An energetic, example-rich consideration of the global spectrum of dating practices.
A guide to decoding the dating practices and mindsets of other cultures.
Halter, a Hungarian-British entrepreneur who has traveled the world, conducted dozens of interviews with people in the dating pool from 2016 to 2023 and came up with a set of schematics, her “CultureZ spectrum,” to help readers navigate the international waters of the dating world. On this spectrum, cultures range from the more liberal West to the more conservative East, moving from the “Hugging Style” of more culturally open societies to the “Bowing Style” of more hierarchical (and more sexist) cultures. In “Hugging Style” cultures, for instance, clear communication is part of the dating style, whereas in “Bowing Style” cultures such communication can come across as “blunt or not having class.” Likewise in “Bowing Style” cultures, men will often court women for one to two years and are dating to marry; in “Hugging Style” cultures, things are more casual. Halter touches on all aspects of dating, from first dates to who pays to conversational styles to sexual expectations, and she illustrates these aspects with anecdotes about various couples, like an American young man named Scott who’s living in Vietnam and dating a woman named Linh, noting all the cultural differences. “Even just holding someone’s hand is a big deal here,” Scott reports. “Forget about kissing a girl on the first date!” Halter’s lively, well-illustrated breakdown of these variables is open to debate (and, as she points out on the subject of intimacy during dating, time is changing those variables), but the subject itself is widespread and pressing (she cites a UN Population Division estimate that as of mid-2020, the world has over 280 million international migrants). Her contention that Western societies are more guilt-driven and Asian societies more shame-avoidant may strike some readers as overly simplistic, but her bibliography, complete with links, will provide international daters with a good deal of food for thought.
An energetic, example-rich consideration of the global spectrum of dating practices.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781739406905
Page Count: 250
Publisher: cultureZ Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 14, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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
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