An artful and honest account of sacrifice and survival.
A hero of the #MeToo movement tells her full life story in her own words in this revealing, confident memoir.
Ford grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., in the 1960s and ’70s. “Living in the land of our founding fathers,” she writes, “built on a system of power that was created by and for men, of course men and women were treated differently and kept conveniently separate.” It was in this environment that she first encountered future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who, she writes, sexually assaulted her at a party when she was 15. (He was 17.) The experience had a profound effect on her, but as she demonstrates in this courageous text, it was hardly the driving force of her life. For graduate school, she moved to Southern California, where she learned to surf, began her work in psychology and biostatistics, and became a mother. She never imagined she would end up back in D.C. as an adult, testifying during Kavanaugh’s tumultuous nomination hearing. Though she had supported #MeToo, she writes, “even when considering coming forward, I saw myself more as a whistleblower than an activist. I didn’t even identify as a ‘survivor’ at that point (but after enduring the testimony and its aftermath, I would change my view).” Ford offers a cleareyed description of the personal, professional, financial, and emotional fallout, with which she’s still reckoning five years later. She partially attributes her survival to the thousands of letter writers who reached out with thanks, support, and their own assault stories. It is to them she dedicates her memoir, which extends far beyond the hearing that made her a household name. “My story can’t just be about the three months in 2018 when my life exploded in front of the world’s eyes,” she writes. “My life weaves together surfing, statistics, motherhood, friendship, and politics.”
An artful and honest account of sacrifice and survival.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9781250289650
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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
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