A treat for literate, adventure-loving foodies, best accompanied by a bespoke chocolate bar.
A spirited quest for the perfect cacao bean.
Food journalist Jacobsen opens his comprehensive account in Oaxaca, Mexico, not far from a source of cacao and its resulting chocolate, so prized by the Aztecs that they expanded their empire far from its heartland to gain control of the Pacific coastal region where it grew. All cacao is, he writes, “ridiculously rich,” with a fat content of at least 55 percent, but some of the world’s most prized cacao, found in remote tropical forests from Mexico south to its homeland in the Bolivian jungle east of the Andes, is far richer still. These hard-to-find “wild cacao” plants fuel the gourmet chocolatiers of the world, such as the Swiss producer Felchlin, supplied by a German agronomist in Bolivia who built and lost a fortune in the chocolate trade but, for all his travails, can’t stop searching for the cacao grail. Jacobsen goes far afield himself, meeting some wonderfully weird characters and tracing their finds to chocolate makers in the U.S. and Europe. A skilled food historian with a sharp eye for the economics of the delicious, he also peppers his prose with interesting tidbits, including the boom-and-bust ways of lumpen chocolatiers like Hershey, which once commandeered the entire cacao output of Belize but then, when market conditions changed, left growers holding the proverbial bag. Of particular interest to budding entrepreneurs is the fact that several of Jacobsen’s subjects are young women who have carved a place for themselves as brokers for the organically grown, sustainable cacao whose growers are paid a premium. There’s plenty of adventure left in the game, Jacobsen writes: “In all likelihood, the Amazon and other remote corners of Latin America harbor other unique families of cacao waiting for their big moment. The search continues.”
A treat for literate, adventure-loving foodies, best accompanied by a bespoke chocolate bar.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781639733576
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: July 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.
Enduring the unthinkable.
This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063489790
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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