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LITTLE DATA

A charmingly peculiar collection of eccentric cogitations.

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Schaberg and Yakich offer an assemblage of brief meditations on just about everything, especially in relation to children, in this nonfiction collection.

The authors like to meander philosophically, but not without some sense of structure; their collection of 108 very short ruminations (most less than a page in length and some only a single sentence) are presented in alphabetical order. The subjects selected are starkly heterogeneous—they dwell on such thoroughly quotidian topics as vegetables, pajamas, and diapers, as well as grander ones like self-actualization, wisdom, and death. The pithy reflections are largely tied to the theme of children; more specifically, Schaberg and Yakich focus on the issue of raising children in a “world of screens,” in which “Big Data” seems ubiquitous and even despotic and the concept of eternity has been usurped by “only endless blips and drips, a stream of little data flowing.” This quietly gripping book is filled with peculiar data of its own: “One third of the world still builds a fire to cook dinner.” Often, the preoccupation with children and the obsession with esoteric data are whimsically combined: “You know what would be really bad? If someone fell down a hundred stairs. And they were cement… Fact is, 12,000 people die each year at the bottom of the stairs.” Beneath the gamesome whimsy lurks a deadly serious concern—per the book, some believe that the generation raised on screens is already in the premature throes of “digital dementia.” A book of this kind isn’t easy to pull off, since readers can quickly become exhausted by a series of shapeless, peripatetic musings. But there’s a definite shape to this collection, granted by the love and wonder inspired by one’s children; such love is not fully comprehensible as data, big or little. This is a delightful book, one as quirkily insightful as it is entertaining.

A charmingly peculiar collection of eccentric cogitations.

Pub Date: March 19, 2024

ISBN: 9781737816423

Page Count: 110

Publisher: Red Flag Press

Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2024

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A WEALTH OF PIGEONS

A CARTOON COLLECTION

A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.

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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

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THE BACKYARD BIRD CHRONICLES

An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.

A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.

In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”

An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.

Pub Date: April 23, 2024

ISBN: 9780593536131

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024

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