A welcome Jewish resource for making the journey through loss.
Grant presents a Reform Jewish guide to the mourning process.
How can Jewish tradition, literature, and wisdom help someone who has suffered the loss of a loved one navigate the mourning process? In this anthology, the editor, the director of the New York rabbinical program of Hebrew Union College and the author, co-author, or co-editor of multiple other Jewish resources, presents a guidebook full of materials designed to assist the mourner through the process of grieving during the first year after a loss. Grant and Segal, her consulting editor, gather traditional and nontraditional materials from a variety of sources and movements within Judaism. The work includes songs and poems from Jewish religious thinkers ranging from lay liturgist and poet Alden Solovy (whose “In Sorrow” is included: “Air. / All I need is air. / A breath to give oxygen / To the anguish within”) to Rabbi Rachel Barenblat and the late Rabbi Rachel Cowan as well as classic Hebrew poems by Zelda and Rivka Miriam (whose “Tearing” observes, “There was a peaceful tearing / like the peaceful tearing of twilight / when the warp and woof are parted for an instant / so that their continuing can take place), translated by Rabbi Steven G. Sager. The anthology also contains a couple of non-Jewish sources, including Rumi and e.e. cummings. This book, written in response to the disruptive effects of the recent Covid pandemic on Jewish funerary practices, is presented specifically as a Jewish guide and includes plenty of Jewish liturgical excerpts as well as instructions to say the kaddish at the end of each unit. The concluding chapters offer information on enhancing the practices undertaken during various phases of Jewish mourning. Still, the themes explored in each unit, from pain and brokenness to acceptance and gratitude, have the potential to engage other audiences.
A welcome Jewish resource for making the journey through loss.Pub Date: June 1, 2023
ISBN: 9780881236071
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Central Conference of American Rabbis Press
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.
The Top Chef host describes her journey to new heights.
For those who don’t know, Kish is a “gay Korean adopted woman, born in Seoul, raised in Michigan” and “a chef, a character, a host, and a cultural communicator—as well as a human being with a beating heart.” Though this book covers every step of her journey, every restaurant job and television role, and also discusses her experience as an adoptee (very positive) and a queer woman (late bloomer), the storytelling is so straightforward, lacking in suspense, character development, or dialogue, that it is basically a long version of its (longish) “About the Author.” Seemingly dramatic situations are not dramatized—when she was eliminated on her first Top Chef run, she assures us that she did the best she could, and drops it. “I can spare you the gory details (bouillabaisse and big personalities were involved).” Later, she cites a belief in protecting the privacy of others to omit the story of her first relationship with a woman. With no character development, neither does the reader get to know those who fall outside the privacy zone, like her best friend, Steph, and her wife, Bianca. When she gets mad, she says things like, “It’s a gross understatement to say I was crushed, beyond frustrated, and furious with the situation.” The fact that “I’ve never been a big reader” does not come as a surprise. It is more surprising when she confesses that “I believe the universe is selective about the moments in which it introduces life-changing prospects.”
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9780316580915
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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