A wealth of succinct, entertaining advice.
In an age of screens, AI, and shrinking attention spans, a good book is more important and valuable than ever.
For the bibliophiles among us, the recurring question is: What should I read next? Davis, a prolific writer and author of Great Short Books: A Year of Reading—Briefly, is ready with some 52 recommendations. His list stretches from The Epic of Gilgamesh to the current day, and it includes the seminal works of every major faith. Each entry includes an excerpt from the work, a biographical note on the author, and a discussion on its particular value. Davis also provides a recommendation on what to read next, which might be further writing by the same author or material in a related genre. His focus is on short books and essays; wherever possible, he places the piece within the author’s larger output. He casts a wide net, from Plato, Sun Tzu, Sappho, and Aristotle to Dante, Machiavelli, Marx, Voltaire, and others. Davis makes a point of including authors of color, such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, W.E.B. Du Bois, and James Baldwin, as well as key feminist writers like Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, and bell hooks. Elie Wiesel, Christopher Hitchens, Joan Didion, and Toni Morrison each find a place on the list. Davis admits that his collection is necessarily arbitrary, and he provides a short afterword to explain the reasons for his selections, as well as an appendix of other choices. One appendix, “My Ten Favorite Great Short Nonfiction Books,” includes work by Sappho, Douglass, Thoreau, Orwell, Didion, and Elizabeth Kolbert, in addition to John Hersey’s landmark Hiroshima. “I hope I have provided a rich reservoir of contemplation, insight, inspiration, and resistance, and perhaps even a glimmer of truth,” Davis writes. In that, he has succeeded.
A wealth of succinct, entertaining advice.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781668015599
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.
A principled athlete strives for social justice.
Kaepernick forthrightly details the activism that earned him global renown but cost him his NFL career. In 2016, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback “was filled with disgust” after police shootings of fellow Black men in several American cities. Before a preseason game, he made a spontaneous decision: “It hit me in that moment that I should find a seat” during the national anthem. He did the same at two more games before reporters noticed. Kaepernick will forever be associated with “taking a knee” during the anthem, but he credits Eric Reid—a teammate who agreed with Kaepernick’s message—for suggesting that they kneel together during subsequent anthems. The protest changed everything for Kaepernick. President Trump vilified him. Kaepernick and his wife received death threats. And though he’d taken the 49ers to a Super Bowl, no teams would sign him. He will likely make news for his take on Jay-Z, whose lucrative partnership with the NFL was criticized as an attempt to launder the league’s reputation. Visiting Africa, where Kaepernick learns about “African leaders who willingly sold their own people to the enslavers,” he “couldn’t help but to think about Jay-Z and the NFL.” In opening chapters, Kaepernick recalls suffering traumatic racial abuse as a child. Being in “white spaces”—he was adopted by white parents—placed him “under a microscope every minute of every day.” He isn’t always nuanced, depicting some people he disagrees with as cartoonishly clueless. But his writing about how college and pro teams “lied” to him about injuries underlines his “feeling of being a disposable commodity.” A decade has passed since Kaepernick played in the NFL, but he stays fit in case “a team needing a QB” calls.
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781538777879
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Legacy Lit/Hachette
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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