Overall, a satisfying collection of vignettes about family and career suitable not only for fans of the author’s previous...
A random assortment of over 100 short texts that reflect on a life well-lived.
Lubow (Wild Notes, 2015, etc.) presents vignettes in haphazard fashion without attempting to organize them thematically or chronologically. Spanning several decades, many take place in the Chicago area and focus on his family life or his career in the field of advertising. Some of the more endearing moments involve his wife, Donna. In one of his longer pieces, “The second call,” Lubow demonstrates how the trait of persistence served him well, not only when first meeting Donna at college, but also as part of his eventual profession. The inclusion of “footnotes” following many pieces allows the author to reflect on events with the benefit of hindsight or to provide updates, perhaps most effectively in “Four refusals and a footnote,” where he recounts creative differences with the talent in the field and then unexpected resolutions. “Summertime,” easily one of the most touching sketches, imagines an encounter between the author, Donna, and their now-deceased parents, where all appear to be in the primes of their lives. Generally, Lubow is at his best when he allows himself room for vivid sensory descriptions, as in “Halloween, 1949,” which conveys the palpable excitement for all ages surrounding that particular celebration. Again, a footnote adds value; the author modestly explains that even though the physical elements of a story may have faded, “they’re here in rambling words that compel themselves to get written down and are not much, but better than nothing.” As is often the case with this type of format, not all pieces carry the same weight. For instance, the flattening of a squirrel evokes 11 different glimpses of accidents or near misses involving vehicles, humans, and animals. The final piece in this largely entertaining volume occurs in a London eatery in the early 1980s. Dining with his wife and two sons, Lubow feels a sharp sense of pride and then mentions that the bistro in question is no longer open. Tellingly, he writes: “But the past never closes.”
Overall, a satisfying collection of vignettes about family and career suitable not only for fans of the author’s previous works, but also for new readers.Pub Date: June 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5304-1652-3
Page Count: 132
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
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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
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