This enigmatic collection from van Eerden (Call It Horses), a creative writing professor at Hollins University, finds holiness in everyday life. “A Thousand Faces, one of the volume’s more traditional entries, offers a lyrical retelling of Moses’s quest for revelation alongside van Eerden’s search for adventure and meaning while on a canoeing trip with her partner through the canyons of the Rio Grande: “Maybe we came here to be awake to Long Time so that we might have perspective on our small sorrows and the larger sorrows of the world.” Most of the selections are more oblique. For instance, in “Meet Me at the Dollar General Across from the Family Dollar,” van Eerden strings together vignettes in which a young gymnast practices in the street, a church singer takes a transcendent solo, and a feather falls on the stones of a Spanish palace, each of which serves as a source of grace for van Eerden after a breakup. Some entries stray into impenetrability (“What I Want Your Voice to Do” struggles to tie together its ruminations on van Eerden’s middle school basketball career, teaching creative writing, and the story of Lazarus), but her luminous prose will keep readers transfixed (“Sunday is bitter cabbage and the glimpse of shapes down a brief hallway”). Though not everything works, this mesmerizes. Agent: Michael Snell, Michael Snell Agency. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink

In this entrancing report, marine biologist Herzing (Dolphin Diaries) details her work for the Wild Dolphin Project researching how the animals communicate with humans and one another. Herzing describes her efforts to “talk” with the wild dolphins she encounters while diving in the Bahamas, recounting how she successfully redirected a pod by mimicking the head nods dolphins use to suggest turning. Other strategies are more technologically sophisticated. For instance, Herzing discusses training dolphins to mimic specific whistling sounds to request toys using a “two-way computer system” capable of emitting noises underwater and signaling to researchers when a dolphin’s high-frequency whistle matches that associated with a toy. AI promises even more advanced ways to decipher animal chatter, Herzing contends, explaining how algorithmic analysis of dolphin speech suggests that the ordering and repetition of certain noises appears to follow some rules, which indicates the animals might have a primitive form of grammar. The firsthand accounts of studying dolphins in the wild position Herzing as a kind of aquatic Jane Goodall, and her recollections are elevated by philosophical musings on how scientists should think about the minds of other animals (“We should be looking to develop species-specific definitions for ‘types’ of intelligence, rather than resorting to human comparisons”). Animal lovers will be eager to dive in. Photos. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink

Actor White discusses the “double-edged sword” of his breakout role on the 1990s sitcom Family Matters in this intriguing if tight-lipped debut. The focus is squarely on White’s career: he booked his first commercial at four years old (for Toys R Us), then stepped back from auditioning in middle school. His parents, however, encouraged him to continue acting, hoping the money could help pay for college. That nudge led White to audition for a single-episode guest spot as nerdy neighbor Steve Urkel on Family Matters when he was 12 years old. He got the part, and the crew liked his performance so much that he became a series regular. White balances boilerplate behind-the-scenes reminiscences with frank, sometimes funny discussions of the role’s repercussions, including the trouble he continues to have being recognized for other performances (including in Big Fat Liar and Fake It Til You Make It) and the discomfort he feels that Urkel has become a “punching bag” for critics discussing Black representation on TV (“Friends doesn’t speak for all white people. But no one ever thinks [it] should or did. [It’s] not examined with the same lens”). What’s missing, save for a few humorous anecdotes about dating in his 20s and a brief ode to his daughter, is insight into White’s personal life. While plenty charming, this doesn’t offer much that fans don’t already know. Agent: Kristen Neuhaus, Ultra Literary. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink

