A fluently written history of The Diary of Samuel Pepys, its influence on English culture, and its lessons for today.
And so to bed.
The Diary of Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) remains one of the greatest works of personal prose writing in the English language. Offering insights into politics, reviewing theatrical and musical performances, and chronicling Pepys’ loves and lusts, the diary offers a unique record of a man and nation at the end of the 17th century. This book by Loveman, a British scholar, tells the fascinating story of how Pepys developed a secret shorthand to encode his thoughts, how the text was discovered and deciphered at the beginning of the 19th century, and how the diary, still today, shocks and inspires. During the Victorian age, it had an indelible impact on the changing notions of what it meant to be English at the time. “To imagine Victorian England through the eyes of Pepys meant enjoying English eccentricities and appreciating continuities with the past,” Loveman writes. Pepys’ famous description of the 1666 Great Fire of London shaped a sense of tragedy and adventure for generations. Of course, the most salacious parts of the diary were excised for decades, and it wasn’t until editions of the late 20th century were published that readers could find “every last obscenity” in all its glory. Today, the diary still resonates. Pepys’ explicitly recorded sexual exploits creepily anticipate the wandering hands of modern-day transgressors. We also experience natural disasters through his eyes; Loveman quotes a Southern California man who, evacuating from a fire in 2009, thought of “Sam taking the money, plate and ‘best things’” and feeling what “Sam must have felt when he saw the pigeons fall.” Pepys lived the most vivid of lives, and the beauty and horror of his time speak to our own.
A fluently written history of The Diary of Samuel Pepys, its influence on English culture, and its lessons for today.Pub Date: June 26, 2025
ISBN: 9781009554114
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Cambridge Univ.
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
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 frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
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