Selected Work

I Change, You Change

Self-help memoirs take on not the exceptional challenge, but the everyday one.

Originally published January 20, 2013 in The New York Times Book Review

About halfway through her new memoir, “Data, a Love Story,” Amy Webb pauses to address the reader. Up to this point, the author’s online hunt for a husband has yielded little but farcically bad dates.

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Natural Woman

Why Motherhood Returned to the Center of Women’s Lives: a review of The Conflict, by Elisabeth Badinter

Originally published May 16, 2012 in Boston Review

Breast milk is freighted with more symbolic weight than any beverage should have to bear. The stuff signals femininity, fertility, and naturalness.

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Alzheimer’s Alert

When's a good time to diagnose an incurable disease?

Originally published April 29, 2011 in Slate

Last week, new guidelines for diagnosing Alzheimer’s defined a “preclinical” stage of the dreaded disease.

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The $100 million pond

A bold new idea for protecting nature: Put a price tag on it

Originally published April 10, 2011 in The Boston Globe

The coral reefs of Hawaii are enchanting: a full spectrum of brilliant colors, teeming with spiky urchins, striped damselfish, sluggish sea cucumbers, and hundreds of other creatures.

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