An engaging, meticulously observed journey that brings other cultures alive.
A collection of tales about the author’s exotic travels and culinary adventures.
Studying endangered lemurs in Madagascar, sampling the world’s most expensive coffee in Indonesia and licking an ant’s butt in Australia—these are just some of the adventures King has enjoyed while traveling the world. Here, she puts these and other exotic experiences together in an engaging, breezy collection of essays, barely pausing for breath as her lively curiosity takes her to another adventure. “This is why I love to travel: It shakes me out of my routine, provides endless opportunities for experiencing the world anew, and gets right up in my face with tangible evidence that there are many ways to live one’s life,” she says. King isn’t interested in painting broad pictures of the places she visits; her essays are vignettes that, through the accumulation of closely observed details, provide a window into other cultures and ways of life. A bird sanctuary in Costa Rica is a “tropical madhouse” where “[r]oosters crow at midnight”; an Australian tree is known as “lawyer cane” because, “once hooked by the thorns on this pitiless plant, one is as irretrievably entangled as if involved in the legal process”; in a Kenyan village, cow pies cover the earth “like a three-dimensional carpet.” The author has a particular passion for food; her description of various meals in the Apulia region of Italy is enough to make hungry gourmets salivate. The “silky sauce” of a pasta dish was “intensely flavored with lobster and peppered with small pieces of the sweet seafood.” On a somewhat less hedonistic note, King’s travels also inspire her to ruminate on the challenges of environmental conservation—development in Madagascar is destroying the habitat of lemurs—and her own mortality. A tour of Paris, she says, “had shown me how to celebrate death, how to embrace it with reliquaries and taxidermy and catacombs.” As for those ants, she reports, “The taste was like mixing the intense fizz of an Alka-Seltzer with tangy lime sherbet.”
An engaging, meticulously observed journey that brings other cultures alive.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Destination Insights
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
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
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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