An inspirational book about how to achieve one’s goals, wrapped in an adventure tale.
Mountain climber, investment banker and entrepreneur Fejtek, born with a condition that resulted in a partial paralysis of his right arm, writes of his quest to conquer the highest mountain on each continent.
With his wife and climbing partner, Denise, Fejtek spent eight years on a quest to reach the summit of seven of the world’s highest peaks and bring attention to athletes with physical disabilities. Starting with Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and ending with Mt. Everest on the border between Nepal and Tibet, the Fejteks overcame physical disability, brutal weather, life-threatening avalanches and illness to accomplish a feat only 65 other people at that time had achieved. Along the way, the author realized that the steps he took to prepare himself had relevance in his everyday life and business experience. Fejtek’s story is cleverly and succinctly told in 15 steps that encompass his philosophy for finding success in life and in particular as a businessman and athlete. Fejtek not only uses his steps to carry him over the finish line in Ironman competitions but also in business transactions. As he points out, steps such as “Have a Little Faith,” “Move Fast,” “Just Breathe” and “Never Give Up” can be applied to many large and small challenges. The author demonstrates most of these steps in his story of climbing Mt. Everest, an endeavor that has claimed the lives of hundreds of well-prepared climbers. The mountaintop was elusive, but the Fejteks made it to the top of the world; they also brought 23 of their friends to Everest’s base camp (at an altitude of more than 17,000 feet) in a project called Everybody to Everest. The project helped raised money for the Challenged Athletes Foundation, a group whose members were instrumental in inspiring and helping Fejtek achieve his lofty goal. (All the profits from the sales of this book will go to the CAF.)
An inspirational book about how to achieve one’s goals, wrapped in an adventure tale.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-0984012510
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Peak Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.
A slim volume of largely gay-themed writings with pessimistic overtones.
Poe (Simple Simon, 2013, etc.) divides this collection of six short stories and 34 poems into five sections: “Art,” “Death,” “Relationship,” “Being,” and “Reflection.” Significantly, a figurative death at the age of 7 appears in two different poems, in which the author uses the phrase “a pretended life” to refer to the idea of hiding one’s true nature and performing socially enforced gender roles. This is a well-worn trope, but it will be powerful and resonant for many who have struggled with a stigmatized identity. In a similar vein, “Imaginary Tom” presents the remnants of a faded relationship: “Now we are imaginary friends, different in each other’s thoughts, / I the burden you seek to discard, / you the lover I created from the mist of longing.” Once in a while, short story passages practically leap off of the page, such as this evocative description of a seedy establishment in Lincoln, Nebraska: “It was a dimly lit bar that smelled of rodent piss, with barstools that danced on uneven legs and made the patrons wonder if they were drunker than they thought.” In “Valéry’s Ride,” Poe examines the familial duties that often fall to unmarried and childless people, keeping them from forming meaningful bonds with others. In this story, after the double whammy of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hits Louisiana, Valéry’s extended family needs him more than ever; readers will likely root for the gay protagonist as he makes the difficult decision to strike out on his own. Not all of Poe’s main characters are gay; the heterosexual title character in “Mrs. Calumet’s Workspace,” for instance, pursues employment in order to escape the confines of her home and a passionless marriage. Working as a bookkeeper, she attempts to carve out a space for herself, symbolized by changes in her work area. Still, this story echoes the recurring theme of lives unlived due to forces often beyond one’s control.
Downbeat but often engaging poems and stories.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5168-3693-2
Page Count: 120
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.
A collection speaks in part to the poet’s Mexican-American heritage.
In these multifaceted poems, Mexico-born, Houston-raised Salazar (Of Dreams and Thorns, 2017) explores general human themes like love and war in addition to specific experiences as a person of color. The book begins with a sensual meditation on desire, featuring luscious descriptions of a lover, from lips “moist like youth” to the body’s “softest velvet” slopes. The poems shift to odes to cultural icons like the Tejano star Selena and Mexican-German painter Frida Kahlo as well as occasion pieces honoring his brother’s 40th birthday and a friend’s mother’s memorial service. The author hits his stride when he delves into identity. In “I Am Not Brown,” he contemplates the societal implications of skin tone and his inability to fit into the rigid category of Caucasian or Latino. “For white and black and brown alike / Are slaves to history’s brush strokes,” he writes. “Grateful for the Work,” perhaps Salazar’s loveliest poem, catalogs the day of a laborer, starting with an early morning awakening and following him as he toils in 100-degree heat, enjoys tacos from his lunch pail, buys beverages from a child’s lemonade stand, and returns home to an equally hard-working wife. The author then makes an abrupt turn toward Syria in a series of poems that condemn that country’s president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad. They serve as a rallying cry for Syrians and grieve for the murdered masses. Salazar’s closing poem, “Sons of Bitches,” is a clunky rant about a 20-year-old immigrant shot in the head by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent. The gratuitous violence and political theologizing are ill at ease with the intimate, personal experiences that preceded them, such as the fablelike “A Mexican is Made of This,” in which Salazar beautifully describes the “rainbows, bronze, backbone, butterflies” that his people embody.
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9991496-3-8
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Bronze Diamond Productions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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