A quirky book that is expertly written and impressively edifying.
Foley provides an instructional manual for building guitars and endeavors to establish guitar production as a scientific discipline in this nonfiction work.
The author doesn’t just want to impart the knowledge necessary to construct a well-playing guitar from scratch; Foley aims at a far grander ambition, the founding of “luthiery” as an independent branch of science. “What if someone who wanted to learn to service and build guitars could go to a university and study the physics, history, and technique of this craft and earn an accredited degree in this field? Wouldn’t that be fun!” The entire book is infused with this coupling of unabashed enthusiasm and technical aspiration. The author begins with an introduction to the “fundamental features of wave motion” as it applies to guitar playing, in particular string vibration and tone production. This attention to the scientific workings of the guitar informs the whole of Foley’s effort, which includes excerpts from various patent ideas for the invention of a new electric guitar pickup. Readers will also learn the history of the guitar, from its ancient beginnings as a stringed bow up to the period in which electric guitars were produced in the 20th century. The author does not neglect the basics—he presents an overview (for the novice) of the guitar’s most elemental components, but also covers some exceedingly esoteric topics like the “gravitational force on the string in the nut slot.” There is certainly some unnecessary meandering on Foley’s part—sections detailing a brief history of electricity and Democritus’ interpretation of the atom are surely digressions. However, these detours can be pardoned given the context of the author’s overriding objective, which is to create a new field of study, one that draws from all the relevant branches of science. This book likely won’t appeal to a general audience, but it will certainly be a treat for those few for whom it is intended: guitar enthusiasts who aspire to craft their own instruments and are deeply obsessed by the science of the guitar.
A quirky book that is expertly written and impressively edifying.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9798350922363
Page Count: 156
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
