Loud but often overlooked, drummers get their due in this entertaining survey.
Pounding it out.
Music writer Lingan wastes no time in explaining why he chose drummers as the subject of his new book: “Why shouldn’t drums and drummers get a chance to be the main characters of this story for once, after shaping it continuously for so long?” The 15 chapters that follow, each about an influential percussionist, put the musicians in the spotlight, and it makes for fascinating reading. Lingan covers many of the usual suspects—Ringo Starr of the Beatles, Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones, and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin—and skillfully explains their innovations and the influence they had on the rock world. But it’s the non-household names that are truly interesting and that bring out some of the author’s best writing. On Hal Blaine’s performance on the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” he writes, “It’s more than a beat, really, it’s a unique feel, as much as the Cuban clave or a blues shuffle.” And he writes that Al Jackson Jr.’s memorable drums on Booker T. & the M.G.’s “Green Onions” “give the song its danger, too, its military stride.” Lingan does a terrific job explaining the technical aspects of drumming to a lay audience; this book is accessible to any rock fan, even ones who don’t know the difference between a snare and a tom. There is, unfortunately, one flaw: Of the 15 drummers featured, only one—Moe Tucker of the Velvet Underground—is a woman. Lingan does give brief shout-outs to female drummers, including Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney), Sandy West (the Runaways), and Gina Schock (the Go-Go’s), but any one of them could have had her own chapter, to say nothing of Karen Carpenter, one of the greatest musicians to ever sit behind the kit, who doesn’t even get a mention.
Loud but often overlooked, drummers get their due in this entertaining survey.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781668056240
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: today
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.
Enduring the unthinkable.
This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063489790
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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