More inspiration than documentation but definitively global in scope, a happy contrast to so many Eurocentric “world”...
An international array of badass women through the ages and up to the present.
Though Schatz reaches back to Enheduanna, the first named author in history, and Pharaoh Hatshepsut, most of the nearly 300 women she names have shown their courage and convictions within the past century or so. Most are just names (with country of origin), but she selects around 60 for admiring profiles. Some are such familiar figures as Frida Kahlo and Malala Yousafzai, but many more are likely to be new to most, and not just younger, readers, such as Colombian street artist Bastardilla, British punk trailblazer Poly Styrene, and Dame Katerina Te Heikoko Mataira, a leader in the modern revival of Maori language and culture. The author also pays tribute to groups, such as the first 14 Madres de la Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, the six women charged with inventing ENIAC’s initial programming, and, poetically, the millions of stateless refugees. Arranged in a rough geographical order, the profiles open with tagline quotes, plus black-and-white-paper portraits based on photos or historical images, and run to one or two double-columned pages in length. Though an afterword lays claim to much research and personal contact, there are no specific sources cited. Still, it’s clear enough that these women lead or led “awesome, exciting, revolutionary, historic, and world-changing lives.”
More inspiration than documentation but definitively global in scope, a happy contrast to so many Eurocentric “world” surveys. (Collective biography. 11-15)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-57886-1
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2016
A Wall Street trader exercises a rich man’s prerogative and offers financial advice and his life story. “See how much money I made!” is the message. “I’m pretty smart and damned tough, too.” To be sure, Schwartz (“Buzzy” to his pals) is the prototypical hard driver, a truly successful day trader, buying and selling in lightning strokes for his own account. His is a talent for exquisite market timing, a tricky game for even the most proficient professionals. His specialty is S&P futures, a technique using the marvel of leverage to greatly multiply the chances for gain—or loss—on each tick. It requires an inordinate amount of research as well as stamina, acumen, and nerve, but it can be worth millions every year. The alternative, as Buzzy frets, is “going tapioca.” Buzzy dearly wanted his kids to say, “ ‘My daddy’s the Champion Trader!’ That was all I cared about,” he admits. With success came Lutäce lunches, expensive artworks, Armani suits, Bally alligator shoes, and other trophies. Schwartz essays a little false humility, but the book’s evasive charm is based on chutzpah. In an effort to leverage with OPM (other people’s money), the author established his own hedge funds until investors (the bastards) pestered him about their money. Don’t be surprised to learn the result was heart disease. Now in Florida, trading again for himself, the quondam Champion Trader reveals, with some repetition, his story. It moves nicely, though, with a certain egomaniacal verve. An appendix gives the author’s daily schedule (e.g, “7:20-7:30 Clean out the plumbing”). His investment methodology is also appended, but only the most devoted professional will utilize this rigorous lesson. An archetypal text, true to life on the Street, destined to be discussed over drinks at trader hangouts after the market closes—and better than going tapioca. (Author tour; radio satellite tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-88-730876-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1998
Distilled from published or televised sources, this biography of Reeve from troubled childhood to triumphant re-emergence into public life focuses more on what he’s done than who he is. As a precis of his acting career and post-accident involvement in medical and social causes, this outdoes its nearest competitor, Libby Hughes’s Christopher Reeve (1997, not reviewed) in small—and sometimes insignificant—details while carrying his story forward to early 1998 (ending before he took on the remake of Rear Window last year, and lacking any mention of his autobiography, Still Me). A mix of posed full-color and black-and- white shots, show Reeve in school, on the stage, in his films, with his family, and appearing at public events; endnotes, plus a generous list of articles and books, will launch readers searching for insight into his career, if not his person. Utilitarian and coherent. (index) (Biography. 11-13)
Pub Date: May 11, 1999
ISBN: 0-8225-4945-X
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Lerner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
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