by Heather McDonald ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 5, 2013
A mildly funny book lacking any key takeaways or lessons—good for somebody looking for an easy read to kill time.
Chelsea Lately writer and producer McDonald (You’ll Never Blue Ball in This Town Again, etc.) offers a collection of stories about her personal and professional lives.
McDonald strives to be a good parent, be financially responsible, spend time with other parents in Los Angeles and take advantage of the perks of being on the successful E! show—e.g., hanging out with celebrities like Jennifer Aniston, who is a friend of McDonald’s boss, Chelsea Handler. McDonald’s goals often clash and result in humorous encounters. Fortunately, the author does not take herself, or any of the said goals, too seriously. Handler’s pranks provide plenty of fodder for the book, while other material comes from McDonald’s husband, a cheap, stay-at-home mortgage broker, parents who live next door, and a sister who asked her for an egg. The author laughs at herself more than anyone else, and her humor is very similar to Handler’s. Those who read My Horizontal Life might find this book to be the less-funny version. However, while Handler’s stories are mostly about being a single woman, McDonald looks at the perils of being a working mother, which should resonate with a large portion of her readers. Many of the stories center around parenting mishaps, such as when McDonald accidentally took her children to a debauched party in Las Vegas or when she dressed a teddy bear as a third child to be allowed in the carpool lane after she dropped off her children at school.
A mildly funny book lacking any key takeaways or lessons—good for somebody looking for an easy read to kill time.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4516-7222-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
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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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