A fresh and refreshing take on the athlete memoir.
The upbringing and values that shaped one of the best players in the NBA.
Writing with longtime ESPN writer and TV host Wilbon, it’s clear that Paul isn’t interested in merely recapping his basketball career, which is ongoing and will lead to induction into the Hall of Fame when the time comes. Instead, the book is a tribute to Paul’s grandfather Nathaniel “Papa” Jones, who owned a gas station in Winston-Salem (“as far as we knew, his station was the first Black-owned gas station in North Carolina”) and whom Paul considers to be his “biggest influence” and “my real-life superhero.” From the author’s loving depiction, it’s easy to see why. Growing up, Paul spent countless hours at the gas station absorbing his grandfather’s example of hard work, a value Paul applied to his basketball career to great effect in high school and as a star at Wake Forest and in the NBA. Papa’s “stained hands were legendary,” he writes, “and had more of an impact on our family and community than anything I can do on a basketball court.” In 2002, their community was shattered when Papa was murdered at the age of 61. In Paul’s next high school game, he scored 61 points in honor of his grandfather. That game serves as the primary narrative thread, with Paul leaving and returning to it every few chapters as he fills in the context around it. By the time the game is over, Paul has demonstrated clearly to readers how much his formative years mattered to him. The author also seeks to convey this to his two children. One of the more moving aspects of the book is when Paul shares his experiences with his children in an attempt to mitigate the reality-distorting privilege that comes from having him as their father. Throughout, the author movingly passes along the love he received from Papa and the rest of his family.
A fresh and refreshing take on the athlete memoir.Pub Date: June 20, 2023
ISBN: 9781250276711
Page Count: 256
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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