A mother and her children gain wisdom from a family health crisis.
A mother struggles to find a cure for her daughter’s unusual seizures—and the whole family benefits—in a debut memoir.
In third grade, Sette’s only daughter began to slip backward in her development, regressing in reading and communicating and losing the ability to buckle her seat belt. Diagnosed with a rare form of epilepsy known as electro-status epilepticus sleep syndrome, or Landau-Kleffner syndrome, Nicolette had nighttime seizures that impaired her sleep, and the available medications didn’t work well for her. In this book, Sette describes her panicked odyssey into alternative treatments for her daughter, which over time helped her understand how the brain and the rest of the body work together. Nicolette finally began to improve when doctors at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia allowed her to enroll in its ketogenic diet program. And after seeing the improvement in her daughter, Sette began to make healthy changes in her life, too, looking into neurofeedback, meditation, mindfulness, mantras, brain training games, and more. As a result, she and her daughter and sons, Zachary and Anthony, learned enduring lessons about the connections between the brain and body—involving diet, exercise, sleep, self-knowledge, and self-expression—that Sette describes in this book. Though Nicolette’s health problems are often the focus of the story, the author and her sons also stepped outside their comfort zones, as Zachary began a demanding pre-med program at Pennsylvania State University, Anthony had “terrible headaches” after a concussion, and both sons had to learn to help their sister. Sette’s suggestions are largely practical—though often New Age–y—and focused on basics such as healthy eating and finding a balance in life that allows for creativity, play, and humor. Along the way, the author found inspiration in sources ranging from Oprah Winfrey to Albert Einstein and from Rhonda Byrne’s self-help book The Secret (2006) to Norwegian physiology professor Ulrik Wisløff. But she distills what she learned into a simple message for anyone hoping to feel physically and mentally better: “To sum up, take inventory and start with small overall steps toward health; that will make it easier.”
A mother and her children gain wisdom from a family health crisis. (reader's guide, bibliography, author bio)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-982230-51-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
© Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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