A provocative blueprint for increasing Pakistan’s international status and influence.
A wide-ranging strategy for Pakistan to improve its future as an economic and political power.
Niazi observes that while Pakistan possesses all the “essential ingredients” to become a great economic power—not just on the Indian subcontinent, but also globally—the country “has long suffered from a lack of vision, planning, strategy, and continuity.” To improve the nation’s fortunes, the author outlines a “comprehensive plan” designed to capitalize on Pakistan’s wealth of natural resources, geographical advantages, and infrastructure. At the heart of this strategy is the establishment of a Pakistan Economic Gateway that would connect the nation to the continents of Asia, Europe, Africa, and Australia by overland and maritime corridors. This network of routes would not only capitalize on Pakistan’s “key geostrategic location” and enhance its commercial connectivity but also contribute to its food, energy, and climate security. The key here is to leverage Pakistan’s existing supply chain structure in addition to its considerable reserves of copper, cobalt, nickel, and lithium. In this concise but analytically exacting study, Niazi constructs a panoramic recipe for Pakistan’s geopolitical ascendancy, one which includes a somewhat dubious “integrated Eurasian and Indian Ocean strategy” to secure its military and political significance. The brevity of the book is its chief challenge—so much ground is covered so quickly that it’s difficult for any of the positions staked out by the author to register as fully persuasive. It is one thing to observe that Pakistan “must build a credible deterrence against asymmetric and conventional threats,” and quite another to explain exactly how this is to be done, a task the author eschews. However, the notion that the proposed corridors could be the key to financing the nation’s infrastructural development is an enticing stimulus to further thought. At the very least, the reader is left wanting further elaborations upon Niazi’s thoughtful, well-informed proposals, and that makes his creative analysis well worth consideration.
A provocative blueprint for increasing Pakistan’s international status and influence.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2025
ISBN: 9789699748271
Page Count: 148
Publisher: Markings Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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
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