An entertaining and enjoyable journey with a most agreeable tour guide.
From Chattanooga Times Free Press columnist Magee, an amusing and illuminating series of essays about the New South that read like conversations with a friend.
The author grew up in the college town of Oxford, Miss., one of those rare places below the Mason-Dixon line, he writes, where one-third of the residents may recognize the name Charles Bukowski. So he’s well-situated to explain the 21st-century South, a region that continues to maintain its distinctive foibles and state of mind. Good ol’ boys still take off work to go hunting, except that now they pack the deer on a bed of sales brochures in the trunk of an otherwise pristine company-owned Ford Taurus. A weekday golf foursome is served by a pair of “beer girls” in a golf cart who, on a bet, perform some unexpected feats of athleticism at the 17th hole. In other chapters, Magee points out the irony of Halloween being so enthusiastically celebrated deep in the Bible Belt and is amused, but not at all surprised, that he knows people devoted to reading both Racer magazine and the Dining Out section of the Wednesday New York Times. With gentle humor that recalls the late Lewis Grizzard, the author takes on social problems as well. Obesity remains an unacceptable norm for many of his fellow Southerners, and the popularity of crystal meth among struggling working whites is a scourge beneath the major media’s radar. Magee laments the decline in quality of roadside farm-stand produce, but approves of the inroads made by broiled salmon and Merlot in the land of fried anything and sweet, sweet iced tea.
An entertaining and enjoyable journey with a most agreeable tour guide.Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-977808-62-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
A heartfelt if somewhat unsurprising view of old age by the former president. Carter (Living Faith, 1996, etc.) succinctly evaluates the evolution and current status of federal policies concerning the elderly (including a balanced appraisal of the difficulties facing the Social Security system). He also meditates, while drawing heavily on autobiographical anecdotes, on the possibilities for exploration and intellectual and spiritual growth in old age. There are few lightning bolts to dazzle in his prescriptions (cultivate family ties; pursue the restorative pleasures of hobbies and socially minded activities). Yet the warmth and frankness of Carter’s remarks prove disarming. Given its brevity, the work is more of a call to senior citizens to reconsider how best to live life than it is a guide to any of the details involved.
Pub Date: Oct. 26, 1998
ISBN: 0-345-42592-8
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1998
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