Fallaci left an enormous body of work, both journalism and fiction, and the future may demand a more definitive assessment...
The great Italian writer gets her due in this short but captivating biography.
Oriana Fallaci (1929-2006) played a unique role in international journalism in the latter half of the 20th century. She wrote, talked, and smoked furiously, and she wasn’t afraid to get in the face of the rich and the powerful. She grilled Secretary of State Henry Kissinger about Vietnam, eliciting a quote describing himself as a lone cowboy that he regretted forever. Fallaci didn’t suffer despots gladly; she called Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier an idiot to his face, and she defied the Ayatollah Khomeini by removing her head covering right in front of him. In her first book in English, Italian author and journalist De Stefano captures the sheer intensity of Fallaci’s personality, both personally and professionally, and where it came from. She grew up working for the Italian resistance and matured into a woman who judged everyone, including herself, by the quality of courage. She was unforgiving of slights in friends and especially lovers; once it was over, there was no going back. She wasn’t bogged down by inconsistencies; she was an ardent feminist who had mixed feelings about abortion and could become completely subservient to the men in her life. She hated authoritarianism but despised puritanical leftism. She was an unswerving atheist who admired and befriended Pope Benedict. After 9/11, Fallaci alienated liberals by becoming an unswerving Islamophobe. “The need to oppose fascism, of any type, on the Left or on the Right, is her line in the sand, the measuring stick with which she judges people and governments,” writes the author. Although favorably inclined toward her subject, the book is not a hagiography; De Stefano diligently attempts to reveal all sides of a complex and brilliant figure.
Fallaci left an enormous body of work, both journalism and fiction, and the future may demand a more definitive assessment of a long and productive career. But for now, this is a superb introduction to the life of an irreplaceable figure.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-59051-786-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Ackerman writes with a light but assured touch, her prose rich in fact but economical in delivering it. Fans of birds in all...
Science writer Ackerman (Ah-Choo!: The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold, 2010, etc.) looks at the new science surrounding avian intelligence.
The takeaway: calling someone a birdbrain is a compliment. And in any event, as Ackerman observes early on, “intelligence is a slippery concept, even in our own species, tricky to define and tricky to measure.” Is a bird that uses a rock to break open a clamshell the mental equivalent of a tool-using primate? Perhaps that’s the wrong question, for birds are so unlike humans that “it’s difficult for us to fully appreciate their mental capabilities,” given that they’re really just small, feathered dinosaurs who inhabit a wholly different world from our once-arboreal and now terrestrial one. Crows and other corvids have gotten all the good publicity related to bird intelligence in recent years, but Ackerman, who does allow that some birds are brighter than others, points favorably to the much-despised pigeon as an animal that “can remember hundreds of different objects for long periods of time, discriminate between different painting styles, and figure out where it’s going, even when displaced from familiar territory by hundreds of miles.” Not bad for a critter best known for bespattering statues in public parks. Ackerman travels far afield to places such as Barbados and New Caledonia to study such matters as memory, communication, and decision-making, the last largely based on visual cues—though, as she notes, birds also draw ably on other senses, including smell, which in turn opens up insight onto “a weird evolutionary paradox that scientists have puzzled over for more than a decade”—a matter of the geometry of, yes, the bird brain.
Ackerman writes with a light but assured touch, her prose rich in fact but economical in delivering it. Fans of birds in all their diversity will want to read this one.Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59420-521-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, often both at once. Everyone should read this extraordinary book.
The co-founder of The Toast and Slate advice columnist demonstrates his impressive range in this new collection.
In a delightful hybrid of a book—part memoir, part collection of personal essays, part extended riff on pop culture—Ortberg (The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror, 2018, etc.) blends genres with expert facility. The author’s many fans will instantly recognize his signature style with the title of the first chapter: “When You Were Younger and You Got Home Early and You Were the First One Home and No One Else Was Out on the Street, Did You Ever Worry That the Rapture Had Happened Without You? I Did.” Those long sentences and goofy yet sharp sense of humor thread together Ortberg’s playful takes on pop culture as he explores everything from House Hunters to Golden Girls to Lord Byron, Lacan, and Rilke. But what makes these wide-ranging essays work as a coherent collection are the author’s poignant reflections on faith and gender. Since publishing his last book, Ortberg has come out as trans, and he offers breathtaking accounts of his process of coming to terms with his faith and his evolving relationships with the women in his life. The chapter about coming out to his mother, framed as a version of the biblical story of Jacob and Esau, is just as touching as a brief miniplay entitled, “The Matriarchs of Avonlea Begrudgingly Accept Your Transition.” Throughout, Ortberg’s writing is vulnerable but confident, specific but never narrow, literal and lyrical. The author is refreshingly unafraid of his own uncertainty, but he’s always definitive where it counts: “Everyone will be reconciled through peace and pleasure who can possibly stand it. If you don’t squeeze through the door at first, just wait patiently for Heaven to grind you into a shape that fits.”
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, often both at once. Everyone should read this extraordinary book.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-982105-21-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
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