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Fentanyl, Inc.: how rogue chemists are creating the deadliest wave of the opioid epidemic by Ben Westhoff
This is an exceptionally useful and well-timed book. I hope anyone concerned about this era’s new addiction epidemic will read it and put its messages to use. Ben Westhoff very skilfully combines pharmacology, politics, law enforcement, and gripping international intrigue in his account of America’s number-one public health problem. I hope Fentanyl, Inc is widely read and influential.
James Fallows, award-winning journalist and author of China Airborne
A necessary and sobering look at the opioid crisis and how it is not as simple as it appears on the surface. Well-researched and user-friendly for all readers. An important book.
Debra Ginsberg, Bay Books
Through his courageous reporting Ben Westhoff takes us to the heart of the problem. In Fentanyl, Inc. he shines a light on the human wreckage and damage caused by the most powerful and dangerous of the opioids, fentanyl, and its derivatives. He shows us how addiction, mislabeling, purposefully or mistakenly mixed drugs lead to tragic ends. The drug is often created out of factories operating with the permission of the Chinese government. To solve this epidemic, we must understand it. Make no mistake; the fentanyl problem is a global issue. Fentanyl, Inc is a must-read, pulling the curtain back and showing us how this human tragedy occurs and how insidious and addictive a drug can be.
Katherine Tobin, Ph.D., Former Member of the U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission
Drawing material from official reports, drug databases, scores of interviews, and years of personal research, Westhoff presents an unflinching, illuminating portrait of a festering crisis involving a drug industry that thrives as effectively as it kills. Highly sobering, exemplary reportage delivered through richly detailed scenarios and diversified perspectives. STARRED REVIEW
Kirkus Reviews
In Fentanyl, Inc., Ben Westhoff lays bare the twisted history that led to opioids wreaking havoc on twenty-first century America. If you want to understand the bloody cycle of addiction and death gripping the nation, you need to read this book.
Ioan Grillo, author of El Narco and Gangster Warlords
An information-packed work of reporting that traces the rise of designer drugs, including synthetic and/or more dangerous versions of weed, acid, and heroin, the last of which gives the book its title. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that’s chemically similar to morphine and heroin, is the top cause of fatal drug overdoses in the United States. The most illuminating parts of the book are those that reveal the business practices of Chinese labs that supply illicit fentanyl to U.S. dealers. These labs are a source of death and destabilisation for our country, American officials say, while Chinese leaders contend that it’s on us to deal with Americans’ appetite for the stuff.
Francie Diep, Pacific Standard
Westhoff explores the many-tentacled world of illicit opioids, from the streets of East St. Louis to Chinese pharmaceutical companies, from music festivals deep in the Michigan woods to sanctioned ‘shooting up rooms’ in Barcelona, in this frank, insightful, and occasionally searing exposé ... Offers a truly multifaceted view of the landscape of fentanyl use and abuse. The disparate narrative strands he weaves together — including tragic stories of drug users, straightforward analysis of the history of opioid use, tension-filled episodes of drug runs and supplier meet-ups, and the humane and hopeful work of the ‘harm reduction’ movement—all come together to provide a more complex understanding of the rise of, and response to, the opioid epidemic. Westhoff’s well-reported and researched work will likely open eyes, slow knee-jerk responses, and start much needed conversations.
Publishers Weekly
Will assist policymakers, activists, and general readers in understanding better how to respond to the drug crisis that is only more intractable now.
Library Journal
So many substance abuse books are a mix of hysterical in tone and a disappointing ‘paint by numbers’ in their execution, but [Fentanyl, Inc.] really stands out for its research, journalism, and overall analysis ... It is also a great book on China, and how China and the Chinese chemicals industry works, backed up by extensive original investigation ... Definitely recommended.
Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
Timely and agonising … [Westhoff’s] book is the product of a four-year deep-dive into the world of designer drugs, and it’s an impressive work of investigative journalism. He interviewed 160 people and visited laboratories all over the world; he even infiltrated a pair of Chinese drug operations.
USA Today
A history lesson on American drug use and drug laws, a crash course in chemistry and neuroscience, a multifaceted portrait of addiction, and a look at how harm reduction programs can atone for the failures of the War on Drugs … A finely woven and accessible analysis of the connection between university chemistry professors, dark web sales, drug cartels, law enforcement, and the dealers and addicts dependent on it … Westhoff is a skilled and empathetic biographer, and this gift serves the composite of the dealers, users, and bereaved of Fentanyl, Inc. … It’s in this focus on the human cost of the crisis, of empathy over criminalisation, that this accomplished book feels most urgently important.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The most frightening book of the year, and it’s mandatory reading … Epic … This is a story about people, and Fentanyl, Inc. features a roster of villains and victims who stray far from movie archetypes.
Dig Boston
Setting Fentanyl, Inc. apart from most other books that focus on the supply-side of illegal drugs, Westhoff smartly avoids pro-drug-war narratives that push for an intensified law-and-order response to the proliferation of more potent synthetic drugs … The War on Drugs and misguided law enforcement efforts have not stemmed the spread of fentanyl, but instead have contributed to its takeover, Westhoff carefully explains.
Filter
Extensively reported and vividly written … Westhoff elevates his impressive examination of the opioid epidemic by reporting on the US government’s failed war on drugs and the promise of innovative ‘harm reduction’ policies that recognise that ‘Just Say No’ is a losing proposition.
National Book Review
Westhoff looks at the new wave of synthetic drugs that are taking the opioid epidemic to a whole new deadly level. He managed to go undercover into one of the many labs in China where these drugs are being manufactured, and the results of his research there and elsewhere are terrifying … Anyone who is interested in learning more about the opioid crisis, or has read Dopesick, is going to want to check this out.
Omnivoracious, the Amazon Book Review
A detailed and far-ranging investigation into the production, marketing, and usage of fentanyl reveals an intertwined business network that spans continents and kills thousands.
Shelf Awareness
In this gripping investigation, Westhoff recounts the deadly consequences of synthetically made drugs and how this phenomenon is beginning spread internationally.
Happy Mag
The way [Fentanyl, Inc.] looked at every aspect of the novel psychoactive substance trade was unique. From chemists manipulating chemical structures of precursors to fentanyl before countries can ban them, to the dealers, end users and those who want to change the way addiction is treated, Westhoff details it all ... this book is an eyeopener to anyone who reads it of just how coordinated and advanced the illicit drug trade is in aiming to get new highs to market at any cost.
Sam Still Reading
Fentanyl, Inc. is a wake-up call to us all. Shocking and unnerving.
Judith Baragwanath, Noted
The information uncovered by Westhoff, an investigative reporter, will no doubt prove useful to lawmakers, addiction counselors, and anyone else who is dealing with opioid addiction ... But where the book really shines is in Westhoff’s ability to get inside the lives of his characters, from addicts like Henke and Schwandt, to the scientists who initially developed opioids, to the Chinese chemists who are manufacturing fentanyl knockoffs—and profiting hugely off the global rise of opioid addiction ... a feat of reporting, to be sure. And while the many details Westhoff uncovered are likely to leave some readers enraged, Fentanyl, Inc. is an important book that arrives at a key juncture in the opioid crisis.
Arlene Weintraub, The New York Journal of Books
... epic ... like Breaking Bad, sure — meets Night of the Living Dead meets and Gremlins, with a cast from a lot of the places on President Donald Trump’s ‘shithole’ list ... Westhoff includes ample relevant history.
Chris Faraone, Little Village
A really fascinating book on a terrifying subject.
Joe Rogan
Excellent … Readable and alternately engaging and chilling in its account of the development, deployment, and devastating consequences of NPS … Politicians, police, and the public continue to debate how to handle the use of psychoactive substances in our culture and legal system. Westhoff’s Fentanyl, Inc. should be required reading for anyone who wishes to contribute to a knowledgeable discussion.
Winnipeg Free Press
A fascinating look into how China is playing a major role in the spread of fentanyl across the US. The book connects the dots between the pharmaceutical companies and their role in the opioid crisis with the Chinese labs manufacturing the illicit fentanyl and manoeuvring it through Mexico to get it into the US. Highly recommend it!
Yahoo Finance
James Fallows, award-winning journalist and author of China Airborne
A necessary and sobering look at the opioid crisis and how it is not as simple as it appears on the surface. Well-researched and user-friendly for all readers. An important book.
Debra Ginsberg, Bay Books
Through his courageous reporting Ben Westhoff takes us to the heart of the problem. In Fentanyl, Inc. he shines a light on the human wreckage and damage caused by the most powerful and dangerous of the opioids, fentanyl, and its derivatives. He shows us how addiction, mislabeling, purposefully or mistakenly mixed drugs lead to tragic ends. The drug is often created out of factories operating with the permission of the Chinese government. To solve this epidemic, we must understand it. Make no mistake; the fentanyl problem is a global issue. Fentanyl, Inc is a must-read, pulling the curtain back and showing us how this human tragedy occurs and how insidious and addictive a drug can be.
Katherine Tobin, Ph.D., Former Member of the U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission
Drawing material from official reports, drug databases, scores of interviews, and years of personal research, Westhoff presents an unflinching, illuminating portrait of a festering crisis involving a drug industry that thrives as effectively as it kills. Highly sobering, exemplary reportage delivered through richly detailed scenarios and diversified perspectives. STARRED REVIEW
Kirkus Reviews
In Fentanyl, Inc., Ben Westhoff lays bare the twisted history that led to opioids wreaking havoc on twenty-first century America. If you want to understand the bloody cycle of addiction and death gripping the nation, you need to read this book.
Ioan Grillo, author of El Narco and Gangster Warlords
An information-packed work of reporting that traces the rise of designer drugs, including synthetic and/or more dangerous versions of weed, acid, and heroin, the last of which gives the book its title. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that’s chemically similar to morphine and heroin, is the top cause of fatal drug overdoses in the United States. The most illuminating parts of the book are those that reveal the business practices of Chinese labs that supply illicit fentanyl to U.S. dealers. These labs are a source of death and destabilisation for our country, American officials say, while Chinese leaders contend that it’s on us to deal with Americans’ appetite for the stuff.
Francie Diep, Pacific Standard
Westhoff explores the many-tentacled world of illicit opioids, from the streets of East St. Louis to Chinese pharmaceutical companies, from music festivals deep in the Michigan woods to sanctioned ‘shooting up rooms’ in Barcelona, in this frank, insightful, and occasionally searing exposé ... Offers a truly multifaceted view of the landscape of fentanyl use and abuse. The disparate narrative strands he weaves together — including tragic stories of drug users, straightforward analysis of the history of opioid use, tension-filled episodes of drug runs and supplier meet-ups, and the humane and hopeful work of the ‘harm reduction’ movement—all come together to provide a more complex understanding of the rise of, and response to, the opioid epidemic. Westhoff’s well-reported and researched work will likely open eyes, slow knee-jerk responses, and start much needed conversations.
Publishers Weekly
Will assist policymakers, activists, and general readers in understanding better how to respond to the drug crisis that is only more intractable now.
Library Journal
So many substance abuse books are a mix of hysterical in tone and a disappointing ‘paint by numbers’ in their execution, but [Fentanyl, Inc.] really stands out for its research, journalism, and overall analysis ... It is also a great book on China, and how China and the Chinese chemicals industry works, backed up by extensive original investigation ... Definitely recommended.
Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
Timely and agonising … [Westhoff’s] book is the product of a four-year deep-dive into the world of designer drugs, and it’s an impressive work of investigative journalism. He interviewed 160 people and visited laboratories all over the world; he even infiltrated a pair of Chinese drug operations.
USA Today
A history lesson on American drug use and drug laws, a crash course in chemistry and neuroscience, a multifaceted portrait of addiction, and a look at how harm reduction programs can atone for the failures of the War on Drugs … A finely woven and accessible analysis of the connection between university chemistry professors, dark web sales, drug cartels, law enforcement, and the dealers and addicts dependent on it … Westhoff is a skilled and empathetic biographer, and this gift serves the composite of the dealers, users, and bereaved of Fentanyl, Inc. … It’s in this focus on the human cost of the crisis, of empathy over criminalisation, that this accomplished book feels most urgently important.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The most frightening book of the year, and it’s mandatory reading … Epic … This is a story about people, and Fentanyl, Inc. features a roster of villains and victims who stray far from movie archetypes.
Dig Boston
Setting Fentanyl, Inc. apart from most other books that focus on the supply-side of illegal drugs, Westhoff smartly avoids pro-drug-war narratives that push for an intensified law-and-order response to the proliferation of more potent synthetic drugs … The War on Drugs and misguided law enforcement efforts have not stemmed the spread of fentanyl, but instead have contributed to its takeover, Westhoff carefully explains.
