An engrossing, empathetic critique of modern culinary culture.
A sweeping social justice analysis of the way we eat—and the problematic ways society tells us to eat.
Journalist Tandoh, a Great British Bake Off finalist and author of three cookbooks, begins by comparing current food culture to “a bad boyfriend, dragging you down or holding you for ransom.” Too often, she argues, the modern dialogue about food seems to force us into “a perfect way of eating that will save your soul and send you sailing through your eighties, into your nineties and beyond.” In reality, food has a complex history sullied by everything from colonialism to homophobia. For example, Tandoh writes, “tea with sugar is a blood sport,” recounting how the British East India Company took over the tea trade in tandem with its bid to colonize India. In another chapter, the author takes on body shaming, emphasizing how “bodily scrutiny” is disproportionately applied to queer and trans people. Later, Tandoh uses sugar—a delicacy in Elizabethan England that has since become associated with the sugary drinks consumed by the working poor—as a tool for interrogating classism. Ultimately, the author encourages readers to eat what they want, when they want: “All we can really do is to take the revolution a meal at a time….Be the only person at the table to get a dessert. When it arrives, don’t share it. Fully rejoice in all your appetites—the wise and the unruly alike.” The combination of Tandoh’s earnest, compassionate tone and lyrical prose produces a text that is readable and informative. Her analysis of the intersecting systems of oppression that affect our ability to enjoy our food is trenchant and original yet occasionally overwritten and meandering. Her call for greater freedom in self-care is particularly relevant within a tumultuous global culture still struggling with the pandemic and myriad other concerns.
An engrossing, empathetic critique of modern culinary culture.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-46681-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Vintage
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.
Avuncular observations on matters historical from the late popularizer of the past.
McCullough made a fine career of storytelling his way through past events and the great men (and occasional woman) of long-ago American history. In that regard, to say nothing of his eschewing modern technology in favor of the typewriter (“I love the way the bell rings every time I swing the carriage lever”), he might be thought of as belonging to a past age himself. In this set of occasional pieces, including various speeches and genial essays on what to read and how to write, he strikes a strong tone as an old-fashioned moralist: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude,” he thunders. “It’s a form of ingratitude.” There are some charming reminiscences in here. One concerns cajoling his way into a meeting with Arthur Schlesinger in order to pitch a speech to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: Where Richard Nixon “has no character and no convictions,” he opined, Kennedy “is appealing to our best instincts.” McCullough allows that it wasn’t the strongest of ideas, but Schlesinger told him to write up a speech anyway, and when it got to Kennedy, “he gave a speech in which there was one paragraph that had once sentence written by me.” Some of McCullough’s appreciations here are of writers who are not much read these days, such as Herman Wouk and Paul Horgan; a long piece concerns a president who’s been largely lost in the shuffle too, Harry Truman, whose decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan McCullough defends. At his best here, McCullough uses history as a way to orient thinking about the present, and with luck to good ends: “I am a short-range pessimist and a long-range optimist. I sincerely believe that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.”
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781668098998
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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