A remembrance that effectively captures one woman’s connection with nature in Central America.
A self-described naturalist shares her experiences living in Costa Rica in a memoir that overflows with descriptions of flora and fauna.
In 1990, Homer (Journey to the Joie de Vivre, 2016, etc.) and her then-husband left their busy lives in Philadelphia for the more tranquil environment of Costa Rica. Six years later, their marriage ended, but they both remained in the country, and Homer eventually remarried. She and her new husband bought a small house with a view of Lake Arenal and the active Arenal Volcano in the northern highlands, ultimately building a larger house on the property, which bordered the jungle. It was during the building of this house that she met Evelio, a 40-something local who worked in construction. The couple didn’t know that Evelio’s true passion was agriculture until he asked to use a small portion of their land to cultivate an organic farm. Homer’s memoir traces the disappointments, frustrations, and small successes of Evelio’s struggle over several years to make his garden profitable. She also offers an extensive ecological survey of her little piece of Costa Rica. An environmental activist, Homer became a Costa Rican citizen in 2002, in part to limit the risk of deportation when she stood up to government policies, and also because her soul found peace there. This book is adapted from Homer’s copious journal entries, local newspaper articles that she wrote, and her blog posts. Only a few sections specifically focus on catching readers up on her personal life. For the most part, the conversational prose is rich in detail about the wide variety of trees, flowers, fruits, and vegetables that blanket the area, and there are some wonderful stories about various wildlife that Homer has encountered. A vignette in which she creates a makeshift bridge for a band of monkeys is particularly delightful: “Monkeys avoid the ground, where they’re more vulnerable to predators, and the third papaya tree was just out of reach.” Homer pays scant attention to timelines in this memoir, leading to a surprise in the “10 years later” epilogue. The book also includes a helpful Spanish-English glossary.
A remembrance that effectively captures one woman’s connection with nature in Central America.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 Yorker staff 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
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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