A YEAR TO FORGET REMEMBER

Name: A YEAR TO FORGET REMEMBER
Author: Morton B. Albert
ISBN: 978-1441550682

by Morton B. Albert ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 2009

A compelling account of a dark passage toward an uncertain future.

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The ultimate double whammy—unemployment and cancer—upends a staid life in Albert’s searching memoir.

The author, a psychiatrist, was a medical director at an insurance company, a safe, comfortable career that seemed to have been preordained from childhood. Then he learned that his branch office was closing, leaving him without a job at 60; a few months later, doctors told him he had lymphoma. Albert felt betrayed by a company he had admired—and by the body that he had meticulously cared for with fastidious diets and running marathons. But he was also forced to confront himself: after a life spent picking between good and better options, he now had to face hard choices that made him wonder who he was and what he wanted. The author’s very personal yet iconic memoir opens a window onto two of modern life’s uglier ordeals. As he wrestles with guilt over the impending layoff of his staff, whom he keeps in the dark, per company orders, while busying them with meaningless projects, Albert offers a well-observed, wised-up account of downsizing in a corporate world that seems callously indifferent to the fate of its employees and to its own trumpeted standards of customer service. His battle with cancer is a similarly vivid odyssey through the horrors of high-tech medicine: the painful, humiliating tests; the labyrinthine billing statements that baffle even an insurance executive like him; the horrific side effects of chemotherapy drugs, caustic poisons that doctors hope will kill the cancer cells before they kill him. Albert tells this story with a mordant wit—“I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I want my doctor to ever say, ‘Wow!’ ”—and an engaging, psychologically rich prose style that’s by turns poignant, kvetchy and flat-out scared. The result is an acute portrait of the patient’s curse of forced helplessness—and its remedy in humor and perseverance.

A compelling account of a dark passage toward an uncertain future.

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2009

ISBN: 978-1441550682

Page Count: 174

Publisher: Xlibris

Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2010

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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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.