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Berkeley scientist questions safety of bottled water
A review of “Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water”, by Peter H. Gleick, who co-founded the Pacific Institute in Oakland in 1987. Put down that bottle of water, please,...
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Book review: Will humans survive climate change?
A review of “Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction,” by Annalee Newitz ***** (5 out of 5) Come what may, the human race is heading toward a fall. As Berkeley Ph.D....
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Why do people spend more than they can afford?
“Income inequality forces people of lower or middle income to spend more than they can afford on housing, clothing, and sometimes even food — “ In 2007, UC Press published a book by Robert H. Frank...
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An all too black comedy of unintended consequences
You probably know that you and I — actually, all of us collectively, homo sapiens the species — are responsible for a truly alarming reduction in the number of other species on Planet Earth. But apart...
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Review: ‘Flash Boys’ by Michael Lewis
Score: ***** (5 out of 5) Bestselling Berkeley author Michael Lewis has been spending a lot of time back East lately. After researching and writing his blockbuster fifteenth nonfiction book, Flash...
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Erik Tarloff’s ‘All Our Yesterdays’ is grounded in Berkeley
Berkeley resident Erik Tarloff reading from his new book All Our Yesterdays, at an event for the Bay Area Book Festival. Photo: Richard Friedman What has Erik Tarloff got that I haven’t got? After all,...
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Recommended: 10 great recent books by Berkeley writers
Berkeley authors Michael Lewis, Michael Pollan, and Michael Chabon at a Berkeleyside event in December 2012. Photo: Pete Rosos Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think so. So far as I can tell, people...
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Big Soda unmasked: It’s not as sweet as you think
A review of Citizen Coke: The Making of Coca-Cola Capitalism, by Bartow J. Elmore ***** (5 out of 5) Since my fellow citizens and I in Berkeley recently approved a tax on sweetened soft drinks— by a...
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Karen Paget’s ‘Patriotic Betrayal’ is a monumental work
Karen M. Paget. Photo: Don Kellogg If you’re old enough, think back to the 1960s, that decade of endless turmoil and revelation. Though the CIA had been established in 1947, it wasn’t until 1962 that...
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Book details deportation of city’s Japanese community
A review Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese-American Internment in World War II, by Richard Reeves. @@@@@ (5 out of 5) Imagine that you live in a town of about 115,000 people. Berkeley,...
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Ernest O. Lawrence: the man who shaped Big Science
Ernest O. Lawrence examining the 37-1/2-inch cyclotron with the lid removed in 1935. Photo: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Throughout the 20th century, Berkeley has been a breeding ground of...
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‘Consequence’: A novel that explores the boundary between peaceful protest...
Steve Masover Berkeley resident Steve Masover has written short stories and a screenplay, including the documentary Berkeley to Soweto. A graduate of UC Berkeley who was active in the anti-apartheid...
View ArticleRobert Reich has ideas on how to save capitalism
Book reviewer Mal Warwick thinks Robert Reich’s new book is “brilliant,” and “cogently and compellingly” explains complex economic issues. But while Reich is funny in person, ‘Saving Capitalism’...
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Wine, wine everywhere, and not a drop to drink
Mal Warwick, who regularly contributes book reviews to Berkeleyside, calls Frances Dinkelspiel’s ‘Tangled Vines’ “a great read,” and “crammed with fascinating characters.” He gives it five stars....
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Book review: Love, betrayal, murder and recycling
John Byrne Barry You might not think that the subject of solid waste management would lend itself to a murder mystery. It would seem to be a stretch, wouldn’t it? Although Wasted: Murder in the Recycle...
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Book review: When elections mattered a lot
A review of Game Changers: Twelve Elections That Transformed California, by Steve Swatt, with Susie Swatt, Jeff Raimundo, and Rebecca LaVally; foreword by Bruce E. Cain; published by Heyday **** — 4...
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Book review: ‘Custer’s Trials’ by T. J. Stiles
A review of Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America, by T. J. Stiles @@@@@ (5 out of 5) When we learned American history in school, a few easily identifiable names stuck in our memory....
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Book review: ‘David Brower’ by Tom Turner
A review of David Brower: The Making of the Environmental Movement, by Tom Turner; published by the University of California Press @@@@@ (5 out of 5) At the corner of Allston Way and Oxford Street in...
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Adam Hochschild examines the Spanish Civil War
A review of Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, by Adam Hochschild @@@@@ (5 out of 5) A few weeks ago I read and reviewed Richard Rhodes’ Hell and Good Company: The...
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Review: ‘An American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes, and...
A review of American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes, and Trial of Patty Hearst, by Jeffrey Toobin Jeffrey Toobin will be in conversation with Bill Petrocelli at Book Passage in Corte...
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