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The Icon and the Idealist

The Icon and the Idealist is a compelling, warts-and-all dual biography of the warring leaders of the early 20th-century birth control movement: Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett.
The Icon and the Idealist is a compelling, warts-and-all dual biography of the warring leaders of the early 20th-century birth control movement: Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett.
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Animals

Review

Review by bookpagedev

ÊTalk about an unscheduled change of plans: Four and a half years ago, Alan Green set out to explore the possibility of writing a behind-the-scenes book about the new incarnation of zoos how they had begun to transform themselves from concrete-and-steel menageries to education-oriented bioparks. For Green, a veteran journalist based in Washington, D.C., the proposed investigation seemed like a natural: A few years earlier, he had worked as a volunteer in the Great Ape House at the National Zoo, and had actually twice considered chucking his writing career for a job as an orangutan keeper.

But when Green began examining box-loads of legal documents chronicling the affairs of a local petting zoo, he found something startling: paperwork showing that the National Zoo had sent some of its surplus animals to this same roadside zoo a practice that’s supposedly a no-no for reputable zoological parks. Thus began a four-year investigation of the domestic exotic-animal industry, an all-encompassing odyssey whose scope kept broadening until it not only included high-profile metropolitan zoos and low-rent roadside attractions, but also an elaborate network of breeders, dealers, and middlemen, as well as Harvard University Medical School and other prestigious schools. What Green found was that all these institutions seemed to be linked as trading partners, moving their unwanted animals from place to place, as if involved in an elaborate shell game. In the end, however, it seemed that the paper trails invariably grew cold and the animals simply disappeared.

In an effort to get at the truth, Green began a manic search for records that took him to 27 state capitals and had him hiring researchers elsewhere. With the backing of The Center for Public Integrity, a research organization known for its investigative reporting, Green culled through a few million documents until he was able to finally start piecing together those elusive paper trails. In the process, he unearthed startling often troubling revelations about the exotic-animal business and the self-appointed guardians of rare and endangered species. Bottom line, he discovered: While these caretakers of exotic creatures publicly trumpet their accomplishments about saving the species, they’re privately offloading other animals that land in basement cages, auction-house rings, and even so-called canned hunts. This is no animal-rights manifesto. It is rather painstaking and evenhanded investigative reporting in the grand tradition of the early 20th-century muckrakers a compelling behind-the-scenes look at a business whose operators have, until now, managed to conduct their seamy affairs entirely in secret. The reporting is so comprehensive that the revelations sometimes unfold in one sentence after another; reading some chapters can feel like being continuously pummeled in a boxing ring, as the you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me stories keep getting hurled your way. It is often troubling reading, but it’s too gripping to abandon. And hopefully, it will be a catalyst for dramatic change. Because as the book makes abundantly clear, change is certainly needed.

Lorraine Rose is a writer and psychotherapist in Washington, D.C.

ÊTalk about an unscheduled change of plans: Four and a half years ago, Alan Green set out to explore the possibility of writing a behind-the-scenes book about the new incarnation of zoos how they had begun to transform themselves from concrete-and-steel menageries to education-oriented bioparks.…
NonfictionBusiness & Finance

Out of Office

Review by Sarah McCraw Crow

For those of us whose workplaces closed down during the COVID-19 pandemic, the past two years have meant balancing Zoom calls, remote schooling and everything else from our kitchen tables. But, Charlie Warzel and Anne Helen Petersen argue in Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working From Home, working from home is not what we’ve been doing. “You were laboring in confinement and under duress. . . . Work became life and life became work. You weren’t thriving. You were surviving,” they write.

With Out of Office, Warzel, a tech writer, and Petersen, a culture writer and the author of Can’t Even, aim to show that done right, remote work can make both workers and their communities happier and healthier. Warzel and Petersen have worked remotely since 2017, when they left New York City for Montana, and although this isn’t a memoir, their experiences inform this book.

Read our review of ‘Can’t Even’ by Anne Helen Petersen.

Out of Office first offers a brief history of American office work, touching on productivity culture, corporate cost-cutting, chronic understaffing, ever-expanding work hours, startup culture, burnout and the disconnect between a company’s stated values and the way employees are actually treated. Breaking their theme into four big concepts (flexibility, culture, office technologies and community), Warzel and Petersen offer a number of suggestions based on remote workers’ pandemic experiences, as well as on a handful of companies that tried to make flexible work culture a priority long before the pandemic. Some suggestions are simple—such as to standardize Zoom backgrounds for meetings so no one feels self-conscious about their messy kitchen. Others are complicated and far-reaching, like to create real trust throughout an organization and to make child care a national priority, with a living wage for child care workers. Near its end, the book takes a turn toward self-help, asking readers to recall what they loved to do when they were young, from riding bikes to playing cards with a grandparent to singing. These things can provide a first step toward prioritizing one’s self and life rather than work, the authors argue.

Out of Office is a well-researched, timely and mostly persuasive book that asks both workers and managers to reimagine the concept of work in a post-pandemic world.

