An eccentric but endearing combination of essays and images about the power of love.
Schaper blends photography, philosophy, history, and social commentary in this nonfiction work.
“We all hold love within Our Selves,” writes the author in the book’s titular essay, “Kel Al-Hab.” This Arabic phrase for “All the Love” is an apt descriptor of the book, which offers a sweeping commentary on humanity, history, the environment, government, and contemporary society. Topics in its eclectic analysis range from a reinterpretation of the biblical story of Adam and Eve to observations on the 2024 presidential election. The modern media, Schaper contends, is driven by an unhealthy “Lead with Bleed ethos,” and he likens the Heritage Foundation’s conservative Project 2025 to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Overall, the book has a positive message, centered on humanity’s untapped potential for selflessness and generosity, which he characterizes as a “Fountain of Love sprouting and spouting from Individuals and from Peoples in Our communities.” The book’s engaging, if meandering, central chapter is bookended by photographic essays that form its first and last third. These full-color photos, all but three taken by the author, clearly reflect Schaper’s environmentalist outlook. Opening images of a bird’s nest, for instance, feature a blurb that suggests that people are all “searching for what these chicks have—a safe place in which to grow.” Many photos similarly feature animals and nature scenes from the author’s travels across five continents. Other photos effectively emphasize the book’s belief in the power of human love, as in pictures of a doting mother and her children in the United States and happy participants in Sydney, Australia’s 1996 Queer Parade. Schaper, a former assistant archaeologist for the Smithsonian Institution, also presents photos that clearly highlight the human longing for beauty, as represented in images of Ancient Egyptian ruins and other architectural wonders. The book’s idiosyncratic but purposeful capitalization (in which pronouns such as “We” are often capitalized, while President Donald Trump’s surname is deliberately lowercased) has a playfulness to it; however, it doesn’t always scan well, and it may not appeal to all readers.
An eccentric but endearing combination of essays and images about the power of love.Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2024
ISBN: 9781965552094
Page Count: 216
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
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