Filter
Extensively reported and vividly written … Westhoff elevates his impressive examination of the opioid epidemic by reporting on the US government’s failed war on drugs and the promise of innovative ‘harm reduction’ policies that recognise that ‘Just Say No’ is a losing proposition.
National Book Review
Westhoff looks at the new wave of synthetic drugs that are taking the opioid epidemic to a whole new deadly level. He managed to go undercover into one of the many labs in China where these drugs are being manufactured, and the results of his research there and elsewhere are terrifying … Anyone who is interested in learning more about the opioid crisis, or has read Dopesick, is going to want to check this out.
Omnivoracious, the Amazon Book Review
A detailed and far-ranging investigation into the production, marketing, and usage of fentanyl reveals an intertwined business network that spans continents and kills thousands.
Shelf Awareness
In this gripping investigation, Westhoff recounts the deadly consequences of synthetically made drugs and how this phenomenon is beginning spread internationally.
Happy Mag
The way [Fentanyl, Inc.] looked at every aspect of the novel psychoactive substance trade was unique. From chemists manipulating chemical structures of precursors to fentanyl before countries can ban them, to the dealers, end users and those who want to change the way addiction is treated, Westhoff details it all ... this book is an eyeopener to anyone who reads it of just how coordinated and advanced the illicit drug trade is in aiming to get new highs to market at any cost.
Sam Still Reading
Fentanyl, Inc. is a wake-up call to us all. Shocking and unnerving.
Judith Baragwanath, Noted
The information uncovered by Westhoff, an investigative reporter, will no doubt prove useful to lawmakers, addiction counselors, and anyone else who is dealing with opioid addiction ... But where the book really shines is in Westhoff’s ability to get inside the lives of his characters, from addicts like Henke and Schwandt, to the scientists who initially developed opioids, to the Chinese chemists who are manufacturing fentanyl knockoffs—and profiting hugely off the global rise of opioid addiction ... a feat of reporting, to be sure. And while the many details Westhoff uncovered are likely to leave some readers enraged, Fentanyl, Inc. is an important book that arrives at a key juncture in the opioid crisis.
Arlene Weintraub, The New York Journal of Books
... epic ... like Breaking Bad, sure — meets Night of the Living Dead meets and Gremlins, with a cast from a lot of the places on President Donald Trump’s ‘shithole’ list ... Westhoff includes ample relevant history.
Chris Faraone, Little Village
A really fascinating book on a terrifying subject.
Joe Rogan
Excellent … Readable and alternately engaging and chilling in its account of the development, deployment, and devastating consequences of NPS … Politicians, police, and the public continue to debate how to handle the use of psychoactive substances in our culture and legal system. Westhoff’s Fentanyl, Inc. should be required reading for anyone who wishes to contribute to a knowledgeable discussion.
Winnipeg Free Press
A fascinating look into how China is playing a major role in the spread of fentanyl across the US. The book connects the dots between the pharmaceutical companies and their role in the opioid crisis with the Chinese labs manufacturing the illicit fentanyl and manoeuvring it through Mexico to get it into the US. Highly recommend it!
Yahoo Finance
Small Mercies by Richard Anderson
A fine-grained study of a marriage and a land in crisis … A wonderful book.
Jock Serong
An undemanding read for those who enjoy human stories with a rural setting, Small Mercies is the tale of a man and a woman who have weathered many trials by taking each other for granted, and who come to realise that familiarity doesn’t necessarily mean they know everything they should about one another.
Lindy Jones, Books+Publishing
This was an engaging and thought-provoking read, storytelling at its best, nuanced and credible.
Carol Seeley, Reading, Writing and Riesling
Wholly engaging — a character-driven novel where the unforgiving Australian climate is an unpredictable character as well … Small Mercies isn’t just a window onto the crisis on the land. It’s the love story of an older couple too, something we don’t often see in fiction.
Lisa Hill, ANZ LitLovers
Small Mercies by Richard Anderson is one of those books that should be mandatory reading for all Australians ... Anderson writes in an engaging manner, with just enough humour to lift the black to grey, without attempting in anyway to gloss over the seriousness of the subject matter ... Moving, perceptive and very readable.
Karen Chisholm, The Blurb
This engaging story ... is one to remember for its credibility and timeliness.
Christopher Bantick, The Weekly Times
This novel is a perceptive study of marriage, of family farming, and of women’s lives, as well as a sombre look at the people in Australian society who have money and power, and at the way they wield those things to their own ends.
The Age
As the novel moves along, the true-to-life conversations of the couple show their relationship is drying out like the land ... We share their shock and feel their fear of longer droughts, hotter temperatures, and how the rich and powerful work the system. .5 STARS
Judith Grace, Good Reading
Anderson’s emotional intelligence is acute. Small Mercies adds literary understanding to the stocks of the Australian rural novel.
Ed Wright, The Australian
Jock Serong
An undemanding read for those who enjoy human stories with a rural setting, Small Mercies is the tale of a man and a woman who have weathered many trials by taking each other for granted, and who come to realise that familiarity doesn’t necessarily mean they know everything they should about one another.
Lindy Jones, Books+Publishing
This was an engaging and thought-provoking read, storytelling at its best, nuanced and credible.
Carol Seeley, Reading, Writing and Riesling
Wholly engaging — a character-driven novel where the unforgiving Australian climate is an unpredictable character as well … Small Mercies isn’t just a window onto the crisis on the land. It’s the love story of an older couple too, something we don’t often see in fiction.
Lisa Hill, ANZ LitLovers
Small Mercies by Richard Anderson is one of those books that should be mandatory reading for all Australians ... Anderson writes in an engaging manner, with just enough humour to lift the black to grey, without attempting in anyway to gloss over the seriousness of the subject matter ... Moving, perceptive and very readable.
Karen Chisholm, The Blurb
This engaging story ... is one to remember for its credibility and timeliness.
Christopher Bantick, The Weekly Times
This novel is a perceptive study of marriage, of family farming, and of women’s lives, as well as a sombre look at the people in Australian society who have money and power, and at the way they wield those things to their own ends.
The Age
As the novel moves along, the true-to-life conversations of the couple show their relationship is drying out like the land ... We share their shock and feel their fear of longer droughts, hotter temperatures, and how the rich and powerful work the system. .5 STARS
Judith Grace, Good Reading
Anderson’s emotional intelligence is acute. Small Mercies adds literary understanding to the stocks of the Australian rural novel.
Ed Wright, The Australian
The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley
With a sharp eye and a deft flourish, Maria Dahvana Headley reimagines one of our oldest stories to give us a chilling, elemental vision of our latest selves. The Mere Wife is a bold, stunning riptide of a book.
Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger’s Wife
The Mere Wife is an astonishing reinterpretation of Beowulf: Beowulf in suburbia — epic, operatic, and razor-sharp, a story not of a thick-thewed thegn, but of women at war, as wives and warriors, mothers and matriarchs. Their chosen weapons are as likely to be swords as public relations and they wield both fearlessly. They rule, they fight.
Nicola Griffith, author of Hild
Maria Dahvana Headley writes — with crackling headlong sentences that range among old plots and news observations — about a world that earlier today seemed too familiar. Master storyteller, brilliant stylist, a writer with this sort of command of language is a delight to read. Here’s a book to call up an old story in the newest possible way.
Samuel R Delany, author of Dhalgren and Dark Reflections
The Mere Wife is a work of magic. A wild adventure, a celebration of monsters, myths, and the power of mother-love. Imagine a writer so bold, so ambitious, so about it that she challenges Beowulf to arm wrestle. That writer is Maria Dahvana Headley and let me tell you something, she is here to win.
Victor Lavalle, author of The Changeling
Maria Dahvana Headley translates the excesses of contemporary life into the gloriously mythic. This is not just an old story in new clothes: this is a consciousness-altering mindtrip of a book.
Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble
The most surprising novel I’ve read this year ... Headley is the most fearsome warrior here, lunging and pivoting between ancient and modern realms, skewering class prejudices, defending the helpless and venturing into the dark crevices of our shameful fears. Someday The Mere Wife may take its place alongside such feminist classics as The Wide Sargasso Sea because in its own wicked and wickedly funny way it’s just as insightful about how we make and kill our monsters.
Washington Post
Imagine the centaur-like hybrid of a Middle Ages warrior saga and a slow-burning drama of domestic ennui and you begin to get a sense of this spiky, arresting story.
The Wall Street Journal
Maria Dahvana Headley’s new novel, The Mere Wife, is much more than a simple recasting of the ancient epic poem Beowulf in the suburbs. It’s The Stepford Wives, 9/11 and English class thrown into a lyrical blender, and it’s kind of glorious.
Associated Press
[A] great, heart-wrenching read… I love a book that wrestles me, and makes me think about it after I’ve finished it. If you enjoy battling monsters, I can’t recommend this book enough.
Tor.com
Bestselling author Maria Dahvana Headley takes a significant gamble in recasting Old English epic Beowulf in the American suburbs – but the gamble pays off. She enhances the themes of the classic with contemporary and feminist accents, creating a work that is both unique and worthy.
Christian-Science Monitor’s 10 Best Books of July
Headley's language is exquisite and imaginative, the contemporary adaptation on-point and thought provoking – essentially, this is how to retell a classic.
Refinery29’s The Best New Books Out This July
The lives of two protective mothers in American suburbia collide in [this] fascinating contemporary retelling of Beowulf.
Entertainment Weekly
Headley (whose own translation [of Beowulf] comes out next year) brings the story of the hero, the monster, and the monster’s mother into contemporary times with uncommon vigor and depth.
Boris Kachka, Vulture
The Mere Wife [is] an intense, visceral reading experience … [the book is] a revisioning of Beowulf, and Maria finds the bones, the sharp edges, the bleeding heart of that story, and tells it against a modern context.
Kat Howard, author of An Unkindness of Magicians
Her dystopian novel, The Mere Wife, takes the Old-English epic Beowulf and plunges it into the suburban malaise of Donald Trump’s America.
The Saturday Age
The Mere Wife is a poetic, transcendental stunner of a novel! Maria Dahvana Headley’s electric storytelling weaves a dark exploration of how everyone has the potential to become or create monsters. A nuanced allegory for US politics, The Mere Wife reveals truths about our world through a dystopian suburbia in the vein of The Handmaid’s Tale. Headley is a master storyteller with razor-sharp observations.
Better Read Than Dead Bookshop
[A] poetic, transcendental stunner of a novel! Maria Dahvana Headley’s electric storytelling weaves a dark exploration of how everyone has the potential to become or create monsters. A nuanced allegory for US politics, The Mere Wife reveals truths about our world through a dystopian suburbia … Headley is a master storyteller with razor-sharp observations … one of my favourite reads of 2018 so far.
Mischa Parkee, Bookseller at Better Read Than Dead
Best-selling American author/editor Maria Dahvana Headley spins the ancient story of monsters and dragons around a gated community populated by the beautiful and entitled … this is more than an old story in new clothes.
North and South
So: I loved The Mere Wife and I bet lots of other people will too … Everyone should read The Mere Wife. It’s a wonderfully unexpected dark/funny/lyrical/angry retelling of Beowulf; what's not to like?
Emily Wilson, translator of The Odyssey
Fan-fucking-tastic … this book! Oh, this book! It’s brutal and beautiful and unflinching.
Justina Ireland, author of Feral Youth
Headley's jabs at suburban smugness are fun … [and her] prose can be stark, lacerating, insightful … The role reversals Headley devises — and the way she adapts an ancient tale into a 21st-century struggle between haves and have-nots, brown-skinned and white, damaged and intact — are largely effective.’
Michael Upchurch, The New York Times Book Review
A sly satire of suburbia, wittily detailed and narratively bold … with its roots in ancient legend The Mere Wife] proves especially relevant in this time of heightened fear of the Other.
Michael Berry, San Francisco Chronicle
Headley's divergences and additions, descriptions of glittering scenery and bloody battles, keep us entranced as those who once gathered round the fire to hear of heroic deeds and shudder at the monsters among us.
Kathleen Alcala, The Cascadia Subduction Zone
[The Mere Wife] is the story of the fierceness of a mother's love, delivered with a full-throated feminist roar, a highly literary sensibility, and characters who straddle the line between reality and fantasy … It rings with musicality … [Headley's] prose takes no prisoners, and her musings on myth and magic and feminism hit like a welcome punch to the face. Read The Mere Wife, and look forward to her forthcoming translation of Beowulf, which will further shift our understanding of what makes a monster, a hero, a woman.
Ardi Alspach, B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog
The Mere Wife shows war from a mother’s perspective; the tragedy of all-encompassing love in a world that inevitably destroys … By centring on the mother’s perspective, Headley tells one of Western literature’s classic tales differently and proves that feminist revisionist writing is essential reading in a changing world.
