by Tracy K. Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 2023
A lyrical memoir conveys an urgent message.
The Pulitzer Prize–winning poet combines memoir and history in a powerful new book.
Smith, translator, memoirist, and poet laureate of the U.S. 2017 to 2019, delves into her family’s history—a history of subjugation, violence, and enslavement—in order to “endure the intractability of the world I know.” In the world of her forebears, and in her own, she asserts, “the Freed are discouraged from confusing themselves with the Free.” Freed though they were, her great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents were oppressed and threatened by a world rife with racism. “I descend from a history of daily miracles,” she writes, “by which the soul of a people whom institution upon institution has sought to annihilate yet lives on.” Smith’s search into her past took her to archives, military records, and census forms, where, she notes, “there is no column for Love,” but still, the forms reveal “names and traces” that allow her to reconstruct “stories and lives that can liberate us.” Those lives were buoyed by a strong sense of spiritual community, where the “ring shout” served as “a shared heartbeat.” The shout, Smith explains, is “a cultural practice rooted in praise, song, and the soul-sustaining power of something so unperturbed by logic as to call itself the Holy Ghost.” Because of her parents’ “titanic effort,” Smith and her siblings grew up to transcend many racial barriers—Smith graduated from Harvard, where she now teaches—and, she writes, “were allowed to mistake ourselves for the Free.” But as she reflects on her education, career, marriages, and motherhood; and on many recent, recurring incidents of violence against Blacks, she increasingly identifies with the Freed. “What,” she asks, “might this nation stand to learn from a people whose soul alone has carried them through centuries of storm and war?”
A lyrical memoir conveys an urgent message.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780593534762
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
Share your opinion of this book
More by Tracy K. Smith
BOOK REVIEW
edited by Tracy K. Smith & John Freeman
BOOK REVIEW
by Kristen Kish ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 22, 2025
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.
The Top Chef host describes her journey to new heights.
For those who don’t know, Kish is a “gay Korean adopted woman, born in Seoul, raised in Michigan” and “a chef, a character, a host, and a cultural communicator—as well as a human being with a beating heart.” Though this book covers every step of her journey, every restaurant job and television role, and also discusses her experience as an adoptee (very positive) and a queer woman (late bloomer), the storytelling is so straightforward, lacking in suspense, character development, or dialogue, that it is basically a long version of its (longish) “About the Author.” Seemingly dramatic situations are not dramatized—when she was eliminated on her first Top Chef run, she assures us that she did the best she could, and drops it. “I can spare you the gory details (bouillabaisse and big personalities were involved).” Later, she cites a belief in protecting the privacy of others to omit the story of her first relationship with a woman. With no character development, neither does the reader get to know those who fall outside the privacy zone, like her best friend, Steph, and her wife, Bianca. When she gets mad, she says things like, “It’s a gross understatement to say I was crushed, beyond frustrated, and furious with the situation.” The fact that “I’ve never been a big reader” does not come as a surprise. It is more surprising when she confesses that “I believe the universe is selective about the moments in which it introduces life-changing prospects.”
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9780316580915
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
Share your opinion of this book
by Amy Tan ; illustrated by Amy Tan ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 23, 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
Share your opinion of this book
More by Amy Tan
BOOK REVIEW
by Amy Tan
BOOK REVIEW
by Amy Tan
BOOK REVIEW
by Amy Tan
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.