A survivor presents a doggedly optimistic view of life and a collection of valuable lessons.
A debut autobiographical work offers a series of life lessons.
“I am a proud survivor,” writes Shaw at the beginning of her book, “having endured some of the worst traumas a person can face.” She has dealt with the loss of a parent, a cancer diagnosis, the trauma of rape, the death of her first love, a divorce, some near-death accidents, and chronic health problems, among other trials. In her chapters, she takes readers through the narration of her autobiography, from her childhood bond with her vivacious sister to her college years, cancer diagnosis, and the ordeal of chemotherapy (“It was a war and I felt like the enemy got the best of me more than once”). She recounts her recovery, graduation, pregnancy, and other events into later adulthood. Looking back at it all, she tells her readers that God is teaching people and giving them skills they can use when encountering adversities. In her own case, she writes, she became “a keeping the faith, on top of the world, utopian optimist survivor fashioned with rose-colored glasses.” Shaw’s decision to ground her motivational insights in stories from her own autobiography is a wise narrative decision; it puts an appealingly personal face on the hardships from which she’s drawn her life lessons. Her prose style is direct and energetic. Every period of her life, each with its own trauma, is narrated with a spirited immediacy—her accounts of her cancer and divorce are particularly effective. The downside of this immediacy is that it sometimes tempts the author to indulge in purple prose (“I was a changed woman with a devastating scar on her unsuspecting heart”). Still, the useful nuggets of advice woven into this uplifting narrative more than compensate.
A survivor presents a doggedly optimistic view of life and a collection of valuable lessons.Pub Date: March 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-956769-07-4
Page Count: 245
Publisher: Library Tales Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A beautifully produced, engaging homage.
Celebrating a beloved artist.
Published to coincide with a major exhibition of works by British-born artist David Hockney (b. 1937) at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, this lushly illustrated volume offers a detailed overview of the artist’s life and work, along with chapters focused on his various styles and subject matter, a chronology, and a glossary of the many techniques he employed in his art, including camera lucida, computer, and video. Contributors of essays include noted art historians and curators, such as Norman Rosenthal, who edited the volume; Simon Schama; Anne Lyles; James Cahill; and François Michaud. Growing up in the north of England, Hockney was drawn to the light and sparkle that he found in Hollywood movies. When he finally arrived in Los Angeles, the sunlit landscapes inspired him, and his new sense of artistic freedom concurred with sexual freedom: As a gay man, he felt liberated from the constraints that had weighed on him in Britain, even in the “relative Bohemia” of the Royal College of Art. Essayists reflect on his artistic interests, such as landscapes, portraiture, flowers, and the opera—for which he created boldly exuberant sets—as well as on his influences and experimentation. Michaud examines the impact on Hockney of a visit to Paris in the 1970s, where he became familiar with Henri Matisse and his contemporaries from museum exhibitions. In the 1990s, visiting his mother and friends in Yorkshire, Hockney painted both outdoors and in the studio, experimenting with various media—including the photocopier and fax machine—as he worked to render the woodsy landscape. As a companion to the exhibition, the volume offers stunning reproductions of Hockney’s prolific works. Enormously popular with museumgoers, Hockney, Rosenthal exults, “transforms the ordinary and the everyday into the remarkable.”
A beautifully produced, engaging homage.Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780500029527
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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