Weekend Australian
A rich, full narrative.
Good Reading
Headley’s heroic prose and vivid imagery offers thought-provoking correlations between ancient themes and recent historical events. Its emphasis on feminist power gives an old tale renewed significance.
Reba Leiding, Library Journal
The Mere Wife is a boldly conceived work that can stand proudly on the bookshelf next to its inspiration.
Paul Di Filippo, Barnes and Noble Review
The Mere Wife goes beyond Beowulf to become a narrative that offers a bold look at American suburbia while exploring the power of women in society.
Gabino Iglesias, The Rumpus
Vivid and thrilling.
Daily Telegraph
Her language is vivid and compelling … If you are a fan of dark fantasy and suspense, then you will love this book.
Lynda Stallworthy, Daily Post
I loved Maria Dahvana Headley’s The Mere Wife, a memorably weird and deep retelling of Beowulf as a novel about suburban America, wildness, PTSD and what it means to be a hero.
Emily Wilson, New Statesman
[A] muscular, bloodthirsty novel.
Sarah Ditum, The Guardian
Headley’s The Mere Wife is both a celebration of motherly love and an exploration of the disruptive tension between coexisting opposites.
Giulia Mastroni, Monash University Book Review
Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger’s Wife
The Mere Wife is an astonishing reinterpretation of Beowulf: Beowulf in suburbia — epic, operatic, and razor-sharp, a story not of a thick-thewed thegn, but of women at war, as wives and warriors, mothers and matriarchs. Their chosen weapons are as likely to be swords as public relations and they wield both fearlessly. They rule, they fight.
Nicola Griffith, author of Hild
Maria Dahvana Headley writes — with crackling headlong sentences that range among old plots and news observations — about a world that earlier today seemed too familiar. Master storyteller, brilliant stylist, a writer with this sort of command of language is a delight to read. Here’s a book to call up an old story in the newest possible way.
Samuel R Delany, author of Dhalgren and Dark Reflections
The Mere Wife is a work of magic. A wild adventure, a celebration of monsters, myths, and the power of mother-love. Imagine a writer so bold, so ambitious, so about it that she challenges Beowulf to arm wrestle. That writer is Maria Dahvana Headley and let me tell you something, she is here to win.
Victor Lavalle, author of The Changeling
Maria Dahvana Headley translates the excesses of contemporary life into the gloriously mythic. This is not just an old story in new clothes: this is a consciousness-altering mindtrip of a book.
Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble
The most surprising novel I’ve read this year ... Headley is the most fearsome warrior here, lunging and pivoting between ancient and modern realms, skewering class prejudices, defending the helpless and venturing into the dark crevices of our shameful fears. Someday The Mere Wife may take its place alongside such feminist classics as The Wide Sargasso Sea because in its own wicked and wickedly funny way it’s just as insightful about how we make and kill our monsters.
Washington Post
Imagine the centaur-like hybrid of a Middle Ages warrior saga and a slow-burning drama of domestic ennui and you begin to get a sense of this spiky, arresting story.
The Wall Street Journal
Maria Dahvana Headley’s new novel, The Mere Wife, is much more than a simple recasting of the ancient epic poem Beowulf in the suburbs. It’s The Stepford Wives, 9/11 and English class thrown into a lyrical blender, and it’s kind of glorious.
Associated Press
[A] great, heart-wrenching read… I love a book that wrestles me, and makes me think about it after I’ve finished it. If you enjoy battling monsters, I can’t recommend this book enough.
Tor.com
Bestselling author Maria Dahvana Headley takes a significant gamble in recasting Old English epic Beowulf in the American suburbs – but the gamble pays off. She enhances the themes of the classic with contemporary and feminist accents, creating a work that is both unique and worthy.
Christian-Science Monitor’s 10 Best Books of July
Headley's language is exquisite and imaginative, the contemporary adaptation on-point and thought provoking – essentially, this is how to retell a classic.
Refinery29’s The Best New Books Out This July
The lives of two protective mothers in American suburbia collide in [this] fascinating contemporary retelling of Beowulf.
Entertainment Weekly
Headley (whose own translation [of Beowulf] comes out next year) brings the story of the hero, the monster, and the monster’s mother into contemporary times with uncommon vigor and depth.
Boris Kachka, Vulture
The Mere Wife [is] an intense, visceral reading experience … [the book is] a revisioning of Beowulf, and Maria finds the bones, the sharp edges, the bleeding heart of that story, and tells it against a modern context.
Kat Howard, author of An Unkindness of Magicians
Her dystopian novel, The Mere Wife, takes the Old-English epic Beowulf and plunges it into the suburban malaise of Donald Trump’s America.
The Saturday Age
The Mere Wife is a poetic, transcendental stunner of a novel! Maria Dahvana Headley’s electric storytelling weaves a dark exploration of how everyone has the potential to become or create monsters. A nuanced allegory for US politics, The Mere Wife reveals truths about our world through a dystopian suburbia in the vein of The Handmaid’s Tale. Headley is a master storyteller with razor-sharp observations.
Better Read Than Dead Bookshop
[A] poetic, transcendental stunner of a novel! Maria Dahvana Headley’s electric storytelling weaves a dark exploration of how everyone has the potential to become or create monsters. A nuanced allegory for US politics, The Mere Wife reveals truths about our world through a dystopian suburbia … Headley is a master storyteller with razor-sharp observations … one of my favourite reads of 2018 so far.
Mischa Parkee, Bookseller at Better Read Than Dead
Best-selling American author/editor Maria Dahvana Headley spins the ancient story of monsters and dragons around a gated community populated by the beautiful and entitled … this is more than an old story in new clothes.
North and South
So: I loved The Mere Wife and I bet lots of other people will too … Everyone should read The Mere Wife. It’s a wonderfully unexpected dark/funny/lyrical/angry retelling of Beowulf; what's not to like?
Emily Wilson, translator of The Odyssey
Fan-fucking-tastic … this book! Oh, this book! It’s brutal and beautiful and unflinching.
Justina Ireland, author of Feral Youth
Headley's jabs at suburban smugness are fun … [and her] prose can be stark, lacerating, insightful … The role reversals Headley devises — and the way she adapts an ancient tale into a 21st-century struggle between haves and have-nots, brown-skinned and white, damaged and intact — are largely effective.’
Michael Upchurch, The New York Times Book Review
A sly satire of suburbia, wittily detailed and narratively bold … with its roots in ancient legend The Mere Wife] proves especially relevant in this time of heightened fear of the Other.
Michael Berry, San Francisco Chronicle
Headley's divergences and additions, descriptions of glittering scenery and bloody battles, keep us entranced as those who once gathered round the fire to hear of heroic deeds and shudder at the monsters among us.
Kathleen Alcala, The Cascadia Subduction Zone
[The Mere Wife] is the story of the fierceness of a mother's love, delivered with a full-throated feminist roar, a highly literary sensibility, and characters who straddle the line between reality and fantasy … It rings with musicality … [Headley's] prose takes no prisoners, and her musings on myth and magic and feminism hit like a welcome punch to the face. Read The Mere Wife, and look forward to her forthcoming translation of Beowulf, which will further shift our understanding of what makes a monster, a hero, a woman.
Ardi Alspach, B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog
The Mere Wife shows war from a mother’s perspective; the tragedy of all-encompassing love in a world that inevitably destroys … By centring on the mother’s perspective, Headley tells one of Western literature’s classic tales differently and proves that feminist revisionist writing is essential reading in a changing world.
Weekend Australian
A rich, full narrative.
Good Reading
Headley’s heroic prose and vivid imagery offers thought-provoking correlations between ancient themes and recent historical events. Its emphasis on feminist power gives an old tale renewed significance.
Reba Leiding, Library Journal
The Mere Wife is a boldly conceived work that can stand proudly on the bookshelf next to its inspiration.
Paul Di Filippo, Barnes and Noble Review
The Mere Wife goes beyond Beowulf to become a narrative that offers a bold look at American suburbia while exploring the power of women in society.
Gabino Iglesias, The Rumpus
Vivid and thrilling.
Daily Telegraph
Her language is vivid and compelling … If you are a fan of dark fantasy and suspense, then you will love this book.
Lynda Stallworthy, Daily Post
I loved Maria Dahvana Headley’s The Mere Wife, a memorably weird and deep retelling of Beowulf as a novel about suburban America, wildness, PTSD and what it means to be a hero.
Emily Wilson, New Statesman
[A] muscular, bloodthirsty novel.
Sarah Ditum, The Guardian
Headley’s The Mere Wife is both a celebration of motherly love and an exploration of the disruptive tension between coexisting opposites.
Giulia Mastroni, Monash University Book Review
Wildhood: the epic journey from adolescence to adulthood in humans and other animals by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, Kathryn Bowers
The authors steer clear of excesses of ethology or anthropomorphism, and they emphasise that maturity is not a goal but a process. A lucid, entertaining account of how creatures of many kinds learn to navigate the complex world that adulthood opens.
Kirkus
A life-changing perspective on adolescents. A treasure trove of scientific exploration and practical implications for how we understand and support youth.
Daniel J. Siegel, MD, author of Brainstorm: the power and purpose of the teenage brain
Human teens have much in common with their counterparts throughout the animal kingdom — and those commonalities are eye-opening as described in the latest from biologist Natterson-Horowitz and science journalist Bowers. Reassuring ... should appeal to anyone who’s ever raised an adolescent, human or otherwise. STARRED REVIEW
Publishers Weekly
Paradigm-shattering. This illuminating new book generates dozens of hypotheses for raising, educating, counselling and treating, and living life as an adolescent human.
Gene Beresin, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
It blew my mind to discover that teenage animals and teenage humans are so similar. Both are naïve risk-takers. I love this book!
Temple Grandin, PHD, author of Animals Make Us Human and ANimals in Translation
This fascinating book tells the compelling story of adolescence across species, framed in the convincing context of evolutionary and adaptive explanations.
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, author of Inventing Ourselves: the secret life of the teenage brain
Unfailingly fascinating — and sometimes downright mind-blowing — this is a remarkably original account of the nature, meaning, and purpose of adolescence in today’s world … Wildhood is one of the most insightful books ever written about this critically important stage of life.
Laurence Steinberg, University Professor of Psychology, Temple University, and author fo Age of Opportunity
Deeply researched and beautifully written, this account of the trials faced by teenagers across the animal kingdom inspires compassion for young people and appreciation for what they must accomplish on the journey into adulthood.
Lida Damour, PHD, author of Under Pressure and Untangled
A masterpiece. This is a spellbinding lens on the ways creatures with big bodies yet little life experience figure out how to survive and thrive. Read Wildhood.
Wendy Mogel, PHD, author of Voice Lessons for Parents and The Blessing of a Skinned Knee
Our teenage years can be many things, from fraught to exhilarating. Natterson-Horowitz and Bowers show them to be something else altogether — essential for humans and animals. Read their enlightening journey and you will never see the transition to adulthood the same way again.
Neil Shubin, PHD, author of Your Inner Fish and The Universe Within
Wildhood’s tour of the natural history of adolescence is original, entertaining and constructive, full of ideas for understanding it better.
Richard Wrangham, PHD, author of The Goodness Paradox and Catching Fire
Wise, entrancing and astounding.
Daniel E. Lieberman, PHD, author of The Story of the Human Body: evolution, health and disease
An incredibly fascinating read, Wildhood illuminates what humans can learn from the animal world and how all species are more connected to one another than they may appear. STARRED REVIEW
Booklist
This compelling account of how strongly human adolescent behaviours are rooted in our wild animal past should intrigue general science readers and fans of Zoobiquity.
Library Journal
The wild adventure of adolescence has never been analysed in such depth. In lively personalised accounts that keep our attention, the authors explain how the transition to independence works in each species, and why it looks so similar across the board.
Frans de Wall, PHD, author of Mama’s Last Hug and Our Inner Ape
Those travails of adolescence? It isn’t just you. Or your culture. Or even your species. Wildhood uses riveting stories about the challenges overcome by specific whales, wolves, and more to put the challenges of adolescence in a universal evolutionary context for the first time. Groundbreaking and fascinating.
Randolph M. Nesse, MD, author of Good Reasons for Bad Feelings
Adolescence isn't just for humans. Here an evolutionary biologist offers up rollicking tales of young animals navigating risk, social hierarchy, and sex with all the bravura (and dopiness) of our own teenage beasts.
People
All this time spent reading books on adulting can be harrowing for a worried parent who isn’t entirely sold on the survival skills of her teenage son. I needed some reassurance … Luckily, I found it with a king penguin, a hyena, a humpback whale and a wolf … Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers … follow this cast of characters as they face the trials of making it into adulthood in their savage and competitive worlds. You don’t even need to anthropomorphise to find some of the similarities between animal and human teenagers uncanny, and the lessons they have to learn remarkably similar.
