A talented journalist's completely engrossing and unexpectedly humorous account of her victory over breast cancer. Wadler was about to take a leave of absence from her job as a senior writer at People in order to finish writing a book on a French espionage case when she discovered the lump in her breast that threatened her life and changed it forever. The lump was removed and found to be malignant, and, after further surgery to biopsy her lymph glands, Wadler underwent radiation therapy and, nearly a year later, chemotherapy. In now telling her story, she bares not just her breast but her heart and her soul. Wadler is single, 44, sees a shrink regularly, and longs for marriage, but she's not to be pigeonholed easily as another unhappy New York career woman. She is funny, bright, and self-aware. Her portraits here of her Jewish mother and her Italian lover could have been caricatures but are not, and her descriptions of her best friend, a warm and witty fellow-journalist who's there when she needs him, are a delight. Throughout, though, there's a sense of aloneness that makes Wadler's story especially poignant. Tough decisions must be made, and she does her best to make them intelligently, using her journalistic skills to find resources and to gather information. Her medical descriptions are a model of clarity and a treasure for other women facing treatment for breast cancer. An afterword by Susan Love (Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book, 1990) offers straight talk about our ignorance of the causes of breast cancer and about the urgent need for more research in prevention, detection, and treatment. When a version of Wadler's story appeared last April in New York magazine, readers had to wait a week between installments; readers of this book are unlikely to put it down for a minute. A marvel of self-reporting: warm, wise, and witty.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-201-63283-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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