 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | ?One smart book . . . delving deep into the history and implications of a daily act that dare not speak its name.? ?Newsweek Acclaimed as ?extraordinary? (The New York Times) and ?a classic? (Los Angeles Times), The Big Necessity is on its way to removing the taboo on bodily waste?something common to all and as natural as breathing. We prefer not to talk about it, but we should?even those of us who take care of our business in pristine, sanitary conditions. Disease spread by waste kills more people worldwide every year than any other single cause of death. Even in America, nearly two million people have no access to an indoor toilet. Yet the subject remains unmentionable. Moving from the underground sewers of Paris, London, and New York (an infrastructure disaster waiting to happen) to an Indian slum where ten toilets are shared by 60,000 people, The Big Necessity breaks the silence, revealing everything that matters about how people do?and don?t?deal with their own waste. With razor-sharp wit and crusading urgency, mixing levity with gravity, Rose George has turned the subject we like to avoid into a cause with the most serious of consequences. |
Average Customer Rating:   Any general lending library and many a health collection needs this assessment THE BIG NECESSITY: THE UNMENTIONABLE WORLD OF HUMAN WASTE AND WHY IT MATTERS delve into the history and consideration of human waste products and the growing stress on sewage systems that is creating what will become a crisis. Rose George examines the sewers and systems of London, Paris and New York to consider where their issues are and how they may fail, pairing a history with a fine social observation of waste products and management. Any general lending library and many a health collection needs this assessment.
Loved it. A delightful, fascinating read. A friend enthusiastically recommended this book, and so I gave it a try. It was engaging and funny, but also of utmost importance to anyone who cares about human dignity. It's the last thing I'd ever have expected myself to read (I was even a bit embarrassed to be seen reading it in public!), but found it truly compelling. Brown streaks in Oxford Underwear At times, Ms George makes a person rock back on their heels. I found the information fascinating. I found her interjections about her own 'issues' concerning 'toileting' to be repetitive and non contributory to the discussion. It would appear that she and her publisher felt the need to introduce most chapters with personal anecdotes, most of which were tiresome at best.
Despite the annoying personal information, this book is definitely worth reading from a 'general global knowledge' perspective. By the end, I had decided that people in 'developed' countries should not be able to so easily flush away their faeces. What a waste, literally. Perhaps people need to deal with what they produce, compost it, sell it, use it for their tomatoes, whatever. Our of sight, out of mind is mindlessness.
This is not to say that those who defecate into plastic bags which they then toss onto roofs are anymore mindful.
Waste generated by human beings, directly or indirectly, is a legitimate concern. Ms George does confuse me though: is she trying to inform or is she trying to entertain? There is a subtlety involved here that transcends the smell of poop. A little less 'yuk' and a bit more information would have made this book seriously readable and readably serious.
An Unusual Review for a Remarkable Book This is an unusual review for me.
Not because I have some misguided sense of propriety. Rather, I have a healthy interest in human waste management! (Wait, is that even possible?)
Anyway, the reason that this review is unusual is because I JUST this minute finished George's book, and I immediately turned to Amazon to write its review.
"Not so remarkable," you say? Well, I've never done that before. The reason I felt impelled to instantly award this book five stars is because it does an excellent job of surveying the sewage disposal systems in place in both developed countries and the ones that are trying to be put in place in developing ones. And throughout, I was impressed by the author's willingness to "hit the bricks" and go on-site and talk with people in places like rural India, Tanzania, and China so that she could give a real-world picture.
I'll admit I would have liked this book to be longer; for example, I'd love to read George's take on sewage disposal throughout history, as I'm sure her deft touch would render the topic that much more fascinating.
Finally, I'm pleased to see that at least one fellow reviewer found this book compelling enough to now want to do something to help aid people cursed with poor or nonexistent sanitation. I feel the same way! Since George states that the World Toilet Organization (www.worldtoilet.org/) is badly in need of celebrity spokespeople, maybe some of Amazon's top reviewers could band together and qualify? (Surely this select group is universally admired!) A Bit of a Disappointment An interesting book, but a bit of a disappointing one. I'd expected a discussion of waste/excrement throughout the broad sweep of history... how the early civilizations addressed these issues... from Egypt and the Persians... to the Middle Ages.. the Renaissance... and continuing up to the modern day. However, it seems to me that her discussions focus primarily on current or near-current sewage systems and systems for disposal and while the London and NY City systems for handling human waste is interesting for a time, it's not what I'd expected. |  |
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