A stirring alarm addressed to an unsettled world.
A pointed book-length essay about how the pandemic may lead to insidious societal changes.
French philosopher Lévy invokes scores of eminent thinkers, including Foucault, Lacan, Plato, Pascal, Sartre, Camus, Genet, and Latour, among many others, to mount a strong, sometimes strident warning about the social, moral, and political consequences of the pandemic. Calling his book “a midpoint review,” he claims that “First World Fear” is causing a rejection of globalization and retreat into isolation, ignoring worldwide famine, poverty, and oppression. Although he concedes that sheltering in place, wearing masks, and following hygienic measures are needed to contain the virus, he advocates “examining concretely, precisely, and in detail the complexity of the measures that need to be taken, in the world now, to combine the health emergency with the protection of people’s livelihoods.” Even though he condemns those who deny science—Donald Trump, et al.—Lévy is skeptical of placing “blind confidence” in doctors. However, rather than raising questions about physicians’ current claims, he weakens his argument by citing historical instances in which doctors promoted eugenics and other “harebrained” ideas. His concern here seems, as he suggests, “far-fetched.” The author scorns those who insist that the virus is sending a message—nature’s warning against environmental exploitation or God’s wrath to humanity led astray—and similarly chides romantic narcissists who see confinement as a path to self-knowledge. “More than most,” he writes, “I am a partisan of repairing the world.” However, he sees a dark future where autocrats use the virus to enact authoritarian agendas—as is occurring in Brazil, Turkey, China, and elsewhere—and where there is “the transformation of the welfare state into the surveillance state, with health replacing security,” and the social contract replaced by “a new life contract…where you abdicate a little, or a lot, of your core freedoms, in return for an antivirus guarantee.”
A stirring alarm addressed to an unsettled world.Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25737-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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
PERSPECTIVES
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
