A cogent and well-argued case for an oft-maligned politician.
Gruenenfelder makes the case for West Virginia senator Joe Manchin in this debut nonfiction book.
Dismayed by attacks on Joe Manchin from fellow progressives, the author, a Democratic Party organizer, wrote this book in support of the moderate West Virginia senator, whose stances on coal and his “folksy reputation for compromise and working across the aisle” have made him a target of the left. Hoping to dissuade prominent Democratic fundraisers and politicians from primarying the blue senator from a deeply red state in his upcoming reelection, Gruenenfelder asserts in his central argument that future progressive victories are “impossible if we don’t actually control the levers of government.” After beginning with a brief biography of Manchin, the grandchild of impoverished Czech and Italian immigrants, the book presents chapters divided thematically by issues that range from the Affordable Care Act to minimum wage. Emphasizing the fact that Manchin has voted with President Joe Biden’s agenda “nearly 90% of the time,” the author convincingly makes the case for Manchin’s liberal record protecting Planned Parenthood, safeguarding funding for health care, advocating for LGBTQ+ rights, and pushing back against Donald Trump’s Covid-19 rhetoric. Indeed, as the book highlights, Manchin votes with his party at more reliable rates than progressive standard-bearers such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. And while certainly eccentric (the senator lives on a houseboat docked in Washington, D.C., that he bought from liquidators), Manchin, per the book, is a savvy, soft-spoken politician whose pragmatic approach is essential to his ability to maintain electoral support. A political organizer born and raised in Los Angeles who’s led student protests against gun violence, Gruenenfelder allows that Manchin’s views do not “represent the future of our party” while making a strong case for the senator’s political value. Written explicitly for fellow Democrats, the book’s overt partisanship may not appeal to all readers, though its engaging narrative offers a comprehensive overview of an influential politician’s career, supported by sound research and more than 1,200 endnotes. The author’s accessible writing style will appeal to policy wonks and casual observers of U.S. politics alike.
A cogent and well-argued case for an oft-maligned politician.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781735580517
Page Count: 440
Publisher: Geoghegan & Burke Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
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