Whimsical cartoons reveal passionate lives.
Six insouciant sisters captivate the author.
Cartoonist Pond (Over Easy, The Customer Is Always Wrong) weaves glimpses of her own life into an entertaining group biography of the notorious, eccentric Mitford sisters—Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah. Growing up in suburban Southern California in the 1960s, Pond envied girls who had sisters rather than her boorish brothers; she envied, too, the Mitford girls’ rebelliousness, glamour, and sophistication. Born between 1904 and 1920, the sisters spent their childhood isolated on their family’s vast estate, each inhabiting “an island unto themselves.” Politically, they emerged with diametrically different views: Diana and Unity became unabashed fascists. At the age of 22, Diana divorced her husband to carry on an affair with Oswald Moseley, head of the British Union of Fascists, whom she eventually married. Unity, an ardent admirer of Hitler, went to Germany to meet him and soon, to her family’s horror, published a scandalous letter denouncing Jews. Jessica, on the other hand, touted communism and socialism. With Esmond Romilly (a nephew of Winston Churchill), she left home to aid in the Spanish Civil War. Defying her furious parents, they married and moved to the U.S.; she became a widow when Esmond was killed during World War II, and she later married a lawyer who shared in her labor and civil rights activism. Jessica made her name writing exposés, the first being The American Way of Death, skewering the funeral home industry. Nancy was the first to make her mark as an author, writing satirical novels that offended several members of her family. Pond recounts the sisters’ marriages, divorces, affairs, pregnancies, miscarriages, occupations, and preoccupations, all set in the context of the turbulent times in which they lived: “Across the scope of the entire 20th century,” Pond writes, “was the Mitford Circus.”
Whimsical cartoons reveal passionate lives.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781770468047
Page Count: 444
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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