SEPT 2015
AUDIO BOOK REVIEWS
by Jonathan Lowe
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THE PATIENT’S PLAYBOOK by Leslie
D. Michelson is a must hear for anyone who
expects to be a patient at a hospital sometime during
their life. Yup, that’s everyone. What the book
does is give you a broad view of how to choose a doctor
right for you, when to seek a second opinion, and
an understanding of the pressure on hospital staff
to overprescribe drugs and to do unnecessary tests.
(This protects them from malpractice while enabling
them to maximize profits.) What to ask in such cases
is good to know, plus clues are given as to when the
word “unnecessary” may apply to your case.
Medical care is rising in cost at three to five times
the rate of inflation, while hospitals are bringing
in more technology, not necessarily to increase good
patient outcomes, but to offset losses to those without
insurance. As the title suggests, it can be a game.
And so you need a playbook to read the runaround strategies
employed to charge more to you (and to your insurance
company, and to Medicare.) Many case studies are innumerated
of patients whose misdiagnosis led to complications
and needless suffering (or even death.) This is because,
says the author, many physicians unfortunately must
see 40 patients a day to keep their practice, and
are inclined to take a “try this and see”
approach instead of taking the time to coordinate
holistic care after studying one’s medical history.
“If their solution is to send you to specialist
rather than spend time with you, you probably have
the wrong primary physician. With your life at stake,
you need to find the right doctor.”
This doctor/author also narrates, and handles
the job with the professional ease of a longtime speech
giver. His listenable, encouraging tone and voice
augments the experience. |
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THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY isn't cheap,
but it may change your life by changing how you perceive
goals and the errors of logic that make people victims
of repeated mistakes. (now $29.95 /reg.$39.95 / 20
hours) I chose it as one of the top ten most amazing
books I've ever heard (among thousands.) A bold and
all-embracing exploration of the nature and the progress
of knowledge from one of today's great thinkers: Throughout
history, men have struggled with competing philosophies,
and played games with logic to deceive others and
ultimately themselves. In this important book, David
Deutsch, an award-winning pioneer in the
field of quantum computation, argues that EXPLANATIONS
have a fundamental place in the universe. They have
unlimited scope and power to cause change, and the
quest to improve them is the basic regulating principle
not only of science but of all successful human endeavor.
The stream of ever improving explanations has infinite
reach, according to Deutsch: we are subject only to
the laws of physics, and they impose no upper boundary
to what we can eventually understand and achieve.
In this book, he applies logic to a wide range of
issues and unsolved problems, from creativity, static
thinking and free will to the future of technology
and society. Filled with startling new conclusions
about human choice, optimism, scientific explanation,
and the evolution of culture, The Beginning
of Infinity is a groundbreaking audio book
praised by the New York Times as one of the most astonishing
and ambitious science books ever written. Not only
for what it proposes, but for the fallacies of logic
it exposes, which have caused stagnation in the past
and continue to do so in the present. Move past these,
and the sky (and war and global warming) is literally
no limit. Narrator Walter Dixon is
a longtime broadcaster and voiceover artist with a
knack of maintaining focus on the material at hand.
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Speaking of factory farms, listen to PIG TALES:
An Omnivore’s Quest for Sustainable Meat, by
Barry Estabrook. While hard core meat lovers
attending Trump barbecues may find this book absurd
liberal PETA nonsense, you can’t fault his logic
(which is the same as the author of MEATONOMICS,
whom I interviewed, although that book argued that with
subsidies, cheap meat is anything but cheap.) Estabrook
is not a vegetarian, he’s for free range and more
healthy meat (better for human nutrition and animal
health.) Unfortunately, as he shows, some 97% of America
pork is processed by unsavory means: boil them alive
(waterboard’em) as if they were enemy combatants,
and imprison them in tiny cages where they sleep in
their own feces, and can’t even turn around. “You
save money that way,” goes the argument. But remember:
hogs are highly intelligent creatures, and feel pain
acutely. Factories like Smithfield Foods or Tyson don’t
care, of course. If dogs were legal as meat—and
dog meat tasted like bacon—they’d be allowed
to justify it, and would be chopping Lassie up while
alive too! The point here is that we don’t have
to be cruel, and if we’d be willing to pay more,
the meat would end up tasting better as well. (Fact
proven by examples in the book.) Paul Boehmer,
a “seasoned” Broadway actor, reads
the audiobook with a natural clarity and proper
awe at certain passages too graphic to detail here.
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Finally,
another controversial book, BASE NATION:
How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the
World, by David Vine, a writer for
The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian.
Read on audio by Jon Yen, this book
makes the case for shutting down many of the over 800
bases which the American taxpayer is asked to support
overseas, while deficits skyrocket. Not only do they
incite more violence and tensions across many regions
by exasperating ill will toward American interventionism
(Osama bin Laden cited American military presence in
Saudi Arabia as his motivation, and there are many other
examples), but with new rapid deployment strategies
in case of crises, many of the bases are not even needed.
“Yet few in military appropriations or Congress
are willing to face this fact, due to lobbyists for
contractors, despite the massive costs.” The base
on Diego Garcia he calls a shame. And WHY are we financing
South Korea’s security when they have a better
economy than we do? (Lower debt rate, more growth, more
job creation.) Vine shows that when America is everywhere,
our military is stretched to its limit, is rife with
inefficiency, gets less respect, and ends up costing
lives on all sides. It’s a lose-lose for everyone.
But if voters are sold jingoism as patriotic? Then it’s
a win-win for politicians with contractors in their
state, and with their own retirement funds. |
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New
fiction audiobooks: THE PROMISE OF HOME by
Darcie Chan, read by Amy Rubinate; THE LURE
OF THE MOONFLOWER by Lauren Willig, narrated
by Kate Reading (yes, that's her name and her job!);
THE MURDERER'S DAUGHTER by Jonathan
Kellerman, read by Kathe Mazur (most Kellerman novels
are read by actor John Rubenstein, grandson of pianist
Arthur Rubenstein); THE BOURBON KINGS
by J.R. Ward, read by broadway and TV actor Alexander
Cendese (Beauty and the Beast); THE ADMISSIONS
by Meg Moore, read by Allyson Ryan (Law&Order, One
Life To Live); WE NEVER ASKED FOR WINGS
by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, narrated by Emma Bering (Mad
About You) and Robbie Daymond; THE
SOLOMON CURSE by Clive Cussler, read by Scott
Brick. Finally, I am pleased to announce that my own
suggestion to Blackstone has resulted in the first audio
publication of Jack Vance’s classic science fiction
novel TO LIVE FOREVER, out Sept. 1.
Have not yet heard it, but it was one of the reasons
I penned The Methuselah Gene.” It is
narrated by Kevin Kenerly, who read Stephen King’s
“The Running Man,”and is a longtime
member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. |
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