A fine history of the battle against climate change that does not strain to predict victory.
Less a polemic than a history of carbon emissions emphasizing the major discussions and missed opportunities since climate change became a mainstream issue.
Linden, author of The Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, and the Destruction of Civilizations and other books, proceeds chronologically. He reports that while the 1980s saw tremendous progress in scientific understanding, there was still little public interest in climate change. Dedicated environmentalists focused on smog, poisoned rivers, whaling, and endangered species, largely neglecting the more pressing problem of global warming, and the ignorance continued into the 1990s. “The Kyoto Protocol, a limp attempt to reduce fossil fuel emissions, was enacted in 1997 but did not enter into force until 2005,” writes the author. “Despite the promises following 1988, nothing happened in the 1990s to reduce dependency on fossil fuels.” The first decade of the millennium was the warmest yet recorded, but the public ignored numerous warnings, and the business community continued its successful campaign to downplay the gravity of the situation, with climate change denial flourishing. Few elected officials make climate change an issue because it doesn’t help their election chances, and collective action is severely lacking. The issue has become especially partisan in the U.S., with Republicans solidly in the denial column and Democrats among the believers—at least rhetorically. By 2010, writes Linden, “the message from nature was loud and clear: climate change was already here and promised to get more dangerous and expensive.” Leaders vowed to lower carbon emissions, but they continue to rise. As in many similar books, Linden attempts to end on a positive note; his concluding chapter, “A Narrow Path to a Livable Future,” is modestly successful. Experts predict trillions of dollars in investments in renewables and a host of new jobs over the next 30 years. Restoring wetlands, reducing farm emissions, and halting deforestation will make a difference. Linden reports many commercial efforts to suck carbon from the air, but none have proven effective.
A fine history of the battle against climate change that does not strain to predict victory.Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-984882-24-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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
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