A pleasure for fans of both Springsteen and Obama and a fine affirmation of true American values.
A richly illustrated companion to the duo’s podcast.
It was Obama, writes Springsteen, who approached him with the idea that they host a podcast together. “Okay, I’m a high school graduate from Freehold, New Jersey, who plays the guitar….What’s wrong with this picture?” Springsteen recalls. He overcame his shyness, fortunately, and the two came together in 2020 for a series of conversations that ranged from shared love for music and cool cars—at one point, the two flee Springsteen’s spread for the beach, the Secret Service hot behind them, with Obama saying of the getaway car, “It’s smooth, man. Smoother than I expected”—to pensive observations on the state of the nation and the world. Obama lets his freak flag fly, with enthusiasms over such things as the Average White Band, funky albeit all-White and Scottish, while Springsteen has frequent opportunities to take philosophical turns. “I believe that I am involved in a ridiculous but noble profession,” he says, “and that music had an impact on me, changed my life, changed who I thought I was, changed who I became.” Few of the world’s problems were solved in the course of their discussions, but the authors point the way in such matters as positive race relations, an icon for which was Springsteen’s friendship with late band mate Clarence Clemons, as witnessed on the cover art for Born to Run. The discourse is at its best when the authors turn into deeply hidden corners, as when they discuss being the sons of absent fathers, with Springsteen allowing that much of his working-class persona is borrowed from his: “My entire body of work, everything that I’ve cared about, everything that I’ve written about, draws from his life story.” A summary of the book’s spirit comes when the former president issues a call to action that’s nicely rock ’n’ roll: “Stir. Shit. Up. And open up new possibilities.”
A pleasure for fans of both Springsteen and Obama and a fine affirmation of true American values.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-23631-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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