A gem of literary history that will spark further exploration through the author’s canon.
A rhapsodic collection of poems attributed to one of the Portuguese author’s many alter egos.
Wildly prolific in both poetry and prose, Pessoa (1888-1935) (The Complete Works of Álvaro de Campos, 2023, etc.) wrote pseudonymously as a network of fictional writers, and the translation and collation of this multifaceted oeuvre is the subject of a new publishing project by New Directions. In 1928, Pessoa explained that his “heteronymic work is done by the author outside his personality,” and compared his varied bibliography to the “sayings of characters in any of his dramas.” This bilingual collection compiles all the work of “Ricardo Reis,” a neoclassical, Whitman-esque odist in search of transcendental epiphanies. The poems trace a philosophical quest toward recognizing the power of the present, and a belief that those who look toward the future (or the afterlife) are doomed to unfulfillment. “Be fully yourself today,” he urges in one poem, “don’t wait. / You are your life.” Let us be what we are,” he writes in another. Despite each poem striving to reach this same sense of enlightenment, they rarely feel redundant and instead recapitulate like a recurring motif. Classical imagery courses through, imbuing the poems with Dionysian ecstasy. “Happy the man to whom life kindly / Granted a knowledge of the gods,” he writes in one poem, “So that, like them, he could see / In the earthly things among which he lives / A mortal reflection of immortal life.” An illuminating section of prose concludes the volume, including curious prefaces written by Reis for Alberto Caeiro, another of Pessoa’s heteronyms. Here, Reis writes of his intentions to usher in a “lucid re-visioning of the gods, the rebirth of ancient beliefs, which the whole troop of false Christian gods and saints had buried.” In this marvelous introduction to Pessoa’s multitudes, readers will find a wealth of material to explore among the subversive paganism of Reis’ odes.
A gem of literary history that will spark further exploration through the author’s canon.Pub Date: April 21, 2026
ISBN: 9780811237895
Page Count: 272
Publisher: New Directions
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.
A principled athlete strives for social justice.
Kaepernick forthrightly details the activism that earned him global renown but cost him his NFL career. In 2016, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback “was filled with disgust” after police shootings of fellow Black men in several American cities. Before a preseason game, he made a spontaneous decision: “It hit me in that moment that I should find a seat” during the national anthem. He did the same at two more games before reporters noticed. Kaepernick will forever be associated with “taking a knee” during the anthem, but he credits Eric Reid—a teammate who agreed with Kaepernick’s message—for suggesting that they kneel together during subsequent anthems. The protest changed everything for Kaepernick. President Trump vilified him. Kaepernick and his wife received death threats. And though he’d taken the 49ers to a Super Bowl, no teams would sign him. He will likely make news for his take on Jay-Z, whose lucrative partnership with the NFL was criticized as an attempt to launder the league’s reputation. Visiting Africa, where Kaepernick learns about “African leaders who willingly sold their own people to the enslavers,” he “couldn’t help but to think about Jay-Z and the NFL.” In opening chapters, Kaepernick recalls suffering traumatic racial abuse as a child. Being in “white spaces”—he was adopted by white parents—placed him “under a microscope every minute of every day.” He isn’t always nuanced, depicting some people he disagrees with as cartoonishly clueless. But his writing about how college and pro teams “lied” to him about injuries underlines his “feeling of being a disposable commodity.” A decade has passed since Kaepernick played in the NFL, but he stays fit in case “a team needing a QB” calls.
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781538777879
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Legacy Lit/Hachette
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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