Despite the inevitable bits of chaff, this is a pleasant reading experience perfect for Morris fans.
A volume of essayistic diary entries from the late writer.
Even after turning 90, Morris (1926-2020) maintained her equilibrium and good spirits by walking every day, at least 1,000 steps, a morning constitutional she embarked upon regardless of the weather. While on those walks, she composed these daily entries in her head. She revisits old memories, musing on the possible discrepancies between what she remembers and what actually happened; discusses the trials and tribulations of old age, including the challenges of dealing with the dementia of her loving life partner and fears about her own mental acuity; and offers astute opinions on contemporary life, art, and politics. Most of the entries find Morris at home in Wales, as most of her traveling is now confined to memory—though the outside world connects with her as she participates in interviews about her work and engages in the haggling about publication and payment that plagues so many writers. The author rails against Brexit (“is democracy past its sell-by date?”) and shares some stray opinions about Donald Trump. “I have always rather liked his political style,” she writes, “as against his personal ideals, which are almost grotesquely crude.” Morris expresses her disdain for the conceptual “Environmental Art” of Bulgarian American artist Christo, a style that “cuts no aesthetic ice with me,” but she offers her appreciation for the acting in the American sitcom Two and a Half Men: “comedy performance of near perfection….I admire [the actors’] professional techniques as I enjoy really polished Shakespearean acting.” Beginning in the spring of 2018, the author confesses that she is “getting rather tired of me” and maintains that “there are too many old people in the world.” Ultimately, this is a volume about letting go—about the need to “let it be” when the world becomes too much—and a plea for kindness toward all.
Despite the inevitable bits of chaff, this is a pleasant reading experience perfect for Morris fans.Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63149-692-9
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
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 rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.
In this debut memoir, Bahamian millionaire Bastian offers insight into building a business.
The author was a millionaire by the time he was 19, an impressive feat considering he began his working life filling stockpots and rolling napkins in his father’s Nassau restaurant, a locals’ hole-in-the-wall far from the city’s tourist hotels. “In many ways, I started ten steps behind the starting line in a world where opportunities felt few and far between,” writes Bastian in his introduction. A poor student with a gambler’s risk tolerance and a salesman’s eye for an unserved market, the author dropped out of college to launch his own satellite installation business—the first of its kind in the Bahamas—eventually expanding into prepaid phones and other electronics. With this book, Bastian uses his personal experiences to illustrate the steps aspiring entrepreneurs should consider when building their own empires. “My goal isn’t just to tell my story,” he explains; “it’s to provide you with a starting point, a strategy, and the encouragement you need to take your first step toward something bigger.” The book alternates between memoiristic chapters describing the author’s youth and career and instructional chapters outlining the best practices to “become a lion” (his preferred metaphor for a brave, risk-taking captain of industry). From evaluating one’s skill set and choosing a suitable goal to the practicalities of regulation and taxes, Bastian walks the reader through the complicated processes of starting and maintaining a successful enterprise. While much of the advice is of the boilerplate variety, the author offers it with clarity and candor, devoting an entire chapter, for example, on how to fail productively. It is the biographical material that lends his advice unusual weight—Bastian’s stories of flying back and forth between the Bahamas and Miami to personally import satellite dishes are fascinating enough to stand on their own. Readers may be unable to replicate his success, but there is no denying that his tale is inspiring.
A rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9798891882485
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Advantage Media Group
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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