Satisfying for those who get a special charge out of stories from the annals of science.
The consummate research scientist was a nice man, too, according to this respectful biography by Hirshfeld (Physics/Univ. of Massachusetts Dartmouth; Parallax, 2001).
An eager autodidact while still an apprenticed bookbinder, Michael Faraday (1791–1867) earnestly attended lectures at London’s Royal Institution, where he brought himself to the attention of aristocratic chemist Sir Humphrey Davy. He became Davy’s acolyte and Man Friday, traveling to the Continent with the great man and the great man’s scornful wife. Soon Faraday himself was lecturing at the Royal Institution. He eventually became a member, over the initial objection of Sir Humphrey, and remained at the Institution for the rest of his scientific career. The former craftsman entertained children with demonstrations of static electrical phenomena. He countered the craze for spiritualism with experiments that discredited the alleged art of non-corporeal furniture-moving. He devised and demonstrated prototypes of an electromagnetic motor, a transformer, a capacitor, a dynamo. He hypothesized about light waves, magnetic polarity and field theory. Among his magnets, galvanometers, coils and sparks, he conducted dazzling experiments that illuminated hitherto hidden forces of nature. While his electrical discoveries became landmarks in the history of science, there was little to shock anyone in Faraday’s personal history. He married, gained fame, became old and forgetful, then died peacefully, having given little offense during his long life. His correspondence reveals an elegant writer and a generous mentor to James Clerk Maxwell, among others. As a formulator of the modern scientific method and an exemplary investigator, he stood in the forefront of a distinguished line that led from benighted alchemy to technological innovations like BlackBerries and iPods. The author takes evident pleasure in recounting his subject’s scientific contributions.
Satisfying for those who get a special charge out of stories from the annals of science.Pub Date: March 7, 2006
ISBN: 0-8027-1470-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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