Thomas W. Laqueur’s The Dog’s Gaze, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’s The Book of Birds, and Carlos Barragán’s The Yahoo Boys each diagnostic among the champion reviewed nonfiction titles of the month.
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1. The Dog’s Gaze: A Visual History by Thomas W. Laqueur
(Penguin Press)
7 Rave • 3 Positive • 1 Mixed
Read an excerpt from The Dog’s Gaze here
“A clever and beauteous survey of dogs successful painting, with a superb mentation of their relation astatine its bosom … Luminous … Laqueur takes america connected a wonderfully illustrated circuit of dogs successful creation … By the extremity of this clever, beauteous book, Laqueur has persuasively made his constituent that the dog’s relation successful occidental creation is to supply an entry-point oregon change ego for viewers who mightiness different consciousness overwhelmed oregon outclassed.”
–Kathryn Hughes (The Guardian)
2. The Book of Birds: A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris
(W.W. Norton & Company)
7 Rave • 1 Positive
“Another beautiful, eminently giftable, clarion telephone to wage attraction to the wonders of the earthy satellite … The Book of Birds is nary specified catalog of endangered taxon … Full-throated prose poems emblem distinguishing habitats, habits, and quality traits that marque the birds travel live successful a mode that much accepted tract guides bash not … I had ne'er earlier work a tract usher from screen to cover, but aft marveling astatine the wonders in The Book of Birds, I tin good recognize the authors’ profound admiration for their subjects.”
–Heller McAlpin (The Christian Science Monitor)
3. The Traveler: One Man’s Quest for Humanity from the South Seas to Revolutionary Paris by Andrea Wulf
(Knopf)
7 Rave • 1 Mixed
Read an excerpt from The Traveler here
“George Forster is 1 of the astir fascinating figures you person astir apt ne'er heard of … Forster is the vibrant taxable of Andrea Wulf’s The Traveler, a lively caller publication that hums with her diagnostic verve … It is invigorating, particularly now, to work him observing, reasoning and enthusing connected the page.”
–Jennifer Szalai (The New York Times)
4. Stolen Revolution: Betrayal and Hope successful Modern Iran by Yeganeh Torbati and Bozorgmehr Sharafedin
(Doubleday)
6 Rave
“Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati’s almighty past of the Islamic republic is simply a severely needed corrective due to the fact that it is astatine erstwhile an engrossing communicative and a balanced, meticulously researched primer connected modern Iran (the clearest I’ve ever read). And it is dramatic, idiosyncratic and often heartbreaking … Stolen Revolution is a cautious and unwavering relationship of the regime’s absurdities and crimes. It should beryllium required speechmaking for anyone who cares astir quality rights oregon justness successful the Middle East.”
–Dina Nayeri (The Guardian)
5. The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria’s Romance Scammers by Carlos Barragán
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
5 Rave • 1 Positive
“Barragán brings a astonishing extent and empathy to The Yahoo Boys, to the tin roofs and postulation jams of Lagos, the SIM cards and Apple IDs that buttress this edifice of deceit. He’s gone rappelling into the bottomless pit that surrounds desire. The effect is simply a compassionate, elegant, unsettling publication astir immoderate highly shabby people. At slightest they’re inactive people, though.”
–Dan Piepenbring (Harper’s)
English (US) ·