A collection of perceptive, astute journalism from a master at the craft.
The longtime New York Times writer chronicles two tumultuous decades through his columns.
Cohen, Paris bureau chief of the Times and formerly that paper’s op-ed columnist, gathers more than 100 pieces published from 2005 to 2020, creating a stirring collection of cultural critique, penetrating reportage, and candid autobiography. In an extensive introduction, he provides an overview of his life and work; a helpful headnote prefaces each selection. A naturalized American, Cohen was born in South Africa, which his parents left because of apartheid, and the Polish side of his family were victims of the Nazis. Cohen grew up in the U.K., where, in the 1960s, he encountered both latent and overt antisemitism and, at home, witnessed his mother’s descent into mental illness. As a young man, he traveled—one piece recounts his experiences “in Afghanistan as a seventeen-year-old hippie”—and he finally found a home in New York. His columns include dispatches from Tehran, China, Cairo, Libya, Vietnam, Gaza, Ukraine, Munich, Hungary, and Poland—as well as many cities in the U.S., where he has investigated Donald Trump’s hold on voters. A vociferous critic, he warned as early as 2015 to take the man seriously. Some pieces serve as memorials to family, friends, and public figures: among them, his beloved Uncle Bert, Israeli writer Amos Oz, Richard Holbrooke, and John McCain. Although Cohen defines himself as a stubborn optimist, the collection tells “a sobering story,” as he recounts injustice, racism, poverty, disease, nationalism deformed into fascism, and “an America where Americans have lost sight of one another.” His focus throughout his career has been to promote “freedom, decency, pluralism, the importance of dissent in an open society, above all.” Although he modestly describes the work of a journalist as “a life lived as an observer,” more than bearing witness to history, he has offered his readers shrewd analysis and often prescient insight.
A collection of perceptive, astute journalism from a master at the craft.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780593321522
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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