Intriguing and often entertaining reading on a phenomenon that seems timeless.
A brief historical excavation of bunkers and in-depth exploration of their present-day use, when they “are built not so much in response to one single imminent catastrophe, but out of a more general sense of disquiet.”
For millennia, humans have been digging underground for shelter and to avoid disasters, but cultural geographer Garrett is primarily interested in the bunkers built by militias, survivalists, and preppers. This is the “hardened architecture” of dread, an expression of our 21st-century anxieties and insecurities, “the dominant affect of our era.” From his geographic/ethnographic perspective, Garrett is a capable writer with a crisp, detailed, visual quality to his work, and he brings a gratifying participant approach to this investigation. The author intended to meet the preppers to get a sense of what made them tick (paranoia, practicality, or a mixture of both?), and while he was able to take the measure of some, many were too secretive to reveal too much. Garrett discovered that preppers are motivated by a number of forces, from the scientific to the spiritual. Appalled by a government that has abandoned its responsibility to protect its citizens and a socio-economic system that has fostered alienation and an increased need for self-defense, they dread the prospect of a desperate, voracious human population fighting over dwindling resources. Most interesting are the author’s accounts of his visits to a variety of bunker complexes, including DIY homestead operations, abandoned ICBM silos, and Australian fire bunkers, “oxygen-filled cocoons that look remarkably similar to the nuclear shelters that Americans built in a panic during the first doom boom in the early years of the Cold War.” Garrett finds that many complexes are little more than a combination of wishful thinking and unexecuted plans, and he also avers that communities are crucial, transitions inevitable, and some prepping highly practical. Regarding the last, the author’s “Acronym and Argot Glossary” is helpful for readers unfamiliar with the lingo.
Intriguing and often entertaining reading on a phenomenon that seems timeless.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-8855-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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
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
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