Vivid medical anecdotes with occasional happy endings.
A family doctor describes a powerful healing technique.
Schillinger, professor of primary care and health policy at the University of California San Francisco, joins many colleagues who deplore today’s technology-heavy, medication-oriented health care system, which often isolates patients from doctors and contributes to treatment failures. He reminds readers that it’s been proved that the greatest source of information for doctors is not a test or machine, but what a patient tells them. He illustrates his approach with a steady stream of stories from his years of training at San Francisco General Hospital and practice at the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations, which he co-founded. Examining the monumental struggles of marginalized communities, he makes a painfully convincing case that the present system guarantees that the poor get sicker, receive less care, and die sooner. The author’s stories are consistently illuminating: A man unable to walk reveals that he is an alcoholic and has lain unconscious for such long periods that his leg muscles have withered. A “frequent flyer” patient with scores of visits for problems stemming from her drug addiction, complicated by an obnoxious personality, appears 20 years later, drug-free and raising a child, grateful to the author and a few others who were kind to her. Schillinger devotes much of his text to diabetes, a public health problem as serious as those caused by tobacco. His campaign to place a warning label on sugared soft drinks, essentially liquid candy, faced an uphill battle. However, as the author writes, he knew that “to declare and wage a war against diabetes, I needed to separate from a bureaucracy currently paralyzed by conflicts of interests and politics, and pursue an alternative strategy.” In this often inspiring book, he shows readers a variety of “alternative” strategies that benefit public health.
Vivid medical anecdotes with occasional happy endings.Pub Date: July 16, 2024
ISBN: 9781541704206
Page Count: 352
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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