Despite occasional shopworn truisms, a generally inspiring assemblage of informed perspectives.
A collection of interviews with female leaders in the high-tech industry discussing their experiences with gender bias.
After she was introduced to programming at 14 years old, debut author Rao Gluckman enthusiastically decided she wanted to become an engineer. She didn’t, however, anticipate the gender bias she would encounter when she pursued a position in management and joined the ranks of leadership. She sought out role models and mentorship among other women in positions of authority within the high-tech field, a strategy she became convinced could be helpful to other women as well. Consequently, Rao Gluckman, who currently manages a team of software engineers at a computer software company, spoke with accomplished female executives about their encounters with bias, their influences and inspirations, and their strategies for success, and she compiles 19 of those interviews here. The topics range widely—institutional bias, compensation, and the difficulty balancing the demands of work and family. One theme is the “imposter syndrome,” the discomfiting feeling of self-doubt even some of the savviest women suffer in a male-dominated industry. There are also incisive discussions of the illusion of meritocracy, a myth undermined by the ubiquity of bias. International perspectives are represented as well. Yanbing Li, a senior vice president and general manager, notes that there is much less bias in STEM fields in China. Each interview is prefaced by a “biosketch,” a brief synopsis of the subject’s experience and perspective, and ends with bulleted “takeways,” brief summaries of the exchange’s chief points. The author is a perspicacious interviewer and skillfully extracts illuminating insights and fresh perspectives from her subjects. For example, Alaina Percival, CEO and board chair for Women Who Code, observes that undercompensating women ultimately hurts companies that are unable to retain top talent as a result. The author’s prose can lazily default to clichés: Phrases like “and the world becomes your oyster” undermine the genuine insights shared. Also, some of Rao Gluckman’s own counsel is vague and overly general; her solution to the imposter syndrome problem: “By tackling it head on, becoming disciplined, and learning more about the area we are insecure about.”
Despite occasional shopworn truisms, a generally inspiring assemblage of informed perspectives.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 303
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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
PERSPECTIVES
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