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
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.
A principled athlete strives for social justice.
Kaepernick forthrightly details the activism that earned him global renown but cost him his NFL career. In 2016, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback “was filled with disgust” after police shootings of fellow Black men in several American cities. Before a preseason game, he made a spontaneous decision: “It hit me in that moment that I should find a seat” during the national anthem. He did the same at two more games before reporters noticed. Kaepernick will forever be associated with “taking a knee” during the anthem, but he credits Eric Reid—a teammate who agreed with Kaepernick’s message—for suggesting that they kneel together during subsequent anthems. The protest changed everything for Kaepernick. President Trump vilified him. Kaepernick and his wife received death threats. And though he’d taken the 49ers to a Super Bowl, no teams would sign him. He will likely make news for his take on Jay-Z, whose lucrative partnership with the NFL was criticized as an attempt to launder the league’s reputation. Visiting Africa, where Kaepernick learns about “African leaders who willingly sold their own people to the enslavers,” he “couldn’t help but to think about Jay-Z and the NFL.” In opening chapters, Kaepernick recalls suffering traumatic racial abuse as a child. Being in “white spaces”—he was adopted by white parents—placed him “under a microscope every minute of every day.” He isn’t always nuanced, depicting some people he disagrees with as cartoonishly clueless. But his writing about how college and pro teams “lied” to him about injuries underlines his “feeling of being a disposable commodity.” A decade has passed since Kaepernick played in the NFL, but he stays fit in case “a team needing a QB” calls.
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781538777879
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Legacy Lit/Hachette
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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