In this stimulating study, Hone (How Fast Did the T. Rex Run?), a zoology professor at Queen Mary University of London, details how paleontologists draw conclusions about dinosaur behavior. Evaluating evidence for social behavior in the prehistoric reptiles, Hone notes one site where skeletons of the velociraptor-like Deinonychus were found around the carcass of a single large herbivore, suggesting the predators may have hunted as a group. Hone also delves into dino diets, explaining that large herbivores likely ate a wide variety of vegetation because they had long digestive systems equipped to break down even relatively innutritious flora, whereas smaller creatures probably had to specialize in protein-rich buds and small shoots. Elsewhere, Hone describes how paleontologists infer dinosaur behavior by studying whether a given tendency is present in birds and crocodiles, dinosaurs’ closest living relatives. Hone brings a welcome candor regarding the uncertainties of the scientific process, and the impressive science illustrates the creative ways with which paleontologists utilize limited evidence. For example, Hone points out that T. rex tooth marks have been found on an intact hadrosaur humerus and discusses how from this evidence, some paleontologists surmise that T. rex scraped away flesh by “retracting the head in the manner of modern birds of prey” rather than biting through bone. This vivid look at the prehistoric past enthralls. Illus. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink

Schmitt, a paleontologist and research assistant at Oxford University, debuts with an engrossing exploration of dinosaurs’ 186-million-year reign. He explains that 250 million years ago, massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia caused air pollution, droughts, and extreme heat that killed off 90% of all plant and animal species and cleared the way for surviving archosaurs, the ancestors of dinosaurs and crocodiles, to dominate Earth. Speculating on dinosaur behavior, Schmitt suggests that Plateosaurus probably travelled in herds (their fossils are “often found in mass assemblages”), and that Triceratops likely fought each other over territory or mates, as evidenced by puncture wounds on their fossilized frills. Schmitt also delves into the lively scientific quarrels that have shaped contemporary understanding of prehistoric reptiles. For instance, he discusses the bitter feud between paleontologists Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, who in the 1870s and ’80s went so far as to dynamite “entire sites just to hide their finds” as they competed to become the first to describe Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus, and other dinosaur fossils they uncovered in the American West. There’s plenty of fascinating trivia (T. rex had no medium-size carnivorous competitors because juveniles probably occupied that ecological niche), and the scientific history paints a surprisingly rowdy portrait of paleontology’s past. It’s a vigorous complement to Steve Brusatte’s The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink

Art not only has the potential to change the world, but “it has, over and over again,” according to this captivating debut. Surveying politically motivated art that has had a real-world impact, Massie-Blomfield, an arts director and theater producer, argues that art is inherently political because resistance to power, which permeates and shapes daily life, must always begin as an act of imagination; only art can persuade people that a different kind of life is possible. Examples cited include Billie Holiday’s “unnerving” 1939 rendition of “Strange Fruit,” which catalyzed a nascent civil rights movement; the foundational role Edward Abbey played in the eco-activist movement with his 1975 novel The Monkey-Wrench Gang, which imagined into existence the kind of industrial sabotage that has since become integral to the movement’s goals; and the writings of Nigerian anti-oil activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed after spearheading opposition to drilling by Shell in the Niger Delta, and whose work—including his famous 1995 trial speech (“Some have already cast themselves in the role of villains, some are tragic victims, some still have a chance to redeem themselves”)—continues to inspire climate change activists. Massie-Blomfield infuses these riveting histories with galvanizing appeals to the reader (“You, and your creativity, are most urgently needed”). The result is a powerful rejoinder to the notion of art for art’s sake. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink

Curator Vizcarrondo-Laboy (Funk You Too!) provides a comprehensive survey of 38 artists who are reconceptualizing craft practices often trivialized as “women’s work.” Among those featured are Qualeasha Wood, a Philadelphia weaver who translates selfies and internet-sourced images into tapestries; Maria E. Piñeres, who needlepoints portraits in “a refracting configuration of stitches”; and Melania Toma, who builds “soft sculptures” from discarded carpets and rugs. Bridging the gap between traditional craft practices and modern art, Liz Whalen harnesses motifs from her drapemaker grandmother’s designs in feltworks that feature electric colors, wild patterns, and beading, while Anina Major draws inspiration from Bahamaian straw weaving traditions for “woven” clay sculptures and vessels that negotiate the “push and pull between permanence and fragility.” Spotlighting a geographically and stylistically diverse range of artists, Vizcarrondo-Laboy gives due to the rich history of “women’s work” and the artists who are subverting its gendered expectations to question the art world’s patriarchal standards and tell new personal and political stories. It’s a welcome reassessment. Photos. (Oct.)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink

