Snappy vignettes on safe—and fun—spaces.
Uncovering queer history “found not in books, but in bars.”
Karp, writer and co-creator of the podcast Cruising, hit the road in 2021—along with her future wife, Jen, and Cruising co-creator Sarah Gabrielli—to visit the country’s remaining lesbian bars. “It was stories that I was after,” Karp writes. “I wanted to uncover the histories of these spaces, which have offered sanctuary when safety for the queer community was otherwise elusive.” On their 30-day journey, arranged in 24 brief chapters, readers learn of fascinating people along the way; among them are Evelyn Adams, a “gender-nonconforming lesbian anarchist immigrant” who opened a lesbian tearoom in Greenwich Village in 1925, and Nancy Valverde, a Chicana lesbian who was arrested dozens of times in 1950s Los Angeles for her refusal to wear traditional women’s clothing. The author recounts the histories of bars that are fondly remembered as vibrant community spaces, including Les Pierres, the first Black-owned lesbian bar in New Orleans, and the Wreck Room, an all-ages dance club for LGBTQ+ teens in Oklahoma City. Karp also interviewed the proprietors of current establishments—one is the Sports Bra, in Portland, Oregon, which opened in 2022 thanks to an overwhelmingly positive crowdfunding effort. The book inspires reflection on the definition of a lesbian bar today. Acknowledging that bars and clubs of the past were often “in dark caverns,” for the safety and security of patrons, new spaces have open windows. Many are now inclusive of all genders and sexual identities. The number of lesbian bars might have dropped in recent years, but that doesn’t make Karp despair. She writes, “Their decline in numbers in the early 2000s is actually indicative of a more expansive queer culture and a more welcoming, open society as a whole.”
Snappy vignettes on safe—and fun—spaces.Pub Date: yesterday
ISBN: 9780807023440
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2026
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
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
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