A somber and incendiary but often insightful, philosophy-laden chronicle.
This third installment of a memoir follows another year in the writer’s life and his never-ending search for meaning.
Balor’s book opens in November 2018, when he was living in an attic apartment. The 27-year-old American, who took a job as a dishwasher, was prone to apathy, self-loathing, boredom, and melancholy. But he did not suffer from depression. Dismissing mental illnesses, he called the American Psychiatric Association a self-fulfilling “government-approved cult of identities.” He rarely had lasting relationships; at one point, the author fell for a woman who wouldn’t leave her live-in boyfriend, with whom she certainly wasn’t content. Balor regularly engaged with others in philosophical conversations, though he fixated on life’s purpose. “What is your self-assigned meaning of life?” he asked people he had just met, including cab drivers and bar patrons. Sadly, enlisting in the Navy did not save the author from what he deemed a “sick life of senseless pursuits.” His time at boot camp left him craving solitude. After someone stole pages from his journal, he realized that the Navy wasn’t the place to bolster his personal education or hone his writing. Presented as a journal, with intermittent poetry and short fiction, Balor’s latest installment is as despondent as his preceding books. Yet there are fleeting moments of hope, such as his acknowledgement that he was in love and a happy childhood memory. In addition, he offers intriguing insights throughout the lucid work. While he asserts that his purpose is “to write,” his continual questioning of others is a clear, admirable attempt to find personal meaning. As he said to a friend, “We evaluate ourselves based on the community that we’re amongst; it’s a reflection.” It’s evident in the fiery volume that he doesn’t care who he offends or provokes, labeling the military “luxurious enslavement” and mocking the diagnosis of autism. He also disparages readers and periodically insists they stop perusing his book, which he repeatedly calls “tripe” and “trite.”
A somber and incendiary but often insightful, philosophy-laden chronicle.Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-66320-626-8
Page Count: 514
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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