A slim but idea-rich volume that is as visually engaging as it is intellectually stimulating.
Short essays on how art affects those who create and/or experience it.
Eno, the distinguished British musician, begins this book with the observation that “making art seems to be a universal human activity.” But the question he seeks to answer, apart from why people need it, is what art actually does. Beginning with a definition, Eno suggests that art is the product of anything that is done beyond what is strictly necessary “for the sake of the feeling” that the creative act engenders—which includes anything from painting to cutting hair. Throughout the book, feeling is in fact at the heart of his considerations. For Eno, art is unique for the way it can safely allow observers to experience potentially life-changing feelings, including negative ones, without “real-world consequences.” Art also invites engagement with “fragments” of different worlds that can stimulate the imagination and amplify the richness of individual existence. People not only learn to identify what they like or enjoy best but also participate in what Eno calls “a reservoir of shared experiences.” Art is “the lifeblood, the lubricant, the circulatory system of community.” It is thus a catalyst for transformative change. “Art allows us to share complicated concepts and feelings with each other,” Eno writes. “This cultural conversation opens doors to shifts—in ourselves and in society.” Set in inventively arranged type that alternates between black and pink, and illustrated throughout with Dutch artist Adriaanse’s playful, watercolor-enhanced black ink drawings, this accessible, intelligent book invites readers to think deeply about the function of art in their lives and the wider world around them.
A slim but idea-rich volume that is as visually engaging as it is intellectually stimulating.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780571395514
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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