by Victor La Cerva ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2018
A wisdom-packed modern masculinity handbook that fits easily in the pocket.
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A guidebook for young men, delivered in the form of lessons from an older man.
La Cerva’s (Worldwords: Global Reflections to Awaken the Spirit, 2000, etc.) prettily designed nonfiction work follows in the very long tradition of the enchiridion, a handbook of life advice along the lines of works made famous by Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius. In such books, an older adviser gives advice and imparts wisdom to presumably younger readers, usually in the form of aphorisms or quick anecdotes. La Cerva organizes his own example around large conceptual groupings like “Being a Man,” “Parents,” and “Demystifying Emotions.” His short, accessible chapters address emotions like anger, fear, and sadness, and they attempt to untangle and simplify complicated subjects like sexuality, love, and fatherhood. The author surveys a wide spectrum of challenges faced by young men in the 21st century, and although he assures his audience that their real journey is interior, his chapters are nevertheless full of pragmatic advice on how to conduct oneself at work, at play, in relationships, and in a family. This advice can often be refreshingly counterintuitive; e.g., the author instructs his young readers that they need not always avoid arguments: “Greet those clashing, challenging moments of disagreement with the larger conscious perspective that they can be compost that nourishes the garden of your connection,” he writes. He’s likewise direct on the crucial subject of habits—not only inculcating good ones but being constantly aware of bad ones; “cease clinging to the fixed points of your perspectives and behaviors,” he admonishes, laying down a hard line, for instance, on addictions of any kind. The tone of all this is bracingly, invitingly optimistic. La Cerva wisely avoids lecturing, opting instead for a stern but empowering voice throughout. One of the inherent strengths of this kind of book comes about as a result of adopting exactly this mentoring tone, and La Cerva does it to near perfection, always being positive with his readers but never coddling them. He urges readers to acknowledge frankly their own biases and weaknesses as a first step to countering them and dealing with them, starting with the biggest of these, fear itself. “Fear is always a guest in the living room of your emotions, and you have the power to ask it to quiet down or leave,” he writes. “But first and foremost you must acknowledge its presence!” Such lines are typical of La Cerva’s prose, which is energetic and evocative, clearly designed to stick in the memory. “Don’t surrender,” he writes in one such passage, “your vivacious style to the dungeons of mediocrity by being a slave to convention.” Young male readers might feel slightly shamed by the author’s blunt assessments of their potential shortcomings, but they’ll never be discouraged by the advice laid out in these pages—and they might gain some great guidance in the process.
A wisdom-packed modern masculinity handbook that fits easily in the pocket.Pub Date: June 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9893905-2-1
Page Count: 186
Publisher: Heartsongs Publications
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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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New York Times Bestseller
Pulitzer Prize Finalist
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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