A playful exploration of color that favors perception over introspection.
An evocative poetry collection about the complexity of color.
Woodman explores the emotional, sensory, cultural, and historical dimensions of color in this book of poems that includes complementary artwork. In “Black Is Not a Color,” the poet catalogs the “conflicting complications” and associations with blackness, from Churchill’s “black dog” to the Bubonic Black Death. “Yves Blue” immerses readers in the abstraction of Yves Klein’s iconic monochrome artwork. “Turquoise Dharma” connects color to faith and ritual, following a Nepalese pilgrim’s prayer wheel. The wide array of shades of pink and the ever-shifting public opinions about those hues are at the center of “Provocative Pink.” The many uses for yellow, from police tape to wet floor signage to crosswalks, make up “Yellow into Yellow.” Da Vinci, Rubens, and Rothko are a few of the artists referenced in “Contradictory Red.” The author’s research into green burial, human composting, and intentional funeral care inspired “Recompose,” which features the refrain, “I want to be dirt when I die.” “Poor Brown,” explores the maligned hue of “mud, filth, and shi*.” Color theory informs “Shades of Anger” and “Tints of Anguish.” The book concludes with “Silver Is More Than a Color,” in which the poet gives voice to silver, stating, “I am a metal with flair and fortitude / I’m more than a color, // Call me attitude!” Woodman invites readers to reconsider how they conceive of color in this breezy, easy-to-read poetry collection. The poet excels at setting detailed scenes with minimal language, conjuring “Two wrought iron chairs / braced for the season snuggle / cloaked with puffy white armrests” or “bronzing oaks / still wearing cloaks of dry leaves.” The accompanying artwork, including photographs, paintings, and stock images, visually echoes the tone and topics of the poems; “The Many Faces of Green,” celebrates “the glory of being green” opposite five gorgeous paintings featuring the color. However, some readers may long for more context about who the poet is versus what she sees in her poems.
A playful exploration of color that favors perception over introspection.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 9781962082860
Page Count: 137
Publisher: Shanti Arts LLC
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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