Ideal for runners but accessible to all readers seeking wisdom and inspiration.
A runner shares life lessons in a debut memoir that combines inspirational text, a tour guide, and a career survey.
The prologue of this book features a fraught phone call between Schneider and his elderly mother, who’s in decline due to Alzheimer’s disease and terminal cancer; this gives way to the author’s childhood memories of Bowling Green, Ohio. Long-distance running, a grueling activity that engages body, mind, and spirit, initially provided the author with stress relief; he relied on it during exams, as he faced uncertainty about his educational options, and when he had troubles in his first marriage. The book’s prominent themes include dedication, pacing, stamina, self-awareness, and the humility that comes with occasional stumbles. Most chapters begin with the date and location of a particular marathon, Schneider’s running time, and a relevant quotation. He employs marathons as structural devices, allowing him to explore his relationships, with a focus on his relationship with his supportive second wife, Elaine. After they received terrible news, he writes, “we were in such a daze that I couldn’t even taste the pepperoni” in their pizza. Schneider thus succeeds at underscoring critical moments through plainspoken language, as in a touching anecdote about his father, who marveled at a marathon’s 26.2-mile distance: “That’s longer than the drive between Bowling Green and Toledo.” In another vignette, the author’s college-age stepson Rik got up early on a Sunday morning to hand the author Gatorade during one marathon. Other race locations included California, New York, and Ontario, although most occurred in Ohio and Michigan. The route descriptions offer evocative passages: “For me, that Big Ten Run was about learning how to love a place for the first time, and nothing can quite match that feeling.” The epilogue finds the author taking a chilly December run in Greenville, South Carolina, where he nicely ties together the book’s narrative strands; he cleverly inverts the chronology here so that the events of the epilogue precede the prologue’s, suggesting that he will need all the lessons he learned in order to face an unknown future.
Ideal for runners but accessible to all readers seeking wisdom and inspiration.Pub Date: March 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73352-730-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Saybrook Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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