An approachable, enjoyable, and enlightening introduction for anyone who wants to learn more about wine.
A sommelier and educator details her journey from wine enthusiast to expert in this debut memoir.
In the midst of her final year as an advertising student at the University of Florida, Joseph found herself compelled to throw caution to the wind, move across the country to Napa Valley, and try against all odds to devote her life to a newfound fascination with wine. Despite no prior training, the author secured an entry-level position at the prestigious Inglenook Vineyard and threw herself into learning everything she could about wine, its creation, and its ability to bring people together. With gracious optimism and unaffected frankness, Joseph recalls her attempts to prove herself to her co-workers, struggling with repeated embarrassments and humbling revelations of her own ignorance, and her determination to keep improving. Eventually, the nightly studies, constant wine tastings, and tenacious advances at work led the author to pursue her certification as a sommelier, a nerve-wracking test that nearly half of applicants fail annually. But even after achieving what a year before she thought was impossible, Joseph deftly describes the restless desire to grow that spurred her on her journey in the first place. In the ensuing years, the author would relocate to New York City, endure menial work in the restaurant industry, make a splash on the wine scene, and ultimately commit to sharing her passion and expertise with others. Interspersed throughout her informative and engaging memoir are sections demystifying the process of cultivating and producing wine as well as covering the practices that have long labeled wine experts as elitist. Without any air of pretension, Joseph invites readers to consider the social and cultural importance of wine as well as the nuances of savoring it that anyone with a little time and research can master. “The most poignant point I can make is it doesn’t matter where you begin when you study wine,” asserts the author. “The most helpful thing you can do for yourself is to simply begin.”
An approachable, enjoyable, and enlightening introduction for anyone who wants to learn more about wine.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-950906-94-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Indigo River Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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