Some more Mr. Nice Guy is presented for the genial entertainer's army of fans. Of course, there's more fey Coz charm than substance, but that's not really the point when it comes to an amusement concocted more for TV viewers than for bookish folk. The current easy reader from easy writer Cosby follows hard upon his best sellers dealing with fatherhood and with attaining the age of 50. Now the frightening joys and happy frustrations of love and marriage are analyzed effortlessly in a heart-to-heart marked by the surface wisdom of a latter-day, North Philadelphia Judge Hardy. Chronicled is the search of "a wistful boy with a good jump shot and bad skin" for the Holy Grail or, more accurately, a girl. Discussed is Man's guest for "J-O-N-E-S" and Boy's quest to find out just what "J-O-N-E-S" is, anyway. (It seems to have something to do with "S-E-X".) One difficulty in the author's coming to manhood was finding a girl who could appreciate the wonderfulness of John Coltrane, or at least trying to "explain obvious greatness to a foreign sex." Bill's search is finally rewarded with the advent of Camille, his wife, with whom, if the text is to be believed, he swaps dialogue reminiscent of radio's classic Bickersons. There are set pieces about Dad's habit of dropping shoes any old where or leaving the toilet seat up, the male inability to ask directions, methods of sleeping with a wife, and all the comic differences between the two basic models of people. It's a pleasant enough valentine to Mrs. Cosby, but more weight would be even nicer. The nearly unbearable lightness of kidding is the only problem, and an introduction by Alvin Poussaint, M.D., doesn't help at all. It's clearly not meant to be Hedda Gabler or Proustian; it's more Garfield-esque or Peanutsian. Coz has simply handed us another hour or two of the same stuff good sitcoms are made of.
Pub Date: April 22, 1989
ISBN: 385-24664-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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