A riveting social history of the world, as seen through gardens.
How the poor have prospered by growing gardens.
In shantytowns and poor urban neighborhoods, ingenuity sprang forth by planting seeds and growing fresh food. It’s a story you may not have heard. But through the centuries, the impoverished, the uneducated, the castaways from society planted various vegetables, fruits, and greens in whatever spaces they had. In contrast, modernization destroyed the soil—insect and microbe communities that form the basis for healthy farming and eating. Brown, an environmental historian, offers a blueprint for the future in this punchy narrative about all manner of urban gardeners in the U.S. and abroad. She weaves from history to present, from the struggles faced by peasants in 18th-century England to the contemporary community gardens she creates alongside neighbors in Washington, D.C. When land ownership shifted to the wealthy in the 19th century, soil depletion became a problem, as did water pollution once societies shifted to flush toilets. The author’s nimble storytelling includes glimpses of how Nazi Germany advocated for purity in race and a return to native plants, considering Jews to be “rootless.” In Brown’s telling, the garden is a vehicle for freedom and self-identification under the most oppressive regimes. America’s Victory Gardens, planted in vacant lots and around residences, produced 40 percent of the nation’s produce in the U.S. in 1944. When the Soviet Union crumbled in the 1990s, small gardeners grew the vast majority of Russia’s potatoes. The harsh seasons led people to pickle and preserve for winter, providing an additional boon to gut health through a fermented diet. The globe needs to cut carbon emissions and find a better way to feed the world’s growing population. Brown’s book shows us that inspiration for a new food system doesn’t have to be so hard.
A riveting social history of the world, as seen through gardens.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2026
ISBN: 9781324105831
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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 Yorkerstaff 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
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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