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LANDSCAPES OF COMMUNISM

A HISTORY THROUGH BUILDINGS

A wonderfully accessible, compelling guide to these Eastern European cities.

An erudite and surprising study of what Soviet-era buildings said about the beliefs and hopes of the citizens.

British author and journalist Hatherley (A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain, 2010, etc.) debunks much of what the West categorizes as “Soviet architecture”—i.e., monumental, monolithic, totalitarian, and repetitive, such as massive rows of housing blocks. In this fresh look at many former communist cities in the Soviet camp, including Warsaw, Vilnius, Kiev, Belgrade, and Berlin, as well as Moscow and Leningrad, Hatherley plots a “zigzag” journey through the Communist architectural mindset. The author explores the period of 1917 until about 1930, when modernism was dominant in social democratic capitals like Berlin, Prague, and Vienna and when the experiment in high-density, inner-urban “superblocks” became the Soviet model. Hatherley also chronicles the early 1930s to the 1950s, when modernism was discarded as “inhuman, technocratic, tedious, repetitious, constricting,” replaced by appeals “to tradition, history, ornament, hierarchy, beauty—the city as a composition, not as repetition.” Above all, Hatherley seizes the sense of utopian vision the communists sought. The Soviet model drew on the grand urban planning of Baron Haussmann, favoring compositions that were “strongly centralized,” and top-down. The author, whose love affair with a Polish woman propelled him to visit these sights and buildings himself, organizes his fascinating travels thematically, around the kinds of structures the communists built reflecting their uses: the magistrale, the series of grand boulevards needed for the military parade route; the “microrayon,” or system of housing units that the author considers a valiant attempt at providing housing for everyone; high buildings, TV towers, and so on; the marvelous metros (about which Hatherley writes eloquently); memorials such as the Lenin Mausoleum; and the improvised sites prompted by the people themselves.

A wonderfully accessible, compelling guide to these Eastern European cities.

Pub Date: March 1, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-62097-188-8

Page Count: 624

Publisher: The New Press

Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015

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WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...

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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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PERMISSION TO FEEL

UNLOCKING THE POWER OF EMOTIONS TO HELP OUR KIDS, OURSELVES, AND OUR SOCIETY THRIVE

An intriguing approach to identifying and relating to one’s emotions.

An analysis of our emotions and the skills required to understand them.

We all have emotions, but how many of us have the vocabulary to accurately describe our experiences or to understand how our emotions affect the way we act? In this guide to help readers with their emotions, Brackett, the founding director of Yale University’s Center for Emotional Intelligence, presents a five-step method he calls R.U.L.E.R.: We need to recognize our emotions, understand what has caused them, be able to label them with precise terms and descriptions, know how to safely and effectively express them, and be able to regulate them in productive ways. The author walks readers through each step and provides an intriguing tool to use to help identify a specific emotion. Brackett introduces a four-square grid called a Mood Meter, which allows one to define where an emotion falls based on pleasantness and energy. He also uses four colors for each quadrant: yellow for high pleasantness and high energy, red for low pleasantness and high energy, green for high pleasantness and low energy, and blue for low pleasantness and low energy. The idea is to identify where an emotion lies in this grid in order to put the R.U.L.E.R. method to good use. The author’s research is wide-ranging, and his interweaving of his personal story with the data helps make the book less academic and more accessible to general readers. It’s particularly useful for parents and teachers who want to help children learn to handle difficult emotions so that they can thrive rather than be overwhelmed by them. The author’s system will also find use in the workplace. “Emotions are the most powerful force inside the workplace—as they are in every human endeavor,” writes Brackett. “They influence everything from leadership effectiveness to building and maintaining complex relationships, from innovation to customer relations.”

An intriguing approach to identifying and relating to one’s emotions.

Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-250-21284-9

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Celadon Books

Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019

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