A moving hagiography that will appeal to fans of Chariots of Fire as well as Unbroken and similar books.
The life of the deeply Christian Olympic champion runner who forsook the glory for missionary work in China. The story was the basis for the award-winning film Chariots of Fire.
British sportswriter Hamilton (Touch Wood: The Autobiography of the 1953 Le Mans Winner, 2014, etc.) re-creates the life of Eric Liddell (1902-1944), the Scottish son of missionaries who sensationally won the gold medal in the 400-meter race at the Summer Olympics in Paris in 1924 before becoming a missionary in China like his father. Liddell was an unlikely sports hero, not physically prepossessing but absolutely determined, and he gained inspiration from German Max Sick’s How to Become a Great Athlete while a student at the University of Edinburgh. At the same time, he became a committed member and minister for the Union Church. Discovered by impresario-coach Tom McKerchar, Liddell soon smartened up as an athlete, winning numerous championship races with his unique head-thrown-back style. The 400-meter race was not his specialty, and he was not a favorite of the British Olympic Association, which “didn’t consider a Scot…as an important figure.” Yet when the Olympic schedule was organized, Liddell refused to race his specialty 100 meters because it was scheduled on a Sunday. Considered a traitor to his country by some, he was soon celebrated as a national hero once he won the 400. In his often poignant but also sometimes overly sentimental narrative, Hamilton emphasizes that this was only the beginning of the Liddell legend, as he sought a higher calling as a missionary, moving to the land of his birth, Tientsin, China, to teach science and sports at the Anglo-Chinese College. With the Japanese invasion, however, the expatriate community became vulnerable to attack and then imprisonment in concentration camps like Weihsien, where Liddell spent 694 days practicing his faith and helping other inmates before dying tragically of an undiagnosed brain tumor.
A moving hagiography that will appeal to fans of Chariots of Fire as well as Unbroken and similar books.Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59420-620-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
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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