Lotus root, anyone? A pleasure, and an education, for climate-conscious foodies.
Eating to fix the planet.
Working with climate journalist Kostigen, founder of the Climate Survivalist column for USA Today and author of The Green Book and Hacking Planet Earth, Downey Jr. serves up food that’s not just hip (as it surely is) but can also be useful in containing or even reversing climate change. Cool food, write the authors, is “a holistic approach to making the world a whole lot better by simply making more informed decisions about something that each and every one of us does anyway—eat.” Those informed decisions require doing a little homework—for example, chasing down sources of locally grown organic food that is appropriate to its season (no Chilean strawberries in January) and finding restaurants that are committed to the humane treatment of animals and to pesticide-free plants. Among other things, the authors counsel that seeking out “ancient grains” such as amaranth is one step to getting away from environmentally damaging mass-produced products. Perhaps curiously, they name rice among the baddies while writing that “wheat is the best cool food to eat,” but the environmental reasoning seems basically sound, even if readers with celiac disease won’t benefit much from the advice. Some of their recommendations are unremarkable—Francis Moore Lappé counseled lowering if not cutting out meat consumption half a century ago—but much is broadly practical. It’s good to know, for instance, that lentils not only pack a powerful protein punch but also have “a puny carbon footprint.” Scattered liberally throughout the vibrant graphics-heavy book are various delightful recipes, including lentil and tomato dahl with whole-meal roti bread, which ticks all the healthful and environmentally sensitive boxes, and aromatic tofu pho, with a dozen kinds of veggies and flat rice noodles.
Lotus root, anyone? A pleasure, and an education, for climate-conscious foodies.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 2024
ISBN: 9798200962372
Page Count: 286
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
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
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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