A sometimes-grandiose but often captivating argument for the house as the framework for a vibrant life.
Witte encourages readers to find fulfillment in custom-designed homes in this architectural manifesto.
The author, an architect, mounts a wide-ranging critique of mass-produced American tract housing on many grounds—unsustainability, carbon footprint, the legacy of discriminatory redlining—but emphasizes its aesthetic and spiritual barrenness. A house, he asserts, should instead be “a piece of livable art” and “a stage that will perpetuate the wonders of your own and only being,” one that’s wildly creative—perhaps “burrowed into the earthen depths of a hill or flying high on stilts”—and dazzling enough to raise “goose bumps” (to procure such a home, he advises readers to hire an architectural firm and focus on the rapturous experiences the house will support rather than on the high price). Witte explores many aspects of housing and architecture, from construction costs to the feel of brick to the play of natural light through windows, including disquisitions on—and photos of—his own home designs. The houses he showcases are very modernist, with a rectilinearity softened by natural elements that feels like a mashup of Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright; they include the Gerendák Residence, which has sent visitors into fits of joyful weeping, and his own self-designed residence, which features nifty innovations like hollowed-out stairway steps for stowing shoes. The author’s paeans to the house as the smithy of the soul can sound overdone (“approach your design team asking for a built environment that allows you to be happier, more fulfilled, tickled by sensual riches, provided with more emotional depth, and enriched by a heightened sense of self”), but when he writes about specific buildings his vivid prose ably evokes the psychological impact of material structures (“The entry of the Pantheon famously tightens as you enter from the passages and small piazzas of the Eternal City, only to release you into a vast, open, round-domed space that ultimately culminates in a small oculus at its apex. A bird would fly right through”). The result is an absorbing brief for great architecture as a human necessity.
A sometimes-grandiose but often captivating argument for the house as the framework for a vibrant life.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781953555472
Page Count: 244
Publisher: SPARK Publications
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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