Luminous reflections on bodies and souls in motion that pair lyrical writing with vibrant images.
Running isn’t just exercise but a profound spiritual discipline as well, according to this lavishly illustrated meditation.
Goldklang, a recreational runner and former track competitor, pens free-associative ruminations on running, framing the activity as an intensely physical pursuit that also connects us to the rhythms of the universe. His episodic, loose-limbed, meandering text includes many biographical snippets about significant historical runners from Pheidippides, the legendary ancient Greek whose sprint from Marathon to Athens inspired the modern race, to sub-four-minute-miler Roger Bannister and Ethiopian runner Abebe Bikila, who won gold at the 1960 Rome Olympics running the marathon barefoot. He also discusses less obvious choices, like folk singer Woody Guthrie—who didn’t run but did go walking that ribbon of highway—and astronaut Neil Armstrong, whose pioneering moon-hop symbolizes “the longest distance ever run: from Earth to Awe.” Goldklang peppers the pages with stentorian, all-caps slogans that mix motivation with metaphysics: “SPEED AND TIME ARE SUBJECTIVE. EFFORT AND DETERMINATION ARE NOT. YOU ARE WORTHY OF THIS EFFORT.” He sprinkles in short poems and longer sections of prose, which include passages on the sweat glands, springy tendons, and other adaptations that enable the human body to run so well, along with an account of his stint at a Tennessee inpatient facility, where he grappled with the abuse he suffered in childhood.
By turns playful and effusive, Goldklang’s musings trot down many a winding trail of curious lore and self-knowledge. His poetry is raptly attuned to the visceral sensations of running (“Sweat hit my lips, / Tasted the Salt”), and his prose evokes the physical rush of athleticism, which he conveys in vivid, kinetic prose. (“I lifted off my hips and surged forward, moving with a power I didn’t know I had. The last 300 meters burned down in pure bliss. There was no pain, no struggle, just a wildfire of boundless energy.”) There’s a pronounced mysticism in his thinking that lifts the solitary runner into an oceanic oneness of all being: “Running is a way of being heard by the universe. Moving on her ground connects us with every past generation that left their energy.” At his best, the author unites the biological and the spiritual in a seamless whole, a vision that stays rooted in the reality of a psyche enmeshed in and nourished by the body. (“I flashed through the hundreds of times these feet toed a starting line and rocked full force into the first left turn. All that heat, all that burn, just to bring forth this lesson: Running saved me. Not because it fixed me, but because it gave my brokenness something to do.”) The illustrations by Los Angeles–based artist and muralist Junker feature bold planes of color and repeated motifs of birds and flowers, sun and moon. Athletes are sometimes depicted in the style of archaic Greek vase paintings, their bunched muscles and straining sinews traced in stark lines; at other times they are Picasso-like figures with doughy bodies, lurching poses, and flat, depthless profiles. Junker’s strong, iconic style makes for a striking visual accompaniment to Goldklang’s words. Luminous reflections on bodies and souls in motion that pair lyrical writing with vibrant images.Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781646872176
Page Count: 190
Publisher: Ideapress Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.
A wide-ranging writer on his football fixation.
Is our biggest spectator sport “a practical means for understanding American life”? Klosterman thinks so, backing it up with funny, thought-provoking essays about TV coverage, ethical quandaries, and the rules themselves. Yet those who believe it’s a brutal relic of a less enlightened era need only wait, “because football is doomed.” Marshalling his customary blend of learned and low-culture references—Noam Chomsky, meet AC/DC—Klosterman offers an “expository obituary” of a game whose current “monocultural grip” will baffle future generations. He forecasts that economic and social forces—the NFL’s “cultivation of revenue,” changes in advertising, et al.—will end its cultural centrality. It’s hard to imagine a time when “football stops and no one cares,” but Klosterman cites an instructive precedent. Horse racing was broadly popular a century ago, when horses were more common in daily life. But that’s no longer true, and fandom has plummeted. With youth participation on a similar trajectory, Klosterman foresees a time when fewer people have a personal connection to football, rendering it a “niche” pursuit. Until then, the sport gives us much to consider, with Klosterman as our well-informed guide. Basketball is more “elegant,” but “football is the best television product ever,” its breaks between plays—“the intensity and the nothingness,” à la Sartre—provide thrills and space for reflection or conversation. For its part, the increasing “intellectual density” of the game, particularly for quarterbacks, mirrors a broader culture marked by an “ongoing escalation of corporate and technological control.” Klosterman also has compelling, counterintuitive takes on football gambling, GOAT debates, and how one major college football coach reminds him of “Laura Ingalls Wilder’s much‑loved Little House novels.” A beloved sport’s eventual death spiral has seldom been so entertaining.
A smart, rewarding consideration of football’s popularity—and eventual downfall.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593490648
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
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
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