A must-read for anyone interested in philosophy, history, travel, art and the quest of human beings to comprehend themselves.
A dazzling meditation on the quest of the early Greek philosophers to understand the world.
Most readers have heard of the most famous Greek philosophers—Plato, Aristotle, Socrates—but Nicolson, author of Life Between the Tides and Why Homer Matters, goes back further in time to examine the Iron Age philosophers: Sappho, Thales, Pythagoras, and Heraclitus, among others. His premise is that the Greeks of this era, from roughly 700 to 500 B.C., developed their agile way of looking at the world from their seaborne way of living and trading. The author calls it the “dolphin mind,” an attitude that rejected the authoritarianism of the past in favor of a “mindset of entrepreneurial, adventuring people…a form of mercantile courage, of reliance on fluidity.” Author of many award-winning books on literature, nature, sailing, history, Nicolson is an excellent writer, his work shot through with wonder, erudition, and curiosity. He effortlessly pulls together strands of history, philosophy, language, art, culture, and archaeology. He chronicles his travels to present-day sites and ruins of the cities these philosophers called home, from Turkey’s western coast to Sicily, and re-creates both everyday city living and the philosophers’ struggles to understand the gears in the machine of existence. He organizes chapters around existential questions—What Is Existence Made Of? Is the World Full of Souls? Does Love Rule the Universe?—and the text is accompanied by reproductions of Greek art and artifacts, including pottery, coins, statues, and entire temples. These are all tangible clues to how these philosophers worked, played, and thought. Nicolson acknowledges the brutal side of Greek life, and he doesn’t shy away from the ugly realities of slave life, from endless, backbreaking manual labor to forced prostitution. Much deeper than a self-help book, this work returns to the past and shows how the ancients’ struggles were in many respects our own.
A must-read for anyone interested in philosophy, history, travel, art and the quest of human beings to comprehend themselves.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780374610104
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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