An odds-and-ends miscellany best suited for hard-core fans.
A deep dive into all things Doyle.
In their choppy second book, the father-and-son team of Eugene and Daniel Friedman offers a “fresh and unexpected perspective” on the doctor and his famous fictional character. They begin by looking at Arthur Conan Doyle’s early years “under the lens of a microscope,” uncovering obscure bits of biographical information, concluding Doyle inserted portions of his personality and early years into the characters of Holmes and Watson. In medical school, Doyle’s friend William Budd, with his “Holmes-like powers of observation,” influenced many stories. The authors explore how Doyle drew upon a “remarkably gifted coterie of physicians” and how he “transmuted” them into the gifted Holmes, and they show how another Edinburgh doctor, William Rutherford, inspired Doyle’s later creation, George Edward Challenger. They uncover a “long overlooked and virtually unknown Black leader Doyle met” while serving as ship’s physician aboard a freighter; this character, they write, “lurks behind his civil rights–inspired tales.” The Friedmans spend time on Doyle’s importance as a doctor who spoke out about urgent health matters like vaccinations and water contaminants, and they examine the influence fellow writers William Henley and Robert Louis Stevenson had on him. They also consider how Professor John Moriarty and Holmes’ relationship was becoming a “millstone” around the physician’s neck. After he killed Holmes off, ardent readers persuaded Doyle to bring him back. The Friedmans go on to examine his close relationship with friend and writer Grant Allen, for whom Doyle graciously completed the ill man’s last book; and Doyle’s feelings for and travels in America and his “lifelong belief in the unseen world,” employing “his own brand of scientific methodology to delve into the metaphysical.” The book concludes with a special treat: two stories by one of Doyle’s mentors, Dr. Reginald Ratcliff Hoare, stories the Friedmans endeavor to prove with scrupulous textual analysis were actually written by Doyle.
An odds-and-ends miscellany best suited for hard-core fans.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780757004483
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Square One Publishers
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
