Winn exudes the soul of a poet and the grit of a survivor.
Over mountain and moor, nourished and restored by wilderness.
Eight years after Moth Winn was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disorder, he and his wife, Raynor, set out on a valedictory walk of epic length: a four-month, 1,000-mile trek from the Scottish Highlands back to their home in southwest England. Though they embarked during the height of the pandemic, they were encouraged by the possibility that intense physical exertion could work its magic and forestall the worsening of his condition. This affecting chronicle continues the narrative of Raynor’s previous two books, The Salt Path and The Wild Silence, with the customary observations on environmental degradation and human shortsightedness. The text is also an engaging travelogue and a powerful evocation of place and personality, rugged landscapes and distinctive cultures. It may be a cliché to say this book is inspiring, yet it is, and it’s every bit as much about the Winns’ inner lives as their adventure. The narrative is so vividly drawn and emotionally resonant that most readers will come to feel like one of the family, sharing their pain and uncertainty and eventual triumph. Above all, there is the strength and durability of their marriage, which has weathered homelessness as well as illness. If, occasionally, her otherwise admirable ecological awareness skirts the precipice of sermonizing, it can be forgiven, so fundamental is her devotion to the wild and belief in its healing powers. One’s admiration for the Winns runs so deep it seems churlish to say her account may strain credulity here and there, but readers will give her the benefit of the doubt. This is an unforgettable story about fragility girded by resolve and the courage to keep going, even if it’s just that one more step, and to hold fast to hope.
Winn exudes the soul of a poet and the grit of a survivor.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781639364930
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A generous, steaming stew of a book loaded with personality and originality and sprinkled with the fiery chili of rage.
A poet’s memoir about her working-class childhood, writing career, family, and Asian American identity.
Despite the fact that Wong’s father gambled away the family's Chinese restaurant in New Jersey when she was still quite young, the feeling of being a "restaurant baby" is central to this book. "I am that person who thinks that the compost bin is beautiful, in all its swirls of color (jade mold, chocolate slime—why is no one hiring me to name nail polish?), surprising texture, and piquant death,” she writes. After her father lost the restaurant and left the family, her mother became a postal worker, sorting mail overnight into and through the pandemic. If there is a single topic that unifies the book, it's her mother. A series of passages labeled “wongmom.com” imagines that her mother's wisdom might be available online, including things like her take on an "ancient Chinese saying”—“If you can’t crawl, swim. If you can’t swim, then take the bus.” Wong's sharp sense of humor is fueled by a healthy dose of righteous anger, and her lyric energy bursts from almost every sentence. In the chapter titled "Bad Bildungsroman With Table Tennis,” she writes, "Part of being a teenager is the desire to destroy something. To break something apart so fully, you can see its pulled seams, its tangled organs. At 13, I felt this feeling churn within me, this rage, this pimple-popping lusciousness of rudeness, this gleaming desire for sudden destruction." She writes candidly about her shoplifting phase, her misery at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and her disgust for bigotry and cultural appropriation. A good portion of the book focuses on finding her confidence as an Asian American poet, including the glorious moment when she was recognized with a big grant and a museum show. For this profoundly unsqueamish writer, poetry is "interior slime spicy along our tongues" and "chicken grease congealing behind my ear."
A generous, steaming stew of a book loaded with personality and originality and sprinkled with the fiery chili of rage.Pub Date: May 16, 2023
ISBN: 9781953534675
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Tin House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.
NBA legends Bird and Johnson, fierce rivals during their playing days, team up on a mutual career retrospective.
With megastars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and international superstars like China’s Yao Ming pushing it to ever-greater heights of popularity today, it’s difficult to imagine the NBA in 1979, when financial problems, drug scandals and racial issues threatened to destroy the fledgling league. Fortunately, that year marked the coming of two young saviors—one a flashy, charismatic African-American and the other a cocky, blond, self-described “hick.” Arriving fresh off a showdown in the NCAA championship game in which Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans defeated Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores—still the highest-rated college basketball game ever—the duo changed the course of history not just for the league, but the sport itself. While the pair’s on-court accomplishments have been exhaustively chronicled, the narrative hook here is unprecedented insight and commentary from the stars themselves on their unique relationship, a compelling mixture of bitter rivalry and mutual admiration. This snapshot of their respective careers delves with varying degrees of depth into the lives of each man and their on- and off-court achievements, including the historic championship games between Johnson’s Lakers and Bird’s Celtics, their trailblazing endorsement deals and Johnson’s stunning announcement in 1991 that he had tested positive for HIV. Ironically, this nostalgic chronicle about the two men who, along with Michael Jordan, turned more fans onto NBA basketball than any other players, will likely appeal primarily to a narrow cross-section of readers: Bird/Magic fans and hardcore hoop-heads.
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-547-22547-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
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