by Nicole Walker ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 9, 2021
An effective illumination of the profound “difference between right thought and right action.”
A scattershot yet engaging essay collection about a host of personal and global concerns.
Walker takes on a variety of topics, including the specter of the apocalypse (real or imagined) in the time of the 2020 pandemic, but the primary themes are motherhood, climate change, home, and, above all, our relationship with food. Though the earliest essays date back to the eve of the year 2000, they seldom feel dated. The author has many notable achievements, not least frequent appearances of her work in the Best American Essays series, but the narrative style may not appeal to all readers. Walker caroms from subject to subject—often tenuously connected—only to double back, in one case moving from the history of the Latter-day Saints migration to her withered tomato plants to human infertility in the space of two sentences. While these interjections and digressions are sometimes effective, it’s distracting when it becomes the main structural motif of many pieces. When Walker settles in, she produces observations as beautifully written as they are thoughtful. One of her specialties is pithy remarks, and some of her more intriguing phrasing causes us to view certain topics from unique angles. “Fried chicken,” she writes, “is a testament to the beauty of the disarticulated chicken. Every piece a handhold. Every piece its own integrity. The coating wraps a thigh like snow, a breast like a scarf, a leg like a stocking to protect it from the cruel world of hot oil.” On matters ecological, Walker’s book is allied with such recent works as Sandra Goldmark’s Fixation, noting that catchphrases and words from the counterculture have entered the mainstream lexicon. Some, alas, have been commodified. Meanwhile, the pandemic has caused many middle-class families to experience elements of real poverty. This, in turn, has revealed what the author believes are “fundamental flaws” of a capitalistic society. Yet as a consumer, she also feels a measure of guilt for her own inconsistencies of judgment and desire.
An effective illumination of the profound “difference between right thought and right action.”Pub Date: March 9, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-948814-34-8
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Torrey House Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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by Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
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by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
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by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
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IndieBound Bestseller
by Steve Martin illustrated by Harry Bliss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 17, 2020
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
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IndieBound Bestseller
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
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by Steve Martin ; illustrated by Harry Bliss
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by Steve Martin
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by Steve Martin & illustrated by C.F. Payne
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