A revelatory gathering of beloved art and artists presented with distinctive prose.
An exciting new essay collection from the author of The Argonauts and Bluets.
Poet and critic Nelson draws from nearly 20 years of her career to create this perceptive and lively book. She pulls together conversations, critical essays, cultural criticism, and tributes to the artists she loves, including Björk, Eileen Myles, Carolee Schneemann, Hilton Als, and Judith Butler. Featuring her direct and incisive prose, Nelson’s examination of art and the people who make it is poignant and provocative. Her statement that “the art of our lives may not always be exactly where we presume it to be” is an assertion she demonstrates throughout. In assembly, these essays build a quilt of influences, friends, and loved ones. Nelson’s admiration and enthusiasm for her subjects is a palpable driver of joy and delight. Additionally, the author possesses the ability to provide surprise and enchantment, and the chronological arrangement allows recurring themes to emerge and flow across the essays, creating an effective sense of a larger whole. Among the many topics Nelson explores are motherhood, pleasure, literature, violence, music, queerness, liberation, feminism, transgression, and, of course, love. Throughout the book, the author asks insightful, thought-provoking questions about the nature of art: “What does it really mean for a work of art or a body of work to perform a critique? Can images provide—and do we really want them to provide—‘critique’ in the same way that, say, discursive prose does?” In an essay on Nayland Blake, Nelson asks, “How does someone fully inhabit and model a space of generosity, good witchery, and ‘niceness’ while making decidedly ‘not nice’ work? What is the relationship between grimness and pleasure?” The true delight in this winning collection is tracking the development of various themes across years and topics.
A revelatory gathering of beloved art and artists presented with distinctive prose.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781644452813
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Graywolf
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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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