The doyenne of afternoon comedy returns with more quirky reflections on life.
The author’s latest comes eight years after her last bestselling collection of humorous musings (The Funny Thing Is…, 2003, etc.), as well as after one wildly successful talk show, a brief stint on American Idol and the founding of a record label. While the present work largely represents more of the same from DeGeneres, fans will not be disappointed. This hodgepodge of self-help tips, adult(ish) stories, coloring-book pages for children of all ages and one hilarious haiku—“Haiku sounds like I’m / saying hi to someone named / Ku. Hi, Ku. Hello.”—displays throughout the author’s gift for capturing the absurd hilarity of internal monologue. As such, readers will expect the audiobook edition to amplify the humor of some of these vignettes that, on the page, elicit little more than quiet smirks. Many of the passages, like her advice on “How to Be a Supermodel”—“Get those lips out there. Purse your lips like you’re trying to sip out of a straw that someone keeps moving away from you…Be mysterious. Always pose with one hand in your pocket as if to say, ‘I’m so mysterious, this hand in my pocket could be a hook hand. You don’t know’ ”—deliver their comedic punch unaided. One of the more refreshing aspects of this miscellany is DeGeneres’ inclusion of her spouse, Portia de Rossi, whom she admires and gently chides as any partner might—e.g., her critique of de Rossi’s lotion mania: “Each kind says it has something special in it for your skin—aloe, shea butter, coconut, cocoa butter, vanilla, lemon extract. That’s not lotion. That’s one ingredient short of a Bundt cake.” Though DeGeneres doesn’t provide many laugh-out-loud moments, her trademark wit and openness shine through.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-446-58502-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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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