A fun and revealing look behind the charm and mythos of Bill Murray that will only strengthen his legend.
A personal philosophy based on Bill Murray’s well-publicized high jinks, pranks, and exploits.
There are countless urban legends about Murray, including stories of him crashing karaoke rooms, a kickball game, and a couple’s engagement photos. (All true.) There are also stories of Murray putting his hands over the eyes of unsuspecting strangers while saying “Guess who?” only for him to end the brief encounter with the rejoinder, “No one will ever believe you.” (Also true.) Based on innumerable tales like these and others, notwithstanding his career as one of the most beloved actors of his generation, Murray has carefully crafted a reputation for himself as our culturally appointed jester-in-chief. However, there is a somewhat serious philosophical foundation to Murray’s antics. As author and journalist Edwards (Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind, 2013, etc.) explains in his funny, affectionate portrait, Murray’s seemingly nonchalant attitude and inability to take anything seriously is rooted in his sincere desire to make the most of life. Through 10 principles outlined by the author, the underlying tenet to Murray’s “philosophy” reveals itself to be a kind of existentialist/Zen mashup that preaches a heightened awareness of the present. The key to Murray’s philosophy is that it is not self-serving. Though he has become known for his carefree antics almost as much as for his acting roles, he does them out of earnest playfulness. Murray is not always the genial clown, as many collaborators have witnessed his attitude turn abrasive and acerbic. Edwards skillfully weaves together many well-known and entirely new anecdotes from throughout Murray’s career that capture him at the height of his power. Murray is an endless delight, and his knack for bons mots and non sequiturs will keep readers laughing before revealing an unexpectedly poignant vision for happiness. The author also provides a rundown of Murray’s major films for reference.
A fun and revealing look behind the charm and mythos of Bill Murray that will only strengthen his legend.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9870-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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
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
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