A useful and attractive travel guide for oenophiles.
Higgins takes readers on a tour through the winemaking culture of central California.
The author, a photojournalist, wine connoisseur, and writer (Exploring Wine Regions—Bordeaux France: Discover Wine, Food, Castles, and the French Way of Life, 2020), guides readers through the vineyards of the Central Coast region of California, focusing on the counties of Monterey, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara. The region, which boasts over 600 wineries, is divided into American Viticultural Areas (AVAs), grape-growing territories with common environmental characteristics. Higgins organizes his exploration of each county by AVA, identifying which grapes flourish in each area. Rather than choosing wines based on the type of grapes used, Higgins advocates for the consideration of terroir—the environmental and human factors that shape a particular wine’s flavor. The concept of terroir is the primary theme of the guide: “The more precise and specific we can be about terroir, and the grapes that are growing in that terroir, the better chance we are going to be drinking more exceptional wines.” Higgins begins each section with a general overview of the county, cataloging its largest cities, notable attractions, and transportation options before narrowing the focus to specific AVAs. Helpful charts list the wineries within each county, indicating the availability of different types of wines, restaurants, lodgings, tours, and other amenities. More in-depth profiles of Higgins’ favorite wineries provide information about each winery’s history, owners, noteworthy innovations, and specialty wines. Higgins also recommends restaurants and attractions in each area, supplying contact information, price guidelines, and photos of sample dishes. The descriptions are the standard stuff of travel guides (“As you enter the building, the design of the walkways and the entrances sets you in the mood of quality”), with a tendency toward repetition; Higgins’ photographs are the real highlight, vividly capturing vineyards, wines, and accompanying cuisine with rich colors and skillful use of light. Wine enthusiasts are unlikely to find a more informative resource for exploring Central Coast vineyards.
A useful and attractive travel guide for oenophiles.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9780996966047
Page Count: 436
Publisher: International Exploration Society
Review Posted Online: Nov. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
PERSPECTIVES
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.
In which the veteran humorist enters middle age with fine snark but some trepidation as well.
Mortality is weighing on Sedaris (Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, 2017, etc.), much of it his own, professional narcissist that he is. Watching an elderly man have a bowel accident on a plane, he dreaded the day when he would be the target of teenagers’ jokes “as they raise their phones to take my picture from behind.” A skin tumor troubled him, but so did the doctor who told him he couldn’t keep it once it was removed. “But it’s my tumor,” he insisted. “I made it.” (Eventually, he found a semitrained doctor to remove and give him the lipoma, which he proceeded to feed to a turtle.) The deaths of others are much on the author’s mind as well: He contemplates the suicide of his sister Tiffany, his alcoholic mother’s death, and his cantankerous father’s erratic behavior. His contemplation of his mother’s drinking—and his family’s denial of it—makes for some of the most poignant writing in the book: The sound of her putting ice in a rocks glass increasingly sounded “like a trigger being cocked.” Despite the gloom, however, frivolity still abides in the Sedaris clan. His summer home on the Carolina coast, which he dubbed the Sea Section, overspills with irreverent bantering between him and his siblings as his long-suffering partner, Hugh, looks on. Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters. For example, cashiers who say “have a blessed day” make him feel “like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.” But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals.
Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.Pub Date: May 29, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-39238-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
PROFILES
© 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.
