Whenever I become overwhelmed in my personal life with the race problem, I try to read a book about racial issues to strengthen my intellectual and emotional strength to deal with this topic better. My choosing this book is a result of that. It addresses the race issue not from a theoretical angle but from a practical one, one borne out of life experiences. In 17 chapters, Oluo addresses common questions about race, like “Is…
To “adult” is a colloquial verb meaning taking responsibility for one’s own life. In this book, romance-book author Talley tells the story of fictional celebrity character Chase London and her therapist Olivia Han. Chase was a famous child actress who has, as she reached adulthood, gotten in highly publicized trouble with drinking, drugs, and men. To prepare her for an acting assignment, Olivia attempts to teach her how to take responsibility in a life-coaching program…
Understanding the origins of AIDS is important for at least three reasons. First, HIV/AIDS is an important biomedical global disease that is still not conquered. Second, much cultural rhetoric due to stigma exists in society about this disease, and blame for the AIDS pandemic have been wrongfully placed at the feet of many oppressed groups. Third, contemporary events with coronavirus have shown that humans aren’t as safe from disease and pandemic as we might imagine,…
J.R.R. Tolkien is most well-known to the public as the author of the famous trilogy Lord of the Rings, surely one of the best works of art ever written in the English language. This work by Carpenter serves as his authorized biography. Tolkien’s professorial and academic life as an Oxford don dominates most of the narrative, but always lingering behind lies his unique love of language (philology) – particularly “sub-creating” worlds with language. Carpenter achieves…
Ironically, public health has been one of the most successful academic fields since 1900, yet still struggles to implement its agenda on the public (at least, in America). It is responsible for most of the doubling of life expectancy in America and for vast improvements in the quality of life. Schneider excellently chronicles those contributions with an eye towards the present and the future. She covers her topics in an accessible, easy-to-read manner that does…
First, let me define the lay of the land for the curious reader. Biostatistics is the study of statistics relevant for biomedical applications. It combines mathematics and the bio world, which includes Public Health and Epidemiology. R is free software for a programming environment that allows researchers to perform advanced analyses of statistical questions on datasets. This volume by Chan was the first textbook that addressed R and biostatistics in depth in the same volume.…
Ziyad is a black, queer male writer from Cleveland, who now lives in New York City and uses the pronouns they/them (which shall be used in this review). They write about his struggles forming an identity in a world that seems violent and hostile to his health. While such an environment exists in some part for most children, Ziyad seems to have a particularly difficult time given a multi-religious home, public schooling that seemed to…
When he died in a tragic and unforeseen car crash in 1960, novelist and existentialist Albert Camus had a draft of this work in his briefcase. It was not published until the 1990s, but is the most autobiographical of Camus’ works. The main character, like the author, grew up impoverished in Algeria and escaped a life of the same through education. This tale, properly characterized as a coming-of-age novel, shares how the great writer and…
The author of this book is someone who has spent most of his life in the hotel industry. He is passionate about the value of employee satisfaction and seemingly has made it to be the cornerstone of his professional philosophy. He shares that passion with readers in the context of this book. By supplying copious personal examples, he attempts to get the reader interested in his perspective on business and specifically management. However, his writing…
Research methods are important to almost all graduate students in the sciences. Design in particular can make or break the funding of a project – not to mention the implementation of the project itself! The stakes are rarely higher than in clinical, biomedical research where large dollars, impactful results, and ethical aspects of live patients are constantly at play. This book, written by a collaboration of highly successful biomedical researchers, teaches how to design research…