Judith Newman, New York Times Book Review
Harvard evolutionary biologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and science journalist Kathryn Bowers draw fascinating connections between human and animal young adulthood.
Laura Pearson, The Chicago Tribune, ‘28 New Books Your Need to Read Now’
The vivid storytelling and fascinating scientific digressions in Wildhood make it a pleasurable read.
Patrick J. Kiger, Los Angeles Times
There is much here for the nature lover, the parent seeking advice, and the college freshman tackling ‘adulting.’ By laying out the adolescent experience of so many species in rich detail, the authors normalise and celebrate the beauty and complexity of our own species’ journey into the big wide world.
Linda Welbrecht, Science Magazine
Take the authors up on their invitation to observe animals in the wild and in your own household, and you’ll never look at other beings the same again. Wildhood is for parents, nature lovers, and the curious alike. You’ll be wild for it.
Terri Schlichenmeyer, Times Record
Reading [Wildhood], I was surprised to see that many of the adolescent behaviours humans exhibit are wired in for adolescents of most species. This may not provide much consolation for you as you try to guide your teen through the dangers of risk-taking, but it provides insights into how much your teen is exhibiting normal adolescent behaviour shared with birds and monkeys. Most importantly, it’s a reminder that this is usually not about you.
Mark Phillips, Marin Independent Journal
A fascinating and well-written book about the universal journey of adolescence. It is full of insights about humans as well as many other animals. There is much that human teenagers can learn from the experiences of adolescent penguins and hyenas.
Yuval Harari, author of Sapiens
Lively and eye-opening.
Miriam Cosic, The Australian
Engaging and informative … Wildhood is a fascinating read that provides a powerful new lens on the tricky transition to adulthood.
Rebekah Lyell, NZ Booklovers
Adolescence may seem unique to the human experience, but Natterson-Horowitz and Bowers vividly reveal that many species navigate this crucial time between childhood and adulthood, which they so aptly call ‘wildhood’.
Booklist, Top 10 Sci-Tech Books of the Year
Wildhood is a contemplation of how we are like, and unlike, other animals, using the widespread phenomenon of adolescence as an anchor … Readers will come away with an appreciation for a host of other qualities — friendship, social status, cooperation, leaving home and coming back — that are rooted in that one crucial stage of life.
Marlene Zuk, The Wall Street Journal
Natterson-Horowitz and Bowers go deep and wide in addressing the raft of species-spanning equivalents. The authors make clear that, in a fundamental sense, adolescent animals and teen humans encounter the same sorts of challenges — and that what may strike elders of any species as nutty, exasperating behaviour is not only inevitable for most creatures in that stage of development but truly valuable.
Duncan Strauss, Washington Post
Wildhood is a thoroughly engaging study of the in-between years and the strands of commonality that run through the awkward adolescences of so many species. The book will teach you things about the torments and ecstasies you endured during your own in-between years, and it may incline you to look more kindly on the desperate, low-status blunderings of the teenagers who occasionally show up in your own home and on your own tax forms.
Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review
Wildhood is a look at human behaviour through the eyes of creatures large and small, and the result is fascinating.
Jeff Maynard, The Herald Sun
In Wildhood, the authors examine how human adolescence is rooted in our animals past and influences how we navigate the transition ... Wildhood is a look at human behaviour throughout the eyes of creatures large and small, and the result is funny, informative and fascinating.
Jeff Maynard, Life & Style Weekend
Adolescence collides spectacularly with the tree of life in Wildhood … It turns out that adolescents all across the animal kingdom do the same things, and for good evolutionary reasons … [The book] obliterates the siren song of human exceptionalism … Reading this book is enlightening, both scientifically and personally.
Carlo C. Maley, Evolution, Medicine & Public Health
Kirkus
A life-changing perspective on adolescents. A treasure trove of scientific exploration and practical implications for how we understand and support youth.
Daniel J. Siegel, MD, author of Brainstorm: the power and purpose of the teenage brain
Human teens have much in common with their counterparts throughout the animal kingdom — and those commonalities are eye-opening as described in the latest from biologist Natterson-Horowitz and science journalist Bowers. Reassuring ... should appeal to anyone who’s ever raised an adolescent, human or otherwise. STARRED REVIEW
Publishers Weekly
Paradigm-shattering. This illuminating new book generates dozens of hypotheses for raising, educating, counselling and treating, and living life as an adolescent human.
Gene Beresin, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
It blew my mind to discover that teenage animals and teenage humans are so similar. Both are naïve risk-takers. I love this book!
Temple Grandin, PHD, author of Animals Make Us Human and ANimals in Translation
This fascinating book tells the compelling story of adolescence across species, framed in the convincing context of evolutionary and adaptive explanations.
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, author of Inventing Ourselves: the secret life of the teenage brain
Unfailingly fascinating — and sometimes downright mind-blowing — this is a remarkably original account of the nature, meaning, and purpose of adolescence in today’s world … Wildhood is one of the most insightful books ever written about this critically important stage of life.
Laurence Steinberg, University Professor of Psychology, Temple University, and author fo Age of Opportunity
Deeply researched and beautifully written, this account of the trials faced by teenagers across the animal kingdom inspires compassion for young people and appreciation for what they must accomplish on the journey into adulthood.
Lida Damour, PHD, author of Under Pressure and Untangled
A masterpiece. This is a spellbinding lens on the ways creatures with big bodies yet little life experience figure out how to survive and thrive. Read Wildhood.
Wendy Mogel, PHD, author of Voice Lessons for Parents and The Blessing of a Skinned Knee
Our teenage years can be many things, from fraught to exhilarating. Natterson-Horowitz and Bowers show them to be something else altogether — essential for humans and animals. Read their enlightening journey and you will never see the transition to adulthood the same way again.
Neil Shubin, PHD, author of Your Inner Fish and The Universe Within
Wildhood’s tour of the natural history of adolescence is original, entertaining and constructive, full of ideas for understanding it better.
Richard Wrangham, PHD, author of The Goodness Paradox and Catching Fire
Wise, entrancing and astounding.
Daniel E. Lieberman, PHD, author of The Story of the Human Body: evolution, health and disease
An incredibly fascinating read, Wildhood illuminates what humans can learn from the animal world and how all species are more connected to one another than they may appear. STARRED REVIEW
Booklist
This compelling account of how strongly human adolescent behaviours are rooted in our wild animal past should intrigue general science readers and fans of Zoobiquity.
Library Journal
The wild adventure of adolescence has never been analysed in such depth. In lively personalised accounts that keep our attention, the authors explain how the transition to independence works in each species, and why it looks so similar across the board.
Frans de Wall, PHD, author of Mama’s Last Hug and Our Inner Ape
Those travails of adolescence? It isn’t just you. Or your culture. Or even your species. Wildhood uses riveting stories about the challenges overcome by specific whales, wolves, and more to put the challenges of adolescence in a universal evolutionary context for the first time. Groundbreaking and fascinating.
Randolph M. Nesse, MD, author of Good Reasons for Bad Feelings
Adolescence isn't just for humans. Here an evolutionary biologist offers up rollicking tales of young animals navigating risk, social hierarchy, and sex with all the bravura (and dopiness) of our own teenage beasts.
People
All this time spent reading books on adulting can be harrowing for a worried parent who isn’t entirely sold on the survival skills of her teenage son. I needed some reassurance … Luckily, I found it with a king penguin, a hyena, a humpback whale and a wolf … Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers … follow this cast of characters as they face the trials of making it into adulthood in their savage and competitive worlds. You don’t even need to anthropomorphise to find some of the similarities between animal and human teenagers uncanny, and the lessons they have to learn remarkably similar.
Judith Newman, New York Times Book Review
Harvard evolutionary biologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and science journalist Kathryn Bowers draw fascinating connections between human and animal young adulthood.
Laura Pearson, The Chicago Tribune, ‘28 New Books Your Need to Read Now’
The vivid storytelling and fascinating scientific digressions in Wildhood make it a pleasurable read.
Patrick J. Kiger, Los Angeles Times
There is much here for the nature lover, the parent seeking advice, and the college freshman tackling ‘adulting.’ By laying out the adolescent experience of so many species in rich detail, the authors normalise and celebrate the beauty and complexity of our own species’ journey into the big wide world.
Linda Welbrecht, Science Magazine
Take the authors up on their invitation to observe animals in the wild and in your own household, and you’ll never look at other beings the same again. Wildhood is for parents, nature lovers, and the curious alike. You’ll be wild for it.
Terri Schlichenmeyer, Times Record
Reading [Wildhood], I was surprised to see that many of the adolescent behaviours humans exhibit are wired in for adolescents of most species. This may not provide much consolation for you as you try to guide your teen through the dangers of risk-taking, but it provides insights into how much your teen is exhibiting normal adolescent behaviour shared with birds and monkeys. Most importantly, it’s a reminder that this is usually not about you.
Mark Phillips, Marin Independent Journal
A fascinating and well-written book about the universal journey of adolescence. It is full of insights about humans as well as many other animals. There is much that human teenagers can learn from the experiences of adolescent penguins and hyenas.
Yuval Harari, author of Sapiens
Lively and eye-opening.
Miriam Cosic, The Australian
Engaging and informative … Wildhood is a fascinating read that provides a powerful new lens on the tricky transition to adulthood.
Rebekah Lyell, NZ Booklovers
Adolescence may seem unique to the human experience, but Natterson-Horowitz and Bowers vividly reveal that many species navigate this crucial time between childhood and adulthood, which they so aptly call ‘wildhood’.
Booklist, Top 10 Sci-Tech Books of the Year
Wildhood is a contemplation of how we are like, and unlike, other animals, using the widespread phenomenon of adolescence as an anchor … Readers will come away with an appreciation for a host of other qualities — friendship, social status, cooperation, leaving home and coming back — that are rooted in that one crucial stage of life.
Marlene Zuk, The Wall Street Journal
Natterson-Horowitz and Bowers go deep and wide in addressing the raft of species-spanning equivalents. The authors make clear that, in a fundamental sense, adolescent animals and teen humans encounter the same sorts of challenges — and that what may strike elders of any species as nutty, exasperating behaviour is not only inevitable for most creatures in that stage of development but truly valuable.
Duncan Strauss, Washington Post
Wildhood is a thoroughly engaging study of the in-between years and the strands of commonality that run through the awkward adolescences of so many species. The book will teach you things about the torments and ecstasies you endured during your own in-between years, and it may incline you to look more kindly on the desperate, low-status blunderings of the teenagers who occasionally show up in your own home and on your own tax forms.
Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review
Wildhood is a look at human behaviour through the eyes of creatures large and small, and the result is fascinating.
Jeff Maynard, The Herald Sun
In Wildhood, the authors examine how human adolescence is rooted in our animals past and influences how we navigate the transition ... Wildhood is a look at human behaviour throughout the eyes of creatures large and small, and the result is funny, informative and fascinating.
Jeff Maynard, Life & Style Weekend
Adolescence collides spectacularly with the tree of life in Wildhood … It turns out that adolescents all across the animal kingdom do the same things, and for good evolutionary reasons … [The book] obliterates the siren song of human exceptionalism … Reading this book is enlightening, both scientifically and personally.
Carlo C. Maley, Evolution, Medicine & Public Health
The End of Epidemics: how to stop viruses and save humanity now by Jonathan D. Quick
Infectious disease outbreaks rival natural disasters and wars in their capacity to endanger human health, cripple economies and disrupt societies. The End of Epidemics shows us that by learning from the past we can build a world more resilient to infectious disease. But we must act quickly.’
Dr. Jeremy Farrar, Director, Welcome Trust
A down to earth account of what we know about epidemics, packaged wisely in 7 basic recommendations for action. The End of Epidemics proposes a new marriage of stakeholders: patients, communities, industry, doctors, political leaders, NGOs and philanthropies. Must read!
Dr. Joanne Liu, International President, MSF (Doctors without Borders)
Dr. Quick makes a compelling case for the public and private sector to elevate their work on preparation, response and rehabilitation around epidemics. The End of Epidemics makes the case from a social and an economic perspective that we have a collective responsibility to take action now.
Paul Polman, Chief Executive Officer, Unilever
The End of Epidemics presents actions, insights and a compelling tale of how individuals — whether citizens or leaders — can stand together with science and innovation to slow or stop the ever-present risk of disease outbreaks and epidemics. His message: the power of Seven, power of one and the power of many.
Dr. Heidi Larsen, Director, Vaccine Confidence Project
Rich in stories, The End of Epidemics is a powerful wake up call to get serious about epidemic threats. Quick offers down to earth solutions to prevent small and mega pandemics, a hundred years after the catastrophic 1918 Spanish flu.
