A sometimes cloudy but beautifully written meditation on the writing life.
The author of The White Mosque reflects on her literary self.
“I wrote to you of a writing method: Take notes on index cards and put them in a shoebox. When the box is full, the book is done,” writes Samatar near the beginning of her second work of nonfiction, which she hopes will “be a tonic; not a course of study, but a course of treatment.” In a series of short notes addressed to an unspecified recipient, the author reflects on her attempts to find “a writing method” that feels “less like writing and more like living,” while also grappling with the practicalities of a creative life, which include a lack of sufficient time, a struggle against the complexity of being relegated to the “diversity sideshow,” and a desire to be considered marketable enough to be “sold.” To make sense of the contradictions of her chosen path, Samatar quotes a variety of literary thinkers, ranging from historical stalwarts like Kafka and Barthes to modern writers of color such as Bhanu Kapil and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Throughout, Samatar linguistically circles back to the idea of her truest literary self, constantly returning to the question, “Who are you when you write?” On a line level, this formally inventive book is a pleasure to read. The author’s confessional tone, tightly efficient sentences, and use of white space produce a stunning aesthetic. Structurally, though, the notes spiral between a set of unanswerable questions and their associated emotions without landing satisfyingly. While the ending’s ambiguity is aligned with the book’s tone (and its title), the story feels more like a moment in time than a narrative arc, leaving readers wondering exactly how the process of writing this book affected Samatar’s perception of herself within and outside of her craft.
A sometimes cloudy but beautifully written meditation on the writing life.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781593767662
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 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
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