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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
A jaw dropping account of corporate arrogance and government ineptness. As someone who grew up in Niagara circa the Love Canal and Chippawa Creek years, I am personally interested in the Toms River story. Fagin spirals the story back and forth through time dipping into the history of research and chemistry and looping back to industry in NJ. Fagin's style is similar to Mukerjee's in The Emperor of All Maladies in that he writes about science in a way that the layperson can understand. The writing is tight and in some places quite beautiful despite the subject.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
Geez, I had an inkling of this stuff but not nearly close to the extent and reality of it. Wow.
An extremely detailed account of one community's problems with cancer and pollution. Definitely worth a read for anyone interested in how the scientific method works (cluster detection, proving that a substance is carcinogenic etc.)
adventurous
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
read it for school and i honestly really enjoyed it. although it was extremely dense and a lot of information, the writing was very good and it was very interesting. i might consider rereading at some point
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
This book won the nonfiction Pulitzer Prize in 2014. It is the story of a small town in NJ that was ravaged by pollution from toxic waste dumped by Ciba-Geigy and Tom’s River Chemical. Both plants were eventually closed down and are listed as Superfund sites. These companies polluted the town, waterways, and ocean from the 1950s to the 1990s. As a result of the pollutants, there was a cancer cluster of children centered in the area. The book follows local families with sick children and decisions made by the chemical companies and local government. When these companies first started dumping there was little to no knowledge that chemicals could even cause illness or cancer in workers never mind in local residents. It was interesting to see the families strive for answers. I found the whole book engaging and very readable. I also realized that there was a similar case in Woburn, MA (not too far from where I grew up) that I had no idea about so now I need to read, A Civil Action which is about that case.
An exhaustive and very comprehensive book about environmental pollution and its possible correlation with cancer incidence among children in Toms River, New Jersey.
I teach public health so I was really fascinated by everything that happened in the book: from historical accounts on the origins of chemicals, epidemiologic milestones, the researches and breakthroughs in cancer and carcinogenesis, and of course, the plight of the citizens of Toms River, from families of children with cancer to the locals employed by factories. It is indeed hard to balance the need for social advancement and our assurance of safety and environmental protection as most factories nowadays use chemicals and substances that are harmful to the general population when released untreated. I learned so much on the intricacies of cluster researches and the importance of statistical significance which may undermine the feelings of the people on the ground.
So why the 3 stars? The book was dragging from its halfway point and it was a chore to finish it as I was bludgeoned with too much detail and information in its latter pages. I concede that that information is important but they were so dense at times that I could not see the thread of what I was reading.
Still a good and enlightening read.
I teach public health so I was really fascinated by everything that happened in the book: from historical accounts on the origins of chemicals, epidemiologic milestones, the researches and breakthroughs in cancer and carcinogenesis, and of course, the plight of the citizens of Toms River, from families of children with cancer to the locals employed by factories. It is indeed hard to balance the need for social advancement and our assurance of safety and environmental protection as most factories nowadays use chemicals and substances that are harmful to the general population when released untreated. I learned so much on the intricacies of cluster researches and the importance of statistical significance which may undermine the feelings of the people on the ground.
So why the 3 stars? The book was dragging from its halfway point and it was a chore to finish it as I was bludgeoned with too much detail and information in its latter pages. I concede that that information is important but they were so dense at times that I could not see the thread of what I was reading.
Still a good and enlightening read.
My dad picked up this book from the library accidentally and started reading it out of curiosity. He could hardly put it down and eagerly recommended it to my brother and me. Tom's River is exactly my kind of book: non-fiction that keeps your attention, maintaining a degree of suspense while illuminating the science, politics, and individuals' lives behind an historical event.
In this case the event - industrial pollution in the small town of Toms River, New Jersey - is hard to pin down as it takes place over several decades in different ways, due to the actions of different corporations and individuals. Fagin helps us clearly navigate the complex history of companies like Ciba-Geigy coming to Tom's River, the politics that kept the first warning signs of pollution out sight and out of mind for the public, and how suspicions of a "cancer cluster" in the town finally brought everything to a head with massive publicity, lawsuits and years-long epidemiological studies.
Fagin doesn't over-simplify the players or the politics. He also does an excellent job reaching back through the history of cancer and industrial illness research to help us understand the limits of accepted epidemiological studies in towns like Toms River, and what that means for people who may be exposed to toxic, mutagenic and/or carcinogenic industrial chemicals today.
In this case the event - industrial pollution in the small town of Toms River, New Jersey - is hard to pin down as it takes place over several decades in different ways, due to the actions of different corporations and individuals. Fagin helps us clearly navigate the complex history of companies like Ciba-Geigy coming to Tom's River, the politics that kept the first warning signs of pollution out sight and out of mind for the public, and how suspicions of a "cancer cluster" in the town finally brought everything to a head with massive publicity, lawsuits and years-long epidemiological studies.
Fagin doesn't over-simplify the players or the politics. He also does an excellent job reaching back through the history of cancer and industrial illness research to help us understand the limits of accepted epidemiological studies in towns like Toms River, and what that means for people who may be exposed to toxic, mutagenic and/or carcinogenic industrial chemicals today.
After a very strong start this book got less and less enjoyable to the point where I just wanted to get through it. Most of the last third of the book should have been moved to the footnotes. It was just unnecessary denseness that muddled the story. However, if you’re an environmental chemist this is the book for you.
The early sections of the book combined the best elements of The Ghost Map (Steven Johnson), The Emperor of All Maladies (Siddhartha Mukherjee) and A Civil Action (Jonathan Harr) to provide thorough and interesting background information to set up the Toms River story.
As the story moved on it took on too many elements for the sake of thoroughness but at the detriment of effective narrative.
Overall the author writes very well except for his early habit of excessive foreshadowing and his later habit of overusing the phrase, “In other words,..."
The early sections of the book combined the best elements of The Ghost Map (Steven Johnson), The Emperor of All Maladies (Siddhartha Mukherjee) and A Civil Action (Jonathan Harr) to provide thorough and interesting background information to set up the Toms River story.
As the story moved on it took on too many elements for the sake of thoroughness but at the detriment of effective narrative.
Overall the author writes very well except for his early habit of excessive foreshadowing and his later habit of overusing the phrase, “In other words,..."