Education activist Durrani’s auspicious debut memoir examines the obstacles facing women in Afghanistan and recounts her own efforts to break down those barriers. Raised in a refugee camp in Pakistan, Durrani received an education thanks to her father, a Pashtun tribal leader who opened a girls’ school in their camp. “My job was to come back from my private English lessons and immediately teach the girls whatever I learned,” Durrani recalls. Interweaving the history of women’s education in Afghanistan with the nitty-gritty details of her activism, Durrani notes that when she made her first visit to the country at age 16, she was shocked to see so many women in burqas. She turned down a scholarship to Oxford University to move to Afghanistan, where she interned at various NGOs before launching the advocacy group LEARN and opening a community school in Kandahar Province. Briskly recounting the ins and outs of her quest to make her vision of giving students solar-powered tablets preloaded with lessons and books a reality, Durrani offers a persuasive road map for pursuing gender equality while honoring Afghanistan’s religious and cultural traditions. It’s an inspiring portrait of a change-maker in action. Agent: Alice Martell, Martell Agency. (May)

Reviewed on 04/07/2023 | Details & Permalink

Bustle editor-at-large Leach debuts with a deeply personal investigation into the tragic fate of her childhood friend, Elissa, and the role the “Troubled Teen Industry” played in her death at age 18. Like the female celebrities she emulated (Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian), Elissa was a wealthy suburban teenager who partied, drank, and cultivated a “slutty reputation” to garner popularity. During her sophomore year of high school, Elissa’s parents transferred her to Arizona’s Spring Ridge Academy, the first stop in a string of therapeutic boarding schools that promised to curb her troubled behavior. The reality, according to Leach, is that these unregulated, for-profit institutions prey on wealthy parents’ anxieties while often exacerbating their children’s problems. Drawing on interviews with parents, friends, and acquaintances, Leach recounts in often harrowing detail how Elissa and two of her classmates, Alyssa and Alissa, ended up at Ponca Pines Academy in Nebraska, and details the circumstances that would see all three die before turning 27 (Alyssa overdosed on heroin; Elissa and Alissa both succumbed to illnesses that may have been linked to their addictions). Noting that as many as 50,000 teenagers enter the Troubled Teen Industry each year, Leach also profiles activists who are fighting to uncover its abuses and incisively analyzes the “societal pressures” placed on upper-middle-class girls in America. It’s a searing exposé. (June)

Reviewed on 04/07/2023 | Details & Permalink

Past and present collide in this propulsive, one-of-a-kind meditation on truth and conspiracy from Viren (Mine), based on her viral essay of the same name. “This all started after the [2016] election,” Viren begins, “when the main narrative I kept hearing was that only uneducated whites believed the lies that were being told.” At first, she set out to write a book about her charismatic high school philosophy teacher, whose instruction sometimes bordered on conspiracy theory, interviewing teachers and classmates from her past to pick at the ways reasonable people can be manipulated to believe far-flung fictions. Then Viren’s wife received an email accusing her of sexual misconduct at the university where both worked, and Viren tapped into her background as an investigative journalist to untangle the accusations and clear her wife’s name. Against the social and political instability of the last seven years, Viren seamlessly weaves her parallel narratives into a bigger picture take on the nature of truth: “One story can easily interrupt another, just as questions build one atop the next,” she observes of the book’s overlapping threads. The result is a mesmerizing page-turner pulled tight with psychological tension. This is breathtaking stuff. Agent: Matt McGowan, Frances Goldin Literary. (June)

