by Kathie Giorgio ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 2018
Journallike entries that sometimes deliver poignant moments.
In this collection of Facebook posts, a writer shares her daily moments of joy.
A couple of days after the 2016 election, Giorgio (In Grace’s Time, 2017, etc.) was walking her dogs when a man in a “Make America Great Again” hat tried to kick her pets. The author intervened, and he kicked her instead—then shoved her off the sidewalk. When she discussed the assault on Facebook, many people were supportive, but others accused her of lying. Giorgio writes that she even received death threats. Overwhelmed by the political climate, the author began searching for positivity by posting “Today’s Moment of Happiness Despite the News” on Facebook. After her initial entry, she vowed to post a moment of joy every day for a year. The result is this compilation of her Facebook posts, beginning on Jan. 30, 2017. Sometimes the posts are tender, as when she describes her autistic daughter’s talent with the violin. Other times, she has to struggle to find cheer because the year proved to be extremely difficult: Giorgio was diagnosed with breast cancer; her husband lost two jobs; and her daughter was severely bullied at school. Nevertheless, the author did have some good days; for example, her novel was published, and she beat breast cancer due to early detection. Though her breezy, conversational prose is easy to read, Giorgio includes several eye-glazing rants, like the day she forgot her purse and had difficulty installing a printer cartridge. But other posts are thoughtful—when she conducts a book club for female prisoners, her compassion is memorable. While not a lot of political talk is included here, the tone becomes vitriolic when it is—the author calls President Donald Trump “the Orange Asshat” and maintains that “our ‘leader’ is intent on destroying anything his little orange hands can touch.”
Journallike entries that sometimes deliver poignant moments.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68433-129-1
Page Count: 458
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 7, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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