Professor Peter Piot, Director, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
The End of Epidemics presents the challenge represented by global epidemiological risks and offers a convincing set of prescriptions to address them. It is a captivating book that combines the best public health evidence with compelling real-life stories.
Dr. Julio Frenk, President, University of Miami; Former Minister of Health, Mexico; and Former Dean, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Quick is an internationally recognised leader in global heath — his focus on innovation and new technologies is vital to pandemic threat prevention and preparedness to save lives around the globe.
Dr. Rajiv Shah, President, Rockefeller Foundation
Jonathan Quick offers a compelling and intensely readable plan to prevent worldwide infectious outbreaks. The End of Epidemics is essential reading for those who might be affected by a future pandemic — that is, just about everyone.
Sandeep Jauhar, Bestselling Author of Intern and Doctored
Dr. Jonathan Quick has written an insightful, accessible and personal history of modern epidemics, including such killers as smallpox and Ebola, and their dramatic impact on our lives and world. More importantly, Dr. Quick is not merely wringing his hands about the infectious catastrophes that are surely facing us, but focuses on the important actions needed to prevent social, economic and health consequences of inattention. Governments, international institutions, the private sector, and civil society had better take heed: prepare and plan now — or pay the price, in dollars and lives, tomorrow.
Rear Admiral Kenneth Bernard, Former Senior Official for Biodefense and Health Security Under President G.W. Bush and President Clinton
A well-documented and gripping account of the peril posed by pandemics. Dr. Quick, a global health leader from the front lines of the AIDS and Ebola, weaves rich historical facts and decades of personal experience to ring the alarm over the pandemic threat.
Dr. Ariel Pablos-Mendez, Former Head of Global Health, US Agency for International Development
Once in a while, we get a state-of-the-art synthesis of the complex problem of epidemics. Once in a very great while, such a summary is informed by deep experience battling them and by both passion and pragmatism. Only rarely — and this is the case in Quick’s The End of Epidemics
— is such an informed synthesis as readable as it is informed and as humane as it is pragmatic. The result is inspiring.
Paul Farmer, MD, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Partners in Health
Sobering reading for public health officials and infectious disease students and perhaps inspiration for would-be activists to get busy. For general readers: get your flu shot.
Kirkus Reviews
Informative ... Without excess alarmism, Quick and Fryer show that such factors as climate change, terrorism, and the global food system put the next pandemic just around the corner.
Publishers Weekly
[S]even ways of preventing an infectious disease from reaching its pandemic potential … What makes [The End of Epidemics] a good, highly readable primer are its convincing examples and vivid human stories
The Economist
Dr. Quick's urgent message makes one hope that this book will reach a huge audience and that its exhortations will be acted on everywhere.
The Wall Street Journal
Pragmatic, insightful and research-rich, this is a key volume for the policymaker's shelf.
Nature
For readers interested in their own well-being and public health as well as ways to advocate for issues of great concern and urgency.
Library Journal
Quick offers a humane, readable, coherent analysis for would-be health leaders and disease responders, organised simultaneously as a handy reference tool for crisis response, and an outbreak explainer that in parts, thanks to assisting science writer Bronwyn Fryer, sizzles.
The Lancet
Dr Quick has written a fascinating book. Following decades working in some of the world’s most epidemic-prone countries, he argues for scientific and public health developments that can save humanity from deadly micro-organisms.
Dr David Heymann, Professor, Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
This detailed book not only breaks down the science behind killer viruses, but tells the stories of medical pioneers whose tireless work has prevented debilitating epidemics, and could even help put an end to them forever.
GQ Australia
The End of Epidemics offers hope as Quick tells the stories of the heroes, past and present, who’ve succeeded in their fights to stop the spread of illness and death. The explains the science and the politics of epidemics and shows exactly how we can prevent, and end, epidemics in the future.
The News – Westport
In The End of Epidemics, Quick and co-author Bronwyn Fryer spell out the seven biggest things we need to stop those outbreaks becoming epidemics. It is an impressive wish list.
New Scientist
Dr. Jeremy Farrar, Director, Welcome Trust
A down to earth account of what we know about epidemics, packaged wisely in 7 basic recommendations for action. The End of Epidemics proposes a new marriage of stakeholders: patients, communities, industry, doctors, political leaders, NGOs and philanthropies. Must read!
Dr. Joanne Liu, International President, MSF (Doctors without Borders)
Dr. Quick makes a compelling case for the public and private sector to elevate their work on preparation, response and rehabilitation around epidemics. The End of Epidemics makes the case from a social and an economic perspective that we have a collective responsibility to take action now.
Paul Polman, Chief Executive Officer, Unilever
The End of Epidemics presents actions, insights and a compelling tale of how individuals — whether citizens or leaders — can stand together with science and innovation to slow or stop the ever-present risk of disease outbreaks and epidemics. His message: the power of Seven, power of one and the power of many.
Dr. Heidi Larsen, Director, Vaccine Confidence Project
Rich in stories, The End of Epidemics is a powerful wake up call to get serious about epidemic threats. Quick offers down to earth solutions to prevent small and mega pandemics, a hundred years after the catastrophic 1918 Spanish flu.
Professor Peter Piot, Director, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
The End of Epidemics presents the challenge represented by global epidemiological risks and offers a convincing set of prescriptions to address them. It is a captivating book that combines the best public health evidence with compelling real-life stories.
Dr. Julio Frenk, President, University of Miami; Former Minister of Health, Mexico; and Former Dean, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Quick is an internationally recognised leader in global heath — his focus on innovation and new technologies is vital to pandemic threat prevention and preparedness to save lives around the globe.
Dr. Rajiv Shah, President, Rockefeller Foundation
Jonathan Quick offers a compelling and intensely readable plan to prevent worldwide infectious outbreaks. The End of Epidemics is essential reading for those who might be affected by a future pandemic — that is, just about everyone.
Sandeep Jauhar, Bestselling Author of Intern and Doctored
Dr. Jonathan Quick has written an insightful, accessible and personal history of modern epidemics, including such killers as smallpox and Ebola, and their dramatic impact on our lives and world. More importantly, Dr. Quick is not merely wringing his hands about the infectious catastrophes that are surely facing us, but focuses on the important actions needed to prevent social, economic and health consequences of inattention. Governments, international institutions, the private sector, and civil society had better take heed: prepare and plan now — or pay the price, in dollars and lives, tomorrow.
Rear Admiral Kenneth Bernard, Former Senior Official for Biodefense and Health Security Under President G.W. Bush and President Clinton
A well-documented and gripping account of the peril posed by pandemics. Dr. Quick, a global health leader from the front lines of the AIDS and Ebola, weaves rich historical facts and decades of personal experience to ring the alarm over the pandemic threat.
Dr. Ariel Pablos-Mendez, Former Head of Global Health, US Agency for International Development
Once in a while, we get a state-of-the-art synthesis of the complex problem of epidemics. Once in a very great while, such a summary is informed by deep experience battling them and by both passion and pragmatism. Only rarely — and this is the case in Quick’s The End of Epidemics
— is such an informed synthesis as readable as it is informed and as humane as it is pragmatic. The result is inspiring.
Paul Farmer, MD, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Partners in Health
Sobering reading for public health officials and infectious disease students and perhaps inspiration for would-be activists to get busy. For general readers: get your flu shot.
Kirkus Reviews
Informative ... Without excess alarmism, Quick and Fryer show that such factors as climate change, terrorism, and the global food system put the next pandemic just around the corner.
Publishers Weekly
[S]even ways of preventing an infectious disease from reaching its pandemic potential … What makes [The End of Epidemics] a good, highly readable primer are its convincing examples and vivid human stories
The Economist
Dr. Quick's urgent message makes one hope that this book will reach a huge audience and that its exhortations will be acted on everywhere.
The Wall Street Journal
Pragmatic, insightful and research-rich, this is a key volume for the policymaker's shelf.
Nature
For readers interested in their own well-being and public health as well as ways to advocate for issues of great concern and urgency.
Library Journal
Quick offers a humane, readable, coherent analysis for would-be health leaders and disease responders, organised simultaneously as a handy reference tool for crisis response, and an outbreak explainer that in parts, thanks to assisting science writer Bronwyn Fryer, sizzles.
The Lancet
Dr Quick has written a fascinating book. Following decades working in some of the world’s most epidemic-prone countries, he argues for scientific and public health developments that can save humanity from deadly micro-organisms.
Dr David Heymann, Professor, Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
This detailed book not only breaks down the science behind killer viruses, but tells the stories of medical pioneers whose tireless work has prevented debilitating epidemics, and could even help put an end to them forever.
GQ Australia
The End of Epidemics offers hope as Quick tells the stories of the heroes, past and present, who’ve succeeded in their fights to stop the spread of illness and death. The explains the science and the politics of epidemics and shows exactly how we can prevent, and end, epidemics in the future.
The News – Westport
In The End of Epidemics, Quick and co-author Bronwyn Fryer spell out the seven biggest things we need to stop those outbreaks becoming epidemics. It is an impressive wish list.
New Scientist
All the Ways to be Smart by Davina Bell
Every page of this book in joyous, imaginative and life-affirming … All the Ways to be Smart is a celebration of what childhood can be, and it will likely become a classic.
Books+Publishing
The book, All the Ways to Be Smart, aims to teach children that there is more to being smart than reading to maths and encourages the pursuit of the arts.
The Leader
This book is funny and tender, exuberant and whimsical, and an absolute joy to pore over … Colpoys’ distinctive illustrations fizz with her trademark charm and vivacity; the colours burst out of the page with wild abandonment.
Bronte Coates, Readings
Joyful and vibrant … Allison Colpoys’ illustrations shimmer with movement and vivacity, with her loose-line illustrations and selective colour palette exuding a nostalgic retro charm. Children will want to pore over each page, while the seamless read-out-loud rhyming pattern will ensure this is a favourite for years to come.
Kids’ Book Review
This collaboration between Davina Bell and Alison Colpoys is a celebration of what makes us us, of the strengths that we all have within ourselves – whether we’re dreamers, adventurers, readers or artists … The illustrations are whimsical and fun, with a beautiful colour palette.
Noveltea Corner
All The Ways to be Smart is the most beautiful, brilliant new picture book. Full stop. Charming illustrations in pretty, appealing colours? Check. Great rhyming text that is super fun to read aloud? Check. A wonderful message conveyed in a beautiful non-judgey way? Check. The book is a joyful celebration of childhood and all the different, unique ways to be smart.
Courtney Adamo, Babyccino
This book needs to be in the hands of every policy-maker in the sphere of Education, in every classroom, in every library, and in every home … This book is an utterly glorious call to celebrate your strengths and your own unique smarts.
Oh Creative Day
After a colourful, rollicking, joyful, rhyming read there is only one word for this book: wise. Good scores in a test are great but the importance of celebrating the creative, collaborative and just plain quirky things that make us emotionally intelligent and well-rounded could not have been better portrayed.
Readings ‘Best Picture Books of 2018’
A celebration of creativity and emotional intelligence featuring a diverse cast of kids. A reassuring read for primary-aged children who feel like a round peg in a square, academic hole.
Philippa Chandler, Guardian Australia
From the dynamic partnership of Davina Bell and Allison Colpoys comes a tender, funny, and exquisitely illustrated picture book celebrating the myriad talents that each child brings to the world, from being able to read or tell the time to being good at blowing bubbles.
Good Reading
This book teaches children that intelligence is so much more than being book-smart. Intelligence can also mean being empathetic, artistic, athletic, and inquisitive. It places value in every kind of talent, from ‘building boats from boxes’ to ‘kindness when there’s crying’. All the Ways to Be Smart is the perfect feel-good bedtime story that I can’t wait to gift this Christmas.
Sherry Landow, Writing NSW
All the Ways to Be Smart by Davina Bell and Allison Colpoys (Scribe) is a joyous picture book that enthusiastically celebrates the power of the imagination while challenging stereotypes about what it means to be clever. With its flawless rhymes and winning illustrations, this book has all the makings of a classic.
Sydney Morning Herald
I think this unique book with colourful illustrations by Allison Colpoys can help children feel proud of what makes them special.
Mummy in the City
Simple, flowing words coupled with fluorescent illustrations (created from ink, charcoal, and pencil, then digitally assembled) give young readers a book brimming with examples of how they are smart all day, every day … Realistic illustrations show children of varying racial presentations joining sentient animals and benign, hairy monsters to confidently explore their world, real and imagined.
Kirkus Reviews
In this cheerful exploration of all the nonstandard ways a person can be smart, the creators paint an expansive picture of intelligence that goes well beyond ‘being best/at spelling bees,/a tricky test.’ ... Colpoys’s ink, charcoal, and pencil drawings burst with a profusion of neon orange and green, literally highlighting each scene with an incandescence that more than matches the rhyming couplets’ jauntiness. A feel-good paean to individuality.
