A sturdy outline of the future of toxic chemicals, microplastics, and endless garbage.
When it comes to waste, out of sight is definitely not out of mind, as this book makes clear.
Franklin-Wallis, features editor at British GQ, is interested in what happens to things after we throw them away, although the story inevitably becomes intertwined with his personal attempts to reduce his own output. The author chronicles his treks through sewer systems and visits to recycling plants, staggered by the size of the waste problem even while finding some reasons for optimism in changing social attitudes and practices. However, as he shows, most solutions seem to generate further problems. For example, he believed that using tote bags instead of plastic was environmentally responsible, until he learned that totes come with a sizable footprint. For decades, wealthy countries exported their waste to poorer countries, and although the practice has diminished, there is a painful legacy. Writing about his trips to India and Ghana, he shows us that they have waste problems of their own, many so massive they might be impossible to overcome. The most common ways to dispose of waste are to burn it, bury it, dump it into the ocean, or simply let it pile up. Of course, these “solutions” merely turn it into a problem for someone else. Franklin-Wallis wishes he could offer a sweeping solution, but he sees no easy fixes. He proposes legislation to require greater transparency from companies, which is a good idea but does not get to the core issue of waste being caused by overproduction, which in turn is tied to overconsumption. “The conclusion that I come to is laughably simple,” he writes. “Buy less stuff. I recognize that this is not the most original idea, but there’s something liberating in it.” Is this sort of individual action the remedy? It’s an essential part, perhaps, but it’s not a satisfying answer. Nevertheless, the author gives readers much to ponder.
A sturdy outline of the future of toxic chemicals, microplastics, and endless garbage.Pub Date: July 18, 2023
ISBN: 9780306827112
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Hachette
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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SEEN & HEARD
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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