Book Reviews, 2023
“Scout” by Tokie Rome-Taylor, Archival pigment photograph, for The New Brownies’ Book (Chronicle Books, 2023)
Most of my book reviews are for Hyperallergic, though I occasionally place reviews elsewhere, such as The Believer.
If you would like to send me press copies, reach out via sarawithanh.sharp [at] gmail.com for mailing info.
I am interested in books about all kinds of things! I cannot promise to review every book I receive, but I do promise to look at them all! I cannot review books in PDF form.
Olmsted Trees (2022, Hirmer Publishers) - “Central Park Architect Frederick Law Olmsted’s Tree Politics” - January 12, Hyperallergic
Collecting Nature: The History of the Herbarium and Natural Specimens (Bokförlaget Stolpe, 2022) - “Why Do Herbariums Still Fascinate Us?” - January 18, Hyperallergic
Theatres of Melancholy: The Neo-Romantics in Paris and Beyond (Thames & Hudson, 2022) - “The Rise and Fall of the Neo-Romantics” - January 31, Hyperallergic
Ocean Gleaning (2022) - “A Crowd-Sourced Archive of Our Oceans’ Plastics” - February 28, Hyperallergic
The Hidden Language of Symbols (Thames & Hudson, 2022) - “Beneath the Surface of Art’s Visual Symbolism” - March 6, Hyperallergic
Maya Deren: Choreographed for Camera (Saint Lucy Books, 2022) - “Maya Deren in Vivid Focus” - March 19, Hyperallergic
The Brutalists (Phaidon, 2023) - “10 Brutalist Architects You Probably Never Heard Of” - April 9, Hyperallergic
Where I’m Coming From (Drawn and Quarterly, 2023) - “Barbara Brandon-Croft’s Comics Tell It Like It Is” - July 20, Hyperallergic
Pacita Abad (2023, Walker Art Center) - “A 350-Page Tribute to Pacita Abad’s Boundless Art” - August 2, Hyperallergic
The Museum of Scent: Exploring the Curious & Wonderous World of Fragrance (Abbeville Press, 2023) - “Did You Know California Has a Museum of Scent? ” - October 31, Hyperallergic
The New Brownies’ Book: A Love Letter to Black Families (Chronicle Books, October 2023) - “The Legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois for Young Readers” - November 7, Hyperallergic
Dacha: The Soviet Country Cottage (Fuel, 2023) - “The Fairytale Charm of Soviet Country Dachas” - November 13, Hyperallergic
The Book by Design: The Remarkable Story of the World’s Greatest Invention (2023, University of Chicago Press) - “A History of Bookmaking, From Scrolls to Scrolling” - November 27, Hyperallergic