A moving book that mixes horror and hope, disaster and good food, creating a poignant, fascinating read.
In an evocative, haunting memoir, a survivor of Cambodia’s “Year Zero” generation recounts how memories of her culinary heritage have sustained her.
Some tragedies are almost too large to describe. One of history’s most notorious was the genocide imposed by Pol Pot on Cambodia in the early 1970s, a project to destroy the societal structure and replace it with an agrarian society based on twisted Marxist principles. “The murderers among us would have us believe that history is slippery and unknowable,” she writes. “Insisting otherwise is an act of defiance.” Nguon and her family, half Vietnamese, were obvious targets, and they escaped to Saigon just in time for the arrival of the conquering North Vietnamese army. Nguon managed to scrape together a living with various jobs, although she often subsisted on small bowls of rice with some salt. Through the years of suffering and resilience, the author remembers the beautiful, subtle tastes of the Khmer dishes made by her mother, and she punctuates the book with recipes and the memories tied to them. Ngoun was shuffled between refugee camps before she was sent back to Cambodia, which was slowly emerging from chaos. Among other jobs, she worked as a cook for brothel workers, and she had the advantage of being literate and was good at making contacts. With the help of aid organizations, she was able to set up a center for helping Khmer women, teaching them silk weaving and providing literacy classes. Many parts of the text are heart-rendingly sad, but the author leavens the narrative with recipes for dishes like chicken lime soup and banh sung. Though the subject matter makes the book a sometimes difficult read, those who dive in will find it a remarkable and important piece of work.
A moving book that mixes horror and hope, disaster and good food, creating a poignant, fascinating read.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9781643753492
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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