A consistently sunny, family-oriented story of persistence and achievement.
A decorated Olympian reflects on her supportive upbringing and celebrated competitive swimming career.
Five-time gold medalist Franklin’s affinity for water began when she was a child vacationing with her family at oceanside locations and, later, in grade school, where she discovered and began honing the ability to “swim fast on my back.” With obvious pride, she describes a succession of swim meets, influential coaches, competitions, and national championships, near and far, which her parents, who co-authored the book, were more than happy to shuttle her to. At some point, writes the author, “a switch got flipped, and swimming became something else—something more.” With her parents’ blessings and ceaseless encouragement, Franklin began training with top-level professional coaches. In perhaps her greatest achievement to date, Franklin, then just 17, won five Olympic medals (four golds, one bronze) at the 2012 London Olympics. A blitz of media attention descended on the family, but Franklin became buoyed by an insistence on finishing her secondary education with her friends and graduating class at Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora, Colorado, where her spirituality bloomed as well. Throughout the book, Franklin effusively credits her parents as being “at the heart of everything I do, everything I am, everything I might become.” The co-authors add depth, personal history (both were victims of childhood abuse), and alternating perspectives on raising their daughter and cultivating her talent. They also offer a clear glimpse into how they raised and molded Missy to become a humble champion who continues to persevere—despite self-critically disappointing performances at the recent 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Brazil. But this is very much the swimmer’s memoir. In a breezy style, she focuses on charting her own physical prowess and competitive skills while honoring and staying true to the interconnectedness and gravity of the family bond.
A consistently sunny, family-oriented story of persistence and achievement.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-98492-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
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
PERSPECTIVES
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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