A sometimes-repetitious but usefully detailed account of one man’s emotional development.
Davis divides significant life events and relationships into multiple “lifetimes” to show the steppingstones of his journey to self-love and fulfillment.
This debut memoir is split into sections based on a discrete section of the author’s story. Each “lifetime” features a short summary of events, followed by a “lifetime perspective” in which Davis highlights specific lessons he learned during that time. The first lifetime section recounts his adolescence up to his father’s death in 1970, and tells how this era was “defined by conditional love,” particularly in his relationship with his dad. His second lifetime encompasses his first marriage, which lasted 23 years. In his third lifetime, he married his second wife, Kathy, and learned the meaning of unconditional love before Kathy abruptly died of cancer. In what he calls “Lifetime 3.5,” Davis grieved Kathy and found closure in a meditation workshop that he attended at the Monroe Institute in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia in 2017, where he had a spiritual encounter that reassured him that Kathy was okay and following her own path in the afterlife. In his fourth and current lifetime, he began to embrace loving himself. The book’s standardized format of summarized accounts and commentary makes some of the text feel repetitive. For example, in the account of his second lifetime, Davis mentions the “higher self” and “spiritual journeys” that led him to “higher consciousness”; then, in the commentary, he unnecessarily reiterates that it “brought me to a critical turning point in my consciousness journey when I took my huge step into seeking personal and spiritual growth.” However, the book contains other features that work well to vary the reading experience, including additional writings, such as poems, love letters that he wrote to Kathy and she to him, and drawings or photos at the end of every chapter, which makes the content feel more relatable and tangible. One highly effective example is when Davis talks about a 10th wedding anniversary portrait that he and Kathryn commissioned.
A sometimes-repetitious but usefully detailed account of one man’s emotional development.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-950385-70-6
Page Count: 305
Publisher: W. Brand Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.
Enduring the unthinkable.
This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063489790
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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