Eloquent and informative; will especially appeal to horse lovers and racing fans.
This second volume of a memoir focuses on a champion horse’s son and his bumpy path to the harness racing oval.
After a successful harness racing career, 8-year-old Illusionist, called Lusi by Lumsden’s family, retired in 2009 to become a broodmare. In January 2014, she had already given birth to two fillies. Now, she was carrying her first colt. Two weeks before her due date, Lusi ran into trouble, and Magical Albert was delivered prematurely by cesarean section. The veterinarian asked Lumsden and her husband, Dave, which one they wanted him to save, the mare or the foal. Dave told him Lusi came first but to try to save both. Magical Albert spent almost two weeks on a ventilator and months lapping up a special formula. But mother and son both survived and thrived. Over the years, inspired by Dave’s passion, the Canadian couple had been buying, racing, and selling horses. Lusi was different: They knew they would always keep her. Lumsden’s memoir/primer on standard-bred harness racing traces the couple’s transformation from horse owners to horse parents. The growing herd became part of their family. “Mingling with horses had never come naturally to me,” the author writes. “Despite ten years of practice, I wasn’t comfortable around the great beasts.” The birth of Magical Albert changed that: “Face to face, Albert and I became locked in a silent, intimate exchange. The kindness in the depths of his expressive gaze signalled the beginning of a friendship.” Lumsden felt a shift in her “perspective on life and…approach to all major decisions.” A scientist by profession and inclination, she opened herself up to the acceptance of the unpredictable, becoming an author along the way. The personal story is intriguing, but the horses are what really shine in this memoir—their individual personalities, quirks, and tenderness. Some of Lumsden’s most riveting passages give moment-by-moment details of key races. Readers can feel the excitement of Magical Albert’s ultimate commitment to victory: “Suddenly, Magical Albert seemed to notice the competition. Our boy dug in at the rail and stretched his neck at the finish line.”
Eloquent and informative; will especially appeal to horse lovers and racing fans.Pub Date: July 30, 2020
ISBN: 978-1525569319
Page Count: 259
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
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
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