An endearing and lighthearted look at the fate that awaits us all.
A lively examination of death.
There’s nothing like a bit of ground-up human to cure what ails you. Centuries ago, this is what some Europeans believed, buying “mummia”—powdered mummies—to stir into medicinal drinks or use as a salve. Egypt eventually banned the export of mummia in the 16th century, which led to a black market of fake mummies—“freshly dead bodies were doctored with pitch, dried in ovens, and wrapped in linen in an attempt to fool customers.” So writes Liak in an insightful exploration of death practices; she also illustrates the book. (A Chinese Singaporean artist, Liak designs book covers for Grand Central Publishing.) Packed with historical anecdotes accompanied by bright and playful images, this survey will delight readers young and old. For instance, in parts of the South Pacific, Liak writes, “it is believed that little bits of life leave our bodies throughout our lifetimes, such as when we fall asleep or get sick, so it may be said that we ‘die’ multiple times before finally passing on. For communities such as these, death is not an event but a gradual social process.” In 17th-to-19th century Wales, “sin-eaters” often attended funerals. The author writes, “They were often poor and desperate outcasts who were paid to consume bread and beer that had supposedly soaked up the evils of the deceased after being placed near the bodies for extended periods of time.” Liak shares snippets about cemeteries, phantoms, charnel houses, and mourning attire—in Ghana, close relatives of the deceased wear red; “if the deceased died of old age, white is worn to celebrate a life well lived.” Ghana knows how to put the “fun” in funerals, she observes. “Many coffins recall the deceased’s former professions. For example, fishermen are sometimes buried in fish-shaped coffins.” Now that’s a way to go.
An endearing and lighthearted look at the fate that awaits us all.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9781797230047
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.
Enduring the unthinkable.
This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063489790
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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