A brilliant compilation.
An invaluable collection of observations about journalism authored by a beloved American reporter and humorist.
Best known as a veteran staff writer for the New Yorker, Trillin gathers columns, long-form pieces, and vignettes about the mechanics and practices of the American press and its subjects, yielded from his six decades in the profession, during which he also worked as a correspondent and columnist for outlets such as Time, the Nation, and Brill's Content. His profile of the late New York Times journalist R.W. "Johnny" Apple Jr. is as expansive and thorough as Apple himself (“his form reflects the eating habits of someone who has been called Three Lunches Apple, a nickname he likes”). Trillin’s pieces, which range appealingly, include a 1986 profile of the incomparable Miami Herald police reporter Edna Buchanan; an absorbing account of the mysterious circumstances surrounding the disappearance and murder of a scion of a prominent family in Savannah, Georgia; an explanation of how Texas Monthly magazine selected the state's best BBQ joints in 2008; and a poem about Al Gore's weight gain. Much of this book is hilarious, and it seems impossible to suppress a grin even when reading essays about the most serious of subjects, particularly Trillin’s elegant tributes to fallen colleagues and friends like Molly Ivins, Russell Baker, and Morley Safer. The author saves his best for last: a piece about the commemorations of the Freedom Rides in the South in 1961, which he covered when Atlanta bureau chief for Time. Trillin’s writing about the various people who marked the anniversary is the author at his finest, mixing his wit, sharp observational powers and recall, reporting skills, and poignancy. This book should be savored by admirers, critics, and practitioners of journalism and journalists, as well as anyone who appreciates first-rate writing, humor, and engaging reporting.
A brilliant compilation.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780593596449
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.
The Top Chef host describes her journey to new heights.
For those who don’t know, Kish is a “gay Korean adopted woman, born in Seoul, raised in Michigan” and “a chef, a character, a host, and a cultural communicator—as well as a human being with a beating heart.” Though this book covers every step of her journey, every restaurant job and television role, and also discusses her experience as an adoptee (very positive) and a queer woman (late bloomer), the storytelling is so straightforward, lacking in suspense, character development, or dialogue, that it is basically a long version of its (longish) “About the Author.” Seemingly dramatic situations are not dramatized—when she was eliminated on her first Top Chef run, she assures us that she did the best she could, and drops it. “I can spare you the gory details (bouillabaisse and big personalities were involved).” Later, she cites a belief in protecting the privacy of others to omit the story of her first relationship with a woman. With no character development, neither does the reader get to know those who fall outside the privacy zone, like her best friend, Steph, and her wife, Bianca. When she gets mad, she says things like, “It’s a gross understatement to say I was crushed, beyond frustrated, and furious with the situation.” The fact that “I’ve never been a big reader” does not come as a surprise. It is more surprising when she confesses that “I believe the universe is selective about the moments in which it introduces life-changing prospects.”
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9780316580915
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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