An absorbing, moving, cathartic collection.
Writers reflect on their experiences of loneliness and solitude.
In this above-average collection of personal essays, a richly diverse set of writers recall how periods of solitude have impacted their lives. Depending on their past or present circumstances, they evoke sensations of dread or despair, joy and enlightened freedom, often working through their darkest emotions to discover a renewed sense of well-being. “I was drawn to essays about the quiet delights of solitude and the shocks of isolation, as well as reflections on the gentler waves of loneliness that come and go throughout our lives,” writes Garrett. “I longed to create a harbor for our most vulnerable stories, told with urgency and sometimes with levity—affirming stories that might reassure and reconnect us. Most of all, I hoped to shine light on a universal emotion and experience that is often pushed down into the dark.” Each essay, most of which are memorable, offers a meaningful glimpse into the varying depths of loneliness. “Javelinas” is Claire Dederer’s account of her six-week writer’s residency in Marfa, Texas, where she confronted her all-consuming issues with alcoholism. In “Exodus 2020,” Emily Raboteau hauntingly recounts a sorrowful sense of impending loss and doom caused by the mass departure of a New York City apartment building’s tenants during the pandemic. Lena Dunham examines her evolving feelings of aloneness during the breakup of a long-term relationship. Yiyun Li’s “To Speak Is To Blunder but I Venture” and Jean Kwok’s “The Perpetual Foreigner” movingly reflect on their personal journeys and struggles as Chinese immigrants; the loneliness of forfeiting one’s native language; and the sense of freedom in allowing one’s ambition to flower. It’s been well noted that writing can be a lonely endeavor, but this book demonstrates that great illumination can be found in the process. Other contributors include Maggie Shipstead, Lev Grossman, Anthony Doerr, Peter Ho Davies, Jesmyn Ward, and Melissa Febos.
An absorbing, moving, cathartic collection.Pub Date: April 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-948226-60-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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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