A deeply personal insider’s look into modern journalism.
A veteran journalist reflects on nearly three decades in the field in Ortigas’ debut memoir.
The author’s earliest memory is telling herself a tale while sitting in the backseat of her father’s car, when she was 5 or 6.The daughter of a literature teacher, Ortigas recalls “a childhood filled with stories,” in which she recorded her own audiobooks and even wrote a musical. She later traveled the globe as a journalist for CNN before serving as senior correspondent for Al Jazeera, and she describes journalism, and the art of storytelling generally, as the “futile attempt to capture the uncapturable.” Although her career provided her with access to some of the most powerful figures in the world, the narrative centers on “the little joys or woes off-camera that have stayed with me.” She includes accounts of an impromptu outbreak of singing at a particularly tense moment at a Gaza-Israeli border crossing, and of sharing a meal with a goat inside a Mongolian ger. This is an insightful, literary work that continually searches for meaning. For example, the book’s title comes from a colleague of the author’s in East Asia who observed that “there are no falling stars in China,” due to the intense smog; he later declares his astonishment at having seen one there, about which Ortega notes, “even in China, that which conceals things will clear—and those on the ground will reflect the stars above.” A self-described “dreamer,” the author acknowledges the ironies of her entering into a career that brought her into contact with wars, natural disasters, and people in poverty. The book is generally uplifting in its emphasis on the beauty in everyday life, but it doesn’t shy away from painful stories, such as that of Lola Pilar Frias, an 80-year-old woman she met who was among hundreds who were enslaved and raped by Japanese soldiers during World War II: “The horror they experienced was unfathomable, but Lola Pilar recounted it. In song.” The book also provides a clear-eyed view of TV news reporting: “Rapidly digesting and reducing people’s realities to less than two minutes of TV. That is the privilege of the job, and its cruelty.”
A deeply personal insider’s look into modern journalism.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9789815127898
Page Count: 232
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A charming and often poignant valediction from rock ’n’ roll’s Prince of Darkness.
The late heavy metal legend considers his mortality in this posthumous memoir.
“I ain’t ready to go anywhere,” writes Osbourne in the opening pages of his new memoir. “It’s good being alive. I like it. I want to be here with my family.” Given the context—Osbourne died on July 22, 2025, two weeks after the publisher announced the news of this book—it’s undeniably sad. But the rest of the text sees the Black Sabbath singer confronting the health struggles of his last years with dark humor and something approaching grace. The memoir begins in 2018; he wrote an earlier one, I Am Ozzy, in 2010. He tells of a staph infection he suffered that proved to be the start of a long, painful battle with various illnesses—soon after, he contracted a flu, which morphed into pneumonia. A spinal injury caused by a fall followed, causing him to undergo a series of surgeries and leaving him struggling with intense pain. And then there was his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, the treatment of which was complicated by his longtime struggle with alcohol and drug addiction. Osbourne peppers the chronicle of his final years with anecdotes from his past, growing up in Birmingham, England, and playing with—and then being fired from—Black Sabbath, and some of his most well-known antics (yes, he does address biting the heads off of a dove and a bat). He writes candidly and regretfully about the time he viciously attacked his wife, Sharon—the book is in many ways a love letter to her and his children. The memoir showcases Osbourne’s wit and charm; it’s rambling and disorganized, but so was he. It functions as both a farewell and a confession, and fans will likely find much to admire in this account. “Death’s been knocking at my door for the last six years, louder and louder,” he writes. “And at some point, I’m gonna have to let him in.”
A charming and often poignant valediction from rock ’n’ roll’s Prince of Darkness.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781538775417
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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