by Sarah S. Kilborne ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 16, 2012
A compelling, comprehensive biography of a man who contributed much to American manufacturing—perfect for readers who like...
Biography of William Skinner, “a leading founder of the American silk industry,” from Skinner’s great-great-granddaughter.
In her first book for adults, Kilborne (Leaving Vietnam, 1999, etc.) spends particular time on an event that could have destroyed Skinner’s company. Just as he was in the midst of expanding his successful business in Skinnerville, a flood wiped out the entire village. He lost his mill, his home and his money, but managed to come back even stronger, building a better mill and expanding his business more than would have been possible without the flood. Kilborne describes Skinner’s young life and move to America from England in enough detail to give a sense of his character and invest readers in his fate. As the day of the flood approached, Skinner was excited about the future of not just his company, but of the American silk industry as a whole. Kilborne revels in the weeks immediately following the devastating flood, explaining the plights of Skinner and his community. She paints a vivid picture of the seemingly insurmountable hurdles, though she does dwell on these points longer than necessary. Kilborne keeps Skinner’s final decision tantalizingly out of reach, giving readers an accurate sense of the anxiety, confusion and overwhelming curiosity his fellow villagers must have felt while they waited to learn whether he would rebuild again, and where. This knack for making readers feel as though they are contemporaries of the Skinner family will keep the pages turning through the slower sections.
A compelling, comprehensive biography of a man who contributed much to American manufacturing—perfect for readers who like to root for the underdog.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-7179-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
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by Sarah S. Kilborne & illustrated by Steve Johnson with Lou Fancher
by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
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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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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