Unsettling but realistic medical histories.
Offit, a professor of pediatrics and vaccinology, specializes in denouncing bad doctors and popular health nonsense. In his latest, he switches gears and follows the history of medical innovation. Though we are “at the dawn of a wondrous age,” he writes, there’s a “catch…virtually every medical breakthrough has exacted a human price.” He illustrates with gripping, often gruesome stories of the early years of lifesaving treatments plus other medical stories that are merely horrific. In 1967, South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard became a worldwide celebrity by transplanting the first human heart. Surgeons around the world rushed to follow suit, with terrible results. In 1968, only 10% of recipients lived for two years, a number that worsened the following year; by 1971, most hospitals had closed their transplant units. The story ends happily as more judicious surgeons refined their techniques, and heart transplants are now as routine as bypass surgery. Offit then chronicles other medical success stories with rough beginnings—e.g., a 1920 professional gathering of radiologists 20 years after X-rays became an essential medical tool: “So many attendees were missing hands and fingers that when the chicken dinner was served no one could cut their meat.” Every child with acute lymphoblastic leukemia died before the first treatment appeared in 1947. Most improved with the first chemotherapy but “eventually relapsed and died.” Today, drugs cure 90% of those cases, but many tragedies happened along the way. Offit also tells the sad story of Ryan White, a hemophiliac who, in 1984, was infected with AIDS via a blood transfusion. Although doctors agreed that no one could catch his disease, ignorant neighbors and school officials treated him heartlessly. Certainly, the maxim that no one should know how sausages are made applies here, but Offit is a fluid storyteller armed with decades of knowledge, and he provides an educative, though often distressing, reading experience.
Unsettling but realistic medical histories.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5416-2039-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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