A disappointingly ordinary memoir by an extraordinary actor. A new book by Nimoy, the originator of the popular character Mr. Spock, promises to be a welcome addition to a Trekker's library. Sadly, while Nimoy the actor rarely gives an uninteresting or tedious performance, Nimoy the author has written a workmanlike but prosaic account that leaves the reader wondering what he might have said had he not been so seemingly eager to avoid both controversy and complexity. In fact, Nimoy apologizes for his more controversial 1975 memoir, I Am Not Spock: ``That was just a play of words, ideas. I was just trying to find a way to come to terms and explain . . . us. Our relationship. Did you feel rejected? I'm sorry,'' Nimoy says to Spock, with whom he has periodic conversations throughout the book. Most of Nimoy's numerous anecdotes here add little to Trek lore. More informative are his chapters describing unrelated projects such as the films Three Men and a Baby and The Good Mother, both of which Nimoy directed. His prose is chatty, banal, and prone to hyperbole. For instance, he describes Trek's writer-producer Gene Coon as ``the kind of person who didn't parade his amazing accomplishmentshe just simply did the impossible, and did it well.'' Indeed, every actor, writer, producer, and technician with whom Nimoy worked was ``amazing,'' ``brilliant,'' and ``wonderful.'' He glosses over the bitter feelings and internecine squabbling vividly described in other Trek books, calling into question the exactness of his reminiscences. Unlike William Shatner's writings, with their annoying yet oddly engaging egomania, and George Takei's expression of heartfelt outrage, I Am Spock lacks a sense of Nimoy's personality. It has no oomph. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 26, 1995
ISBN: 0-7868-6182-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1995
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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