VOL. LXXXVIII, NO. 7 | 1 APRIL 2020 REVIEWS the Earth Issue
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Featuring 331 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children'sand YA books KIRKUSVOL. LXXXVIII, NO. 7 | 1 APRIL 2020 REVIEWS The Earth Issue Conversations with Hope Jahren, Michael Christie, Anuradha Rao, and more from the editor’s desk: Chairman Writing To Save the Planet HERBERT SIMON President & Publisher BY TOM BEER MARC WINKELMAN # Chief Executive Officer MEG LABORDE KUEHN [email protected] Photo courtesy John Paraskevas courtesy Photo Few world figures in recent years have been as inspiring as Greta Thun- Editor-in-Chief TOM BEER berg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who is the face of today’s environmental [email protected] Vice President of Marketing movement. Her example led tens of thousands of students across Europe to SARAH KALINA skip school on Fridays to protest government inaction on climate change and [email protected] Managing/Nonfiction Editor still more young people and adults to march in the streets of the world’s cit- ERIC LIEBETRAU [email protected] ies. She has addressed the United Nations. She was nominated for the Nobel Fiction Editor LAURIE MUCHNICK Peace Prize. In December, she was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year. [email protected] Children’s Editor Sixteen of Thunberg’s remarkable speeches were recently collected in No VICKY SMITH [email protected] One Is Too Small To Make a Difference (2019). In a starred review, Kirkus called Young Adult Editor Tom Beer it “a tiny book, not much bigger than a pamphlet, with huge potential impact.” LAURA SIMEON [email protected] It’s just one of the dozens of outstanding titles about climate change and the environment that cross Editor at Large MEGAN LABRISE our desks here at Kirkus. Even works of fiction—Annie Proulx’sBark - [email protected] Vice President of Kirkus Indie skins (2016) and Richard Powers’ The Overstory (2018) spring to mind— KAREN SCHECHNER are engaging with the fragility of the natural world and the deleterious [email protected] Senior Indie Editor human effect upon it. The range and excellence of these books are the DAVID RAPP [email protected] raison d’être for this, our first-ever Earth Issue; we aim to highlight some Indie Editor MYRA FORSBERG of the best new writing about our planet—and about our efforts to save it. [email protected] Associate Manager of Indie In these pages, you’ll meet award-winning scientist and writer Hope KATERINA PAPPAS [email protected] Jahren, whose new book, The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change Editorial Assistant (Vintage, March 3), is drawn from the research JOHANNA ZWIRNER and Where To Go From Here [email protected] she’s done on how human patterns have impacted our planet and the via- Mysteries Editor THOMAS LEITCH bility of life on it. Anyone who read her memoir, Lab Girl (2016), knows Contributing Editor that Jahren has a sharp and appealing voice and an accessible way of writ- GREGORY McNAMEE Copy Editor ing about abstract problems. The new book is the product of a class she BETSY JUDKINS teaches on climate change at the University of Oslo in Norway, where she’s lived since 2016 (“I am Designer ALEX HEAD worried about the future of science in America,” she explains). Director of Kirkus Editorial LAUREN BAILEY Among the other authors we speak with in this issue: Michael Christie, whose novelGreenwood [email protected] Production Editor (Hogarth/Crown, Feb. 25) traces a family and a forest across generations; Allan Drummond, whose HEATHER RODINO new picture book, Solar Story: How One Community Lives Alongside the World’s Biggest Solar Plant (Far- [email protected] Website and Software Developer rar, Straus and Giroux, March 17), is part of his series of books about sustainability for children; and PERCY PEREZ [email protected] Anuradha Rao, whose YA book One Earth: People of Color Protecting the Planet (Orca, April 7) correctly Advertising Director MONIQUE STENSRUD positions the activism of Indigenous people and other peoples of color at the forefront of the envi- [email protected] Advertising Associate ronmental movement. TATIANA ARNOLD Our editors and contributors have also compiled reading lists—encompassing fiction, nonfiction, [email protected] Graphic Designer children’s, and young adult titles—about the Earth, climate change, and climate activism. Although LIANA WALKER [email protected] we’re at a distressing crossroads in our planet’s history, it’s stirring to see so much knowledge and cre- Controller MICHELLE GONZALES ativity applied to this pressing issue. Reading about and understanding the problem is the first—but [email protected] only the first—step to solving it. for customer service or subscription questions, Happy Earth Day. please call 1-800-316-9361 Print indexes: www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/print-indexes Submission Guidelines: www.kirkusreviews.com/about/submission-guidlines Kirkus Blog: