Not only an insightful biography, but a shining history of the early NBA as well.
Voluble, basketball-savvy tour of Boston Celtic great Bob Cousy’s life, from Providence Journal sportswriter Reynolds (Glory Days, 1998, etc.).
The author wisely starts at the close of his subject’s career, in 1963, when basketball was on the cusp of becoming one of the nation’s pastimes. Cousy retired when he was still hot, no rust gathering about the joints, his name golden (and all the better to make a living from). He was recognized as the first flash playmaker, with his no-look passes and behind-the-back work, the man who essentially made the National Basketball Association, playing be-bop at point guard all through the 1950s, imaginative and confident on the court. But Cousy was also driven by his insecurities, Reynolds writes, knowing full well what was on the magician’s mind after interviewing him at length for this book. He was terrified that his game would desert him and he would find himself naked and humiliated under the lights. Cousy was the captain of a team that understood it worked better as a collective than individuals; his role was to make his teammates play better, and a great pass was the game’s ultimately expression. Reynolds explores with obvious pleasure the evolution of professional basketball, in particular the ascendancy of black players like Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain in the heretofore white sport, the shrewd coaching of Red Auerbach, and the innovations that the Celtics brought to the game. After Cousy gave up playing to coach Boston College, his friendship with a pair of known gamblers prompted accusations that he was on the Mob’s take, but the author appears to believe his denials. Henderson does beautiful job of painting Cousy, right down to his French lisp; he comes across as a team player who truly believes it when he says it was the team, his nonpareil huddle of Heinsohn and Jones and Jones and Russell, who made the difference.
Not only an insightful biography, but a shining history of the early NBA as well.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7432-5476-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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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