Reviewed on 04/07/2023 | Details & Permalink

Berke (House Rules), founder of TenBerke Architects and dean of the Yale School of Architecture, and De Monchaux, an architectural critic, present the philosophy behind Berke’s reuse of old buildings, an approach intended to “celebrate—and conserve—lived and inherited experience” by balancing architectural elements from past and present. The objective, Berke writes, is to create “inherently pluralistic” spaces that “resonate... with the diverse identities and dignities of all people who use [them].” De Monchaux interviewed Berke’s firm’s design principals about 12 projects, including the redesign of the International Law Center at Harvard University, which replaced an “understated concrete-and-single-paned-glass” style with features like glass walls and atria that turned the space into a “nonhierarchical space of encounter,” and the transformation of former factories into the NXTHVN community artists’ workshop in New Haven, Conn., which included opening windows to the basement studios to make the structure less “fortress-like.” Also included are two essays by Berke, one of which sees her reflecting on how her mother’s “Yankee frugality” led her to repurpose ordinary clothes into wholly unique pieces, influencing Berke’s appreciation for reuse and remaking. Beautifully presented and accompanied by abundant photographs and plan diagrams, the entry masterfully explores Berke’s modernist inclinations, her minimalist style, and her firm’s savvy handling of spaces and materials. Architectural students and practitioners will find much to appreciate. (June)

Reviewed on 04/07/2023 | Details & Permalink

In this incisive debut, Shahvisi, a senior ethics lecturer at the Brighton and Sussex medical school, contends that philosophy “can help us to uncover and confront” ideology that underlies various forms of disempowerment and oppression. Shahvisi points to a capitalist system that forces most people “to sell our labour and exchange the money we earn”—a burden that isn’t equitably borne, as forces such as racism and ableism create a hierarchy of exploitation. While many of these forces are too deeply entrenched for individuals to spur meaningful reform, it’s still worth taking action, she notes, drawing on Kant’s concept of the categorical imperative, which suggests moral actions are those which could function beneficially if turned into universal rules. Further, she argues, real change is possible on a personal level: though an individual can’t reverse climate change, for example, it’s possible to “minimise our interpersonal contribution to racism and sexism.” More broadly, Shahvisi asserts that while global threats are often met with responses that “focus on scolding others,” what’s needed are “genuinely inclusive” movements that “make space for learning” while still holding people accountable. Firmly grounded in the philosophical spirit of critical inquiry, this entry masterfully explores nuance without losing sight of its practical stance (“We have to ask how the material world would have to change for Black lives to matter”). This is a fascinating, pragmatic resource for those who want to make a difference but don’t know where to start. (July)

Reviewed on 04/07/2023 | Details & Permalink

BuzzFeed News reporter McNeal debuts with an entertaining inquiry into the not-so-secret lives of social media celebrities. She explores “what it really feels like to be an influencer” through profiles of three “content creators”: lifestyle blogger Caitlin Covington, Fat Girl Running blogger Mirna Valerio, and Mormon “mommy blogger” Shannon Bird. To illustrate the hard work required to succeed as an influencer, McNeal details how Covington struggled to break into the magazine industry before creating her own fashion blog that she laboriously grew until she had enough clout to launch a clothing line and secure brand partnerships. The author suggests that influencers can affect positive change and tells how Valerio used her platform to push Lululemon to improve their plus-size sports apparel options. Describing the complexities that accompany leading a public life, McNeal discusses how Bird’s blog posts, which feature her five children, raise tough questions about whether parents should be putting their kids in the spotlight, but the author remains generally positive toward her subjects and praises Bird for showing “how motherhood is messy and complicated.” McNeal’s compassionate profiles add nuance to influencer stereotypes, and behind-the-scenes details intrigue (successful influencers hire teams of assistants who have to learn their bosses’ emoji usage to respond to direct messages in their voice). It’s a revealing look behind the selfie camera. (June)

Reviewed on 04/07/2023 | Details & Permalink

Former psychotherapist Caroline and her husband Don Baker, publisher of Puget Sound Business Journal, debut with a workmanlike survey of the world of social media influencers. Drawing on interviews with dozens of people with large social media followings, the authors explore the prosaic and practical concerns of this set. The Bakers discuss the history of influencers, suggesting that early “creators” in the aughts coalesced around the “democratizing” power of social media and forced traditional media and entertainment outlets to take note, as when Issa Rae landed an HBO show based on her YouTube series, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. The authors detail the ins and outs of online stardom, including the money (brands pay top influencers hundreds of thousands of dollars for partnerships), dealing with bullies (reality TV star Chloe Long describes struggling with mental health as a result of online harassment), and wrestling with self-image (“curve model” Instagrammer Kristina Zias shares how she felt unable to measure up to the posts of others). However, these superficial insights are unlikely to surprise readers, and while some may appreciate hearing influencers reflect on their vocation, the lack of commentary tying their remarks to a broader narrative makes for an unfocused outing. This only scratches the surface. (June)

