RaveForeword ReviewsIncisive ... The behind-the-scenes details of turning points throughout Humphrey’s career are captivating. Policy wonks will revel in absorbing glimpses of Sam Rayburn’s parliamentary wizardry, Dixiecrats’ machinations, and Harry Truman’s back-and-forth support for desegregation. The workings of journalism and politics in the pre-television, pre-internet age, when national conventions were a hotbed of political action, with millions of people captivated by their radio broadcasts, are also conveyed. Into the Bright Sunshine is astute in capturing pivotal moments in American political history.
Scott Chaskey
RaveForeword ReviewsElegant and spirited ... Soil and Spirit is a sensuous and serious collection of nature writing, replete with passages about the layered wonders of the natural world. It is also unwavering in stressing the imperative of working to undo the environmental damage that imperils all human beings.
Fábio Zuker
RaveForeword ReviewsFrom varied corners of the shrinking Amazon, Fábio Zuker’s essays report on perils to humans and wildlife, surveying Brazilian history, geography, and culture and documenting a raft of environmental problems that have been exacerbated by climate change...The essays highlight the balanced interconnections of healthy environments and those that have been unraveled by a rain forest ecosystem under siege...Gold mining, road building, wildfires, and extreme shifts in rainfall bring plagues of soil erosion, water pollution, and the loss of biodiversity...Wonderful respite from this weighty reportage comes from Indigenous artist Gustavo Caboco’s dynamic illustrations...This unique view of Brazil’s precious, precarious rain forest shimmers with passion and an intimate understanding of \'the friction between two worlds, between two ways of relating to the land.\'
Kazim Ali
RaveForeword Reviews... eloquent ... Illuminating contrasts are drawn between Ali’s Indian/Pakistani Muslim background and Native culture; Ali analyzes differences between Canadian and Indigenous identity, and their diametrically opposed perspectives about land and resource ownership. Intracommunity tensions are acknowledged in relation to religion, gender roles, alcohol sales, and relationships between Pimicikamak residents on provincial and reservation lands and the government. Though these topics are complex, they are untangled in an elegant manner ... Lyrical motifs of stargazing, and of an origami crane that Ali carries as a talisman during his visit, enrich the book’s descriptive passages. Throughout Northern Light, Ali continues to reassess his understandings of his childhood memories and his reasons for returning to Jenpeg. The book’s open-ended questions, like \'What does it mean to be from?,\' are resonant.
Elena Ferrante, tr. Ann Goldstein
RaveForewordFans of the bestselling Italian novelist Elena Ferrante will delight in her new collection of eloquent, revelatory essays about what motivates (and bedevils) her as a writer ... Ferrante’s critical analyses of her own work reveal how she starts with traditional literary genres, deforming them into complex, expressive works by employing impetuous writing and disrupting anticipated character developments ... The essays of In the Margins are illuminating and beguiling as they peek into the literary craft of a writer at the height of her powers.
Seth Kantner
PositiveForeword ReviewsSharp, fond essays and landscape photographs move from his childhood in a sod igloo into present-day battles over wildlife management, Indigenous rights, and resource extraction. Cozy reminiscences contrast with descriptions of \'Rambo hunting,\' as snowmobiles and semi-automatic weapons replace dog sleds and .22 rifles ... This is not a book for the squeamish: its lyrical descriptions of natural beauty are punctuated by scenes of field-butchering, orphaned calves, and nauseating insect larva plaguing caribou innards. Alaska and its caribou are shown to be threatened by accelerated warming, as plants and wildlife become more out of sync with various environmental cycles ... A Thousand Trails Home is a labor of love that advocates for more balanced ways of treating caribou and protecting the amazing Alaskan wilderness.
Dara McAnulty
RaveForeword ReviewsMcAnulty is a perceptive, introspective narrator whose descriptions of seasonal changes in the natural landscape are crystalline. His autism turbocharges his angst, and his intense reflections about the differences he feels in and out of his natural world refuge are self-aware ... Imbued with poetry, Irish literature, and lore, the text is eloquent as it relates stories about place names and their connections to saints and mythical figures; it combines scientific observations with lovely language and imagery ... an exquisite text that encourages harnessing one’s love for animals, plants, and local environments into actions to protect them.
Kazim Ali
PositiveForeward ReviewsKazim Ali’s eloquent memoir Northern Light reports on the complicated history of a Canadian landscape and its Pimicikamak residents, who endure human-made challenges every day ... This book began as a nostalgic inquiry into that place, but grew into an exploration of human connections to land and water, personal and cultural identities, and the meaning of home ... Lyrical motifs of stargazing, and of an origami crane that Ali carries as a talisman during his visit, enrich the book’s descriptive passages. Throughout Northern Light, Ali continues to reassess his understandings of his childhood memories and his reasons for returning to Jenpeg. The book’s open-ended questions, like \'What does it mean to be from?,\' are resonant.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Illustrated by Fumi Nakamura
RaveForeword Reviews... shimmering ... Nakamura’s delicate, elegant illustrations frame these emotive, tender writings ... The essays uncover the astonishing habits of ribbon eels, whale sharks, flamingos, dancing frogs, and other lovelies, while other less popular but no less wondrous flora and fauna also shine. Alluring lines about the Corpse Flower, an Indonesian native that grows large and stinky to attract nocturnal pollinating beetles, are enough to make anyone a fan. Cassowaries with killer claws, the bizarro Vampire Squid, and the Potoo of Central America (a bird with a croaking, retching call) are also described with passion, artful wordsmithing, and reverence ... Natural world subjects are touchstones for heartfelt personal revelations and meditations about social and cultural issues ... There’s also sly humor ... a bibliophilic and visual delight that dazzles the senses, much like Nezhukumatathil’s beloved comb jellies. Her entrancing essays are a reminder to spend more time outdoors wondering at and cherishing this \'magnificent and wondrous planet.\'
Daniel T. Rodgers
RaveForeword ReviewsDaniel T. Rodgers eloquently decodes four centuries of Western history in As a City on a Hill, in which myths and meanings of Massachusetts Bay Colony governor John Winthrop’s 1630 \'A Model of Christian Charity\' are elegantly unraveled ... Erudite, clearly articulated prose arcs through a sweep of historical eras and ideological movements ... The volume ultimately leads to examination of what the American national identity is and should be. It points to a richer, more complex history than traditional textbooks have narrated, and Rodgers cautions that \'the work of constructing the society and nation we want lies in the present not the past.\'
