Not as riveting as Kiernan’s previous books but still a bright tribute to Thanksgiving’s expression of gratitude and grace.
Kiernan traces the history of the formalization of Thanksgiving Day while reframing the holiday’s sense of gratitude.
The author’s overarching concern is the timeless role of gratitude in the practice of thanksgiving days scattered throughout the year. Her main character is Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879), who, as a magazine editor, became “an influencer…of fashion, manners, and the well-set table” as well as a force behind the publishing of such writers as Poe, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Whitman. In addition to penning “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” she displayed a singular passion in championing the making of Thanksgiving Day a national holiday. She believed that in bestowing federal stature upon Thanksgiving, the citizenry would experience “a grand spectacle of moral power and human happiness,” and she lobbied presidents to support her cause, beginning with Zachary Taylor. Hale emerges as an intriguing yet hardly revolutionary historical figure. “As tirelessly as Hale may have advocated, in action and voice, for women’s education and marital rights,” writes the author, “she stopped far short of being a suffragette. Hale would never lobby for the blanket rights of women.” Throughout, the author attempts to burnish Hale’s appeal, with mixed success. “Hope sprang eternal. Her pen would not rest,” writes Kiernan, emphasizing her subject’s ceaseless striving for “a coming day of thanks that would herald the virtue of gratitude in these cruel times.” As the author admits, Hale was a traditionalist who felt that “anarchy is worse than despotism. The final third of the book is the most interesting, as Kiernan engagingly explores the economic, political, and cultural roots and consequences of holiday practice, including the connections between Thanksgiving and football (“never in her life would Hale have envisioned football being part of the national celebration”), war, pandemics, and relevant historical episodes such as the 1621 day of thanks between the Pilgrims and Wampanoag people.
Not as riveting as Kiernan’s previous books but still a bright tribute to Thanksgiving’s expression of gratitude and grace.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-18325-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A hopeful civic sermon favoring inspiration over concrete prescriptions.
A New Jersey senator’s moral manifesto.
Booker situates his narrative in the wake of his 2025 record-breaking 25-hour stand on the Senate floor, an act of physical endurance and moral insistence that serves as its animating example. Though not framed as memoir, the episode implicitly positions Booker himself as a model of the virtues he argues are essential to democratic life. Organized around 10 qualities, including agency, vulnerability, truth, perseverance, and grace, the book advances a clear thesis. “In this book, I argue that many Americans who came before us, and many among us today, have consistently proven that virtues are practical: They expand our power, deepen our sense of belonging, and equip us to endure and ultimately prevail.” Booker illustrates this claim through figures such as the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis, whose willingness to endure sacrifice for principle anchors the book’s moral lineage, and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, whose composure under public scrutiny is presented as an example of dignity as civic strength. These portraits reinforce Booker’s belief that character, sustained over time, can shape public life, even when political outcomes remain uncertain or incomplete. He supplements these examples with personal stories drawn from family, faith, and community, delivered with emotional conviction and a tone that remains affirming and carefully calibrated. Much of the narrative reads like an expansive commencement address, earnest and reassuring, offering moral affirmation at moments when readers might reasonably expect sharper confrontation. That rhetorical choice ultimately defines the book’s limits. Booker acknowledges political conflict and compromise, but rarely examines them in depth, and while urging leaders to take moral risks, he avoids sustained reflection on how some of his own political decisions have tested the virtues he promotes. The result is a principled but self-conscious work that affirms shared values while offering little guidance for navigating power and accountability.
A hopeful civic sermon favoring inspiration over concrete prescriptions.Pub Date: March 24, 2026
ISBN: 9781250436733
Page Count: 272
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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