A late Ukrainian writer’s gorgeously rendered compilation.
Witness to war—and victim of it.
Just before taking her son on a vacation to Egypt, novelist-turned-war-reporter Victoria Amelina bought herself a gun. Unlike fellow Ukrainians, Amelina did not plan to join the army. Instead, she would begin working with a mentor from the Truth Hounds, a nonprofit dedicated to researching and documenting the Russian occupation of Ukraine, when she returned from her holiday. On her last day in Egypt, in February 2022, all flights to Ukraine were grounded due to the latest Russian invasion. Amelina and her son managed to get to Poland, where she left him to reenter Ukraine alone. She writes, “I lied to my child, and I will keep lying; war is a source of bad habits.” It is also, Amelina proves, a rich source of devastating stories. The author documents everything from a group of Ukrainian writers rescuing a stag beetle on a crowded train platform to an elderly farmer mourning the loss of his beloved animals. Amelina has an impressive eye for detail and an incredible capacity to lyrically capture an image and imbue the smallest moments with humanity. In June 2023, Amelina and other writers were at a restaurant that was struck by a Russian missile; she died a few days later, at age 37, before her manuscript was finished. Fortunately, Amelina’s writing has been assembled in this book; her editors have meticulously recorded where they rearranged text, and they also captured unfinished fragments that give readers a rare perspective of wartime Ukraine and insight into the author’s brilliant mind.
A late Ukrainian writer’s gorgeously rendered compilation.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781250367686
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.
The Top Chef host describes her journey to new heights.
For those who don’t know, Kish is a “gay Korean adopted woman, born in Seoul, raised in Michigan” and “a chef, a character, a host, and a cultural communicator—as well as a human being with a beating heart.” Though this book covers every step of her journey, every restaurant job and television role, and also discusses her experience as an adoptee (very positive) and a queer woman (late bloomer), the storytelling is so straightforward, lacking in suspense, character development, or dialogue, that it is basically a long version of its (longish) “About the Author.” Seemingly dramatic situations are not dramatized—when she was eliminated on her first Top Chef run, she assures us that she did the best she could, and drops it. “I can spare you the gory details (bouillabaisse and big personalities were involved).” Later, she cites a belief in protecting the privacy of others to omit the story of her first relationship with a woman. With no character development, neither does the reader get to know those who fall outside the privacy zone, like her best friend, Steph, and her wife, Bianca. When she gets mad, she says things like, “It’s a gross understatement to say I was crushed, beyond frustrated, and furious with the situation.” The fact that “I’ve never been a big reader” does not come as a surprise. It is more surprising when she confesses that “I believe the universe is selective about the moments in which it introduces life-changing prospects.”
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9780316580915
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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