Just the thing for the Bucks fan in the household and an accomplished piece of sportswriting.
Inspiring biography of the NBA superstar known as the Greek Freak.
Giannis Antetokounmpo (b. 1994) grew up desperately poor, the son of a Nigerian soccer player who might have played in Germany had he not suffered a career-ending injury and wound up in Greece instead. It’s a nice touch, then, that Fader—herself a former collegiate basketball player—opens her narrative with a view of family life inside Giannis’ 10,000-odd-square-foot home outside Milwaukee. As the author shows, his path to those opulent surroundings was improbable. He wanted to play soccer but was recruited to play basketball. He wasn’t particularly good at first: “Giannis couldn’t dribble. Didn’t understand basketball. His hands seemed to be ahead of his feet. He’d trip over himself. The ball would trickle off his knee. He’d carry the ball.” What made the difference was an indomitable work ethic, humility, and a generosity of spirit that kept him from hogging the ball and the glory. An NBA scout noted these qualities even as he observed that Giannis “had incredible length but also that he was uncoordinated.” Even so, he pushed for Giannis’ recruitment, and in time the Milwaukee Bucks drafted him—a deal made all the more complicated by the fact that Giannis was undocumented and did not have a Greek passport. The youngest player in the draft, Giannis was a quick study. Early on, Grantland founder Bill Simmons summed up his potential: “Seeing the Greek Freak in person is like seeing Young Scottie Pippen crossed with Young Kevin Durant crossed with an octopus. He’s only 20, takes 10 yards per step, plays four positions, has Freddy Krueger arms, might pass the 7-foot mark soon and basically doesn’t have a genetic parallel.” He won the MVP Award twice and, in 2021, he carried the Bucks to the NBA championship for the first time in 50 years. Fader does a good job of relating this rags-to-riches story without cliché, and her commentary on the game is spot-on.
Just the thing for the Bucks fan in the household and an accomplished piece of sportswriting.Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-306-92412-5
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Hachette
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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