A well-constructed memoir/business guide with a special focus on first-generation immigrants.
Shen shares the philosophies and strategies that took him from a single catastrophic failure to success in this business memoir.
In 2008, the author stood with one foot on the windowsill of his Honolulu hotel room, pondering the 16-story fall before him. The economic crisis had devastated his Florida-based real estate agency and left him mired in the “swamp of failure.” By 2023, the author had founded five companies (and still leads four of them), gaining numerous accolades for his business acumen from major media institutions while operating as a “parallel entrepreneur.”Unlike the solo or serial entrepreneur, these innovators seek “to launch and simultaneously operate many companies, with no intention of ‘flipping them’ as soon as they become profitable.” Shen shares the benefits of pursuing a parallel entrepreneurial path and discusses the talents necessary to succeed. These include knowing how to capitalize on new laws and legislation, valuing revenue over profit, and maintaining a work-life balance, concepts supported by helpful examples from the author’s own businesses, whether working internationally with Chinese citizens or weathering hardships and finding opportunities during the Covid pandemic. Shen’s experiences are illustrated with bright, colorful, and upbeat graphics, relatable analogies, and various sidebars that either emphasize important points or give more background on certain subjects. The memoir includes photographs and interviews with Shen’s colleagues, fellow CEOs, employees, and the author’s business partner and wife, Stella Zhang. Though the text is approachable for any aspiring entrepreneur, startup, or established organization, special care is taken to address immigrants, who often face obstacles due to differences in language or other unique challenges. Many business writings are framed as cutthroat; impressively, the opposite is true here, as the book focuses instead on the inspirational, often emphasizing aiding others who seek to become entrepreneurs and giving back to the community.
A well-constructed memoir/business guide with a special focus on first-generation immigrants.Pub Date: June 26, 2023
ISBN: 9798987776612
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Precocity Press
Review Posted Online: June 27, 2023
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
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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