An eclectic assortment of writings from a longtime participant in America’s protest movements.
Wagner gathers writings from 50 years of activism in this collection of prose and poetry.
While activism that addresses social justice and climate change has helped define our current moment, the practice is hardly new; many people, including the author, have been agitating for policy changes in these areas for decades. With this volume, Wagner collects her writings from a half-century of fighting the good fight, from her high school graduation speech (given in 1970) to reflections written in the aftermath of 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests. Over that time, the “revolution” she was espousing meant many things, including an end to the Vietnam War, equal rights for Black Americans, reproductive rights for women, an end to pollution, and the legalization of marijuana. “The Revolution is not a particular person at all,” writes the author in her prologue. “It is the ever-changing activity of making our voices heard and taking political steps to ensure that those voices acquire the power needed for fundamental change toward a better world.” Wagner details the late-1960s / early-1970s milieu in which she came to political consciousness, a time when so much rebellion was in the air that even a girl like her—raised in a conservative Catholic family on a military base in upstate New York—began to question the status quo. College essays, poems, diary entries, and letters to the editor sit beside retrospective reflections on how the upheavals of the times shaped the author’s life—and how she attempted to shape the times. Together, they chart the evolution of an activist who matures and changes alongside her revolution.
Wagner’s writing is lively and emotive, no matter the genre—her passion and frustration are always apparent on the page. Perhaps the book’s most interesting aspect is how evergreen many of her concerns are. At one point, Wagner vents in her journal, “My despair and dread are over the political climate. The realization that fascism is surrounding me, while I am not able to accept or really see it, because I must live every day…When I must tell people that, believe it or not, this is what is happening. This veneer that ‘all is well’ is frail, thin, easily chipped away” (the event she’s reacting to: President Ronald Reagan’s reelection in 1984). The poems are mostly of the personal variety, offering glimpses of the author’s excitement and longing related to her romantic life and, later, parenthood. Often, politics still find their way in, as in “May 1986: A Reporter’s Notes”: “The head of emergency planning / For Com Ed’s nuclear plants / Must leave by noon for a CAT scan / His thin torso, fragile hair, sallow skin / And raspy voice give testimony / To the treatments / Fifteen years with the company / Expert in environmental sampling / Exposed to radiation?” While many of these writings can feel dated or insubstantial—unfinished or dashed-off works from particular moments in history—as a whole, they paint an evocative portrait of a life lived in opposition to the status quo.
An eclectic assortment of writings from a longtime participant in America’s protest movements.Pub Date: April 22, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Buried Gems
Review Posted Online: Feb. 28, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.
Enduring the unthinkable.
This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063489790
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.
Another chapter in a long fight against inequality.
Building on his Fighting Oligarchy tour, which this year drew 280,000 people to rallies in red and blue states, Sanders amplifies his enduring campaign for economic fairness. The Vermont senator offers well-timed advice for combating corruption and issues a robust plea for national soul-searching. His argument rests on alarming data on the widening wealth gap’s impact on democracy. Bolstered by a 2010 Supreme Court decision that removed campaign finance limits, “100 billionaire families spent $2.6 billion” on 2024 elections. Sanders focuses on the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, describing their enactment of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” with its $1 trillion in tax breaks for the richest Americans and big social safety net cuts, as the “largest transfer of wealth” in living memory. But as is his custom, he spreads the blame, dinging Democrats for courting wealthy donors while ignoring the “needs and suffering” of the working class. “Trump filled the political vacuum that the Democrats created,” he writes, a resonant diagnosis. Urging readers not to surrender to despair, Sanders offers numerous legislative proposals. These would empower labor unions, cut the workweek to 32 hours, regulate campaign spending, reduce gerrymandering, and automatically register 18-year-olds to vote. Grassroots supporters can help by running for local office, volunteering with a campaign, and asking educators how to help support public schools. Meanwhile, Sanders asks us “to question the fundamental moral values that underlie” a system that enables “the top 1 percent” to “own more wealth than the bottom 93 percent.” Though his prose sometimes reads like a transcribed speech with built-in applause lines, Sanders’ ideas are specific, clear, and commonsensical. And because it echoes previous statements, his call for collective introspection lands as genuine.
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9798217089161
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
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