Superior literary journalism.
Enterprising Philadelphia Magazine contributor Issenberg pursues the blue-fin tuna around the world—from sea to ship to freezer to airplane to restaurant to plate to palate—and returns with a superb fish story.
In that pursuit, the author ate sushi in 14 countries on five different continents over the course of two years. His principal interests were the trade’s financial workings and the remarkable people who inhabit Sushi World. In scenes that prove him a worthy successor to John McPhee, Issenberg has revelatory chats with a wide range of people: Canadian fishermen, Japanese entrepreneurs, Los Angeles restaurateurs, Australian tuna-tossers (there’s actually an annual contest) and Spanish pirate-chasers—yes, piracy is a problem in the sushi industry. The words and experiences of these diverse folks animate nearly every page. The author begins his journey on Prince Edward Island, where initial problems of long-range fish transport (blue-fin do not breed well in captivity) were solved in the 1970s. He then traverses the sushi-eating world looking at various facets of the business. Each visit occasions ruminations on history, culture and fundamental economics. The journey of that piece of tuna on your tongue turns out to be incredibly complex and expensive. Before the sushi boom, blue-fin sometimes went for as little as 11 cents a pound; now a prime specimen can bring as much as $150 per pound, which means a good-sized fish costs $100,000. Issenberg charts the at-first gradual, then rapid growth of an industry that once provided street food to middle-class Japan and now purveys an international delicacy to those who can afford it. He wonders what will happen to supply and demand—and price—when a billion or so Chinese acquire the craving. Sushi bars are already opening there.
Superior literary journalism.Pub Date: May 10, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-592-40294-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Gotham Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2007
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
SEEN & HEARD
Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.
Award-winning scientist Jahren (Geology and Geophysics/Univ. of Hawaii) delivers a personal memoir and a paean to the natural world.
The author’s father was a physics and earth science teacher who encouraged her play in the laboratory, and her mother was a student of English literature who nurtured her love of reading. Both of these early influences engrossingly combine in this adroit story of a dedication to science. Jahren’s journey from struggling student to struggling scientist has the narrative tension of a novel and characters she imbues with real depth. The heroes in this tale are the plants that the author studies, and throughout, she employs her facility with words to engage her readers. We learn much along the way—e.g., how the willow tree clones itself, the courage of a seed’s first root, the symbiotic relationship between trees and fungi, and the airborne signals used by trees in their ongoing war against insects. Trees are of key interest to Jahren, and at times she waxes poetic: “Each beginning is the end of a waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited.” The author draws many parallels between her subjects and herself. This is her story, after all, and we are engaged beyond expectation as she relates her struggle in building and running laboratory after laboratory at the universities that have employed her. Present throughout is her lab partner, a disaffected genius named Bill, whom she recruited when she was a graduate student at Berkeley and with whom she’s worked ever since. The author’s tenacity, hope, and gratitude are all evident as she and Bill chase the sweetness of discovery in the face of the harsh economic realities of the research scientist.
Jahren transcends both memoir and science writing in this literary fusion of both genres.Pub Date: April 5, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-87493-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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