that there's always something about the cant of a head or the drape of a limb that makes you think you flatter yourself that there is any kinship. They remain wondrously different.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-8118-0785-1
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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