Urrea returns to the setting of his well-received first book, Across the Wire (not reviewed), for another look at the impact of NAFTA on the lives of those who live in the direst poverty on the US-Mexico border. Urrea was born in Tijuana, the son of a Mexican police official and an American mother. As he wryly observes, ``The border runs down the middle of me.'' Fluently bilingual, he is unusually well equipped to write about the town of his birth and the border area it bestrides. Although he readily admits that there are many parts of Tijuana that are not characterized by the squalor of which he writes, he is drawn once again to the lowest of the low, the basureros, the families living in cardboard boxes and makeshift shacks near the city's huge garbage dump, surviving by picking through the rubbish found there each day. The portrait of daily life that emerges is not without its familiar contours—readers of Alex Kotlowitz and Jonathan Kozol will recognize the plight of children raised in such circumstances. But there is little in the day-to-day experiences of Americans that compares to the sheer grinding misery of the lives that Urrea depicts. Yet, as his book repeatedly demonstrates, the people of the dump possess a dignity and independence that is admirable. The work of the garbage-pickers is governed by clear rules, and as the book's final chapter makes overwhelmingly clear, this is a community in the best sense, quick to give a helping hand and solicitous of its constituents. Written in no small part as a response to California's Proposition 187 and the false hopes stirred by NAFTA, the book is a stinging and impassioned answer to the anti-immigration wave cresting in American politics today.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-385-48419-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Anchor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1996
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
An intriguing approach to identifying and relating to one’s emotions.
An analysis of our emotions and the skills required to understand them.
We all have emotions, but how many of us have the vocabulary to accurately describe our experiences or to understand how our emotions affect the way we act? In this guide to help readers with their emotions, Brackett, the founding director of Yale University’s Center for Emotional Intelligence, presents a five-step method he calls R.U.L.E.R.: We need to recognize our emotions, understand what has caused them, be able to label them with precise terms and descriptions, know how to safely and effectively express them, and be able to regulate them in productive ways. The author walks readers through each step and provides an intriguing tool to use to help identify a specific emotion. Brackett introduces a four-square grid called a Mood Meter, which allows one to define where an emotion falls based on pleasantness and energy. He also uses four colors for each quadrant: yellow for high pleasantness and high energy, red for low pleasantness and high energy, green for high pleasantness and low energy, and blue for low pleasantness and low energy. The idea is to identify where an emotion lies in this grid in order to put the R.U.L.E.R. method to good use. The author’s research is wide-ranging, and his interweaving of his personal story with the data helps make the book less academic and more accessible to general readers. It’s particularly useful for parents and teachers who want to help children learn to handle difficult emotions so that they can thrive rather than be overwhelmed by them. The author’s system will also find use in the workplace. “Emotions are the most powerful force inside the workplace—as they are in every human endeavor,” writes Brackett. “They influence everything from leadership effectiveness to building and maintaining complex relationships, from innovation to customer relations.”
An intriguing approach to identifying and relating to one’s emotions.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-21284-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2019
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