A fascinating look into the fun-house mirror of cults and the occult.
A disorienting journey to the outré fringes of the New Age.
“The aliens are coming. The Earth is ending. The aliens will take us to a new planet, and we can build a new society. How awesome does that sound?” So says, mockingly, the abandoned son of Amy Carlson, who called herself Mother God and surrounded herself with followers in a group called Love Has Won. Not only was she God—and Jesus, and Marilyn Monroe, and Cleopatra—but she also had, in a previous incarnation, ruled the lost continent of Lemuria, the invention of a 19th-century quack that just won’t go away. Given that, as journalist Sottile documents, about half of Americans believe in ghosts and the onetime existence of Atlantis, to say nothing of space aliens, Carlson found easy pickings among lost souls. The New Age, as Sottile writes, stretches back into olden times (one landmark, by her lights, being Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive Thinking), and charlatans have been around forever. But Carlson tapped into something different: Apart from swilling down vast quantities of colloidal silver, supposedly a miracle cure, while chugging tequila, she linked her oddball metaphysics to other cultural threads, including QAnon. (Not for nothing did the “Q Shaman” of Jan. 6, 2021, fame declare that the riot altered “the quantum realm.”) So it was that she traded in tropes such as anti-vaxxing and 9/11-as-inside-job and performed psychic “surgeries” for a bargain-basement price of $77.77, declaring that she was guided by Robin Williams, the late comedian, an ascended master in the spirit world. (She also advised looking directly at the sun, “one of Our most powerful healing tools.”) Things ended badly for Carlson: Her diet killed her, and by the time authorities found her she was starting to mummify. Her followers are still out there, though, plying their eldritch trade.
A fascinating look into the fun-house mirror of cults and the occult.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781538742600
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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