A quick if intellectually complex read describes a spiritual journey rooted in Einstein’s Princeton.
Journalist and English professor Clovis, who won an Outstanding Book Award from the National Association of Black Journalists for an earlier book, returns with a poetic work.
A lot goes on at the Firestone Library at Princeton University, and not in the expected way. For starters, there are the “Virtual Library and Librarians,” who are “aware of your every move,” and “the aroma of an herbal tea at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, a racist and segregated place,” suggests upfront that readers will go down a rabbit hole into a world that is at once surrealistic and contemporary. You must “slow life down enough” to understand what you read in a work that brings together Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, chess, and physics. At one point, “you find your body in the quantum field,” or being pulled through a chessboard floor by quantum forces. At another you are in Einstein’s classroom, a “special place” hidden on the Princeton campus. Abrupt surprises are in store as things take ever more surreal turns and readers are reminded that “space and time exist in dual waves and your mind will play tricks on you as you travel.” In addition to that black hole that opens up on a chessboard floor, there’s a reference to the 2022 mass shooting in Buffalo, New York. Readers without a basic grounding in physics and Lewis Carroll may feel lost until the book reveals that there’s a spiritual side to their journey: They must remember that “it is LOVE that allows us to step our way through.” They must also realize that “YOU are an endless blessing in being as ONE with God in synchronicity.”
With fewer than 100 pages, this ambitious work is brief. No sooner has the herbal tea at the Mad Hatter’s party been served than the adventure is just about over. The short length and fierce energy keep everything in sometimes-chaotic motion. All of it relates to “A beacon of light” that “shines through the darkness to comfort YOU called, insight, inspiration, and synchronicity in the flow of energy.” Amid clichés like that “beacon of light,” however, there’s plenty of food for thought in comments such as: “Becoming ONE with the Divine, YOU are transformed by this journey.” Some of the physics terms, like quantum field and quantum space, if essential to the author’s aims, may sail over the heads of nonscientific readers. At best, those terms only nod to science instead of giving a nuanced picture of it, and while the early reference to racism and segregation suggests that the work may be making a statement about them, it isn’t clear what it is. Similarly, the only piece of Einstein’s work that appears in the text (other than an allusion to relativity) is his most obvious equation: e=mc2. Its inclusion adds little to the story and may leave readers feeling that there must be more to be found in poking around Einstein’s classroom. Nevertheless, the book moves with lightning speed, and readers interested in cosmic questions will have a fast-paced opportunity to consider what it means to be “ONE with God in synchronicity.”
A quick if intellectually complex read describes a spiritual journey rooted in Einstein’s Princeton.Pub Date: June 10, 2022
ISBN: 979-8765229675
Page Count: 80
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
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
PERSPECTIVES
A beautifully produced, engaging homage.
Celebrating a beloved artist.
Published to coincide with a major exhibition of works by British-born artist David Hockney (b. 1937) at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, this lushly illustrated volume offers a detailed overview of the artist’s life and work, along with chapters focused on his various styles and subject matter, a chronology, and a glossary of the many techniques he employed in his art, including camera lucida, computer, and video. Contributors of essays include noted art historians and curators, such as Norman Rosenthal, who edited the volume; Simon Schama; Anne Lyles; James Cahill; and François Michaud. Growing up in the north of England, Hockney was drawn to the light and sparkle that he found in Hollywood movies. When he finally arrived in Los Angeles, the sunlit landscapes inspired him, and his new sense of artistic freedom concurred with sexual freedom: As a gay man, he felt liberated from the constraints that had weighed on him in Britain, even in the “relative Bohemia” of the Royal College of Art. Essayists reflect on his artistic interests, such as landscapes, portraiture, flowers, and the opera—for which he created boldly exuberant sets—as well as on his influences and experimentation. Michaud examines the impact on Hockney of a visit to Paris in the 1970s, where he became familiar with Henri Matisse and his contemporaries from museum exhibitions. In the 1990s, visiting his mother and friends in Yorkshire, Hockney painted both outdoors and in the studio, experimenting with various media—including the photocopier and fax machine—as he worked to render the woodsy landscape. As a companion to the exhibition, the volume offers stunning reproductions of Hockney’s prolific works. Enormously popular with museumgoers, Hockney, Rosenthal exults, “transforms the ordinary and the everyday into the remarkable.”
A beautifully produced, engaging homage.Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780500029527
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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