Essayist Slice and minister Cupp (coauthors of the picture book This Is How We Play) team up for a noteworthy relationship guide for disabled people. Drawing on personal experience (Slice’s dysautonomia began at 28, and Cupp was born with cerebral palsy) and enlightening interviews with people across the ability spectrum, the authors tackle such challenges as disclosing one’s disability on dating apps, discussing caregiver duties with partners, and having sex in spite of physical limitations. The guidance takes a flexible rather than prescriptive approach—for instance, the chapter on sex advises readers to “expand what sex means” beyond penetrative intercourse and experiment with new strategies, positions, and devices. Other sections explore the intersection between disability and queerness and the higher incidence of sexual assault against disabled people. Throughout, the authors are candid about the difficulties of dating in a society that prizes “spontaneity... and effortlessness” yet is riddled with access limitations for those with disabilities. With plenty of useful tips, stories, and encouragement for readers to fashion their own approaches, this is a valuable resource. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

Poet Nepo (The Book of Awakening) explores the “gifts and challenges of being close to one another” in this florid paean to friendship. Among other personal anecdotes, he shares how undergoing cancer treatment at the same time his friend Robert worked to recover from alcoholism enabled both to start over “naked, humbled, and raw”; how supporting his wife after their dog’s death “enlarged my understanding of grief and acceptance”; and even how his fractured relationship with his brother, whom he cryptically says “feels I’ve wronged him by living my life,” reminds him to strengthen his bonds with others. The author’s at his best when unpacking what such thinkers as Raymond Carver and Aristotle have to say about the topic, though these insights are overshadowed by indulgent metaphors that muddy the book’s conception of friendship (it’s alternately defined as an “electron in the center of every story,” “the sinew that connects the muscle and bone of being human,” and “among the purest gateways to the deeper dimensions of life”). This falls short. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

In the competent latest entry in Reaktion’s Critical Lives series, Hopson, an English professor at Western Kentucky University, explores the groundbreaking career of novelist and anthropologist Hurston (1891–1960), whose early life was marked by hardship. She was 13 when her mother died, after which her father sent her away to a Florida Bible school and then stopped paying tuition, forcing Hurston to work multiple jobs to cover room and board. A talented student, Hurston became the first Black woman to attend Barnard College, graduating after three years with a BA in anthropology and joining the thriving Harlem literary scene. Offering close readings of Hurston’s major works, Hopson explores themes of love and independence in Their Eyes Were Watching God and argues that Moses, Man of the Mountain is an allegory for Hurston’s life, with her literary talents recast as the biblical prophet’s divine gifts. Delving into Hurston’s anthropological work, Hopson notes that in the 1930s she collected folklore in Haiti and studied a community “made up of descendants of African people who had escaped their enslavers” in Jamaica. Hopson sets forth a concise overview of her subject’s life, but the just-the-facts approach will leave readers yearning for panache and perspective. This gets the job done, even as it lacks in style. Photos. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

This rip-roaring debut from journalist Richards profiles the individuals, most of them behind the scenes, who keep Formula One teams up and running. He details how Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner takes a hands-off approach, reasoning that personnel work best when given wide latitude to exercise their own initiative. Discussing the role of head strategist, Richards explains how Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake’s Ruth Buscombe games out plans for myriad contingencies (faster-than-expected tire degradation or weather changes, for instance) and runs through them with drivers and engineers to prepare for races. A chapter dedicated to McLaren driver Lando Norris reflects on the pressures of the limelight (he reports eating little on race days due to nerves), but the overall focus is on F1’s unsung contributors. For instance, Richards discusses how Red Bull Racing machinist Neil Ambrose manufactures custom parts and how McLaren pit mechanic Frazer Burchell views track-side repairs as “an extremely well-rehearsed” dance. The revealing profiles of performance coaches, engineers, mechanics, and technicians capture the collaboration and strategic calculations that go into making champion racers, providing a panoramic view of F1’s inner workings. Racing fans will want to take this for a spin. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

Balf (The Last River) presents a vivid snapshot of competitive swimming in the 1920s through the stories of three star athletes (German American Johnny Weissmuller, native Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku, and Japan’s Katsuo Takaishi) and their performance in the men’s 100 meter freestyle at the 1924 Paris Olympic games. Foregrounding the complicated ethnic politics of the era, Balf notes that Weissmuller faced anti-German sentiment growing up in Chicago during WWI only to later be lauded by eugenicists for his “Adonis” physique. Kahanamoku, whose success in the 1912 and 1920 Olympics made him a celebrity in Hawaii, took a tortuous route to the Paris games, coming under fire for competing in a white-only pool during a qualifying race and for violating the rules of the Amateur Athletic Union by performing in a Hollywood film. Elsewhere, Balf discusses how Takaishi, despite finishing fifth in Paris (Weissmuller took gold and Kahanamoku silver), made a strong enough showing that he sparked “a revolution in Japan,” where he went on to lead a national swimming program that “in a mere eight years supplanted the U.S. as the world’s swimming powerhouse.” Balf provides a tense account of the climactic race, though his argument that his subjects “were forebearers to today’s modern athlete” goes underdeveloped. Still, this is worth dipping into. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

