PositiveThe Wall Street JournalThe holy grail is a device that would make transplants altogether unnecessary. The search for that grail has been, as Mimi Swartz shows in her fascinating book, as complicated as the essential organ itself ... Ticker introduces readers to a dizzying array of hospitals, medical centers, institutes, laboratories and garage workshops where investors, inventors and innovators have been hard at work. In part because of the local focus of Ms. Swartz’s reporting and writing, the most well-developed characters are native or adopted Texans ... The wild early days of heart research had coincided with the period when NASA was trying to put a man on the moon, and Houston became the linchpin of both engineering efforts. The importance of engineers working alongside doctors and physical scientists turns out to be a leitmotif of Ms. Swartz’s book ... The debate continues, as does the quest to create hearts that could not only save lives but even be fully tailored to each patient—\'a perfect fit,\' as Ms. Swartz puts it.
Jed Perl
MixedThe Wall Street JournalIn this volume we meet first Calder the child, then Calder the engineer and, finally, Calder the emerging artist. Mr. Perl describes Calder’s life in mostly chronological order, to a degree of detail that has not previously been achieved … Mr. Perl tells much of the story of Calder’s engineering education and practice in two chapters, one titled ‘The Stevens Institute of Technology’ and the following, ‘Engineering’...But Mr. Perl curiously stops short of pursuing in any depth the influence of engineering study and practice on Calder’s art. Among the aspects of Calder’s engineering career that Mr. Perl plays down is his design of children’s toys, especially those that moved in amusingly animated ways when pulled … Mr. Perl does an excellent job of placing Calder’s work in the context of that of his artistic contemporaries, all the while moving the biographical narrative forward.
