A passionate and practical overview of the importance of healthy lighting and how to achieve it.
Moore-Ede, an MD and professor at Harvard Medical School, examines the ways we illuminate our lives in this nonfiction debut.
In these pages, the author takes up a subject that will be relevant to virtually anybody who’s ever shopped for a laptop, smart tablet, or e-reader of any kind: the nature of artificial light, specifically the ways in which conventional fluorescent lighting and LED illumination can be harmful to human health, and what can be done to mitigate that harm or avoid it altogether. Moore-Ede outlines the ubiquity of the problem in our tech-saturated world: “Despite more than 20 years of scientific evidence showing that blue-rich light in the evening disrupts our circadian clocks, sleep, and health,” he writes, “we have created a world where virtually the only illumination you can buy is unchanging blue-rich light.” A good deal of the text is dedicated to explaining the nature of light and the particulars of modern lighting, but the author is also concerned with raising the profile of the problem itself, suggesting that a healthy “light diet” is “as essential for your health as the food you eat, the water you drink and the air you breathe.” Moore-Ede’s tone is clear and urgently pragmatic; readers are coached not only on making better choices about the lighting in every area of their lives, but also on determining what steps to take to guarantee better, more natural lighting. “You must be proactive,” he writes, “in asking for healthy circadian lighting in the spaces where you and your family spend significant time.” The book itself is visually inviting, full of colorful insets illustrating crisply summarized points, and includes copious resources for readers who want to follow up on the topic.
A passionate and practical overview of the importance of healthy lighting and how to achieve it.Pub Date: June 17, 2024
ISBN: 9798990686908
Page Count: 282
Publisher: Circadian Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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