by Jed Horne ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2006
A heart-wrenching chronicle of nature’s wrath and the human condition.
Agonizing, in-the-trenches retelling of Hurricane Katrina and her catastrophic consequences.
With masterful precision, Horne, metro editor of New Orleans’ Times-Picayune, offers an insider’s tour through each phase of the August 2005 disaster, from the storm’s first churnings to the final casualty toll, estimated at 1,100 (hundreds still remain missing nine months later). The author’s exhaustively comprehensive account is studded with profiles of southeast Louisiana residents who survived the tempest (barely), despite an ambivalent city bureaucracy that failed to gel in time to prevent the “collapse of social order” after the levees broke. Sparing no detail, Horne’s exhaustive hour-by-hour account beholds a drowned city barren of electricity, potable water, edible food and outside aid, further traumatized by looters, shootings and the bumbling ineptitude of ill-prepared federal agencies like FEMA. Horne recounts the frustration of those healthy enough to undertake the mandated pilgrimage to higher ground, only to be met and shot at by armed policemen who turned them back. Thousands waded through water teeming with poisonous snakes, bacterial microbes and human and animal corpses floating face down. Tempering the pandemonium are the author’s powerful human-interest profiles: the heroic efforts of DSS workers within the stifling Superdome’s putrid conditions, corpse-hunting EMTs, sapped-out news media and Fats Domino, who, though wealthy, still resides in New Orleans’ working-class Lower 9th Ward. The author goes on to cite Katrina as a “man-made disaster” because of its careless handling. Most jarring of all, though, are the conspiracy theories held by the lower-river residents who believe the thunderous sounds heard during the hurricane was dynamite deliberately set to detonate the levee, thus protecting the wealthier white population up-river. Dense chapters of maddening political finger-pointing ensue, delivering an appropriate conclusion to “the multilateral and continuing fiasco that was Katrina.”
A heart-wrenching chronicle of nature’s wrath and the human condition.Pub Date: July 11, 2006
ISBN: 1-4000-6552-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2006
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by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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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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by Marc Brackett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 3, 2019
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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