Acerbic social and cultural critique.
A critic wields a sharp scalpel.
Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Chu has collected 25 of her essays—including book and television reviews, autobiography, and reflections on the work of the critic—written between 2018 and 2023, all except two published in the literary journal n+1 and in New York magazine. Chu sees criticism “as a genre of assertive prose,” and certainly her stance is nothing less than assertive, uncompromising, and sometimes snarky. Poet and memoirist Maggie Nelson’s essay collection On Freedom, for example, strikes Chu as representing the kind of mediocrity pervasive in academic writing. Nelson’s approach, Chu writes, is “to present six or seven academics on a topic and then say of one, ‘I like this.’” She deems Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel Rodham “nothing but a large commemorative stamp, dependent wholly in use and function on the reader’s willingness to lick it.” Yellowstone is, simply, not a good show; neither is Phantom of the Opera, or anything else conjured by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Her identity as a trans woman informs “On Liking Women,” which she calls her first “proper essay” and “Pink,” about her vaginoplasty. In a postscript to her scathing critique of a memoir by Joey Soloway, creator of the series Transparent (she calls the book “incompetent, defensive, and astonishingly clueless”), Chu concedes, “It is a vicious piece, which I would distinguish from a cruel one. Viciousness is the attack dog who has not eaten in three days; cruelty is the person calmly holding the leash. These days I aim for cruelty.” But she aims not simply to wound: “The only criticism worth doing, for my money, is not the kind that claims to improve society in general; it is, as the late John Berger once wrote, the kind that helps to destroy this particular one.”
Acerbic social and cultural critique.Pub Date: April 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780374600334
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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