by Rebecca Gibian ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 3, 2019
Good advice from a life well lived but nothing you didn’t already know.
A self-help book distills the experiences and inspiration of the Supreme Court justice into a series of life lessons.
As journalist Gibian acknowledges, there is no shortage of information about Ruth Bader Ginsburg (b. 1933), whose rise to the Supreme Court and accomplishments within it have been well-documented. So, why this chatty little volume? “This book,” writes the author, “explores the idea that there are lessons we can all take away from RBG’s life and apply to our own lives to maybe become a little more successful in our relationships and careers and efforts to create change.” Unfortunately for readers, the “secrets of success” invoked by the subtitle don’t offer much in the way of revelation. “Ginsburg is proof that working hard and turning in your best work actually does pay off,” writes Gibian in the first of nine chapters, which are divided into three sections “because in full cheesiness, there are three branches of government and the Supreme Court is made up of nine justices.” We learn that Ginsburg overcame childhood hardships and considerable gender discrimination to become “a rock star litigator” and a feminist “badass.” When life presented challenges, she persevered. The author also emphasizes the importance of having a supportive partner or a network of support, because “we all need to have people there to remind us to sleep, shower, and eat” and that “while anger sometimes has a place in this world, it is worth trying to persuade someone to join your line of thought through cold hard facts and a strong argument.” Ginsburg’s career has certainly demonstrated that persuasive reasoning works better than lashing out angrily. In summary, Gibian concludes, “if you want to be like the Notorious RBG, you must follow the path that she laid out: roll up your sleeves, do the work (and do it well) to create change through incremental steps.”
Good advice from a life well lived but nothing you didn’t already know.Pub Date: Dec. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5107-4958-0
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019
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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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