A pleasant read that espouses the merits of dedication and gives thoughtful advice to burgeoning editors.
Former video editor Zappia’s debut memoir gives readers a look behind the scenes of some of America’s iconic TV shows.
Born to Italian immigrants, Zappia worked his way up from TV repairman to CBS engineer to one of the most sought-after television editors of his time. During his career, Zappia worked on such classic TV programs as Hee Haw, All in the Family, MacGyver and Who’s the Boss?, among others. Along the way, he picked up two Emmys and doubled his salary with each new job, but he never lost his humility or his desire to learn and refine his craft. For example, after he won his first Emmy Award for Hee Haw, he moved down to an assistant editor position when the show was canceled: “Always be willing to learn by going back and doing beginner jobs. You might learn something new or remind yourself of something you may have forgotten.” On the subject of learning new systems, he writes, “Once again I’ll remind you that it is very important that you learn the tools of your craft…you can edit with confidence and concentrate on the creative side of editing.” Along the way, he also presents a brief history of the evolution of video editing, from film reels to digital devices. Zappia’s asides and simple writing style may be off-putting at first, but they quickly become endearing and occasionally inspiring. However, he includes relatively few stories about his family, which makes their rare appearances feel disjointed; at one point, for example, he mentions that his son became a TV writer, without ever previously mentioning that his son had an interest in writing. However, he also includes original letters and photographs from his editing life that add a personal touch.
A pleasant read that espouses the merits of dedication and gives thoughtful advice to burgeoning editors.Pub Date: July 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482604009
Page Count: 184
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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