Publishers Weekly
Brilliant.
Mariela Summerhays, Buzzfeed Australia
This illustrated picture book is an ode the unique and wonderful qualities that make children who they are. It celebrates the special strengths, skills and passions in each of us.
Fiona Stager, Tweed Daily News
A picture book that is joyous, life-affirming, and challenges stereotypes about what it means to be clever.
Jane Sullivan, The Age
All the Ways to Be Smart by Davina Bell explores multiple intelligences in a way that small children can understand and appreciate. Every child is smart in his or her own way. Some of the ways highlighted in a pleasing rhyme include creativity, physical activities, music, emotional sensitivity, memorising information, math, and traditional academic knowledge ... The illustrations by Allison Colpoys are colourful and inviting, reminiscent of the early Dr. Seuss style ... This is a charming book to help children understand that everyone has special skills and talents.
Catholic Library Journal
What does it mean to be smart? This beautiful book inventories all the unique, not-so-academic ways a person might be smart throughout their day; from being good at taking risks, to being kind, or knowing how to sit quietly and observe. A welcome message that is a delight to share with students with its gentle and warm rhyming text. The illustrations depict a wide array of diverse people and creatures in colourful scenes that take up the whole page. A gorgeous addition to school and public libraries, and a lovely gift for any child.
Southeast Pennsylvania School Library Book Reviewers
For any child who has ever worried about being ‘smart’, Australian author Bell and artist Colpoys offer an expansive, reassuring look at the many ways there are to be that way ... The energy of Bell’s rhyming couplets reflects the very inventiveness the book celebrates, the ebullience of kids’ imagination, emotional intelligence and practical talents. Climbing trees, making slime, inventing games ... Colpoys’ illustrations, showing a busy, multiracial, multi-gifted cast, convey joyous variety and abundant compassion.
Toronto Star
What does it mean to be smart? This beautiful book inventories all the unique, not-so-academic ways a person might be smart throughout their day; from being good at taking risks, to being kind, or knowing how to sit quietly and observe. A welcome message that is a delight to share with students with it’s gentle and warm rhyming text. The illustrations depict a wide array of diverse people and creatures in colourful scenes that take up the whole page. A gorgeous addition to school and public libraries, and a lovely gift for any child.
SE Pennsylvania School Library Book Review
This book celebrates the myriad ways one can be smart — knowing the right thing to say, being welcoming to a shy friend, using your imagination, taking chances. A needed reassurance that tests can’t measure everything, and that we need all kinds of kids to create a smart and inventive world. This book is comforting, inspiring, and fun!
Bethany Strout, Staff Pick, Tattered Cover
An important reminder for readers of all ages that there are so many wonderful ways to be smart. Vibrant colours and charming whimsical illustrations fill the pages with character, and the rhythmic, rhyming text makes it a delight to read out loud. A necessary and joyful celebration of all the different things that we can do, from ‘reading, writing, spelling’ to ‘caring, sharing, scaring’ to my personal favourite ‘drawing very pointy stars’.
Sarah R., Staff Pick, Powell’s
This should be required reading — in families, at workplaces, in schools. I love this beautiful, confidence-building book. I think everyone will find something here to make them feel better about themselves (and appreciate those around them).
Tegan Tigani, Bookseller Review, Queen Anne Book Company
[G]orgeous, accessible, simple, true and brilliant. Everything I want in a picture book.
Jessica Peterson White, Bookseller Review, Content Book Store
I remember feeling so frustrated as a child because I wanted there to be more than one meaning of ‘smart’. This book validates how everyone is smart in their own unique way. I want to share this book with every child (and adult!)
Lafe Cantrall, Bookseller Review, Oblong Books & Music
Smart is as unique as each of us and there are infinite ways to be smart. What if we all grew up with this message, imagine the doors it would open and the opportunities it would provide. One of the most pivotal messages that children need to har and illustrated with a brilliant spectrum of colours that leap from the page and right into the heart.
Jesica Sweedler DeHart, Librarian Review, Neill Public Library
It’s a great resource for raising confident, happy kids who love themselves and others!
Dani Maher, Kidspot
Books+Publishing
The book, All the Ways to Be Smart, aims to teach children that there is more to being smart than reading to maths and encourages the pursuit of the arts.
The Leader
This book is funny and tender, exuberant and whimsical, and an absolute joy to pore over … Colpoys’ distinctive illustrations fizz with her trademark charm and vivacity; the colours burst out of the page with wild abandonment.
Bronte Coates, Readings
Joyful and vibrant … Allison Colpoys’ illustrations shimmer with movement and vivacity, with her loose-line illustrations and selective colour palette exuding a nostalgic retro charm. Children will want to pore over each page, while the seamless read-out-loud rhyming pattern will ensure this is a favourite for years to come.
Kids’ Book Review
This collaboration between Davina Bell and Alison Colpoys is a celebration of what makes us us, of the strengths that we all have within ourselves – whether we’re dreamers, adventurers, readers or artists … The illustrations are whimsical and fun, with a beautiful colour palette.
Noveltea Corner
All The Ways to be Smart is the most beautiful, brilliant new picture book. Full stop. Charming illustrations in pretty, appealing colours? Check. Great rhyming text that is super fun to read aloud? Check. A wonderful message conveyed in a beautiful non-judgey way? Check. The book is a joyful celebration of childhood and all the different, unique ways to be smart.
Courtney Adamo, Babyccino
This book needs to be in the hands of every policy-maker in the sphere of Education, in every classroom, in every library, and in every home … This book is an utterly glorious call to celebrate your strengths and your own unique smarts.
Oh Creative Day
After a colourful, rollicking, joyful, rhyming read there is only one word for this book: wise. Good scores in a test are great but the importance of celebrating the creative, collaborative and just plain quirky things that make us emotionally intelligent and well-rounded could not have been better portrayed.
Readings ‘Best Picture Books of 2018’
A celebration of creativity and emotional intelligence featuring a diverse cast of kids. A reassuring read for primary-aged children who feel like a round peg in a square, academic hole.
Philippa Chandler, Guardian Australia
From the dynamic partnership of Davina Bell and Allison Colpoys comes a tender, funny, and exquisitely illustrated picture book celebrating the myriad talents that each child brings to the world, from being able to read or tell the time to being good at blowing bubbles.
Good Reading
This book teaches children that intelligence is so much more than being book-smart. Intelligence can also mean being empathetic, artistic, athletic, and inquisitive. It places value in every kind of talent, from ‘building boats from boxes’ to ‘kindness when there’s crying’. All the Ways to Be Smart is the perfect feel-good bedtime story that I can’t wait to gift this Christmas.
Sherry Landow, Writing NSW
All the Ways to Be Smart by Davina Bell and Allison Colpoys (Scribe) is a joyous picture book that enthusiastically celebrates the power of the imagination while challenging stereotypes about what it means to be clever. With its flawless rhymes and winning illustrations, this book has all the makings of a classic.
Sydney Morning Herald
I think this unique book with colourful illustrations by Allison Colpoys can help children feel proud of what makes them special.
Mummy in the City
Simple, flowing words coupled with fluorescent illustrations (created from ink, charcoal, and pencil, then digitally assembled) give young readers a book brimming with examples of how they are smart all day, every day … Realistic illustrations show children of varying racial presentations joining sentient animals and benign, hairy monsters to confidently explore their world, real and imagined.
Kirkus Reviews
In this cheerful exploration of all the nonstandard ways a person can be smart, the creators paint an expansive picture of intelligence that goes well beyond ‘being best/at spelling bees,/a tricky test.’ ... Colpoys’s ink, charcoal, and pencil drawings burst with a profusion of neon orange and green, literally highlighting each scene with an incandescence that more than matches the rhyming couplets’ jauntiness. A feel-good paean to individuality.
Publishers Weekly
Brilliant.
Mariela Summerhays, Buzzfeed Australia
This illustrated picture book is an ode the unique and wonderful qualities that make children who they are. It celebrates the special strengths, skills and passions in each of us.
Fiona Stager, Tweed Daily News
A picture book that is joyous, life-affirming, and challenges stereotypes about what it means to be clever.
Jane Sullivan, The Age
All the Ways to Be Smart by Davina Bell explores multiple intelligences in a way that small children can understand and appreciate. Every child is smart in his or her own way. Some of the ways highlighted in a pleasing rhyme include creativity, physical activities, music, emotional sensitivity, memorising information, math, and traditional academic knowledge ... The illustrations by Allison Colpoys are colourful and inviting, reminiscent of the early Dr. Seuss style ... This is a charming book to help children understand that everyone has special skills and talents.
Catholic Library Journal
What does it mean to be smart? This beautiful book inventories all the unique, not-so-academic ways a person might be smart throughout their day; from being good at taking risks, to being kind, or knowing how to sit quietly and observe. A welcome message that is a delight to share with students with its gentle and warm rhyming text. The illustrations depict a wide array of diverse people and creatures in colourful scenes that take up the whole page. A gorgeous addition to school and public libraries, and a lovely gift for any child.
Southeast Pennsylvania School Library Book Reviewers
For any child who has ever worried about being ‘smart’, Australian author Bell and artist Colpoys offer an expansive, reassuring look at the many ways there are to be that way ... The energy of Bell’s rhyming couplets reflects the very inventiveness the book celebrates, the ebullience of kids’ imagination, emotional intelligence and practical talents. Climbing trees, making slime, inventing games ... Colpoys’ illustrations, showing a busy, multiracial, multi-gifted cast, convey joyous variety and abundant compassion.
Toronto Star
What does it mean to be smart? This beautiful book inventories all the unique, not-so-academic ways a person might be smart throughout their day; from being good at taking risks, to being kind, or knowing how to sit quietly and observe. A welcome message that is a delight to share with students with it’s gentle and warm rhyming text. The illustrations depict a wide array of diverse people and creatures in colourful scenes that take up the whole page. A gorgeous addition to school and public libraries, and a lovely gift for any child.
SE Pennsylvania School Library Book Review
This book celebrates the myriad ways one can be smart — knowing the right thing to say, being welcoming to a shy friend, using your imagination, taking chances. A needed reassurance that tests can’t measure everything, and that we need all kinds of kids to create a smart and inventive world. This book is comforting, inspiring, and fun!
Bethany Strout, Staff Pick, Tattered Cover
An important reminder for readers of all ages that there are so many wonderful ways to be smart. Vibrant colours and charming whimsical illustrations fill the pages with character, and the rhythmic, rhyming text makes it a delight to read out loud. A necessary and joyful celebration of all the different things that we can do, from ‘reading, writing, spelling’ to ‘caring, sharing, scaring’ to my personal favourite ‘drawing very pointy stars’.
Sarah R., Staff Pick, Powell’s
This should be required reading — in families, at workplaces, in schools. I love this beautiful, confidence-building book. I think everyone will find something here to make them feel better about themselves (and appreciate those around them).
Tegan Tigani, Bookseller Review, Queen Anne Book Company
[G]orgeous, accessible, simple, true and brilliant. Everything I want in a picture book.
Jessica Peterson White, Bookseller Review, Content Book Store
I remember feeling so frustrated as a child because I wanted there to be more than one meaning of ‘smart’. This book validates how everyone is smart in their own unique way. I want to share this book with every child (and adult!)
Lafe Cantrall, Bookseller Review, Oblong Books & Music
Smart is as unique as each of us and there are infinite ways to be smart. What if we all grew up with this message, imagine the doors it would open and the opportunities it would provide. One of the most pivotal messages that children need to har and illustrated with a brilliant spectrum of colours that leap from the page and right into the heart.
Jesica Sweedler DeHart, Librarian Review, Neill Public Library
It’s a great resource for raising confident, happy kids who love themselves and others!
Dani Maher, Kidspot
What Doesn't Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength by Scott Carney
Scott Carney is so curious about getting to the truth of things that he is willing to endure great pain and suffering to get there. While investigating the controversial methods of Wim Hof and others operating on the scientific fringe, Carney entered a skeptic yet emerged a true believer. In What Doesn't Kill Us, readers get to follow him along on his transformational journey, and the insights are truly fascinating. Informative, fun, and with a healthy degree of danger, this is a book for the adventurer in all of us.
Gabrielle Reece, Co-Founder of XPT (Extreme Performance Training)
The further we get from the harsh environmental conditions that once threatened our existence, the more we need them. I see this every weekend at a Spartan Race somewhere in the world. Millions of otherwise sane people line up to suffer and push themselves to their physical limits, and it feels good. What Doesn't Kill Us is a fascinating investigation into the innate urge that drives people like these, and reveals how some have managed to use environmental conditioning to accomplish truly extraordinary things.
