A sometimes-dense but essential history for wine aficionados.
An extensive history of Californian wines from their humble beginnings in the 18th century to modern international acclaim.
Briscoe’s (The Lost Poems of Cangjie, 2017, etc.) history of Golden State wine begins with the Franciscan monks who first tended vineyards in the San Francisco Mission and produced wine according to the old traditions that they brought to the New World. These wines were mostly used for religious purposes and were hardly comparable to later, prestigious vintages. Although the 1849 Gold Rush brought a population explosion and international acclaim to San Francisco’s food scene, Briscoe notes that now “California is as renowned for its wines as San Francisco is for its food, though the former arrived much more slowly.” Briscoe examines every detail of that slow progression. Although he rightly focuses mostly on the City by the Bay and its surrounding wine countries, he leaves no stone unturned in his survey of the state as a whole, describing a lost Los Angeles that was filled with vineyards and the numerous efforts to produce a great product across California. Historic events intervened, including devastating pests, Prohibition, and the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. But Briscoe also tells of the resilience of such figures as Robert Mondavi, who made good on the promise of the West Coast’s grapes, finally earning the recognition of Paris in the late 20th century. Briscoe’s attention to detail is staggering, and as a result, his exhaustive book is filled with tidbits that will make for fine dinner party anecdotes. For example, he notes the extensive efforts to salvage 2 million gallons of wine after the aforementioned quake by pumping it out of wreckage and chemically changing it into a “fortifying brandy.” He also includes small inserts that offer further information about particular people and practices, as well as images of labels from early vineyards. The overall approach is rather dry, which can make the hefty work feel like a textbook at times—or even a bit of a chore. Nevertheless, Briscoe’s passion for California and its wine often shines through, and the book will offer many surprises to patient readers.
A sometimes-dense but essential history for wine aficionados.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-943859-49-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Univ. of Nevada
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 Yorker staff 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
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
