Sometimes meandering, but makes an urgent case for ecological thinking.
Part memoir, part ecology, part fable.
Chakour, who practices herbalism and leads rewilding retreats, argues that modern humans are “detached from [our] bodily existence” and presents the story of how she became a “more embodied, instinctual self.” To invite readers to “embrace [our] animal nature,” Chakour adds to her narrative the stories of 23 nonhuman (“more-than-human”) animals. The interspersed vignettes—about foxes and bees, hawks, and black bears—are meant to correct the harmful misunderstandings that keep humans from living in harmony with these other species, to highlight what we have in common, and to serve up life lessons. Recalling a time when she worked as a personal trainer and encountered firsthand the appearance-based anxieties of other women, Chakour wishes we could emancipate ourselves from the “bondage” of caring about exteriors and, like fierce and matriarchal hyenas, focus instead on cultivating sisterhood and strength. Writing about a partner who wished to live in New York while Chakour herself favored Massachusetts provides an occasion to contemplate seagull pairs that argue so long over where to build their nests that they never make a choice. The animal parallels go some way toward adding interest to the story, which, for all the promised wildness, reads as relatively tame; after a period of indecision, the author leaves her relationship, joins Bumble (the animal that appears in this chapter is not difficult to guess), and buys some land. The animal stories allow Chakour to incorporate many urgent ecological topics into her narrative and give readers a chance to learn about the important systemic roles of wolves, beavers, vultures, and others. Inhabited by so many complex and interesting creatures, Earthly Bodies asks that we pay attention on behalf of the planet.
Sometimes meandering, but makes an urgent case for ecological thinking.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9780143137757
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin Life
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
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
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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