Destined to be a go-to source in future sex and gender debates.
Boldly venturing where few cultural warriors dare go: to biological fact.
This book is about more than modern relationships; it’s about modern debates over who is male or female and why many people say they’re not the gender they were assigned at birth. An evolutionary biologist at John Jay College, Lents takes a compassionate and rational approach to these subjects, explaining that much of the misunderstanding surrounding them comes from the imprecise language we use to talk about sex and gender. Lents sheds light on the comparative biology and ethnology behind the most controversial aspects of human reproduction: the universality of masturbation and promiscuity among mammals and other animals; the forms “gay” sex takes among species, ranging from bedbugs to seabirds to those “sluttiest creatures,” the socially peaceful bonobos; the chemical and microbiological processes underlying the reasons embryos develop into babies that present as one sex at birth while feeling like another sex trapped inside their body as they get older. “When an organ doesn’t form in the typical way,” Lents writes about “intersex” embryos, “we usually call this a ‘defect’ or an error….[A]natomical tweaks are the raw material for evolution’s creative potential. They are not errors or defects. They are simply variations.” Variation is the watchword in this informative and often very funny book. Lents, a gay married man with adopted children, has some stake in these debates, and he isn’t shy about sharing his thoughts on the dangerous impact of religion and conservative cultural values on people who vary from the statistical norm. People with those views may be scandalized by Lents’ arguments, but they would do well to read this strong case against their positions.
Destined to be a go-to source in future sex and gender debates.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780063375444
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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