Valuable human-interest stories that provide food for thought and hope for change regarding a troubled yet vibrant society.
A Tehran-born American journalist invites readers to reexamine what they think they know about Iran and its people.
Kangarlou, an accomplished international correspondent who has spent years reporting from the Middle East for CNN, NBC, and other outlets, is cleareyed about the goal of her debut book: Recognizing that many Westerners see Iran as an oppressive theocracy, she seeks to rectify this simplistic take on her home country. Her approach—a series of vignettes of individual Iranians set against a broader historical background—is disarming and mostly effective. Kangarlou confronts stereotypes about Iranians and how those stereotypes are often complicated by people’s private lives—e.g., the gay son of a general in the Revolutionary Guard; a reformist Shia Muslim cleric known as the “Blogger Ayatollah”; Iran’s first female race-car driver, who, despite hardships, chooses to remain in her country (“my entire family, failures, successes, struggles, wins, are all here”); and a transgender woman with childhood dreams of becoming a cleric. The author’s portraits reveal a country that is more intricate and tolerant than many readers comprehend. For example, Kangarlou shows how the government permits many freedoms to religious minorities like Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians. Furthermore, “Iran is the only Muslim country in the region that grants legal rights to transgender people.” In other ways, the stories confirm certain impressions of Iranian society, such as sweeping limits on the press or the fact that Iran’s gay community has been forced to live largely in secret for decades. Because Kangarlou doesn’t dig as deep into the nation’s brutal side, the book isn’t a comprehensive picture of “the real Iran.” However, it’s a readable narrative that sounds strong notes of compassion about a nation that is often misunderstood.
Valuable human-interest stories that provide food for thought and hope for change regarding a troubled yet vibrant society.Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63246-205-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ig Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
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
Lg. Prt. 0-375-70288-1 This first nonfiction outing from singer/songwriter Buffett (Where Is Joe Merchant?, 1992, etc.) is more food for his Parrothead fans, but there is some fine writing along with the self-revelation. Half autobiography and half travelogue, this volume recounts a trip by Buffett and his family to the Caribbean over one Christmas holiday to celebrate the writer’s 50th birthday. Buffett is a licensed pilot, and his personal weakness is for seaplanes, so it’s primarily in this sort of craft that the family’s journey takes place. While giving beautiful descriptions of the locales to which he travels (including a very attractive portrait of Key West, from which he sets out), Buffett intersperses recollections of his first, short-lived marriage, his experiences in college and avoiding the Vietnam draft, and his brief employment at Billboard magazine’s Nashville bureau before becoming a professional musician. In the meantime, he carries his reader seamlessly through the Cayman Island, Costa Rica, Colombia, the Amazon basin, and Trinidad and Tobago. Buffett shows that he is a keen observer of Latin American culture and also that he can “pass” in these surroundings when he needs to. It’s perhaps on this latter point that this book finds its principal weakness. Buffett tends toward preachiness in addressing his mostly landlubber readers, as when he decries the seeming American inability to learn a second language while most Caribbeans can speak English; elsewhere he attacks “ugly Americans out there making it harder for us more-connected-to-the-local-culture types.” On the other hand, he seems right on the money when he observes that the drug war of the 1980s did little to stop trafficking in the area and that turning wetlands into helicopter pads for drug agents isn’t going to offer any additional help. Both Parrotheads and those with a taste for the Caribbean find something for their palates here. (Author tour)
Pub Date: July 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-679-43527-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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