This well-researched, timely and persuasive book asks both workers and managers to reimagine the concept of work in a post-pandemic world.
Arts & Culture

Review

Review by bookpagedev

Lifestyles of the artistic and famous Lives of the Great 20th Century Artists by Edward Lucie-Smith is at least three books in one: It is a comprehensive study of the vast expanse of 20th-century art, a presentation of the great movements in this century’s art, and the fascinating life stories of major artists. The book’s greatest strength is the masterful way in which it weaves the life stories of artists into the story of their art. We come away understanding not only what makes these artists work, but also having a good grasp of the significance behind what they did. The life stories are arranged chronologically by movement, from Cubism to American Pop Art. Each subchapter contains a picture of the artist accompanied by at least one well-selected color plate of his or her work. All the familiar names are covered, such as Picasso, Chagall, and Pollock, but also less familiar ones such as David Alfaro Siquieros (who botched an assassination of Trotsky) with life stories equally as riveting.

Lifestyles of the artistic and famous Lives of the Great 20th Century Artists by Edward Lucie-Smith is at least three books in one: It is a comprehensive study of the vast expanse of 20th-century art, a presentation of the great movements in this century's art,…

AudioMemoir

Three Girls From Bronzeville

Review by Autumn Allen

It’s hard to believe that author Dawn Turner isn’t the narrator of her memoir, Three Girls From Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood (12 hours); the woman reading the audiobook sounds so honest as she recalls growing up in the historic Bronzeville section of Chicago that surely she must be Turner. But award-winning voice actor Janina Edwards’ confident storytelling commands attention and enhances the tale. Her wise, knowing tone allows the listener to fall under the spell of the story, envisioning each episode and trusting that the details will weave together meaningfully.

The listener is transported into the past to experience the closeness of Turner’s family, the excitement of growing up together and the emotional toll of their disparate fates. With a range of tones and speech patterns, Edwards acts out the truths of Turner’s life, from the memorable words of both child and adult personalities to the clear, precise diction of a person raised with strict insistence upon proper speech. This remarkable audio production intrigues and entertains.

Listeners will fall under the spell of Dawn Turner’s memoir through Janina Edwards’ confident storytelling and wise, knowing tone.
NonfictionAudio

Travels With George

Review by Maya Fleischmann

In Travels With George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy (9.5 hours), author and narrator Nathaniel Philbrick retraces his adventure, beginning in the fall of 2018, to follow the trail of George Washington’s presidential excursions after his 1789 inauguration. Through observing the landscapes and towns he visits and interviewing the people he meets, Philbrick compares and contrasts our history with our present moment, and ponders the strengths and fragility of our nation. As he recounts his travels, including fond anecdotes of his dog, Dora, Philbrick examines who Washington was—as a man, a plantation owner dependent on the labor of enslaved people and a reluctant president facing complex social issues.

A natural storyteller, Philbrick switches seamlessly between Washington’s voice and his own personal reflections, revealing a profound respect for the country, its history and the lessons it imparts to us. His fascinating journey will appeal to travelers and historians, but his likable performance as an audiobook narrator will engage even those typically averse to historical narratives. Travels With George is as insightful and thought provoking as John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley.

Read our review of the print edition of ‘Travels With George.’

Tracing the trail of Washington’s presidential excursions, Nathaniel Philbrick reveals a profound respect for the country, its history and the lessons it imparts to us.

Vanderbilt

Anderson Cooper’s tender descriptions of his mother’s optimistic spirit lend a touching and respectful tone to this in-depth look at the Vanderbilt dynasty.
NonfictionMilitary HistoryHistory

Looking for the Good War

Review by Roger Bishop

The iconic images that accompany the conventional narrative of World War II depict American military service as a force for good—like soldiers handing out candy bars to children. But to interpret World War II this way, writes Elizabeth D. Samet, a professor of English at the United States Military Academy at West Point, requires “a selective memory.” Terms such as “the good war” and “the greatest generation” were shaped by “nostalgia, sentimentality, and jingoism” after the fact, causing “the deadliest conflict in human history [to become] something inherently virtuous.”

In her compelling, enlightening and elegantly written Looking for the Good War: American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness, Samet compares popular myths about World War II to the facts. She draws on a broad range of cultural expressions that came about during the war and the years that followed. Especially noteworthy are writings by veterans and other firsthand observers of war, which Samet uses to contrast their ambivalence at the time with how later generations understood the conflict. Legendary war correspondent Ernie Pyle, for example, found little romance in war. As he traveled with the troops in 1944, he wrote, “I am sure that in the past two years I have heard soldiers say a thousand times, ‘If only we could have created all this energy for something good.’”

There was an increase in racial violence during those years, as well. In 1942, there were more than 240 riots and other racial incidents across the United States, and segregation was still the official policy of the armed services and in many other places. “One of the chief ironies inherent in the project of bringing democracy to the rest of the world remained the signal failure to practice it at home,” Samet writes.

After the war, violent crime films were the most commercially successful stories featuring veterans. The veteran with amnesia was a staple of postwar noir, even though it didn’t reflect the reality for most veterans who were trying to readjust to civilian life. A 1947 survey of ex-service members found that more than 50% of them said the war “had left them worse off than before.”

This richly rewarding and thought-provoking book splashes World War II history across a broad canvas, with insightful discussions of the works of Homer and Shakespeare and the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln. Along the way, Samet convincingly argues that we should reflect on our current relationship to war in the light of wars past. “The way we think and talk about force will influence not only the use of American military might abroad,” she writes, “but also our response to the violence that has increasingly been used as a tool of insurrection at home.”

In her enlightening and elegantly written Looking for the Good War, Elizabeth D. Samet compares popular myths about World War II to the brutal facts of war.

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