A warm celebration of creativity and the writing life.
Writers talk about their craft.
From over 30 years of the nationally syndicated radio program Bookworm, the show’s host Silverblatt and editor Felsenthal have selected conversations with 12 acclaimed writers, including poet John Ashbery; novelists Joan Didion, Toni Morrison, and Octavia Butler; short fiction writer Grace Paley; and composer Stephen Sondheim. As Felsenthal notes in the introduction, Silverblatt went into each conversation without an agenda, deftly pivoting to wherever the talk went, and the conversations attest to the writers’ trust and respect for their interviewer. As John Berger remarked to Silverblatt, “you’re an incredible expert—but I don’t like the word expert—inhabitant, hunter about books, about written text, about mad literature that you cross and live in and relate to what is outside that forest, which is life.” The occasion for each interview could be the publication of a new book (W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, in 2001), an anniversary (the 25th for Octavia Butler’s Kindred, in 2004), or a notable book-related event (1998, when Morrison’s Beloved was made into a movie). Some entries include more than one interview: Didion, in 1996, for the publication of The Last Thing He Wanted, and 2013, for Blue Nights. Sondheim appeared when a recording of Road Show was released in 2009 and again in 2010 when he published Finishing the Hat, which Silverblatt describes as “a combination of collected lyrics, attendant comments, principles, heresies, grudges, whines, and anecdotes.” David Foster Wallace was a frequent guest, from 1996, after Infinite Jest, until 2006, with the publication of Consider the Lobster. Each interview ranged far from the precipitating occasion as Silverblatt brought his considerable curiosity to questions of style, tone, language, structure, aspirations, and inspiration. Widely read, knowledgeable, and thoughtful, he elicited candid, detailed responses from his guests. The interviews can be heard online in the Bookworm archive at kcrw.com.
A warm celebration of creativity and the writing life.Pub Date: March 31, 2023
ISBN: 9781737277583
Page Count: 432
Publisher: The Song Cave
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
IN THE NEWS
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.
A principled athlete strives for social justice.
Kaepernick forthrightly details the activism that earned him global renown but cost him his NFL career. In 2016, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback “was filled with disgust” after police shootings of fellow Black men in several American cities. Before a preseason game, he made a spontaneous decision: “It hit me in that moment that I should find a seat” during the national anthem. He did the same at two more games before reporters noticed. Kaepernick will forever be associated with “taking a knee” during the anthem, but he credits Eric Reid—a teammate who agreed with Kaepernick’s message—for suggesting that they kneel together during subsequent anthems. The protest changed everything for Kaepernick. President Trump vilified him. Kaepernick and his wife received death threats. And though he’d taken the 49ers to a Super Bowl, no teams would sign him. He will likely make news for his take on Jay-Z, whose lucrative partnership with the NFL was criticized as an attempt to launder the league’s reputation. Visiting Africa, where Kaepernick learns about “African leaders who willingly sold their own people to the enslavers,” he “couldn’t help but to think about Jay-Z and the NFL.” In opening chapters, Kaepernick recalls suffering traumatic racial abuse as a child. Being in “white spaces”—he was adopted by white parents—placed him “under a microscope every minute of every day.” He isn’t always nuanced, depicting some people he disagrees with as cartoonishly clueless. But his writing about how college and pro teams “lied” to him about injuries underlines his “feeling of being a disposable commodity.” A decade has passed since Kaepernick played in the NFL, but he stays fit in case “a team needing a QB” calls.
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781538777879
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Legacy Lit/Hachette
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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