Alternately witty and touching; a hope-infused road map for seniors.
Part memoir, part tribute to the sprightly and high-spirited centenarian Lucille Fleming.
When Gaman, a wellness expert based in Texas, was collecting information for her book Age to Perfection: How to Thrive to 100, Happy, Healthy, and Wise (2013), she was introduced to Lucille Fleming, who had just celebrated her 100th birthday. Gaman felt an instant connection: “It didn’t feel like I was meeting her for the first time; instead, it felt like I had known her my whole life.” This initial encounter between two women separated in age by almost six decades led to a deep and profound friendship (“I had never had a best friend or a mentor like her”), lovingly recounted in this uplifting chronicle. Gaman began visiting Lucille on a regular basis, and when Age to Perfection was published, including a section about Lucille, she brought the first copy to her new friend. Next came an opportunity for Lucille to appear in television interviews about the book; she was delighted with her newfound celebrity, charming all who crossed her path. They began dining out for lunch almost every Friday, a ritual they continued for more than three years, sharing their thoughts, feelings, and secrets. The descriptive (sometimes-overdetailed) prose—“She was dressed to the nines in red high heels and a colorful red and white flowing skirt, a red silk blouse, a string of pearls and had perfect hair and red lipstick”— captures Lucille so thoroughly readers can almost hear her infectious giggle. Here is Lucille, exhibiting her typical exuberant humor, explaining why she always keeps one of her wigs on the bedside table at night: “If I need an ambulance, it’s right there. A girl shouldn’t be caught dead without her hair!” While the author’s frequent complaints about her own mother (a compulsive workaholic) wear thin, the voice of Lucille—with her joyful embrace of each day and appreciation for adventure—will grab readers. Introduction by Suzanne Somers.
Alternately witty and touching; a hope-infused road map for seniors.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 381
Publisher: Kurti Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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