by John Wilcockson ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2009
Serviceable but not definitive.
Detailed, hagiographic biography of one of the world’s most inspiring athletes.
Sports and fitness journalist Wilcockson—who previously wrote about Lance Armstrong in 23 Days in July (2004)—begins with Armstrong’s childhood in Texas, during which he matured under the watchful eyes of a doting mother and a disciplinarian yet generous stepfather. By his mid teens he had become a nationally ranked triathlete and was soon reaping the rewards of his notoriety. Yet, as Wilcockson learned from interviews with Armstrong’s friends and family, there was anger in him, possibly stemming from the discovery of his stepfather’s infidelity. There was also arrogance—success had come too easily. In 1996, the 25-year-old Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer that had metastasized to his lungs, abdomen and brain. Given a 50 percent chance of survival, his future looked bleak. But in 1999, after brain surgery and debilitating chemotherapy, Armstrong won the Tour de France—and would win it another six consecutive years, all the while fighting baseless accusations of doping. Wilcockson is at his best describing this tortuous 2,200-mile event, which tests athletes to the breaking point, and he ably captures the world of European cycling—the techniques, personalities and overwhelming passion. The author also outlines Armstrong’s personal life, including his failed marriage, relationship with singer Sheryl Crow and the growth of the Lance Armstrong Foundation and its “Live Strong” campaign. Ultimately, though, Armstrong remains a mystery. For all the detail he provides, Wilcockson—perhaps being too close to the subject—never quite penetrates the protective shield of Armstrong’s public persona.
Serviceable but not definitive.Pub Date: July 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-306-81587-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Da Capo
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2009
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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by Paul Kalanithi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 2016
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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