Amusing essays about love, sex, and marriage.
A Slovenian humorist explores the ups and downs of romance in this collection of essays.
“Women,” Kesar writes, “almost certainly inadvertently crush our fragile egos. And we men drag that pain, like a ball and chain, from relationship to relationship in an endless tangle of utter disaster.” Rife with self-deprecating stories, from being allergic to a girlfriend’s perfume that made him sneeze during intimate moments to dealing with an ill-timed delay in the shipment of an engagement ring, the author offers readers real-life, comic examples of romance gone wrong. Now married with children, he also provides a tongue-in-cheek guidebook for marital bliss, most of which circles back to the titular refrain, “My Wife Is Always Right.” Divided into three parts, the book delivers 63 short essays that present witty vignettes about Kesar’s romantic misadventures. Part 1 centers on his dating life before marriage, including one essay about his disdain for lingerie as an unnecessary “frilly, lacy barrier between two people getting to know each other.” Part 2 focuses on the author’s engagement to his wife, their wedding, and “The Honeymoon that Involved Neither Honey nor the Moon.” The volume’s final section (“Life Together”) examines the ubiquitous story of fiery lovers whose relationship after marriage must adapt to routines, work schedules, and child rearing. Still, Kesar and his wife still manage to keep the flame lit, despite the author’s romantic stumbles and prickly facial stubble. The work concludes with a description of “The Four Secrets to a Happy Marriage,” which blends sincere insights (have common interests and “make compromises”) with humor. Originally published in Slovenian, the book features Charney’s English translation, which holds up well in maintaining the nuances of Kesar’s jokes. While the volume’s European sensibilities, from its open approach to sex to weekend jaunts to Barcelona, may not always resonate with American audiences, its focus on marriage will have a wide appeal. Although often genuinely funny, the work leans heavily on the tropes of sex-obsessed men and their begrudging wives that will have limited resonance for readers who reject heteronormative relationships and traditional gender roles.
Amusing essays about love, sex, and marriage.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 9789619502495
Page Count: 202
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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