Joe Desena, Founder of Spartan Race
As a Navy SEAL, you live by the mantra, ‘what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger.’ We would hear this phrase and repeat it, but we never had any proof that it was factual. Yet through comprehensive study, Scott Carney has brilliantly documented how engaging in environmental conditioning, breathing, meditation, and other techniques can actually make us physically and mentally stronger. What Doesn’t Kill Us is a fascinating book that will captivate all who read it and that will be of immense value to those in the military, those who are active in sports, and those who seek an alternate means of developing greater mental and physical strength.
Don D. Mann, New York Times bestselling author of Inside Seal Team Six
Damn fun and extremely well-researched, What Doesn’t Kill Us is a great addition to the canon of high performance literature!
Steven Kotler, New York Times bestselling author of Abundance and the Rise of Superman
When it’s cold outside, do you turn the heating up? Do you always put a coat on before going out? Do you think your comfortable life is good for you? If so, you have to read Scott Carney’s What Doesn't Kill Us. Through some great stories which often involve Carney trudging through snow without much on ? and some serious research, he shows us how to escape the bland, shuffling gait of our centrally-heated, fleece-jacketed, molly-coddled lives by diving head-first into the ice-cold, axe-sharp, scary experiences that made our ancestors’ hearts beat faster every day. If we do that, we can awaken from the dull slumber of modern life and open our eyes to a better, healthier dawn of crisp air, better circulation, and the ability to truly mean it when we say: I'm alive. Buy this book, and you'll emerge a stronger, healthier, more human human.
James Wallman, author of Stuffocation
Climbing a mountain in nothing but a pair of shorts seems idiotic to most, but for Wim Hof and his companions, it’s just another day. When investigative journalist and anthropologist Carney heard about Hof’s mind-boggling methods and claims that he could ‘hack’ the human body, he knew he had to venture to Poland to expose this fraud. But in just a few days, Hof changed Carney’s mind, and so began a friendship and a new adventure. Carney now chronicles his journey to push himself mentally and physically using Wim Hof’s method of cold exposure, breath-holding, and meditation to tap into our primal selves. Our ancestors survived harsh conditions without modern technology, while we live in comfortable bubbles with little to struggle against and wonder how they survived. The question is, ‘What happens when we push our bodies to the limit?’ Carney calls on evolutionary biology and other modern scientific disciplines to explore and explain Hof’s unconventional methods. Fresh and exciting, this book has wide appeal for readers interested in health, sports, self-improvement, and extreme challenges.
Booklist
As this engaging autoethnography relates, anthropologist and investigative journalist Carney was skeptical upon encountering a photo of a nearly naked Wim Hof sitting on a glacier in the Arctic Circle. Hof, a Dutch fitness guru who runs a training camp in Poland’s wilderness, claims he can control his body temperature and immune system solely with his mind; though Carney set out to prove Hof a charlatan, he was instead won over. Carney documents his interactions with Hof and the many others who have learned to control their bodies in seemingly impossible ways: he learned Hof’s breathing techniques for tricking the body into doing things it isn’t evolutionarily designed for, and underwent training to face extreme cold while barely clothed. It is this training that enables Hof and Carney to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro in 28 hours while wearing shorts. This is part guide and part popular science book; readers will learn about how Neanderthals used the body’s ‘brown fat’ to keep warm and how exposure nearly reverses the symptoms of diabetes. The accomplishments Carney documents are unbelievable and fascinating; this isn’t a how-to for those looking to perform extraordinary feats, but it is an entertaining account that will appeal to the adventurous.
Publishers Weekly
[Wim Hof] has become a phenomenon, and Carney is an entertaining guide to his world and his followers.
The Times ‘Book of the Week’
I always knew that jumping into freezing water makes you feel brilliant afterwards, but now I know why.
William Leith, The Spectator
The narrative is filled with personal details that will engage, astonish, and even repel readers … Couch potatoes take warning: the experiences described in this testimonial are often tough to read about, and the conclusions, while sometimes convincing, might best be taken with a touch of skepticism.
Kirkus Reviews
Carney writes with considerable narrative verve, slamming home the misery of what he has witnessed with passion and visceral detail.
The New York Times
Gabrielle Reece, Co-Founder of XPT (Extreme Performance Training)
The further we get from the harsh environmental conditions that once threatened our existence, the more we need them. I see this every weekend at a Spartan Race somewhere in the world. Millions of otherwise sane people line up to suffer and push themselves to their physical limits, and it feels good. What Doesn't Kill Us is a fascinating investigation into the innate urge that drives people like these, and reveals how some have managed to use environmental conditioning to accomplish truly extraordinary things.
Joe Desena, Founder of Spartan Race
As a Navy SEAL, you live by the mantra, ‘what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger.’ We would hear this phrase and repeat it, but we never had any proof that it was factual. Yet through comprehensive study, Scott Carney has brilliantly documented how engaging in environmental conditioning, breathing, meditation, and other techniques can actually make us physically and mentally stronger. What Doesn’t Kill Us is a fascinating book that will captivate all who read it and that will be of immense value to those in the military, those who are active in sports, and those who seek an alternate means of developing greater mental and physical strength.
Don D. Mann, New York Times bestselling author of Inside Seal Team Six
Damn fun and extremely well-researched, What Doesn’t Kill Us is a great addition to the canon of high performance literature!
Steven Kotler, New York Times bestselling author of Abundance and the Rise of Superman
When it’s cold outside, do you turn the heating up? Do you always put a coat on before going out? Do you think your comfortable life is good for you? If so, you have to read Scott Carney’s What Doesn't Kill Us. Through some great stories which often involve Carney trudging through snow without much on ? and some serious research, he shows us how to escape the bland, shuffling gait of our centrally-heated, fleece-jacketed, molly-coddled lives by diving head-first into the ice-cold, axe-sharp, scary experiences that made our ancestors’ hearts beat faster every day. If we do that, we can awaken from the dull slumber of modern life and open our eyes to a better, healthier dawn of crisp air, better circulation, and the ability to truly mean it when we say: I'm alive. Buy this book, and you'll emerge a stronger, healthier, more human human.
James Wallman, author of Stuffocation
Climbing a mountain in nothing but a pair of shorts seems idiotic to most, but for Wim Hof and his companions, it’s just another day. When investigative journalist and anthropologist Carney heard about Hof’s mind-boggling methods and claims that he could ‘hack’ the human body, he knew he had to venture to Poland to expose this fraud. But in just a few days, Hof changed Carney’s mind, and so began a friendship and a new adventure. Carney now chronicles his journey to push himself mentally and physically using Wim Hof’s method of cold exposure, breath-holding, and meditation to tap into our primal selves. Our ancestors survived harsh conditions without modern technology, while we live in comfortable bubbles with little to struggle against and wonder how they survived. The question is, ‘What happens when we push our bodies to the limit?’ Carney calls on evolutionary biology and other modern scientific disciplines to explore and explain Hof’s unconventional methods. Fresh and exciting, this book has wide appeal for readers interested in health, sports, self-improvement, and extreme challenges.
Booklist
As this engaging autoethnography relates, anthropologist and investigative journalist Carney was skeptical upon encountering a photo of a nearly naked Wim Hof sitting on a glacier in the Arctic Circle. Hof, a Dutch fitness guru who runs a training camp in Poland’s wilderness, claims he can control his body temperature and immune system solely with his mind; though Carney set out to prove Hof a charlatan, he was instead won over. Carney documents his interactions with Hof and the many others who have learned to control their bodies in seemingly impossible ways: he learned Hof’s breathing techniques for tricking the body into doing things it isn’t evolutionarily designed for, and underwent training to face extreme cold while barely clothed. It is this training that enables Hof and Carney to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro in 28 hours while wearing shorts. This is part guide and part popular science book; readers will learn about how Neanderthals used the body’s ‘brown fat’ to keep warm and how exposure nearly reverses the symptoms of diabetes. The accomplishments Carney documents are unbelievable and fascinating; this isn’t a how-to for those looking to perform extraordinary feats, but it is an entertaining account that will appeal to the adventurous.
Publishers Weekly
[Wim Hof] has become a phenomenon, and Carney is an entertaining guide to his world and his followers.
The Times ‘Book of the Week’
I always knew that jumping into freezing water makes you feel brilliant afterwards, but now I know why.
William Leith, The Spectator
The narrative is filled with personal details that will engage, astonish, and even repel readers … Couch potatoes take warning: the experiences described in this testimonial are often tough to read about, and the conclusions, while sometimes convincing, might best be taken with a touch of skepticism.
Kirkus Reviews
Carney writes with considerable narrative verve, slamming home the misery of what he has witnessed with passion and visceral detail.
The New York Times
Superbugs: the race to stop an epidemic by Matt McCarthy
A perfect work of popular science. Like Atul Gawande, Matt McCarthy has the magical ability to transmit deeply technical knowledge in a way that makes the reader feel like part of a high-level professional conversation; like Michael Lewis, a gift for the place where big ideas overlap; like Elizabeth Kolbert, a sense of narrative urgency about the state of the present world that makes anything outside its pages seem trivial. Magnificent.
Charles Finch, Winner of National Book Critic Circle Award
There might not be another author who so fluidly combines a world-class doctor and researcher's knowledge and experience with a memoirist’s sensibility. Matt McCarthy is Siddhartha Mukherjee and David Sedaris rolled into one. Who else but McCarthy could write a dispatch from the front lines of the secret fight for the future of the human race that is not just gripping and illuminating, but also poignant and funny?
Ben Reiter, New York Times Bestselling Author of Astroball
Intriguing ... This book discusses many big things, along with microscopic ones, and the two combine to provide a valuable insight to a challenge facing us all, whether doctor or patient.
Robin Osborne, GPSpeak
It is a fascinating read, enhanced by his detours into medical history ... McCarthy can wring suspense from fungal infection and faculty meetings.
Jenny Nicholls, North and South
Mostly heart-breaking, but at times laugh-out-loud funny … Superbugs is an immersive and educational read that combines feelings of futility with a sense of hope at just the right moments.
Anna Kosmynina, COSMOS
A riveting insider’s look at the race to find a cure for antibiotic-resistant infections, one of the most pressing challenges in modern medicine … The author’s storytelling is at once urgent and empathetic, a compelling combination that leaves readers feeling informed and optimistic. Insightful and honest, McCarthy effectively combines useful information about the latest advances in microbial research with accounts of the best aspects of humanity.
Kirkus Reviews
McCarthy gives an insider’s look at the history of antibiotics and the urgent fight against deadly, drug-resistant bacteria.
People
Dr. McCarthy offers a glimmer of hope: a new way to both cure and prevent future superbug infections with a single treatment.
Christian Broadcasting Network
McCarthy weaves the history of the life-saving drugs into a suspenseful account of his own role in a groundbreaking clinical trial.
The Boston Globe Magazine
It may sound like another sci-fi superhero movie, but physician and author Matt McCarthy warns that the topic of lethal bacteria is not to be taken lightly … McCarthy explains how these pathogens have built up a resistance to our current arsenal of antibiotics.
NPR’s All Things Considered
Cutting-edge science.
Twin Cities Pioneer Press
Sheds a lot of light on an issue that should be in the public consciousness.
SF Gate
Incredibly interesting with a good mix of the scientific and human aspects … McCarthy also goes into the history of antibiotic development and the economics of today’s drug development that limit the research for new antimicrobials … The book is easy to read, and never dull due to the patient interactions. McCarthy explains novel concepts in a simple, easy to understand way.
Sam Still Reading
Charles Finch, Winner of National Book Critic Circle Award
There might not be another author who so fluidly combines a world-class doctor and researcher's knowledge and experience with a memoirist’s sensibility. Matt McCarthy is Siddhartha Mukherjee and David Sedaris rolled into one. Who else but McCarthy could write a dispatch from the front lines of the secret fight for the future of the human race that is not just gripping and illuminating, but also poignant and funny?
Ben Reiter, New York Times Bestselling Author of Astroball
Intriguing ... This book discusses many big things, along with microscopic ones, and the two combine to provide a valuable insight to a challenge facing us all, whether doctor or patient.
Robin Osborne, GPSpeak
It is a fascinating read, enhanced by his detours into medical history ... McCarthy can wring suspense from fungal infection and faculty meetings.
Jenny Nicholls, North and South
Mostly heart-breaking, but at times laugh-out-loud funny … Superbugs is an immersive and educational read that combines feelings of futility with a sense of hope at just the right moments.
Anna Kosmynina, COSMOS
A riveting insider’s look at the race to find a cure for antibiotic-resistant infections, one of the most pressing challenges in modern medicine … The author’s storytelling is at once urgent and empathetic, a compelling combination that leaves readers feeling informed and optimistic. Insightful and honest, McCarthy effectively combines useful information about the latest advances in microbial research with accounts of the best aspects of humanity.
