by Paul O’Neill with Burton Rocks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2003
Fans will enjoy getting a peek into the life and quirks of this formerly media-shy player. As much an antidote to David...
Hard-driving Yankee outfielder O'Neill melds a sweet, plainspoken tribute to his father.
No wonder he played with such energy, enthusiasm, and savvy: the third generation of his family to enter professional ball, O'Neill was raised in the Church of Baseball. For his father, Chick, it “was less a game than a way of life, a set of rules and philosophies, challenges and opportunities that provided order in the universe.” When O'Neill writes that baseball embodies “hard work, sacrifice, courage, devotion to family and nation, overcoming hardship, reaching for dreams,” he's not just talking through his hat, but ticking off attributes he drew upon to make his career. His father worked to instill in O'Neill, a notoriously emotional player known for flinging his helmet or working over water coolers after missed opportunities in the batter's box, the understanding that sportsmanship was as important as great play, fun was the name of the game, and optimism would trump a lousy at-bat. This attitude didn't come easy, but his father was always there for him, encouraging and getting him back in line all the way through O'Neill's apprenticeship in the minors, his fine years with the Cincinnati Reds, and his triumphs as a Yankee. (Chick passed away during the 1999 World Series.) O'Neill covers his many career highlights, including those searing line drives, World Series by the peck, and three perfect games. He also makes intelligent comments on salaries and the value of fans, as well as nothing-but-blue-skies tributes to his teammates.
Fans will enjoy getting a peek into the life and quirks of this formerly media-shy player. As much an antidote to David Wells trash talk as we’re likely to get.Pub Date: June 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-06-052405-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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by Paul O’Neill & Jack Curry
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 Elie Wiesel ; edited by Alan Rosen
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
BOOK REVIEW
by Elie Wiesel ; translated by Marion Wiesel
by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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