A light, entertaining story of how a man turned his pipe dream into a profitable, highly respected business.
How the author created the ultimate American diner experience in Paris.
Carlson’s love of all things French began when he was required to take a foreign language in high school. Learning French changed his perspective on the world, and it was only natural to choose France as his destination for his collegiate study-abroad program. When his year overseas was up, he returned to America to continue pursuing his screenwriting career. But it was while eating an American breakfast complete with buckwheat pancakes that Carlson had an epiphany that changed his life. He realized the food he was eating wasn’t available in Paris. “Suddenly, I could see everything so clearly….I realized all those twists and turns, all those ups and downs....They really had happened for a reason. And at that moment, I knew exactly what I wanted to do—no, had to do next: open an American diner in Paris! I even knew what I was going to call it—Breakfast in America.” With nonstop enthusiasm, the author details the many obstacles he faced to make his dream a reality. He needed to secure money from investors, create a viable business plan, find a good location, hire employees, create a menu, and find sources for American foods, all while on French soil and following French rules, which turned out to be vastly different from those in the United States. Despite all these setbacks, the exhaustion that comes from working almost every minute, and the difficulty convincing Parisians that American food and coffee are actually tasty, Carlson’s desire to bring American diner food to Paris paid off (there are now three locations). The author demonstrates that no idea is too crazy if one has the determination to pursue it to its fruition.
A light, entertaining story of how a man turned his pipe dream into a profitable, highly respected business.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4926-3212-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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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