Review by New York Times Review
This land By Dan Barry. (Black Dog & Leventhal, $29.99.) For a decade, from 2007 to 2017, Barry's column for The Times explored everyday life and everyday people in America - from a hairdresser in Vicco, Ky, to the owner of a small oil company in Dixfield, Me. This book collects nearly 100 of his columns, providing a panoramic view of the country as it passed from Bush to Obama to Trump, the fabulous bouvier sisters By Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger. (Harper, $28.99.) A book-length exploration of the complicated sister love between Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill (née Bouvier) - their shared appreciation for fashion and art, as well as the intense jealousy that characterized their relationship, the art of logic in an illogical world By Eugenia Cheng. (Basic, $27.) Cheng is a mathematician who believes we need to appreciate the value of alogic - emotion, that is - if we want to understand a world filled with irrational behavior. Yet she also thinks smartly applied logic might help address some of our problems. accessory to war By Neil deGrasse Tyson and Avis Lang. (Norton, $30.) The celebrity astrophysicist and a research associate at the Hayden Planetarium examine the ways military branches have used the science of astrophysics to bolster their power. It's an alliance between science and warmaking that has been, Tyson and Lang write, "curiously complicit." the parting gift By Evan Fallenberg. (Other Press, $19.95.) An erotic, mysterious novel set in Israel that takes the form of a letter. The unnamed narrator describes a consuming love affair that threatens his own well-being and that of the man with whom he has fallen in love. "Most of my reading these days is taken up with a book project that I've been working on for more years than I like to contemplate, but on the advice of a friend, I recently read fly girls, by Keith O'Brien. It's probably the most entertaining book I've looked at this year, a slice of Americana that gives us a sideways glimpse into what life was like in the 1920s and '30s, when aviation was a popular spectator sport. O'Brien's subject is a group of pioneering women aviators who, as one of them put it, had to fight for the same right to die as the men. We all know Amelia Earhart, whom O'Brien manages to diminish somewhat as an icon while elevating her as a human being, but she was only one of many courageous, innovative, barrierbusting women who deserve to be remembered. 'Fly Girls' is feminist history of the best kind. It describes individuals who didn't submerge their identities in feminism, but employed feminism to achieve their identities as individuals." - BARRY GEWEN, AN EDITOR AT THE BOOK REVIEW, ON WHAT HE'S READING.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 23, 2019]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Authors Kashner (Sinatraland) and Schoenberger (Furious Love) examine the tangled lives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and her younger sister Lee B. Radziwill in this fascinating biography. The story of the two famous sisters begins with their idyllic childhood at the Bouvier summer home in East Hampton, N.Y. At times, they are close conspirators (as seen on a sojourn in France when they were young), and at others jealous, competitive, and nearly estranged (Kennedy Onassis left not even "a trinket" to Radziwill in her will). The authors recreate the turbulent years when the elder sister was First Lady, bringing readers back to the Cuban missile crisis and the assassination of JFK (and, later, Sen. Robert Kennedy). While Jackie struggled to rebuild her life, eventually marrying Aristotle Onassis and later becoming an editor at Doubleday, Radziwill fell for offbeat photographer Peter Beard, divorced her second husband, opened an interior design business, and married (and divorced) a film director. Readers drawn to the Kennedy mystique will savor this intricate chronicle rife with romance, tragedy, and surprising details, such as that Jackie may have helped choose JFK's paramours. The authors provide an intimate view of two sisters, both famous in their own rights. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Kashner (When I Was Cool) and Schoenberger (Dangerous Muse) take a close look into the lives of the Bouvier sisters, better known as First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929-94) and Princess Lee Radizwill (b. 1933). Born four years apart, the sisters seemed to be as similar as they were different. The authors share details about the women's lives that make it easy to understand the tension between them despite their closeness. Interviews with Lee present a well-informed look at both women's early lives that may also account for some bias within this dual biography. That said, readers now gain new insights into the golden age of Camelot, Hollywood, and beyond. VERDICT Fans of the Kennedys will enjoy this deep dive into another side of the dynasty, while all readers will appreciate the nice dose of fame and glamour from the 1930s onward.-Rebecca Kluberdanz, New York P.L. © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A story of sisterhood that reveals how all the fortune and fame in the world can't assuage sibling rivalry.With the exception of their parent' divorce, it's hard to imagine a more charmed youth than that of young Jacqueline and Lee Bouvier. These two remarkable women, who would go on to become first lady to President John F. Kennedy and princess to Prince Stanislaw Albrecht Radziwill, had seemingly every possible advantage. However, Vanity Fair vets Kashner and Shoenberger (co-authors: Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century, 2010, etc.) write, the sisters' relationship was a lifelong balance of love and envy. Case in point: Jackie would go on to marry Aristotle Onassis, Lee's former lover. With entirely opposite personalitiesLee was outgoing and dramatic, Jackie demur and shyeach seemingly wound up with what would have been the other's ideal life. In this well-researched dual biography, the authors describe how that fate would both haunt and help them. But while the story is essentially about the sisters, the narrative favors Lee's perspective, showcasing the often misunderstood socialite's battle with wanting to be more than just a pretty face. Of course, it was hard to shake that label given the philosophy the girls' fatherfailed Wall Street stock broker and alcoholic John Vernou Bouvier IIIingrained in them: "Styleis not a function of how rich you are or even who you are. Style is more a habit of mind that puts quality before quantity, noble struggle before mere achievement, honor before opulence. It's what you are.It's what makes you a Bouvier." Living up to such an ideal would become Lee's Achilles heel, and her illustrious love life often overshadowed her attempts at self-actualization. Not surprisingly, the supporting castsTruman Capote, Peter Beard et al.in the lives of the Bouvier sisters were just as flawed and fascinating.Suffice it to say, more than 50 years on, explorations of the truths and fictions of Camelot continue to mesmerize. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
