A convincing work that predicts environmental devastation in this century.
A scientist warns of a pending ecological collapse in this nonfiction sequel.
A neuroscience professor emeritus at West Virginia University, with advanced degrees from the University of Chicago and Cornell, Brown has spent more than a half-century dedicated to scientific inquiry. In this sequel to his 2006 book, Notes From a Dying Planet, 2004-2006, he calculates a dire projection that “life on Earth will come to an end by the end of this century.” Based on an abundance of scientific evidence that is cited in nearly every sentence, this work suggests that the world is plagued by three processes directly tied to human decisions: “Overpopulation, Mass extinction, and Global warming,” abbreviated throughout the volume as “OMG.” Published only in digital form, this book is described by Brown as “a living document” that will be updated and revised at his website, deadplanet.org. This format allows for the work’s citation method that offers readers an array of links to studies that provide overwhelming support for the author’s scientifically based claims. But despite the wealth of peer-reviewed references and his academic background, Brown assumes no prior scientific expertise on the part of readers, opening the volume with an introduction to the scientific method. Thus, while the book’s research methodology will satisfy scientifically minded readers, its jargon-free, accessible prose extends its reach to a general audience. This effort is complemented by an ample assortment of colorful graphs, charts, and photographs. At just over 100 pages, this concise work is an ideal primer on imminent global catastrophes that most scientists foresee but that have yet to meaningfully impact the decisions of the world’s corporations and governments. And while the volume’s ferocious attacks on the globe’s elites (as well as the “juvenilized adults” who make up much of the American public) may be off-putting to some readers, it is understandable how a scientist could become jaded in the face of overwhelming evidence that points to a coming disaster that the world blithely ignores.
A convincing work that predicts environmental devastation in this century.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 132
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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