A worthy, no-nonsense addition to the body of Antarctic exploration literature.
In this debut memoir, a Beijing surgeon travels with a Chinese expedition to build a research station at Antarctica’s highest point.
Author Mao relates his four-month voyage in 2008 from China to Antarctica’s desolate interior with a crew of mechanics, builders and others. Their mission: to construct the first research station at Dome A—the frozen continent’s highest point at 13,422 feet above sea level. The team faced adversity from the start: As their vessel, the icebreaker Sea Dragon, made its way from Australia to the southern continent, it bucked furious, hurricane-force winds and 25-foot waves. After the seasick crew reached the jumping-off point for its interior expedition into Antarctica, it loaded sleds with provisions and pulled them with giant tractors 1,200 kilometers across “the boundless ice sheet” to Dome A. Even in summer, temperatures dropped to minus 40, and cyclonic winds howled, creating blinding whiteouts. The team braved the elements and made it to the dome but not without a few scares, including stuck and lost tractors, which in that environment could have meant starving or freezing to death. That said, they also enjoyed modern conveniences undreamed of by previous Antarctic expeditions—GPS, airline food and even movies on their computers. However, Mao relates his tale with great humility, wondering at his predecessors’ toughness and resourcefulness. The picture that emerges of the Chinese crew is one of impressive endurance, persistence and teamwork, despite the occasional bickering brought on by close quarters and imperfect hygiene. “We are all brothers on the ice sheet,” Mao notes, as they had to depend upon one another for survival. Mao’s prose has some nice flourishes; for example, he describes driving through the blowing snow as like “stepping on shifting clouds.” However, his story, told in diary format, occasionally dwells too much on the details of daily life instead of providing more specific information about the scientific research at Dome A. In the end, he writes, he returned to Beijing a changed man—although he’s does say that he’s still “not able to put the precise content and form of the impact it had on me into words.”
A worthy, no-nonsense addition to the body of Antarctic exploration literature.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-1483673882
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2014
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
SEEN & HEARD
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
