A collection of short, easily digestible anecdotes—of her first Rolling Stones concert, her first solo recording, her first wedding ceremony—told by Cher and committed to paper in a tone of talkiness that seems to come straight from the tape recorder. Each brief recollection, some not more than a paragraph in span, stands on its own, but the separate reflections combine to tell the larger story of Cher’s bumpy rise from poor sassy kid and naive starlet to independent singer and award-winning actress. Much to her credit, Cher has bypassed the common pitfall of the confessional genre: that of over-analyzing minor events and attributing to them major, long-term outcomes. Instead, the memories are stated sparsely; she doesn—t spend too much time explaining them or justifying them emotionally. The result: a lighter, more enjoyable read. Though her bits and pieces don—t always hang together solidly, and don—t always follow in exact chronological order, the overall effect is nevertheless like listening in on Cher’s candid musings about significant events in her life. Oddly enough, her gimmicky format (most vignettes end too conveniently with an aphorism) actually works. Co-author Coplon has also been co-author to Sarah, Duchess of York. Despite cute, contrived styling, the reminiscences unfold in an honest and personal (though sometimes —performed—) fashion. As an added bonus, one can open the book at almost any page and start right in—the perfect arrangement for hard-pressed readers. (32 pages color and b&w photos) (Television satellite tour)
Pub Date: Nov. 17, 1998
ISBN: 0-684-80900-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1998
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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
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