by Patrick Martins with Mike Edison ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 10, 2014
A passionate call for “responsible meat-eating” and what that means, as well as an explanation of the small steps required...
A loosely organized, lively and challenging collection of observations, ideas, philosophical meanderings and ethical concerns related to the meat we put on our plates.
Along with former High Times editor Edison (Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!: Of Playboys, Pigs, and Penthouse Paupers—An American Tale of Sex and Wonder, 2011, etc.), Martins takes a scattershot approach to the discussion, dividing the book into 50 short chapters that cut a wide swath, covering everything from slow food principles to the inhumane treatment of animals on factory farms to how to build a slaughterhouse and the importance of biodiversity and rare heritage breeds. Martins uses the word têtoir for cultures and communities that hand down food traditions, creating distinctive flavors much in the way terroir gives wine its distinct characteristics. Martins, who founded Slow Food USA, now runs Heritage Foods USA, a purveyor of meats from farmers who humanely raise rare or heritage breeds without antibiotics or hormones. His free-ranging thought process, at times distracting, always comes back to slow food basics: “…sourcing responsibly, recognizing the farmer’s work and understanding exactly what we are eating and where it comes from.” For example, a dirt-scratching Narragansett turkey that freely roamed the barnyard will have a different taste than one raised in a windowless barn under bright lights, its beak and toenails removed, unable to stand due to its inordinately large breasts. Consumers may abhor such treatment, but are they ready to pay $140 for “a robust, healthy animal that lived a great life?” Martins recognizes that the economic realities of big agriculture vs. independent farmers, distributors and purveyors are the biggest obstacles to his manifesto, but he remains optimistic that consumer demand may eventually bring changes to the supply chain. It begins with getting to know the farmers, butchers and green grocers who bring food to our tables; it’s about “provenance.”
A passionate call for “responsible meat-eating” and what that means, as well as an explanation of the small steps required for accomplishing it.Pub Date: June 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-316-25624-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
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by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
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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by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
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
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