A fun, informative read that puts the pop into popular science.
An entertaining illustrated assessment of space settlement.
This book is, to put it simply, a romp. The Weinersmiths published a similar book in 2017, Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That'll Improve and/or Ruin Everything, and their latest deals with the practical problems of creating settlements in space. The authors, self-described "space geeks” who “love visionary plans for a glorious future,” collected a huge amount of research material for the project. They started out as optimistic about the prospects for space colonies, but the more they learned, the more they understood the staggering resource costs and the complex technical problems. Much of the recent interest in space settlements stems from the shrinking costs of putting satellites into low orbit, but this does not transfer into the cost of moving the needed materials to the moon, Mars, a space station, or another planet. Moreover, research into the long-term effects of low gravity on human biology does not bode well. The Weinersmiths have a good time discussing the difficulty of human reproduction in non-Earth environments, but for a settlement meant to be self-sustaining, it would be a real issue. An even more difficult question involves the laws that would apply, as existing treaties are clearly outdated. Despite the optimism of SF writers and the current crop of adventurous billionaires, the authors believe that space settlements would probably replicate the conflicts and divisions of Earth-bound societies: Humans, after all, remain human. Though the authors strike a humorous tone, they don’t neglect serious topics, and they do believe that one day space will be colonized. However, the timeline is centuries rather than decades, and there must be more focus on the practical realities than on visionary hyperbole. One way or another, this book has a lot to offer.
A fun, informative read that puts the pop into popular science.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781984881724
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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