A well-informed but tepid history.
An overview of how the spoken word has been captured on records, tapes, cassettes, and digital devices.
For Rubery (English/Queen Mary Univ.; The Novelty of Newspapers: Victorian Fiction After the Invention of the News, 2009, etc.), the audiobook poses two overarching questions: “What difference does it make whether we read a book or listen to it?” Does the printed book have “privileged standing” over a recording? Although it would seem that audiobooks would be an uncontroversial boon to people with vision impairment or busy lives, throughout its 150-year history, recorded books have generated heated debate: some people claim that listening is not as intellectually challenging as reading print; others disagree. Audiobooks attract nonreaders and those who love to read. “Audiobooks fascinate me,” the author writes, “precisely because they elicit such intense feelings among readers and appeal to groups that seem to be polar opposites when it comes to taste.” Although Rubery carefully chronicles the technology, marketing, and public response to recorded books, his fascination rarely infuses his narrative with excitement. The technology that began in 1877 when Thomas Edison recorded his recitation of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” took off in the 1930s, in America and Britain, with an effort to supply books for blind readers, including World War I soldiers. Those readers, grateful as they were, disagreed about whether books should be narrated dramatically or in a straightforward manner. The American Foundation for the Blind claimed that the presentation influenced the acceptance of the talking book “as a legitimate alternative to print.” Controversy also erupted about what books were appropriate for recording and how to deal with pornography or offensive language. Some authors—e.g., Willa Cather and Rudyard Kipling—refused permission for their books to be recorded, objecting that any narrator would impose an interpretation that should be left up to readers. Rubery’s account of the founding of Caedmon, a company devoted to recording famous authors reading their works, is one of the livelier chapters.
A well-informed but tepid history.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-674-54544-1
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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
PERSPECTIVES
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
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
