A satisfying read and a call to adventure.
A pilgrimage to the “leftover lands.”
In this debut book, Jackson explores California’s public lands—not the national parks and forests, but the 15 million acres that fall under the purview of the Bureau of Land Management. The quest began when a beleaguered Jackson couldn’t book a campsite in Southern California. A friend recommended the BLM lands, which require no reservations. Energized by a trip to the desert with his children, he eventually visited all the BLM lands in California, including the Lost Coast in Northern California, Berryessa, the Carrizo Plain, the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, almost a dozen wild rivers, and the Mojave and Colorado deserts. Once considered “leftover lands,” those parcels were considered “too unattractive for the National Park Service, too bare for the Forest Service, and too lifeless for the Fish and Wildlife Service.” Yet as Jackson’s photographs make clear, these places possess an undeniable if often desolate beauty. His project was a literary one as well. At various points, he cites Aldo Leopold, John Muir, Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey, and environmental historian William Cronon. Although Jackson affirms Terry Tempest Williams’ claim that every pilgrimage to the desert is also a pilgrimage to the self, his sense of nature’s sacredness is less ecstatic than Muir’s: “Holiness here is a not a rapture; it is a whisper, reminding you that everything you need to see is around you at every moment.” Jackson is also a reliable guide to the earthly realities of managing these vast holdings. With its many photographs, maps, illustrations, and practical tips for exploring BLM lands, the book invites readers to move beyond what Leopold called American conservation’s concern with show pieces.
A satisfying read and a call to adventure.Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9781597146753
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Heyday
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.
A future basketball Hall of Famer’s rosy outlook.
Curry is that rare athlete who looks like he gets joy from what he does. There’s no doubt that the Golden State Warriors point guard is a competitor—he’s led his team to four championships—but he plays the game with nonchalance and exuberance. That ease, he says, “only comes from discipline.” He practices hard enough—he’s altered the sport by mastering the three-point shot—so that he achieves a “kind of freedom.” In that “flow state,” he says, “I can let joy and creativity take over. I block out all distractions, even the person guarding me. He can wave his arms and call me every name in the book, but I just smile and wait as the solution to the problem—how to get the ball into the basket—presents itself.” Curry shares this approach to his craft in a stylish collection that mixes life lessons with sharp photographs and archival images. His dad, Dell, played in the NBA for 16 years, and Curry learned much from his father and mother: “My parents were extremely strict about me and my little brother Seth not going to my pops’s games on school nights.” Curry’s mother, Sonya, who founded the Montessori elementary school that Curry attended in North Carolina, emphasized the importance not just of learning but of playing. Her influence helped Curry and his wife, Ayesha, create a nonprofit foundation: Eat. Learn. Play. He writes that “making reading fun is the key to unlocking a kid’s ability to be successful in their academic journeys.” The book also has valuable pointers for ballers—and those hoping to hit the court. “Plant those arches—knees bent behind those 10 toes pointing at the hoop, hips squared with your shoulders—and draw your power up so you explode off the ground and rise into your shot.” Sounds easy, right?
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780593597293
Page Count: 432
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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