by Elizabeth Hayt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 18, 2005
A nasty little memoir of sex and self-indulgence, for those eager for some upscale titillation.
If this breezy account of one woman’s sexual escapades were a film, it would definitely be rated NC-17.
Hayt, a fashion writer for the New York Times, goes public about her private parts, not to mention those of her various premarital, marital and extramarital partners. She begins with her wedding, declaring that “it felt like the start of a long prison sentence,” then flashes back to her days as a promiscuous teenager. Predictably, marriage to the unadventurous Charlie foundered within a few years, and Hayt’s search for adulterous sexual fulfillment began. At 32, she got pregnant by another man and had an abortion; by the time she was 34, she and Charlie had separated. Still supported by her estranged husband, newly renovated by Botox injections, dermabrasion, plastic surgery and breast implants, she launched herself at a series of men: the art dealer who left his shoes on during sex and had cold, green reptilian eyes; the media mogul with an aversion to bathing; the billionaire politico who was a lousy kisser; the right-wing oil magnate who wore lizard-skin footwear. Guessing their identities should give readers some amusement. In addition to blind dates and chance encounters, Hayt tried finding men through personal ads in the New York Observer, at her synagogue and in the men’s department at Bergdorf Goodman; the results were frequently disastrous and, as told here, extremely funny. Her excruciatingly detailed play-by-plays of her sexual antics are not so amusing, and it comes as no surprise that her husband, on the verge of a reconciliation as the narrative nears its end, changed his mind after reading her tell-all manuscript.
A nasty little memoir of sex and self-indulgence, for those eager for some upscale titillation.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2005
ISBN: 0-446-53194-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2005
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
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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