A valuable, intimate narrative of war.
An English translation of a Polish journalist’s firsthand experiences covering the Spanish Civil War.
Green has translated Polish journalist S.L. Shneiderman’s 1938 book Krig in Shpanyen (War in Spain), adding an introduction that outlines the origins of the conflict between the forces of the Republican government and the Fascist insurrectionists led by Francisco Franco. Shneiderman arrived in Spain in 1936 to cover the conflict for the Yiddish press, cognizant of the interest of his Jewish readership in the outcome of the war and in the fate of the thousands of Jews who had come to Spain to join the fight. Attending both a tribunal and a bullfight in Barcelona, Shneiderman describes a city caught between vibrant normalcy and incessant violence. In Valencia, Shneiderman experiences the terror of imminent bombardment when sirens alert him to seek shelter in a crowded cellar. Throughout his travels, Shneiderman contrasts the beauty of the Spanish countryside with the horrors of war, crafting evocative descriptions of ordinary people transformed into soldiers: “Young people and armed men and women rushed past me, the women in khaki trousers paired with green linen blouses. Red-painted lips, perfectly groomed eyebrows, and over-the-shoulder short-barreled rifles completed the women’s ensembles.” Shneiderman highlights stories of Jewish men and women who left their native lands and former occupations to command troops and challenge Fascist pilots in aerial dogfights, and he movingly recounts the letters forwarded to him from Jewish families imploring him to discover the fates of relatives who came to Spain to fight. Throughout his narrative, Shneiderman presciently anticipates the looming threat of Hitler’s Germany and the stakes of the Spanish war for Jewish people throughout Europe. Although Shneiderman largely eschews expressing his own political opinions, his compassionate observations speak for him: “A teacher from Tortosa told me he sent his pregnant wife to Majorca in early July to rest. He hasn’t heard from her since the insurrection—he is now either a father or a widower. He doesn’t know which.” The result is a powerful record of courage, brutality, and suffering.
A valuable, intimate narrative of war.Pub Date: July 23, 2024
ISBN: 9798989452453
Page Count: 139
Publisher: White Goat Press
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
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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