Instructive episodes from the rise and reign of a hardwood heroine.
A shy kid speaks up on the court.
The uniquely decorated author—Staley is the only person to win college basketball’s august Naismith Award as both player and coach—pens a candid, self-aware memoir about her unusually successful career. Staley grew up in “a crammed row home” in North Philadelphia, nicknamed Dirt because “I’d rather play ball than bathe.” Introverted and alert, she learned discipline by observing her mother, Estelle, who earned money cleaning houses, which she did “with pride, like a boss.” Staley was most comfortable on the court, playing point guard, where lack of height mattered less than smarts and competitiveness. After her storied playing days at the University of Virginia—she graduated in 1992—Staley landed an uninspiring job “stacking jeans.” To play professionally, she went to Spain. She “hated it abroad,” but homesickness led to an unlikely, charmingly recounted breakthrough. Watching the Kid ’n Play–starring House Party movies, her “brain froze” when a character said, “You have to do what you don’t want to do to get what you want.” This became her “life motto,” fueling her stellar professional playing career—she joined the Charlotte Sting in 1999, lending star power to the two-year-old WNBA—and three national championships as the University of South Carolina women’s coach. Coaches typically say only nice things about colleagues, but Staley is winningly direct. Tara VanDerveer, who coached the 1996 women’s U.S. Olympic team, “relentlessly” chided Staley and her teammates, taking “it to a place she didn’t need to.” Staley is equally outspoken about her faith and the need for women’s college basketball, where a substantial percentage of the players are Black, to be more “intentional about hiring Black women” and equitably paying them. Her message resonates beyond the gym.
Instructive episodes from the rise and reign of a hardwood heroine.Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023365
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Black Privilege Publishing/Atria
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
An overstuffed, enjoyable jaunt through the NFL’s recent past.
Four decades of football, as chronicled by a well-known sportswriter.
Longtime Sports Illustrated gridiron reporter King takes a maximalist approach, devoting one chapter to each year from 1984, when he started writing about the NFL, to 2023, the last season he covered the league full-time. This lengthy professional memoir features anecdotes and commentary, an argument-starting list of names for his “Mount Rushmore of Pro Football,” a crossword puzzle, and informative tidbits on tactics and playcalling, as well as profiles of singular players and warranted criticism of league bosses’ handling of player health and sports gambling. King skillfully charts the NFL’s inexorable growth. When he started, snail-mail newsletters were must-reads. In today’s media landscape, streaming networks have spent $4.3 billion to broadcast 58 games. As the author illustrates, Paul Tagliabue, a relatively unheralded league commissioner, engineered the year-round fan experience, with “tentpole events like a draft with more fanfare, free agency, and a new TV channel.” Polls showed that baseball and football were equally popular in the ’80s, but, by 2024, football had four times as many fans. Yet King’s kitchen-sink approach results in some bloat. Nobody yearns for a minute-by-minute rehash of the Cowboys’ 1991 draft or a rundown of the “quotes of 2002.” But amid the overabundance, there’s ample charm. In his best chapters, King catches up with guys he wrote about years ago. An 80-something Hall of Fame coach sketches Xs and Os on a notepad. A retired player known for his creative trash-talking shares tricks of the trade. In a powerful chapter, King visits a lab and looks at the damaged brain of a player he voted for in Hall of Fame balloting. This dovetails with King’s number-crunching on per-game hits sustained by players, important analysis as the league considers expanding its schedule.
An overstuffed, enjoyable jaunt through the NFL’s recent past.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781324123637
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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