Kirkus Reviews
McCarthy gives an insider’s look at the history of antibiotics and the urgent fight against deadly, drug-resistant bacteria.
People
Dr. McCarthy offers a glimmer of hope: a new way to both cure and prevent future superbug infections with a single treatment.
Christian Broadcasting Network
McCarthy weaves the history of the life-saving drugs into a suspenseful account of his own role in a groundbreaking clinical trial.
The Boston Globe Magazine
It may sound like another sci-fi superhero movie, but physician and author Matt McCarthy warns that the topic of lethal bacteria is not to be taken lightly … McCarthy explains how these pathogens have built up a resistance to our current arsenal of antibiotics.
NPR’s All Things Considered
Cutting-edge science.
Twin Cities Pioneer Press
Sheds a lot of light on an issue that should be in the public consciousness.
SF Gate
Incredibly interesting with a good mix of the scientific and human aspects … McCarthy also goes into the history of antibiotic development and the economics of today’s drug development that limit the research for new antimicrobials … The book is easy to read, and never dull due to the patient interactions. McCarthy explains novel concepts in a simple, easy to understand way.
Sam Still Reading
Superbugs: The Race to Stop an Epidemic by Matt McCarthy
A perfect work of popular science. Like Atul Gawande, Matt McCarthy has the magical ability to transmit deeply technical knowledge in a way that makes the reader feel like part of a high-level professional conversation; like Michael Lewis, a gift for the place where big ideas overlap; like Elizabeth Kolbert, a sense of narrative urgency about the state of the present world that makes anything outside its pages seem trivial. Magnificent.
Charles Finch, Winner of National Book Critic Circle Award
There might not be another author who so fluidly combines a world-class doctor and researcher's knowledge and experience with a memoirist’s sensibility. Matt McCarthy is Siddhartha Mukherjee and David Sedaris rolled into one. Who else but McCarthy could write a dispatch from the front lines of the secret fight for the future of the human race that is not just gripping and illuminating, but also poignant and funny?
Ben Reiter, New York Times Bestselling Author of Astroball
Intriguing ... This book discusses many big things, along with microscopic ones, and the two combine to provide a valuable insight to a challenge facing us all, whether doctor or patient.
Robin Osborne, GPSpeak
It is a fascinating read, enhanced by his detours into medical history ... McCarthy can wring suspense from fungal infection and faculty meetings.
Jenny Nicholls, North and South
Mostly heart-breaking, but at times laugh-out-loud funny … Superbugs is an immersive and educational read that combines feelings of futility with a sense of hope at just the right moments.
Anna Kosmynina, COSMOS
A riveting insider’s look at the race to find a cure for antibiotic-resistant infections, one of the most pressing challenges in modern medicine … The author’s storytelling is at once urgent and empathetic, a compelling combination that leaves readers feeling informed and optimistic. Insightful and honest, McCarthy effectively combines useful information about the latest advances in microbial research with accounts of the best aspects of humanity.
Kirkus Reviews
McCarthy gives an insider’s look at the history of antibiotics and the urgent fight against deadly, drug-resistant bacteria.
People
Dr. McCarthy offers a glimmer of hope: a new way to both cure and prevent future superbug infections with a single treatment.
Christian Broadcasting Network
McCarthy weaves the history of the life-saving drugs into a suspenseful account of his own role in a groundbreaking clinical trial.
The Boston Globe Magazine
It may sound like another sci-fi superhero movie, but physician and author Matt McCarthy warns that the topic of lethal bacteria is not to be taken lightly … McCarthy explains how these pathogens have built up a resistance to our current arsenal of antibiotics.
NPR’s All Things Considered
Cutting-edge science.
Twin Cities Pioneer Press
Sheds a lot of light on an issue that should be in the public consciousness.
SF Gate
Incredibly interesting with a good mix of the scientific and human aspects … McCarthy also goes into the history of antibiotic development and the economics of today’s drug development that limit the research for new antimicrobials … The book is easy to read, and never dull due to the patient interactions. McCarthy explains novel concepts in a simple, easy to understand way.
Sam Still Reading
Charles Finch, Winner of National Book Critic Circle Award
There might not be another author who so fluidly combines a world-class doctor and researcher's knowledge and experience with a memoirist’s sensibility. Matt McCarthy is Siddhartha Mukherjee and David Sedaris rolled into one. Who else but McCarthy could write a dispatch from the front lines of the secret fight for the future of the human race that is not just gripping and illuminating, but also poignant and funny?
Ben Reiter, New York Times Bestselling Author of Astroball
Intriguing ... This book discusses many big things, along with microscopic ones, and the two combine to provide a valuable insight to a challenge facing us all, whether doctor or patient.
Robin Osborne, GPSpeak
It is a fascinating read, enhanced by his detours into medical history ... McCarthy can wring suspense from fungal infection and faculty meetings.
Jenny Nicholls, North and South
Mostly heart-breaking, but at times laugh-out-loud funny … Superbugs is an immersive and educational read that combines feelings of futility with a sense of hope at just the right moments.
Anna Kosmynina, COSMOS
A riveting insider’s look at the race to find a cure for antibiotic-resistant infections, one of the most pressing challenges in modern medicine … The author’s storytelling is at once urgent and empathetic, a compelling combination that leaves readers feeling informed and optimistic. Insightful and honest, McCarthy effectively combines useful information about the latest advances in microbial research with accounts of the best aspects of humanity.
Kirkus Reviews
McCarthy gives an insider’s look at the history of antibiotics and the urgent fight against deadly, drug-resistant bacteria.
People
Dr. McCarthy offers a glimmer of hope: a new way to both cure and prevent future superbug infections with a single treatment.
Christian Broadcasting Network
McCarthy weaves the history of the life-saving drugs into a suspenseful account of his own role in a groundbreaking clinical trial.
The Boston Globe Magazine
It may sound like another sci-fi superhero movie, but physician and author Matt McCarthy warns that the topic of lethal bacteria is not to be taken lightly … McCarthy explains how these pathogens have built up a resistance to our current arsenal of antibiotics.
NPR’s All Things Considered
Cutting-edge science.
Twin Cities Pioneer Press
Sheds a lot of light on an issue that should be in the public consciousness.
SF Gate
Incredibly interesting with a good mix of the scientific and human aspects … McCarthy also goes into the history of antibiotic development and the economics of today’s drug development that limit the research for new antimicrobials … The book is easy to read, and never dull due to the patient interactions. McCarthy explains novel concepts in a simple, easy to understand way.
Sam Still Reading
Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? by Thomas Frank
What makes Frank’s book new, different and important is its offer of a compelling theory as to how and why the party of Jefferson, Jackson and Roosevelt is now so unlikely to champion the economic needs of everyday people . . . In such a looking-glass world, Listen, Liberal is a desperately needed corrective.
History News Network
In his new book, progressive commentator Thomas Frank says Democrats need to take a good long look in the mirror if they want answers to why blue-collar workers are feeling abandoned and even infuriated by what used to be their party.
New York Posy
Over the past four decades, Frank argues, the Democrats have embraced a new favorite constituency: the professional class ? the doctors, lawyers, engineers, programmers, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, financiers and other so-called creatives whose fetish for academic credentials and technological innovation has infected the party of the working class . . . For that class, Frank argues, income and wealth inequality is not a problem but an inevitable condition.
Washington Post
An astute dissection of contemporary Democratic politics that demonstrates, cogently and at times acidly, how the party lost the allegiance of blue-collar Americans.
Publishers Weekly
A tough and thought-provoking look at what’s wrong with America . . . Frank puts forth an impressive catalog of Democratic disappointments, more than enough to make liberals uncomfortable.
Booklist
Thomas Frank’s new book Listen, Liberal documents a half-century of work by the Democratic elite to belittle working people and exile their concerns to the fringes of the party’s platform. If the prevailing ideology of the Republican establishment is that of a sneering aristocracy, Democratic elites are all too often the purveyors of a smirking meritocracy that offers working people very little.
Huffington Post
As with Frank’s other books, Listen, Liberal is a piece of contemporary history that tells us not only what the powerful are up to, but how the trick is being pulled, with an admirable deployment of irony. . . While his previous books are essentially about devils being devils, this one shows how the angels have fallen further than they realise.
Prospect
A must-read.
Naomi Klein
Thoroughly entertaining … An unabashed polemic … Frank delights in skewering the sacred cows of coastal liberalism, including private universities, bike paths, microfinance, the Clinton Foundation, “well-meaning billionaires” and any public policy offering “innovation” or “education” as a solution to inequality.
New York Times Book Review
A must-read for entrepreneurs who want to understand what's happening this year in politics and business.
inc.com
An impassioned howl of rage at what Frank sees as the Democratic Party’s abandonment of the people it used to represent.
Shaun Ley, BBC Radio 4, ‘The World Tonight’
[A] detailed, thoroughly researched polemic.
The Huffington Post
What makes Frank’s book new, different and important is its offer of a compelling theory as to how and why the party of Jefferson, Jackson and Roosevelt is now so unlikely to champion the economic needs of everyday people … In such a looking-glass world, Listen, Liberal is a desperately needed corrective.
History News Network
Important … Engaging … An edgy — even disturbing — analysis of the Democratic Party’s jilting of its traditional base.
The National Book Review
Progressive commentator Thomas Frank says Democrats need to take a good long look in the mirror if they want answers to why blue-collar workers are feeling abandoned and even infuriated by what used to be their party.
New York Post
Democrats often use the fact that Republicans have gone off the deep end to ignore their left flank, on the grounds that those liberals have nowhere else to go politically. Listen, Liberal contributes to the literature that expresses deep frustration with that decision, the fuel for a revolt.
The Fiscal Times
History News Network
In his new book, progressive commentator Thomas Frank says Democrats need to take a good long look in the mirror if they want answers to why blue-collar workers are feeling abandoned and even infuriated by what used to be their party.
New York Posy
Over the past four decades, Frank argues, the Democrats have embraced a new favorite constituency: the professional class ? the doctors, lawyers, engineers, programmers, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, financiers and other so-called creatives whose fetish for academic credentials and technological innovation has infected the party of the working class . . . For that class, Frank argues, income and wealth inequality is not a problem but an inevitable condition.
Washington Post
An astute dissection of contemporary Democratic politics that demonstrates, cogently and at times acidly, how the party lost the allegiance of blue-collar Americans.
Publishers Weekly
A tough and thought-provoking look at what’s wrong with America . . . Frank puts forth an impressive catalog of Democratic disappointments, more than enough to make liberals uncomfortable.
Booklist
Thomas Frank’s new book Listen, Liberal documents a half-century of work by the Democratic elite to belittle working people and exile their concerns to the fringes of the party’s platform. If the prevailing ideology of the Republican establishment is that of a sneering aristocracy, Democratic elites are all too often the purveyors of a smirking meritocracy that offers working people very little.
Huffington Post
As with Frank’s other books, Listen, Liberal is a piece of contemporary history that tells us not only what the powerful are up to, but how the trick is being pulled, with an admirable deployment of irony. . . While his previous books are essentially about devils being devils, this one shows how the angels have fallen further than they realise.
Prospect
A must-read.
Naomi Klein
Thoroughly entertaining … An unabashed polemic … Frank delights in skewering the sacred cows of coastal liberalism, including private universities, bike paths, microfinance, the Clinton Foundation, “well-meaning billionaires” and any public policy offering “innovation” or “education” as a solution to inequality.
New York Times Book Review
A must-read for entrepreneurs who want to understand what's happening this year in politics and business.
inc.com
An impassioned howl of rage at what Frank sees as the Democratic Party’s abandonment of the people it used to represent.
Shaun Ley, BBC Radio 4, ‘The World Tonight’
[A] detailed, thoroughly researched polemic.
The Huffington Post
What makes Frank’s book new, different and important is its offer of a compelling theory as to how and why the party of Jefferson, Jackson and Roosevelt is now so unlikely to champion the economic needs of everyday people … In such a looking-glass world, Listen, Liberal is a desperately needed corrective.
History News Network
Important … Engaging … An edgy — even disturbing — analysis of the Democratic Party’s jilting of its traditional base.
The National Book Review
Progressive commentator Thomas Frank says Democrats need to take a good long look in the mirror if they want answers to why blue-collar workers are feeling abandoned and even infuriated by what used to be their party.
New York Post
Democrats often use the fact that Republicans have gone off the deep end to ignore their left flank, on the grounds that those liberals have nowhere else to go politically. Listen, Liberal contributes to the literature that expresses deep frustration with that decision, the fuel for a revolt.
The Fiscal Times