A broken-bat blooper that falls for a double.
A former commissioner of baseball rehearses his years and achievements in the game.
After a foreword by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Selig begins with a difficult year for him and baseball—2007, a year dominated by Barry Bonds’ chase for the all-time home run record and steroid scandals—before settling in to a fairly conventional chronological (and sometimes clichéd) summary of his experiences as a fan, owner (Milwaukee Brewers), and commissioner, the job that earned him a Baseball Hall of Fame induction in 2017. Although the author focuses almost entirely on his baseball life, he briefly discusses his marriage, his daughter’s management of the Brewers, and his friendships, especially with Hank Aaron, whose record Bonds broke, and George W. Bush. Selig provides a fairly extensive account of 9/11, how baseball contributed to public healing, and how then-President Bush was, in the author’s view, a hero. He also includes a tribute to the late Sen. John McCain, whom he greatly admired (he offers no comment about Donald Trump, who has publicly denigrated McCain). Baseball fans will appreciate Selig’s coverage of the key issues that arose during his tenure, including the introduction of the “wild card” teams, the Pete Rose gambling case (Selig believes Rose’s banishment from baseball remains just), the rise of the players’ union, the destructive battle about steroids and other drugs, the notion of revenue-sharing among the teams (a concept borrowed from the NFL and its former commissioner Pete Rozelle, whom Selig praises extensively), the financial resurgence of baseball, and the spread of the game around the world. Selig does not express a lot of modesty or offer much in the way of confessions of failure, human or professional; in all, he maintained “clear eyes, an open mind, and a willingness to make personal sacrifices for the good of the game.”
A broken-bat blooper that falls for a double.Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-290595-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
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
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