Savvy, contemporary, and worthwhile advice on the many facets of the dating life for women.
A debut guide offers safe and effective dating strategies for the single woman.
In this highly modern take on female singlehood, Goldstein, a well-known Australian doctor of human sexuality who also has a background in family mediation, asks her readers to examine their own histories, desires, and motives as they embrace the “single but dating” lifestyle. As a not traditionally “paired” but sexually active woman, the author noticed that the “single” designation often seemed to elicit pity or shame, but none of the other options (in Facebook parlance, In a Relationship, Married, or It’s Complicated) applied either. She presents the term SBD as shorthand for a lifestyle in which a woman is actively engaged in relationships with the opposite sex. This can include sexual encounters that are extremely casual as well as others that move more slowly and/or have more emotional involvement. Goldstein speaks from experience. Beyond her doctorate and family mediation career, she also personally explored the SBD life and her own perspectives on it, ultimately undergoing important growth and finding a long-term, fulfilling relationship. The book conveys the convincing message that SBD women will do well to seek true self-confidence by understanding their own conditioning, wants, and needs and by learning how to communicate honestly and adroitly with potential or actual partners. This frank and detailed guide succeeds at delivering a balanced discussion of many relationship types, sexual pleasures, and common-sense cautions. A diverse array of often skirted topics—such as sexually transmitted diseases, masturbation, pregnancy risk, egg freezing, and sexual fantasies—is deftly handled alongside considerations of how to communicate meaningfully, avoid dangerous personality types, move on after a breakup, and recognize the readiness for a serious relationship. The first several chapters provide useful exercises in self-exploration, such as jotting down “shoulds” and “should nots” of dating and identifying external sources of these expectations (for example, family, friends, or media). Social media and communication via texting and even sexting, realities of today’s dating scene, are covered skillfully and extensively as well.
Savvy, contemporary, and worthwhile advice on the many facets of the dating life for women.Pub Date: May 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9972962-5-9
Page Count: 215
Publisher: Nothing But The Truth Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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