PositiveThe Wall Street JournalNicola Twilley... tells the fascinating story of refrigeration ... She skillfully introduces us to the people who helped make refrigeration a key feature of everyday life.
Johann Hari
RaveThe Wall Street Journal[Hari] skillfully explores the effectiveness and the risks of Ozempic—as well as Wegovy and Mounjaro—and vividly depicts the food environment that has created a need for them ... One great strength of Magic Pill is Mr. Hari’s measured approach.
Chris Van Tulleken
PositiveThe Wall Street JournalA persuasive mix of analysis and commentary ... Though broadly gauged, Dr. van Tulleken’s analysis includes one vivid episode of first-person reporting ... Given such harm, what are we to do? Dr. van Tulleken’s proposals are modest.
Jimmy Soni
RaveWall Street JournalA gripping account of PayPal’s origins and a vivid portrait of the geeks and contrarians who made its meteoric rise possible. His richly reported narrative includes corporate intrigue, workplace hijinks, breakthrough innovation and first-class nerdiness ... Conflict and turmoil permeate The Founders ... Mr. Soni...keeps the story moving at a brisk pace and captures the quirks and whims of the people involved ... Anyone looking for yet more tales about Mr. Musk won’t be disappointed ... Captivating.
Chip Walter
PositiveThe Wall Street Journal... [an] absorbing story ... While Immortality, Inc. is focused on aging and the efforts to defy it, the book is also a gripping chronicle of private-sector experimentation and ingenuity in the face of inertia in Washington ... Ponce de León would have been impressed.
Karen Crouse
RaveThe Wall Street Journal[Norwich, Vermont] has produced 11 Olympians, all but one since 1984. Such an achievement takes on renewed interest with the Winter Olympics kicking off next week, and it’s at the center of Norwich, Karen Crouse’s splendid portrait of the town and its Olympian performance ... Ms. Crouse says that sports success is a byproduct of how Norwich 'collectively rears its children, helping them succeed without causing burnout or compromising their future happiness' ... [Crouse] is also a gifted storyteller and willing to do the legwork that is needed to collect material. To capture the mystique of Norwich, she didn’t drop in occasionally — she lived there for five months. As a result, her account is imbued with local color and detail ... But Ms. Crouse’s message applies beyond a particular town or state: Rather than micromanage their children, parents should 'act as their guides to charity, well-roundedness, curiosity, perspective, and a healthy life anchored by physical activity.'
Jonathan Taplin
MixedThe Wall Street JournalMr. Taplin proposes some thought-provoking solutions to the challenge of getting people to pay for content...Whatever one thinks of these ideas, Mr. Taplin’s broader explanation of the upheaval in the music and media industries is illuminating. But he is so incensed by Facebook, Google and Amazon that he never considers the benefits that platforms deliver ... Mr. Taplin wages a prolonged attack on the 'libertarian' ethos that he says underpins technology firms. But 'libertarian' is the wrong label. These companies are often closely tied to government and are far from bastions of free-market purity ... Blaming the woes of content providers on a vast right-wing conspiracy will appeal to certain readers, but Mr. Taplin would have been on firmer ground had he left politics aside.
Tyler Cowen
PositiveThe Wall Street JournalMr. Cowen is well-known for his free-market outlook. But The Complacent Class is refreshingly nonideological, filled with observations—e.g., the fact that a rising share of the federal budget is on autopilot—that will resonate with conservatives, liberals and libertarians ... Given Mr. Cowen’s own innovative thinking, it’s disappointing that he does not focus more on potential remedies to the torpor he describes. Instead, he puts forward a cursory set of ideas (he labels them 'deliberately speculative') for reviving American dynamism over the next two decades ... The Complacent Class is a useful corrective to the conventional wisdom that American ingenuity, sooner or later, will revive a low-growth economy.
Sally Denton
PanThe Wall Street JournalThe 'Big Dig' was a reminder that infrastructure projects can be messy—and budget-busting—undertakings. But it is more common (if less salacious) for the building of roads, bridges, ports and dams to spur economic development. To ignore this dimension of Bechtel’s work and to zero in on the company’s alleged cronyism are among the many shortcomings of The Profiteers a missed opportunity the size of the Hoover Dam.
