A good gift for foodies.
A collection of essays about our emotional connections to food.
Inspired by the video of a friend’s son enjoying a Popsicle for the first time, actor Mamet sought to create a book about a topic “ripe with associations.” She enlisted the help of contributors from diverse backgrounds in art and culture. Most of the essays capture an isolated moment in time, making the book perfect for reading in short, leisurely spurts. Unsurprisingly, grandmothers are prominent characters in several of the pieces. Katie Holmes reminisces about making peanut butter cookies with her grandmother; Clara Vivier writes about her Gramma Guerrero’s fresh flour tortillas; Naomi Fry recalls her grandmother’s flavorful roast chicken. At the beginning, Mamet states her goal: “to show that our relationship to food is varied and complicated and can span myriad emotions, and sometimes those emotions lead us to dark places.” Some of the essays are certainly serious in tone. Several writers contribute intimate stories of eating disorders, including Mamet herself. Ted Danson shares his first experience with bigotry; Rosie Perez shares the memory of her mother putting her in an orphanage; and Anita Lo offers her thoughts on eating and identity in light of the anti-Asian rhetoric of the Trump administration. Others take a decidedly lighter approach to the material. Jia Tolentino provides a recipe for chicken to be consumed after an acid trip; Andrew Rannells celebrates his mother’s Jell-O cake; Jess Rona discusses her simple morning coffee ritual; and John Leguizamo exalts the power of sancocho, a soup that will transport you “to a magical setting straight out of a Gabriel García Márquez novel.” It’s not all gustatory magic, but the book is an appealing reminder of the power of food. Other contributors include Patti Smith, Stephanie Danler, Gabourey Sidibe, Tony Hale, David Sedaris, and, perhaps inevitably, Ruth Reichl.
A good gift for foodies.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-143-13729-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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