A knowledgeable but generic guide to the cosmos.
Science comes of age by the light of an ancient sky.
“Ever since our ancestors traced the paths of the twinkling lights across their night skies, our collective gaze has been drawn to the heavens,” writes particle physicist Malik. Indeed. And ever since our ancestors began writing cosmology books, they have penned sentences just like that one. (Or this one: “From the earliest days of our awakening, the rapturous wonder of the world in which we find ourselves has held our collective fascination.”) Malik traces the history of all this collective gazing, from Babylonian skywatching to science experiments run by rovers on Mars. She retells well-worn stories of cosmological discovery: Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson thinking pigeon droppings were messing with their radio telescope only to realize it was leftover radiation from the Big Bang; Vera Rubin clocking the stars sweeping across the outskirts of Andromeda, only to find they’re moving too fast to explain given the gravitational tethers of visible matter. Such ordinary matter—the kind that constitutes us and everything we see and touch—accounts for a measly 5% of the universe, the rest consisting of dark matter (25%) and dark energy (70%). As Malik says, “we are still very much in the dark.” Theorists have always tried to make sense of such observations, often turning reality upside down in the process. In the early-20th century, Newton’s clockwork universe came unhinged when the theory of relativity shook up our notions of space and time and quantum mechanics replaced its gears and cogs with a fog of uncertainty and probability. Today, mysteries remain. Where’s all the antimatter? Are there other dimensions? Is there life elsewhere in the universe? Malik doesn’t offer her own views, only boilerplate summaries. The effect is a book that skims along, frictionless, like well-written Wikipedia fare—a collective take on the universe. For readers brand new to the history of physics, this is a gentle and wide-ranging introduction. Those familiar with the subject will find their gaze wandering elsewhere.
A knowledgeable but generic guide to the cosmos.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9780063476523
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 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
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
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