A surprisingly warm and consistently outspoken retrospective for both fans and celebrity followers.
The self-described “king of all media” shares personal introspection and favorite celebrity interviews in his first book in two decades.
Stern (Miss America, 1995, etc.) is in top form in this entertaining amalgam of intimate confessional and Q-and-A archive. Opting for an older, wiser perspective this time around, the author strips away the juvenile raunch and sophomoric humor that made his first books runaway bestsellers. The book’s introduction, a meaty, contemplative 19-page affair, finds Stern, 65, candidly discussing his struggles with OCD, random regrets (namely his treatment of Robin Williams and Rosie O’Donnell), greatest moments (interviews with Conan O’Brien and Paul McCartney, animal rescue efforts), his move to SiriusXM in 2006, and the day he inexplicably took a rare show-day off to attend to an undisclosed cancer scare. It’s a kinder, gentler, all-grown-up side of the shock jock, which he credits to aggressive psychotherapy and his second wife, Beth. However, it’s the intimate, provocative celebrity interviews that make up the bulk of this weighty tome and which the author admits “represent my best work and show my personal evolution.” With his advancing age came wisdom, humility, empathy, and a dramatic sea change in the show’s direction and focus, as evidenced in more nuanced, probing interviews with Courtney Love, Joan Rivers, Michael J. Fox, Chris Cornell, and Lady Gaga, among others. Stern introduces each conversation with his personal perspective on the individual and the impression they made. His honest conversations with actors, music legends, and others represent an eclectic cross-section of celebrities, and his questions range from the piercing to the downright ridiculous. Perhaps the book’s most startling interview segments are those with a pre-presidential Donald Trump, whom Stern has interviewed dozens of times. Throughout the book, which is divided into thematic sections (“Sex & Relationships,” “Money & Fame,” “Drugs & Sobriety,” “Gone Too Soon,” etc.), the author’s personal growth and enduring legacy as a broadcast pioneer and unique profiler are on full display.
A surprisingly warm and consistently outspoken retrospective for both fans and celebrity followers.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9429-0
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2019
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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