For students and scholars of early feminism.
A memoir from a hitherto unknown educator and reformer, first published in Paris in 1925.
Born in little-settled West Texas in 1892, Beasley had an oppressively unhappy family life. Her father was a “restless, violent alcoholic” who moved his 13 children frequently as he pursued one pipe-dream scheme after another. Her siblings were, by her account, uninspired and unintelligent—and worse: “I did not like my three oldest brothers (I feared, mistrusted, and hated them at times, chiefly because of their treatment of me which I look upon now as pure rape. There was no play about it.)” An early student of Freudian psychology, Beasley catalogs instances of sexual abuse while revealing herself to be ahead of her time in attitudes toward sexual relations. While she glances over her father after a divorce that put the now splintered family into financial peril, she recounts endless fights with a petulant, depressive mother, of whom she writes, “Sometimes I thought I hated my mother more bitterly than anyone in the world.” Freedom came when she earned a teaching degree and, in time, ended up in educational administration in the Pacific Northwest only to run afoul of her boss. Readers familiar with Marguerite Noble’s novel Filaree (1979) will find Beasley’s memoir to be a companion piece of sorts, though the latter is wooden by comparison. Problematic, too, is that the author is not an especially sympathetic character, particularly because she is consistently disdainful of those she considers intellectually or culturally inferior (“in my heart of hearts I never liked the people of the Baptist church and held the best of them in suspicion”), not least her own family: “None of them was ever capable of carrying on an intelligent conversation. My home life was in every way a retrogression: there was no soul, no love, no intelligence.” That she was able to leave home at 17 was doubtless mutually satisfying all around.
For students and scholars of early feminism.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-72824-288-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.
A future basketball Hall of Famer’s rosy outlook.
Curry is that rare athlete who looks like he gets joy from what he does. There’s no doubt that the Golden State Warriors point guard is a competitor—he’s led his team to four championships—but he plays the game with nonchalance and exuberance. That ease, he says, “only comes from discipline.” He practices hard enough—he’s altered the sport by mastering the three-point shot—so that he achieves a “kind of freedom.” In that “flow state,” he says, “I can let joy and creativity take over. I block out all distractions, even the person guarding me. He can wave his arms and call me every name in the book, but I just smile and wait as the solution to the problem—how to get the ball into the basket—presents itself.” Curry shares this approach to his craft in a stylish collection that mixes life lessons with sharp photographs and archival images. His dad, Dell, played in the NBA for 16 years, and Curry learned much from his father and mother: “My parents were extremely strict about me and my little brother Seth not going to my pops’s games on school nights.” Curry’s mother, Sonya, who founded the Montessori elementary school that Curry attended in North Carolina, emphasized the importance not just of learning but of playing. Her influence helped Curry and his wife, Ayesha, create a nonprofit foundation: Eat. Learn. Play. He writes that “making reading fun is the key to unlocking a kid’s ability to be successful in their academic journeys.” The book also has valuable pointers for ballers—and those hoping to hit the court. “Plant those arches—knees bent behind those 10 toes pointing at the hoop, hips squared with your shoulders—and draw your power up so you explode off the ground and rise into your shot.” Sounds easy, right?
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780593597293
Page Count: 432
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
