An engaging exploration of book history.
A richly detailed and illustrated history of parchment.
A foundational work of Irish literature is the Táin, which records a war between two contending kingdoms sparked by a cattle-rustling raid. It is perhaps ironic that, in Irish legend, the Táin was first written on the skin of a “miraculous cow” once owned by St. Ciarán, a singular instance of “the identification and celebration of a particular animal whose hide becomes the pages of a specific book.” Never mind, writes Holsinger, that the cow was said to have died a natural death in old age while good parchment comes from the skin of younger cattle. (The youngest cattle yield a related material, vellum, whose name is related to veal.) Holsinger examines the long history of the use of animal skins to record literary, historical, and religious moments, citing, for example, the Greek historian Herodotus’ descriptions of the parchment scrolls he encountered while exploring Egypt—though Herodotus himself wrote on papyrus, “the predominant medium of elite writing in the ancient world.” St. Paul, too, wrote on papyrus, but he collected parchment scrolls that he asked the disciple Timothy to bring to him. By Holsinger’s account, St. Augustine of Hippo was being more than metaphorical when he “imagines the heavens as a great membrane book, a firmamentum cloaked by the same pelles (skins) that clothe men after the Fall.” Throughout the text, the author enlists a vast array of sources, ranging from the work of the ancient Egyptians to the modern creations by the American artist Kate Nessler, who draws scenes from nature on vellum and parchment. The processes involved may be off-putting to those who care about animal welfare, but Holsinger also examines efforts to source parchment ethically, avoiding what one activist calls “the inhumane treatment of animals upon whose backs we are literally writing and the sacred texts inscribed on these very skins.”
An engaging exploration of book history.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780300260212
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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