UCLA historian Green debuts with a captivating biography of father and son literary fabulists Ikbal and Idries Shah. Born in 1894 into a wealthy Muslim family in colonial India and sent to Britain for his schooling, Ikbal eventually abandoned his studies, instead indulging his literary aspirations by publishing poetry. Capitalizing on British popular interest in the region due to ongoing conflict, he positioned himself as an expert on Afghanistan (he was descended from an Afghan chieftain), penning several guidebooks. He went on to fabricate many more bestselling travelogues for places he’d never visited, along the way inventing stories about Eastern mysticism. Idries followed in his father’s footsteps, presenting himself as an authority on Sufism, though much of what he wrote on the topic was fanciful; he earned a devoted following in the 1960s, which included Doris Lessing. In a famous episode, Idries convinced classicist Robert Graves to translate a manuscript by the medieval mystic Omar Khayyam—purportedly a Shah family heirloom—that turned out to be fake. Green’s finely wrought narrative presents father and son as, in some ways, boxed into their grift by the strictures of Britain’s racist society and its Orientalist expectations; at the same time, the duo’s genuine love of poetry and spiritualism is palpable. This nuanced and erudite account dives headfirst into the messy contradictions of life under British imperialism for colonial subjects. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

In this smart first outing, Vogue writer Specter braids journalism and autobiography to unpack her battle with binge-eating disorder. The chronological narrative begins with her girlhood, which she uses as a prism to explore how diet culture can sour relationships between mothers and daughters. Specter’s weight yo-yoed as she entered young adulthood and internalized the idea that fat was “the one thing I couldn’t be if I wanted to be loved.” She lost 50 pounds with Weight Watchers, but “the part that felt fundamentally unworthy was harder to shed.” After moving from L.A. to New York City and coming out as queer in her 20s, Specter reorganized her relationship with food, and eventually came to accept herself as “a fat, mostly happy, out-and-proud dyke.” Interwoven throughout are insightful interviews with science reporter Sabrina Imbler, weight-discrimination expert Virgie Tovar, and others who compare their own experiences with body image and disordered eating against broader social trends. Specter’s incisive report will intrigue readers of all sizes. Agent: Natalie Edwards, Trellis Literary Management. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

Dwight Eisenhower’s steady wartime leadership is limned in this meticulous account of the planning of D-Day. Historian Paradis (Last Mission to Tokyo) tracks Eisenhower’s tactful navigation of tricky problems and personalities involved in orchestrating the Allied invasion of occupied Europe. These include his overseeing of multiple countries’ land, sea, and air forces, a finely tuned combination of which Eisenhower theorized would make possible a successful amphibious invasion of heavily defended beaches (a feat military experts had deemed foolhardy since the failure of the British invasion of Gallipoli during WWI) and dealings with Winston Churchill, whose “great literary imagination” made his military calculations unrealistic. Making matters even more complicated were tensions arising from the influx of U.S. troops stationed in Britain, especially outrage among the British public over segregation in the American military and harsher penalties for Black troops accused of rape (Eisenhower commuted one such death sentence when he learned the evidence was nonexistent). Paradis peppers his narrative with glimpses of Eisenhower’s sly humor in letters to his wife, building a sharp portrait of a man whose suspicion of extravagance led to his ascendance on the world stage as a trustworthy figure. The result is a discerning examination of Eisenhower’s personal hand in establishing America’s reputation as levelheaded “leader of the free world.” (June)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

Enormous yachts embody the sins of capitalism, according to this caustic debut polemic. University of Lille sociologist Salle indicts superyachts, defined as yachts more than 80 feet long, for their wasteful excess (one yacht designer offers showers that spray champagne); exhausting work regimens for employees; heedless mobility, which allows their wealthy owners to dodge taxes and sail away from social obligations; collective carbon footprint, which exceeds those of some small countries; and other environmental ravages, such as damaging beds of ecologically important seagrass off the southern coast of France. Above all, Salle argues, superyachts bear out an “eco-socialist” critique of “the entire fabric of fossil-industrial capitalism” by making manifest the connection between soaring inequality and “climaticide.” Salle writes in a sardonic, jokey style, occasionally lapsing into the preening first-person voice of a yacht (“I’ve been accused of looking like a submarine, but we’ll let that pass. What I have found less easy to accept is that people jeer at my bar made of Baccarat crystal”). Unfortunately, his critique, which never amounts to more than that superyachts are another way for rich people to act obnoxiously rich, founders under so many layers of interpretive weight. It’s a belabored denouncement of a gaudy but rather marginal example of class privilege. (Apr.)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink

Social health, or “the aspect of overall... wellbeing that comes from connection,” is on the decline and society is suffering for it, argues social scientist Killam in her earnest debut. She contends that social health directly affects physical and mental health, citing studies suggesting that “lack of connection” increases the risk of stroke, dementia, and early death, while good relationships help people stay happier and live longer. Readers can assess their social fitness by mapping out their relationships with friends, family, and partners; analyzing the quality of each based on its depth and mutuality; and adopting different strategies depending on the results. For example, those looking to establish new connections can download a friend-finding app or join a hobby group, while those seeking to improve the quality of an existing relationship might consider sharing a personal struggle with a friend and asking for advice. While such suggestions feel rote, Killam buttresses them with research, including a 2020 study revealing that being socially isolated activated the same part of the brain that lights up when people go hungry (“Loneliness is like hunger: a message from your body to your brain that it needs something that it’s not getting”). Even wallflowers will be motivated to strike up new friendships. (July)

Reviewed on 05/10/2024 | Details & Permalink