Science journalist Barss (The Erotic Engine) presents a penetrating, warts and all biography of Nobel Prize–winning physicist Roger Penrose. A socially awkward kid from an unaffectionate family, Penrose had a meager social life that he compensated for by focusing his “psychic energies” on developing his intellect. Covering the milestones of Penrose’s career, Barss recounts how, in his 30s, he upended theoretical physics in 1965 with his singularity theorem, which proved general relativity is incomplete because it can’t account for the infinite density found inside black holes, and invented twistor theory, a conceptualization of space-time that he believes might reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics. Barss’s sensitive handling of Penrose’s tumultuous personal life puts this a notch above other “great minds” biographies. For example, Barss writes that Penrose, like his father before him, “placed his work ahead of all other concerns,” expressing indifference toward his romantic partners and children, and believing his single-minded focus on physics was an “inevitable and necessary” condition of his genius. Drawing on extensive interviews with Penrose, Barss balances reverence for his subject’s “rare capacity to... think in four dimensions” against an unsparing recognition that he “would have been no less a physicist if he had... made more room for the people who loved, understood, and supported him.” The result is a haunting portrait of a brilliant scientist unwilling to confront his personal shortcomings. Agent: Robin Straus, Robin Straus Agency. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink

“The ostensibly simplistic dramas that were common in western adventure comics could disguise highly political undercurrents,” according to this perceptive debut study. Grady, an editor at the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, contends that the late-19th-century political cartoons that paved the way for the western comic strip galvanized support for America’s quest to control the frontier by depicting Native Americans as violent and white colonizers as aggrieved victims. Though the “closing of the frontier” in 1890 led to nostalgic and melancholy depictions of the American West in early comics, Grady suggests that the hardships of the Great Depression reversed this trend, causing writers and illustrators to reimagine the western as an action-packed escapist fantasy absorbing enough to distract readers from their real-life troubles. During western comics’ post-WWII peak, stories about “cowboy heroes who settle lawless frontier towns or... Western gunfighters intervening in affairs south of the border” served as thinly veiled endorsements of U.S. interventionism, envisioning the world as a “frontier” waiting to be civilized by heroic Americans. Throughout, Grady combines sweeping analysis of how western comics reflect broader historical currents with fine-grained interpretations of individual comics (for example, he posits that the darkly cynical Jonah Hex comics from the 1970s reflected growing disillusionment with state-sponsored violence abroad and at home). This is worth rounding up. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink

Literary critic Ruby (The Zero and the One) delivers a dazzling and ambitious “verse essay” tracing the history of poetry from Homer through the present. He begins with early Greek poetry performances, where audiences didn’t seek to interpret the poet’s words so much as “judge the skill with which they are sung.” In medieval times, poetry was usually composed by court troubadours and performed by jongleurs (itinerant entertainers), Ruby explains, discussing how troubadours developed increasingly complicated rhyme schemes to make it difficult for “unscrupulous” jongleurs to introduce their own changes. Elsewhere, Ruby describes how poets attempted more sophisticated literary techniques after the 15th-century invention of the printing press, which enabled readers to spend more time parsing texts; how modernists wrote thematically dense verse in hopes of inspiring enough scholarly exegesis to keep their names alive after their deaths; and how a contemporary overabundance of poets makes it appear that most poems are read by few and culturally irrelevant. Ruby’s effortless synthesis of artistic, cultural, and technological developments makes him an excellent historical guide, and the verse essay format—consciously modeled on the argumentative poetry of Parmenides and Alexander Pope, among others—proves a novel reading experience. This literary history stands in a class all its own. (Nov.)

Reviewed on 09/27/2024 | Details & Permalink