A wealth of succinct, entertaining advice.
In an age of screens, AI, and shrinking attention spans, a good book is more important and valuable than ever.
For the bibliophiles among us, the recurring question is: What should I read next? Davis, a prolific writer and author of Great Short Books: A Year of Reading—Briefly, is ready with some 52 recommendations. His list stretches from The Epic of Gilgamesh to the current day, and it includes the seminal works of every major faith. Each entry includes an excerpt from the work, a biographical note on the author, and a discussion on its particular value. Davis also provides a recommendation on what to read next, which might be further writing by the same author or material in a related genre. His focus is on short books and essays; wherever possible, he places the piece within the author’s larger output. He casts a wide net, from Plato, Sun Tzu, Sappho, and Aristotle to Dante, Machiavelli, Marx, Voltaire, and others. Davis makes a point of including authors of color, such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, W.E.B. Du Bois, and James Baldwin, as well as key feminist writers like Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, and bell hooks. Elie Wiesel, Christopher Hitchens, Joan Didion, and Toni Morrison each find a place on the list. Davis admits that his collection is necessarily arbitrary, and he provides a short afterword to explain the reasons for his selections, as well as an appendix of other choices. One appendix, “My Ten Favorite Great Short Nonfiction Books,” includes work by Sappho, Douglass, Thoreau, Orwell, Didion, and Elizabeth Kolbert, in addition to John Hersey’s landmark Hiroshima. “I hope I have provided a rich reservoir of contemplation, insight, inspiration, and resistance, and perhaps even a glimmer of truth,” Davis writes. In that, he has succeeded.
A wealth of succinct, entertaining advice.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781668015599
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 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
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
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