PositiveThe Guardian (UK)Like the strange, enchanting films for which he is best known, Herzog’s seventh book defies the usual conventions of structure, narrative arc and the delineation of fact from fiction ... Contains strong, gnomic opinions ... It’s like listening to a fireside monologue from an entertaining uncle ... However, because this book is a collection of uniquely Herzogian mindfarts, it resists a panning ... Michael Hofmann’s sparkling and inventive translation from the original German...somehow makes Herzog more Herzog in tone ... I can’t quite decide if it is absurd, profound or an ecstatically truthful mix of the two.
PositiveThe Guardian (UK)Knocks down assumptions like skittles ... If there’s one thing After the Spike leaves us with, it’s the impulse to back ourselves.
RaveThe Guardian (UK)Inspiring ... Teems with vitality, forming an antidote to political paralysis and despondency. Solnit is a prolific, omnivorous and brilliant writer and this book makes apparent her intellectual wingspan. There is great variety here ... but two bright threads run through the whole: the importance of hope, and the power of storytelling.
Arline T. Geronimus
RaveThe Guardian (UK)Arline Geronimus has spent the last 40 years researching racial and class injustice in the US. Her first non-academic book is the culmination of a life’s groundbreaking work ... She presents a staggering accumulation of evidence to show how daily discrimination grinds people down ... Weathering offers hopeful solutions to health inequities. It is crisp, backed with evidence and rather heroic in spirit.
