Affecting and inspiring.
The first book from the noted philanthropist focuses on women’s empowerment.
Gates explains that her public advocacy began with the conviction that women need the tools to let them decide for themselves when and whether to have children. But she soon realized that activism around discrete topics—e.g., contraception or girls’ access to school—was not enough: She needed to speak up for women in general. While it has long been understood that empowered women are key to the health of any community, in the author’s hands, the idea feels fresh, or at least energized. Even though she confesses that she didn’t always consider herself a feminist and that she found the idea of working for a wider women’s agenda overwhelming, Gates is a down-to-earth, likable narrator, and she has an eye for gut-wrenching tales. She introduces us to 11-year-old Selam, who spent a day cheerfully helping her mother prepare for a party only to be told, that evening, that she was to be married that night; and Meena, who, upon meeting Gates, told her she was unable to raise her two children and asked Gates to take the children home with her. Meena said that while she eventually learned about family planning, the education came “too late.” Unsurprisingly, the author, who earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and master’s in business from Duke, thinks that continuing to work on new technologies that can improve human lives is important, but just as crucial is the development of new and better “delivery systems.” What distinguishes this book from so many other depictions of women’s struggles around the globe is the author’s ability to connect Meena and Selam with women in white-collar workplaces in the U.S. Gates doesn’t just want rural farms to be rid of bias; she also wants offices in major cities to be “compatible with family life.”
Affecting and inspiring.Pub Date: April 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-31357-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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