Academic writing has a reputation for being a bit dry and only interested in the dissemination of abstract information. Concreteness, style, and vivacity often fall to the wayside. As Sword points out, much of this dryness is due to social structures, not deliberate mastery of the craft. This book teaches how to bring a sense of style to academic writing without compromising its informational purposes. By examining 1,000 academic papers in ten different fields, Sword…
The name Bill Clinton evokes several reactions among people, each with its own emotional subtext: economic prosperity, partisan conflict, sexual misconduct, and international peacemaking. In a long history of American presidential memoirs, Clinton adds his to the list in this book. It is lengthy, thoughtful, and carefully crafted. He attempts to provide insight into himself and his leadership while advocating for the policies his administration enacted during his presidency. I was a Republican teenager from…
Early adulthood – life after schooling ended – is often portrayed as somewhat meaningless. In this book, Dilenschneider says that not only is that impression wrong but that the twenties define many people’s lives. He offers this book as a sort-of devotional book of success stories based on individual talents. Twenty-three chapters about twenty-five people provide biographical vignettes about people who were disproportionately influential. He offers these to provide hope for those who might despair…
For a period of time, lobotomy was the go-to treatment for psychiatry. It involved disabling the frontal lobes of the brain with the hopes of averting psychiatric symptoms. If “disabling the frontal lobes of the brain” sounds scary to you, it is to me, too. Over time, bad outcomes were chronicled, and lobotomy was eventually relegated to the historical record (much like other equally scary psychological treatments). However, in this book, Greene Woodruff brings frighteningly…
The prevalence of HIV and AIDS in Africa was a looming problem at the turn of the millennium, but heavy American investment in treatment for Africans under George W. Bush’s PEPFAR program addressed the acute symptoms. However, like much in life, smaller, no-less-significant problems exploded soon afterwards, particularly in the vein of post-colonialism. Was this a scientific partnership of equals or was it a contribution from a superior to an inferior? Does PEPFAR create a…
It’s easy for children to feel as if they are “good for nothing” because they do not commonly make as significant of societal contributions like adults. Sometimes, forgotten in a Christian, technological culture is that care and nurture are required for all things to bloom. This book, based on one of Jesus’ parables from Luke 13.6-9, reminds us all – children and adults alike – of the value of love so that things can grow.…
In anthropology, an ethnography is an account of the culture as told by the people in that culture. As such, it’s basically a fancy word for a series of interviews within a group of people linked together. In this work, Mendenhall, a medical anthropologist working at Georgetown University, offers us an ethnography of the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in rural America. She does so in a personal account while she visits her hometown…
Happiness at one’s job is certainly one of the most important aspects of life. Indeed, well-being alone can be a gateway to fantastic success, and lack thereof, a recipe for disaster. In this book, job coaches Berman and Bradt analyze how to find the right interface between you and your job – and if necessary, to change jobs in the process. Many people look to a job description as the way to find out what…
Religious belief and science are often put at odds with each other in contemporary society and popular culture. One needs only to listen to fundamentalist preachers or read newspapers about anti-vaccine protestors to think that these groups are forever at odds. Further, the histories of religious wars and persecutions turn many educated, reality-based citizens off of the religious path. To this situation, Polkinghorne offers a detente by suggesting that the two fields are cousins in…
In 1991, HIV/AIDS was an immensely scary topic for the public. AZT had just been released, but no one saw it as a cure. Some were even frightened of the long-term side effects. In the decade following, multi-drug HAART therapy transformed HIV into a livable condition, at least for patients in the developed world. But in 1991, the fear the words “HIV” and “AIDS” invoked – especially in those given this diagnosis – needs to…