An impressive guide that will persuade readers to pack their bags.
This comprehensive work is both a trove of practical advice and a paean to the idea of travel.
To say that Axelrod is a world traveler (he is also a photographer) is a rank understatement. He has set foot on all seven continents, most much more than once. In fact, such is his passion that an alternate subtitle for the book could be “Live To Travel, Travel To Live.” Chapter headings include “No More Excuses,” wherein he knocks down all the standard reasons for not going on a trip and addresses Covid-19; “Flight School,” in which he guides readers through the Byzantine world of air travel (reservations, frequent flyer miles, bargain hunting, the impact of Covid-19, even seating); and “Food, Fun, and Freedom,” adventures at the destination itself. He is a font of pithy pronouncements: “Build your dream trip as if you were building your dream home”; “A well planned trip…integrates into, rather than interrupts, your life”; and—on souvenirs—“Please do not be that nincompoop who comes back from Puerto Vallarta with a giant sombrero.” And who else might seize on a Tourbillon watch as a metaphor for building an itinerary—or even know that there is such a thing. Naturally, there are anecdotes from some of his trips (Bosnia, Tahiti, Greece). And even though the sojourn in Tahiti was more disaster than delight, he manages to wring some pleasant recollections out of it. Positive thinking is an ineradicable part of Axelrod’s makeup, and readers will admit that it is infectious. In a “don’t take my word for it” gambit, he deftly backs his arguments with experts in the field of travel research, a real growth industry. The copious backmatter includes pages upon pages of reference notes—the man is a bear for research. Certain chapters, like the one on air travel, can be overwhelming if readers are not familiar with app culture, arcane websites, and the credit card shuffle. On the other hand, he often summarizes dense discussions with bulleted lists, a convenience for overloaded readers, and likes to set up and then torch straw men, a sprightly way of presenting arguments.
An impressive guide that will persuade readers to pack their bags. (Acknowledgements, references, index)Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5445-2549-5
Page Count: 286
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A pleasingly unformulaic book of hard-won advice that never rings false.
The comic and television personality turns serious—semi-serious, anyway—in a combination memoir and self-help book.
Handler opens these generally short essays with a memory of childhood that closes with the exhortation to keep the child within us alive into adulthood: “Hold on to that child tightly, as if she were your own, because she is.” The memory soon veers into the comically absurd, with an account of a cocaine-fueled cross-country trip with a random companion who looked like another TV personality: “I don’t know if Dog the Bounty Hunter does copious amounts of cocaine, but he sure looks like he does.” Drugs and juice are seldom far from the proceedings, but therapy is close by, too, and clearly the latter has been of tremendous use, if “exhausting in the sense that every new development or idea led to a period of intense self-awareness followed by waves of acute self-consciousness coupled with endless self-recrimination.” As the anecdotes progress, that intense self-awareness becomes less fraught. Some of her life lessons are drawn from her experiences wrestling with the yips and setbacks of performing before audiences; some turn into knowing one-liners (“I knew if three men in a row told me not to do something, it was imperative that I do the opposite”). Most, even if tongue-in-cheek or rueful, are delivered with a disarming friendliness laced with her trademark archness: Her account of a dinner opposite Woody Allen and daughter/wife Soon-Yi is worth the price of admission alone. In the main, Handler is a cheerleader for everyone worthy of cheers, and especially women. As she writes, encouragingly, “You have misbehaved, and then corrected, and then misbehaved again, and then corrected some more”—and have grown and flourished.
A pleasingly unformulaic book of hard-won advice that never rings false.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593596579
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Press
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
