by Andy Chaleff ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 2018
An intimate remembrance that includes a wealth of ideas about self-acceptance.
A debut memoir of one man’s journey toward love and healing in the face of loss.
When professional business mentor and adviser Chaleff was 18, his mother died in an automobile accident caused by a drunk driver, and afterward, he lost his ability to find meaning in life. As the child of an unpredictable, volatile father, Chaleff always found comfort in the protective, unconditional emotional warmth of his mother. Her death moved him into a mindset of self-destruction—and ultimately, self-examination. In this book, he offers a winding account of falling into addictive and compulsive behaviors, depression, and other difficulties as he tried to resolve his feelings about the traumatic event. He eventually moved to Japan, where he studied religion, and he met a very wise teacher named Cees de Bruin. He later became a teacher and healer himself, and he went on to experience moments of redemption with his father and others, which he shares here. It’s rare that a book succeeds at relating such an intimate, personal story while also clearly discussing psychological topics, such as projection, self-destruction, addiction, self-acceptance, and vulnerability. The book’s later chapters, in particular, offer unique advice, ideas, and insights about searching for self-awareness. For example, he discusses the titular last letter that he wrote to his mother, which she read shortly before her death: “That experience drove home to me the fragility of life and the urgency to take meaningful action in the face of mortality.” What makes this title stand out from similar memoirs is its raw, unsentimental treatment of the author’s story. Chaleff recounts his grief and healing experience in a cleareyed, conversational manner that will likely encourage readers toward introspection.
An intimate remembrance that includes a wealth of ideas about self-acceptance.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63393-707-9
Page Count: 245
Publisher: Koehler Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Andy Chaleff
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by Andy Chaleff
by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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