Essential for Kundera devotees, and worthy of a place on the shelf next to Milosz and Solzhenitsyn.
The late Czech writer offers considered thoughts on politics, literature, translation, and other topics.
The two texts included here, “89 Words” and “Prague, a Disappearing Poem,” appeared in 1985 and 1980, respectively, in the now-defunct French leftist journal Le Débat. Leftist, to be sure, but Kundera is rightly soured on “Soviet civilization,” which had oppressed the intellectual and cultural traditions of his homeland; he is equally disenchanted with a West that turned its back on a nation that was once at the center of European life: “After one thousand years of being a Western country, Czechoslovakia became part of the Eastern bloc.” Kundera opens these elegant if often embittered essays with this complaint: When The Joke appeared in a French version, “the translator practically rewrote my novel and changed my style completely,” while his English translator “didn’t know a single word of Czech.” A sympathetic French publisher suggested that Kundera write a personal dictionary of keywords in his work, and that dictionary constitutes “89 Words,” from “Absolute” to “Youth,” and with plenty of stops along the way. At midpoint is Kundera’s metaphysical context of “Lightness”: “As for the idea of the unbearable lightness of being, I find it already in The Joke: ‘I was walking across the dusty cobblestones, and I felt the heavy lightness that weighed down my life.’” Kundera’s sometimes curmudgeonly takes have a certain arch humor to them, as when he insists, in one of several entries concerning the novel, “The novelist owes nothing to anyone, except Cervantes.” A bonus: Kundera’s coinage of “Orgasmocentric.” “Prague” has less lightness: Kundera rightly bemoans the historical fact that Soviet colonization “took place in a country that had never colonized anyone,” imprisoning Czech culture and literature and the Czech people themselves, “suffocating inside their lives.”
Essential for Kundera devotees, and worthy of a place on the shelf next to Milosz and Solzhenitsyn.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063436435
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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