With firsthand knowledge, diligent research, and colorful prose, Valosik provides an engaging, energetic history.
The long path to female equality has involved many byways, and one of them has been in the pool.
Valosik is editorial director at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, and she is also a masters synchronized swimmer, so she is well situated to tell the story of women swimmers from the late 19th century to the present. Swimming for women first became popular in Britain in the mid-late 1800s, and several women became famous in vaudeville acts. Some moved to the U.S. and attracted huge crowds. An Australian woman called Annette Kellerman became famous for acrobatic swimming but was also a strong voice in the drive for equal rights. There were popular group performances in the string of world fairs in the 1930s, although the key evolutionary step was adding music, which set synchronized swimming apart from other forms. Many male commentators were dismissive, partly because they did not understand the demands of it and partly out of straightforward sexism. However, as the author shows, Hollywood saw the potential, especially with the emergence of Esther Williams, a former swimming champion. She invented many of the crucial moves, and the aqua-ballet movies in which she starred became more and more spectacular. Williams, hugely popular in her heyday, demonstrated the capability of women, a critical issue when most women were confined to the home. Synchronized swimming was finally acknowledged as an Olympic sport in 1984 (the publication of this book marks its 40th anniversary). Valosik notes that the sport has recently become even more difficult, requiring feats that are increasingly complex and dangerous. Throughout this fascinating narrative, the author emphasizes the necessary blend of physicality, creativity, and grace, making readers want to pay special attention to the sport in the forthcoming Paris Olympics.
With firsthand knowledge, diligent research, and colorful prose, Valosik provides an engaging, energetic history.Pub Date: June 25, 2024
ISBN: 9781324093046
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
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
SEEN & HEARD
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