A brisk and vivid history.
A woman navigates revolution.
Making an engaging book debut, Beer recounts the eventful life of Angelica Schuyler Church (1756-1814), the eldest of eight children born into a wealthy and influential Dutch family. Her mother was a van Rensselaer; her family tree included Livingstons and van Cortlandts. Like other aristocratic colonial families, hers owned slaves, an unquestioned economic necessity even for those who cried out for liberty. Contradictions and roiling politics defined her life: She was 19 when the colonies petitioned for independence, and her father, Philip Schuyler, soon became a commander of the Continental Army. Their Albany home became a meeting place for leaders of the revolution. As Angelica witnessed upheaval around her, she boldly upended her life. Although her family hoped she would marry a man of her class and means, she became attracted to John Carter, an English émigré, a man with “languid blue eyes and passionate political opinions.” He had no family connections, no estate or hope of one, and no fortune, to all of which her parents objected. Faced with the choice of submitting to parental authority or rebelling, she made a fateful decision. She and Carter eloped. She learned that Carter had changed his name from Church to avoid paying creditors after he went bankrupt in England; his later financial success supplying American and French troops made it possible for him to repay his debts and reclaim his name. Angelica Carter became Mrs. Church. In Boston, Newport, Paris, and London, she moved in the same aristocratic circles into which she was born. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were close friends in Paris; her brother-in-law was Alexander Hamilton. She was godmother to his daughter. Beer draws on abundant archival sources to portray a shrewd, observant woman whose perspective affords a fresh look at her times.
A brisk and vivid history.Pub Date: July 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781324050216
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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