A well-written and insightful business memoir that informs with humor and thoughtfulness.
A longtime business owner shares methods and advice for entrepreneurs at all levels.
In this book, Howroyd (The Art of Work, 2009) discusses the principles and techniques that she used to build a multinational staffing agency. With a combination of anecdotes and exposition, the author guides readers through questions of leading, risk-taking, developing confidence, and networking, among other topics—some of which are unexpected, such as the importance of always having a fully charged cellphone. The volume discusses the significance of data-driven and strategic business decisions (“You’re dispensable unless you’re so necessary to the client’s business that they can’t function without you”) and encourages readers to take a holistic approach to making the most of both their professional and personal lives. One of the work’s particular strengths is its approach to diversity; Howroyd writes about being a black female entrepreneur while also urging readers not to define her by demographics. Sections on resiliency and respect in the workplace are particularly well done. The book’s easy, conversational tone makes for an enjoyable reading experience. The author’s voice blends down-home humor (many stories from her North Carolina childhood appear throughout the text along with descriptions of her high-powered work life) and professional sophistication (“Self-discipline you own. Self-discipline isn’t federally regulated. It isn’t taxed. You don’t need anyone’s permission”). Asides—“Mama Says,” featuring tips from her mother; “Janicisms,” delivering Howroyd’s key insights (“You lead people; you manage processes”); and “The Art of Bernie,” showcasing her husband’s advice—appear in callout boxes throughout the text. Several of the author’s mnemonics (“Our employees live by their F.E.E.T.”) may be too cutesy for some readers, but others will likely appreciate the structure for presenting memorable concepts. The volume will be most useful for readers in search of big-picture business counsel presented in an open-ended format that offers few concrete answers but plenty of inspiration, motivation, and starting points for self-awareness. Howroyd’s passion for work and well-defined voice combine to make an effective vehicle for valuable information.
A well-written and insightful business memoir that informs with humor and thoughtfulness.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5445-0456-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.
A light-speed tour of (mostly) Western poetry, from the 4,000-year-old Gilgamesh to the work of Australian poet Les Murray, who died in 2019.
In the latest entry in the publisher’s Little Histories series, Carey, an emeritus professor at Oxford whose books include What Good Are the Arts? and The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books, offers a quick definition of poetry—“relates to language as music relates to noise. It is language made special”—before diving in to poetry’s vast history. In most chapters, the author deals with only a few writers, but as the narrative progresses, he finds himself forced to deal with far more than a handful. In his chapter on 20th-century political poets, for example, he talks about 14 writers in seven pages. Carey displays a determination to inform us about who the best poets were—and what their best poems were. The word “greatest” appears continually; Chaucer was “the greatest medieval English poet,” and Langston Hughes was “the greatest male poet” of the Harlem Renaissance. For readers who need a refresher—or suggestions for the nightstand—Carey provides the best-known names and the most celebrated poems, including Paradise Lost (about which the author has written extensively), “Kubla Khan,” “Ozymandias,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads, which “changed the course of English poetry.” Carey explains some poetic technique (Hopkins’ “sprung rhythm”) and pauses occasionally to provide autobiographical tidbits—e.g., John Masefield, who wrote the famous “Sea Fever,” “hated the sea.” We learn, as well, about the sexuality of some poets (Auden was bisexual), and, especially later on, Carey discusses the demons that drove some of them, Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath among them. Refreshingly, he includes many women in the volume—all the way back to Sappho—and has especially kind words for Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop, who share a chapter.
Necessarily swift and adumbrative as well as inclusive, focused, and graceful.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-23222-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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