Reviewed on 04/07/2023 | Details & Permalink

These impenetrable reflections by poet Wright (Thirteen Quintets for Lois) meditate on the nature of death, language, knowledge, and the self. Through brief, elliptical dispatches, he interrogates the relationships between the physical and metaphysical, consciousness and life, and the self and its environs. In “On Death,” Wright takes the hypothetical deaths of a tree and a neighbor as the impetus for an abstruse investigation of how the living think about death, but the inquiry is dragged down by an abundance of questions that the author makes little effort to answer: “What can we possibly mean by negotiation with regard to life and death?”; “What in the world can it mean to speak of death as a state we can use?” Every entry is muddled by jargon that obscures even the most basic points of Wright’s arguments, as when he contends in his incomprehensible essay on rhythm that “we must slip away from that soul that proposes Logoi as noetic completeness, and avoid all quarrel with immediacy.” Other entries touch on archetypes, mathematics, philosopher V.Y. Mudimbe, and physicist Peter Galison, but Wright neglects to explain these disparate references, and they don’t cohere into an intelligible whole. At times bordering on nonsensical, this doesn’t live up to the poet’s estimable reputation. (June)

Reviewed on 04/07/2023 | Details & Permalink

In this rewarding study, historian Borman (The Private Lives of the Tudors) showcases Anne Boleyn’s lasting influence on her daughter Elizabeth I. Though Anne was executed by Henry VIII before Elizabeth turned three years old, Borman contends that mother and daughter shared an unbreakable bond. She highlights the myriad ways Elizabeth sought to reclaim her mother’s reputation, despite her father’s extreme attempts to erase Anne from history. Examples include the incorporation of symbols associated with Anne (honeysuckle, falcons) in portraits and other objects commissioned for Elizabeth, and her elevation of loyal Boleyn relatives, particularly the Carey and Norris families. Borman also notes that Marguerite of Navarre’s “radical religious ideas” influenced Anne and Elizabeth, and that both women used fashion to further their political goals. Anne introduced glamorous French styles into the English court and protectively clothed her toddler in royal purple, while Elizabeth dressed modestly to shield herself from rivals, before revealing her own love of sumptuous clothing once safely enthroned. Even Elizabeth’s famous virginal theme began with Anne, who surrounded herself with tapestries depicting St. Ursula and the 11,000 virgins in the weeks before giving birth to Elizabeth. Beautifully envisioned and full of insight, this is a must-read for Tudor history buffs. (June)

Reviewed on 04/07/2023 | Details & Permalink

Journalist Kahn’s sparkling debut profiles young women who have played leading roles in American protest movements and examines “how the tropes of conventional girlhood have made them such able activists.” Focusing on women in their teens and early 20s, Kahn’s time frame spans from 1836, when 11-year-old Harriet Hanson led workers in a walkout at a New England textile factory, to the present day. The narrative touches on the fights for racial progress (Anna Elizabeth Dickinson published her first antislavery piece in The Liberator in 1855 at age 13); bodily autonomy (the Jane Collective grew out of 19-year-old college student Heather Tobis’s efforts to connect pregnant women with trained abortion practitioners in the 1960s); and political equality (18-year-old Charlotte Woodward traveled to Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1848 for the first women’s rights convention). Kahn’s tone is breezy but never flippant, and she draws vivid, well-informed sketches of her profile subjects, many of whom are lesser known. Concluding that girls “have pushed this nation and forced it to do better,” Kahn calls on adult Americans not simply to pat “ourselves on the back for inviting them to speak to us” but to “ced[e] power to them.” It’s an inspiring and eye-opening look at how progress happens. Agent: Kimberly Witherspoon, InkWell Management. (June)

Reviewed on 04/07/2023 | Details & Permalink