www.kirkusreviews.com/blog Subscriptions: www.kirkusreviews.com/subscription Advertising Opportunities: www.kirkusreviews.com/about/advertising- Newsletters: www.kirkusreviews.com/subscription/newsletter/add Cover design by opportunities Liana Walker 2 | 1 april 2020 | from the editor’s desk | kirkus.com | you can now youpurchase can now bookspurchase online booksat online kirkus.comat kirkus.com contents the earth issue fiction young adult INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ...........................................................4 INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ........................................................151 REVIEWS ...............................................................................................4 REVIEWS ............................................................................................151 EDITOR’S NOTE.....................................................................................6 EDITOR’S NOTE..................................................................................152 INTERVIEW: MICHAEL CHRISTIE ....................................................14 INTERVIEW: ANURADHA RAO .......................................................134 ROUNDUP: GREAT WORKS OF ECO-FICTION ...............................18 ROUNDUP: YA BOOKS FOR EARTH DAY .......................................138 INTERVIEW: EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL .........................................22 INTERVIEW: ADI ALSAID ................................................................ 142 TRANSLATIONS: RICHARD PEVEAR & LARISSA VOLOKHONSKY ................................................................ 28 indie INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ....................................................... 149 MYSTERY ............................................................................................. 36 REVIEWS ........................................................................................... 149 SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY ......................................................... 43 EDITOR’S NOTE..................................................................................150 ROMANCE ........................................................................................... 43 INTERVIEW: STEPHEN ERICKSON ................................................ 156 nonfiction SEEN & HEARD ..................................................................................170 INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ......................................................... 47 REVIEWS ............................................................................................. 47 APPRECIATIONS: STEPHEN HAWKING’S A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME AT 40 .........................................................................................171 EDITOR’S NOTE...................................................................................48 INTERVIEW: HOPE JAHREN ............................................................ 58 ROUNDUP: LANDMARK ENVIRONMENTAL BOOKS .....................62 INTERVIEW: BETTYE KEARSE ..........................................................66 children’s INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS .........................................................88 REVIEWS .............................................................................................88 EDITOR’S NOTE...................................................................................90 INTERVIEW: ALLAN DRUMMOND ...................................................98 ROUNDUP: PICTURE BOOKS ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT ....... 102 INTERVIEW: LOIS LOWRY .............................................................. 106 MOTHER’S DAY & FATHER’S DAY PICTURE BOOKS ....................126 Robert Putnam returns with Upswing, a top- notch addition to the why-America-is-in-such-a- mess genre. Read the review on p. 83. | kirkus.com | contents | 1 april 2020 | 3 fiction SWAN SONG These titles earned the Kirkus Star: An Odyssey Alther, Lisa THE FALLEN by Carlos Manuel Álvarez; trans. by Frank Wynne ......5 Knopf (240 pp.) $25.95 | Jun. 9, 2020 THE VANISHING HALF by Brit Bennett ..............................................7 978-0-525-65754-5 PARAKEET by Marie-Helene Bertino ...................................................8 A Vermont doctor takes a position THE LAST FIGHT by Julie Clark ........................................................10 aboard a cruise ship after the death of her partner. THE TREE AND THE VINE by Dola de Jong; When we meet Jessie, she is griev- trans. by Kristen Gehrman ..................................................................12 ing the recent deaths of her mother, her THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING by Jamie Harrison .........................15 father, and her lover, and she is throwing her