reviews him away from medicine and into the realm of literature. Goetz weaves together a compelling narrative, chronicling the struggle to find the causes and cures for some of the most ferocious diseases that have stalked humans (and animals) through time: cholera, smallpox, anthrax and tuberculosis. In The Remedy we meet not just Koch and Doyle, but Louis Pasteur, whose public feud with Koch about anthrax helped to energize scientific breakthroughs in both men’s labs. Perhaps most importantly, The Remedy reminds us of how far we have come, and how much we take for granted in modern medicine. Tuberculosis is still very much with us. Just as we thought we had bested the bacterium, multi-drug-resistant TB has emerged. As Goetz reminds us, in the end, “The bacteria precede us. They outnumber us. And they will outlast us.” —DEBORAH HOPKINSON
NEW LIFE, NO INSTRUCTIONS By Gail Caldwell
Random House $23, 176 pages ISBN 9781400069545 Audio, eBook available
MEMOIR
NONFICTION ized in Caldwell’s unforgettable Let’s Take the Long Way Home) and her beloved dog, Clementine. Now she’s at a crossroads. How can she keep moving forward when she struggles to even climb her stairs? Then, to Caldwell’s surprise, a new doctor suggests that a total hip replacement would take away the chronic physical pain that has come to dominate her life. And her new puppy, a Samoyed named Tula, fills her with joy. As Caldwell’s physical body changes, new possibilities are presented for her emotional life. What I like best about this book is its refusal to compartmentalize. We often think of the body as being separated from the mind, and (more importantly) the heart. Caldwell’s story forces us to think otherwise. It interweaves reflections on everything from dogs to disease, from the loss of loved ones to the pleasures and pains of new beginnings. New Life, No Instructions shows us how a lot of little things—shifted perspectives about memories, a new puppy, dear friends and a height increase of just over half an inch— add up to something much more significant: a new life, embarked upon and embraced. — K E L LY B L E W E T T
GANDHI BEFORE INDIA
R E A D M O R E AT B O O K PA G E . C O M
By Ramachandra Guha
26
Sometimes things happen in life that change one’s perspective. Literally. For Gail Caldwell, hip surgery made her five-eighths of an inch taller. It was a new view, and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Caldwell had suffered from polio as a child, and for years she attributed her slight limp and growing physical pain to the disease. Though she acknowledged that polio was rough, Caldwell refused to see herself as anything but a survivor. In a new memoir, New Life, No Instructions, she traces how she arrived at this crucial self-perception—the influence of her father, her own stubbornness, the meticulous maintenance of a “tough girl” persona. But at nearly 60, the jig seems up. Caldwell’s old physical routines (long swims, walks with big dogs, rowing) seem increasingly untenable. And she’s suffered a series of deep losses—her parents, her close friend Caroline (memorial-
Knopf $35, 688 pages ISBN 9780385532297 eBook available
BIOGRAPHY
Mohandas K. Gandhi was born and raised in India and is best known for his work there as a worldrenowned social reformer, political thinker, religious pluralist and prophet. If his life had followed the traditional path for someone of his family and caste, he would have remained in India, served in a prominent position and been unknown to most of the world. But as the noted scholar Ramachandra Guha demonstrates in his eminently readable and exhaustively researched Gandhi Before India, the 20 years that Gandhi spent in South Africa before his return to his home country in 1914 were fundamental to his success.
It was in South Africa that Gandhi invented what he named “satyagraha” or the “force of truth in a good cause,” the techniques of mass civil disobedience in which those in authority are shamed by nonviolent protesters willing to suffer beatings and imprisonment to attain justice. As he was about to leave South Africa for good, Gandhi called satyagraha “perhaps the mightiest instrument on earth.” Nothing in Gandhi’s life had prepared him for the intensity of racial prejudice in South Africa. He went there, for what he thought would be a short time, to represent a prominent businessman in a lawsuit. He won the case and was asked to stay longer to help defeat a bill that would keep Indians, who were coming to South Africa in increasing numbers, from registering to vote. In his autobiography, Gandhi writes: “Thus God laid the foundations of my life in South Africa and sowed the seed of the fight for national self-respect.” His biographer speculates that it may have had more to do with the actions of the ruling class of white men. Guha’s research took him to archives around the world, where he found many previously unknown or unused documents, including private papers of Gandhi’s friends and co-workers. As a result, Gandhi Before India presents the most complete portrait we have of a very human Gandhi during this period. Perhaps most importantly, we learn that Gandhi had a real gift for friendship. His closest friends in South Africa were two Hindus, two Jews and two Christian clergymen. Each was courageous and impressive, no one more than Gandhi’s devoted Jewish secretary, Sonja Schlesin, a steadfast supporter of his work. Guha takes us through the negotiations Gandhi conducted with government officials, and we see how skilled he was in this arena. A strategist of slow reform, he proceeded incrementally, protesting by stages, preparing himself and his followers systematically rather than spontaneously rushing into confrontation. It was only when petitions, letters and meetings with authorities had failed that he chose to demonstrate. This is an engrossing look at a major figure of the 20th century during a pivotal period in the development of his influential philosophy.
Biz Stone is cocky. Charming. A self-described genius. In Things a Little Bird Told Me: Confessions of the Creative Mind, he offers readers a glimpse of how he got that way. If his name doesn’t ring a bell, consider that the “little bird” he’s referencing is the Twitter logo—he’s the co-founder of the site, and the reason we now think in 140-character phrases. The stories here are funny and insightful. In school, Biz couldn’t hold down a job and keep up with homework, so he established a “no homework” policy—and convinced his teachers to go along with it! When Twitter’s success earned him an appearance on “The Colbert Report,” a gift card in the show’s swag bag led to amazing things. Each of these yarns has a point for would-be entrepreneurs, encouraging creativity, collaboration and making your own opportunities rather than waiting for them to appear. Stone is generous in his assessments of others and almost never snarky, so his story of meeting with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg stands out. Neither Stone nor Twitter cofounder Evan Williams wanted to be acquired by Facebook, so they tossed out an obscenely high value for their company, then bailed when they found themselves stranded in an unmoving cafeteria line. (They were later offered the amount they’d requested, but still turned it down.) Stone is social to his core, so Zuckerberg’s notoriously flat affect—he’s described here as pointing to some people and saying, “These are some people working”—was clearly not a love connection in the making. If you have big ideas, or a sense that you could have big ideas if only (fill in the blank), Things a Little Bird Told Me can help you fill in that blank and bring your personal genius to the masses. It’s a wise and generous book, and also a lot of fun.
—ROGER BISHOP
—HEATHER SEGGEL
THINGS A LITTLE BIRD TOLD ME By Biz Stone
Grand Central $26, 240 pages ISBN 9781455528714 Audio, eBook available
CREATIVITY