Review by Choice Review
This wonderful book is a balance of astute perception and creative introspection, the hallmark of the author's biweekly columns in the New York Times and his previous six books. He is a master of weaving the dynamics of technology, economics and finance, politics, and culture into a fabric that makes intuitive sense even for those who are more narrow and specialized, with bones to pick here and there. The narrative starts with a blogging Ethiopian parking attendant in Bethesda, MD, and ends with the author's roots in a Minnesota suburb, both reflected in the remarkable quality of Friedman's writing and the shaping of his opinions in the media. In-between stands the "Machine" (not Friedman's word), an unfixed but compelling model of how things work. Somehow it conjures up a Rube Goldberg-style contraption of gears and belts and levers and whistles but with cause-and-effect relationships that continually change. The key forces are globalization, technological change, and climate change. Friedman explores their interaction and its acceleration, which affects individuals and groups, cultures, and values. Acceleration of the pace of change turns out to be a key issue that doesn't necessarily bode well for the Machine, so there are good reasons for taking breathers. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels. --Ingo Walter, New York University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
INCARNATIONS: A History of India in Fifty Lives, by Sunil Khilnani. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $18.) India's history, as it is usually told, is "a curiously unpeopled place," Khilnani writes. He offers an overview of the country's 2,500-year history through 50 short biographies of people who shaped it. Some figures, like Buddha and Gandhi, are well known, but he also focuses on poets, artists and social reformers. IDAHO, by Emily Ruskovich. (Random House, $17.) In this debut novel about grief, secrets, and violence, a woman tries to uncover what happened to her husband's first wife - and the circumstances of his daughter's mysterious death. As our reviewer, Smith Henderson, said, "Ruskovich's language is itself a consolation, as she subtly posits the troubling thought that only decency can save us." WEAPONS OF MATH DESTRUCTION: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, by Cathy O'Neil. (Broadway, $16.) O'Neil, a mathematician and former Wall Street analyst, offers a frightening look at the algorithms that regulate and shape people's lives. Whether you're applying for a loan or a job, machines make decisions at critical junctures with little oversight, and with profound consequences. THE CASTLE CROSS THE MAGNET CARTER, by Kia Corthron. (Seven Stories Press, $23.95.) Two pairs of brothers - one white in rural Alabama, the other black, growing up in Maryland - come of age in the mid-1900s, against a backdrop of World War II and the civil rights era. Our reviewer, Leonard Pitts Jr., praised Corthron: "There are whole chunks of writing here that are simply sublime, places in which one gets swept away by the way she subverts the rhythm of language to illuminate the familiar and allow it to be seen fresh." THANK YOU FOR BEING LATE: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations, by Thomas L. Friedman. (Picador, $18.) Three major forces - technology, globalization and climate change - are accelerating at a rapid clip, with significant effects across the world. Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist, explains each of these shifts with humanizing anecdotes. THE PATRIOTS, by Sana Krasikov. (Spiegel & Grau, $18.) It's and Florence Fein is bound from Brooklyn to the Soviet Union, hoping to align herself with the socialist cause. Florence soon finds herself on Stalin's list of enemies, but her loyalty to the revolution doesn't waver. Decades later, her son travels to Russia, determined to learn more about Florence's past - and to persuade his own American son to return to the United States.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 30, 2019]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Friedman (coauthor of That Used to Be Us), a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner for his work as a reporter with the New York Times, engages in an intelligent but overlong discussion of the faster paces of change in technology, globalization, and climate around the world. His core argument is that "simultaneous accelerations in the Market, Mother Nature and Moore's law" (the principle that the power of microchips doubles every two years) constitute an "Age of Accelerations," in which people who feel "fearful or unmoored" must "pause and reflect" rather than panic. Friedman opens with slow-paced, wordy, and at times highly technical discussions of each of his accelerations, with examples that include solar-powered waste compactors, pedometer-wearing cows, the Watson computer's wrong answer on Jeopardy!, and geopolitics. He then offers personal and policy recommendations for coping with accelerations, such as self-motivation, a single-payer health care system, lifelong learning, and encouraging more people to follow the Golden Rule. Unfortunately, Friedman's intriguing facts and ideas are all but buried under too many autobiographical anecdotes and lengthy recollections about the circumstances of interviews he conducted and research he completed, giving readers the recipe and history of all the ingredients along with the meal. Agent: Esther Newberg, ICM. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The celebratednbsp;New York Timesnbsp;columnist diagnoses this unprecedented historical moment and suggests strategies for resilience and propulsion that will help us adapt.Are things just getting too damned fast? Friedman (Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolutionand How It Can Renew America, 2008, etc.) cites 2007 as the year we reached a technological inflection point. Combined with increasingly fast-paced globalization (financial goods and services, information, ideas, innovation) and the subsequent speedy shocks to our planets natural system (climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, geochemical flows), weve entered an age of accelerations that promises to transform almost every aspect of modern life. The three-time Pulitzer winner puts his familiar methodologyextensive travel, thorough reporting, interviews with the high-placed movers and shakers, conversations with the lowly moved and shakento especially good use here, beginning with a wonderfully Friedman-esque encounter with a parking attendant during which he explains the philosophy and technique underlying his columns and books. The author closes with a return to his Minnesota hometown to reconnect with and explore some effective habits of democratic citizenship. In between, he discusses topics as varied as how garbage cans got smart, how the exponential growth in computational power has resulted in a supernova of creative energy, how the computer Watson wonnbsp;Jeopardy, and how, without owning a single property, Airbnb rents out more rooms than all the major hotel chains combined. To meet these and other dizzying accelerations, Friedman advises developing a dynamic stability, and he prescribes nothing less than a redesign of our workplaces, politics, geopolitics, ethics, and communities. Drawing lessons from Mother Nature about adaptability, sustainability, and interdependence, he never underestimates the challenges ahead. However, hes optimistic about our chances as he seeks out these strategies in action, ranging from how ATT trains its workers to how Tunisia survived the Arab Spring to how chickens can alleviate African poverty. Required reading for a generation thats going to be asked to dance in a hurricane. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
