by James A. Autry ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 24, 1994
Autry (Love and Profit, 1991) is back in the saddle again, astride different—if by no means fresh—hobbyhorses. Now retired from the presidency of Meredith's Magazine Group (a position that allowed him to extol trendy, vaguely New Age management precepts), the author has moved on to address larger matters, including life its own self, in another mawkish amalgam of short-take commentary and banal verse. In deadly earnest fashion (which suggests that, if he were a monarch, Autry would very much like to be known as James the Good), the erstwhile executive offers scattershot counsel on integrating one's personal and professional lives, among other things, in letters to fictive offspring. He also touches without dwelling on such issues as what business can (or can't) do to help solve socioeconomic problems, the putatively excessive compensation of top corporate officers, the responsibilities of stewardship, dealing with loss, encouraging a sense of community in varied milieus, health care's costs, and the ubiquity of pop culture. Nor does Autry neglect to provide sanctimonious apologias for his former insensitivity to the aspirations of women, members of ethnic minorities, the disabled, and others who qualify in one way or another as disadvantaged. In some cases, the author's unexceptionable sensibilities yield decidedly loopy results. At one point, for instance, he argues that the optically challenged should reflect whether they could do their jobs without the ``assistive technology'' afforded by eyeglasses. Featherweight inspirational fare for those who find Og Mandino too demanding.
Pub Date: March 24, 1994
ISBN: 0-688-11764-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1994
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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