A sometimes-intriguing but uneven account of an unusual vacation.
In this travel memoir, a former journalist for the Washington Post and Newsweek recounts three world cruises that he and his wife took over five months with an aim to travel around the world.
Many readers will admire the chutzpah of octogenarian veteran journalist Benjamin and his wife as they head off in early 2026 on a quest to complete their lifelong travel bucket list. Via three different cruise ships, the Benjamins traveled from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Australia, Crete, and back to Florida, stopping at intriguing islands and many famous ports along the way. The author includes a log of their journey, which provides readers with tips on choosing staterooms (go big), what to see (avoid cruise line excursions), and ensuring that one has a good Wi-Fi connection. He also includes recommendations for dining options along the way—information that’s surely shaped by his wife’s experience as a food reviewer. Midway through the trip, the Middle East exploded into war, shutting off the only cruise route that would have allowed the couple to access the high points of their list—the Egyptian pyramids and the United Arab Emirates. Still, they return home with many engaging experiences to share, including staying in an over-water bungalow in Bora Bora and being detained by Omani police for photographing a building hit by an Iranian drone. To reach these fascinating details about 21st-century tourism in a world at war, however, readers must first wade through nine chapters about researching and making travel plans, changing those plans, and making packing decisions (including navigating pre-trip prescription drug procurement); the book also has two chapters about unpacking, closet difficulties, and how to get a ship’s staff to build additional closet space in a stateroom. Younger readers are likely to find such details laborious, but a wealthy, older readership may find it invaluable.
A sometimes-intriguing but uneven account of an unusual vacation.Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9798902529705
Page Count: 306
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2026
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
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.
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