RaveThe Washington PostSix decades of Sacks’s letters have been expertly woven into an effulgent collection of humanistic observations and descriptions, philosophical musings, personal anecdotes, epiphanies and poetry, all of which resonate with grace, gratitude humor and humility ... A testament to an extraordinary life, a life full of meaning and method. Sacks’s consistency, his dedication, his love of words, of knowledge, of storytelling, but especially of his patients establishes Sacks as one of the great inspirational voices, thinkers and explorers of our time.
Ty Seidule
RaveThe Christian Science Monitor[Seidule\'s] new book, Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause, offers hope that those who attempt to set the record straight about racism in the United States will indeed be listened to and believed ... Despite its very personal pathos, the book does not simply knock [Seidule\'s] boyhood idol off the pedestal; rather, it gives an uncompromising, searing, and full-throated indictment of a historically misrepresented man and myth, along with the many institutions that have given currency to all of it through the years ... In his conclusion, Seidule has one hope and one bit of wisdom. The hope: \'that the Lost Cause will not infect my grandchildren.\' The key, he believes, is historical knowledge. \'The only way to prevent a racist future,\' he writes, \'is to first understand our racist past.\'
Wade Davis
RaveThe Christian Science Monitor... it would be a gross understatement to call this book a river journey. It is far more than that. Magdalena is a devotee’s pilgrimage ... Like the very nature of the journey itself, the narrative swings back and forth and side to side, allowing the serendipity of the moment to fill in the adventure with compelling human interest stories and representative anecdotes, and of course histories. Davis is a tireless raconteur ... He writes in a style and from a perspective that is both haunting and self-deprecating. A word of warning: Davis does not spare his readers from the abject truth. There are stories about pogroms of native populations, slaughter of innocent townspeople, horrific environmental devastation, catastrophic natural disasters, and more. The history both near and far of Colombia is often heart-wrenching and violent ... There are still many wonders to behold ... a vivid portrait of his hopes and fears for the region.
Alan Walker
RaveThe Christian Science Monitor[A] literary feast ... Walker’s MRI-thorough biography leaves no letter unopened, no salacious love story un-debunked, no scathing musical criticism untranslated ... Walker’s narrative style reflects the very music of his subject: He has a light, delicate touch when making apt inferences, and a soft and rather ornate style when providing descriptions of the artist ... already qualifies as one of the best biographies of the year.
Anna Clark
RaveThe Christian Science MonitorIn this meticulously annotated, brutally honest (she names names), and compassionately narrated account of a disgraceful American crisis, The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy takes us from point A to point Z, showing and telling and explaining all that happened through the words of those who lived it.... a cautionary tale for every town and city across the land. Clark’s admonishments of \'the toxic legacy of segregation, secession, redlining, and rebranding\' that disproportionately victimized low-income and minority groups and of the government officials who repeatedly said, \'Trust us\' should be taken quite seriously, as well as her assertion that \'[a]gencies charged with protecting public health and natural resources deserve to be well-funded, pro-active, and oriented solely toward serving the public interest.\'
Wendell Berry
RaveThe Christian Science MonitorIt is his profound understanding of self, place, and personal responsibility that has established Berry’s essential greatness as a writer, poet, philosopher, naturalist, and neighbor ... The World-Ending Fire...could not have come at a better time as our nation thrashes about in search of a voice of reason ... the collection...rhapsodizes in a kind of orchestral composition of rhetorical movements—from ethos to pathos to logos and back again ... Berry is at his best when in motion, poetically punctuating his romp through the landscape with delicious descriptions of the flowering bluebells and stately sycamores ... But this pulsating joy of his, living next to nature, is always tempered by his robust disgust and awareness of the ominous \'perhaps fatal\' effect of one’s \'presumptuousness in living in a place by the imposition on it of one’s ideas and wishes\' ... The World-Ending Fire ought to be required reading...Wendell Berry is our National Guardian Angel!
