An arresting work that captures the struggles of both mountain climbing and everyday life.
A financial planner becomes a mountaineer and conquers the Seven Summits in this gripping debut memoir.
Mauro was living what he describes as a “comfortable, safe life” in Washington state when, at age 44, he decided to become a mountain climber. His motivation for doing so was complex, but divorce and depression were key factors. The next seven years saw him climb the highest mountain peaks on each continent, known as the Seven Summits: Denali in Alaska, Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Elbrus in Russia, Aconcagua in Argentina, Vinson Massif in Antarctica, the Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia, and finally, Everest in Asia. The memoir tracks his progress as he prepared for and completed each climb while also battling his inner demons with a therapist’s help. His development is remarkable as he progressed from being a naïve beginner tackling Denali to a focused mountaineer summiting Everest. His psychological journey is also notable, as he became a braver, more determined person with a deeper sense of self-awareness. His life took an unexpected turn in 2007, when he found love through online dating. Mauro has a hard-hitting, straight-from-the-shoulder writing style: “Then comes the moment when your dream turns on you. You are in pain. You imagine the summit. But instead of being energized by that image, you extrapolate your current condition into an unbearable sum of suffering to come, and that sum easily dwarfs the payoff. You are done.” He also displays a profound understanding of the psychological battles that one must win in order to achieve extraordinary physical feats. His memoir is a lesson in positive thinking—something essential to a mountaineer, as being “fearful or agitated” causes the body to use more oxygen. Mauro also has a wickedly wry sense of humor; in a list of things he learned while visiting Papua New Guinea, he notes: “It is advisable to yield on price when bartering at the point of a bayonet.” Overall, this is a sharply executed, inspirational, and thoroughly entertaining read. (The book includes photos of the author and other people he met during his journey.)
An arresting work that captures the struggles of both mountain climbing and everyday life.Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5445-0049-2
Page Count: 456
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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