A thoughtful, conversationally written reflection on why banning books damages the fabric of social belonging.
Don’t burn this book!
For as long as there have been books, people have wanted to censor them. From Roman emperors through popes and kings, from temperance evangelists to Moms for Liberty, there has always been a book police. Civic and religious groups have worried about exposing children to potentially harmful ideas—even if those ideas promote inclusion and diversity. By contrast, university professors and intellectual elites see weapons in old terms for racial discrimination and gender difference. Ira Wells wants a middle ground, where we recognize that not all books are right for everyone. He recognizes that notions of appropriateness, obscenity, offensiveness, and blasphemy change over time. Literature cannot be separated from the social worlds in which it is written and read. And yet, Wells also wants a world in which there are works of lasting value. Book banning, he writes, “thrives in an intellectual culture in which art is not analyzed for its inevitable political assumptions but reduced to them….It also thrives when people fail to articulate why reading imaginative literature matters.” In the end, though, this book is really less about literature or even free speech than it is about public libraries. “Libraries have long provided vital intellectual infrastructure to liberal democracies,” he writes. These days, they serve a broader social function, often providing classes in language and citizenship, workshops on literacy and finance, and internet access for those who cannot afford it at home. Wells wants a world in which a well-informed public can access and judge books on their own and thus can appreciate, and argue with, the literary past: “Expressive freedom is the condition that makes both art and democracy possible.” That seems like a reasonable position. Unless you don’t believe in art and democracy.
A thoughtful, conversationally written reflection on why banning books damages the fabric of social belonging.Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9781771966634
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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