Fans of Rogen will enjoy his laid-back, whimsical memoir.
Everyone’s favorite stoner recalls his childhood, youth, and first stirrings of Hollywood success.
“My friends are thrilled when their kids don’t shit all over their floors,” writes Rogen. “As an adult, I get little to no praise for doing the same.” It’s a characteristic line; Rogen leans heavily on the seven words with which George Carlin made so much hay, with a dash of Borscht Belt shtick (“The hardest part about being Jewish is…the grandparents”) and some occasional high-concept material. The author reveals that he inherited a touch of his father’s Tourette’s mixed in with his mother’s gentleness, the blend of which resulted in a kind of easygoing ADHD best treated with lashings of marijuana. When he learned that a teenage friend had smoked pot with her brother, he asked how it felt. “It burns your throat like crazy,” she replied, to which Rogen responded, “Awesome.” Other drugs come and go in these pages—MDMA, for one, which can certainly make a pitch meeting difficult. And then there’s this: “If you’ve ever been grocery shopping while an inhuman amount of hallucinogenic mushrooms are [sic] aggressively taking over your system, you know that shit ain’t easy.” Indeed. Rogen’s not inclined to badmouth, though from time to time, his critical bone is tickled (“all the movies to come out of Project Greenlight fucking suck butt”). He also makes it clear, through encounters with the likes of Kanye West, Nicolas Cage, and George Lucas, that Los Angeles is the world headquarters of eccentricity bordering on madness. As a good Canadian, too, Rogen can’t help but get in a few digs at the rest of the country, as when he considers the reluctance of the federal government to legalize pot, “because it’s just too effective a way to persecute minorities and keep prisons full, which are things that they love to do in America.”
Fans of Rogen will enjoy his laid-back, whimsical memoir.Pub Date: May 11, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984825-40-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
Everything about Sabathia is larger than life, yet he tells his story with honesty and humility.
One of the best pitchers of his generation—and often the only Black man on his team—shares an extraordinary life in baseball.
A high school star in several sports, Sabathia was being furiously recruited by both colleges and professional teams when the death of his grandmother, whose Social Security checks supported the family, meant that he couldn't go to college even with a full scholarship. He recounts how he learned he had been drafted by the Cleveland Indians in the first round over the PA system at his high school. In 2001, after three seasons in the minor leagues, Sabathia became the youngest player in MLB (age 20). His career took off from there, and in 2008, he signed with the New York Yankees for seven years and $161 million, at the time the largest contract ever for a pitcher. With the help of Vanity Fair contributor Smith, Sabathia tells the entertaining story of his 19 seasons on and off the field. The first 14 ran in tandem with a poorly hidden alcohol problem and a propensity for destructive bar brawls. His high school sweetheart, Amber, who became his wife and the mother of his children, did her best to help him manage his repressed fury and grief about the deaths of two beloved cousins and his father, but Sabathia pursued drinking with the same "till the end" mentality as everything else. Finally, a series of disasters led to a month of rehab in 2015. Leading a sober life was necessary, but it did not tame Sabathia's trademark feistiness. He continued to fiercely rile his opponents and foment the fighting spirit in his teammates until debilitating injuries to his knees and pitching arm led to his retirement in 2019. This book represents an excellent launching point for Jay-Z’s new imprint, Roc Lit 101.
Everything about Sabathia is larger than life, yet he tells his story with honesty and humility.Pub Date: July 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-13375-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Roc Lit 101
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.
A future basketball Hall of Famer’s rosy outlook.
Curry is that rare athlete who looks like he gets joy from what he does. There’s no doubt that the Golden State Warriors point guard is a competitor—he’s led his team to four championships—but he plays the game with nonchalance and exuberance. That ease, he says, “only comes from discipline.” He practices hard enough—he’s altered the sport by mastering the three-point shot—so that he achieves a “kind of freedom.” In that “flow state,” he says, “I can let joy and creativity take over. I block out all distractions, even the person guarding me. He can wave his arms and call me every name in the book, but I just smile and wait as the solution to the problem—how to get the ball into the basket—presents itself.” Curry shares this approach to his craft in a stylish collection that mixes life lessons with sharp photographs and archival images. His dad, Dell, played in the NBA for 16 years, and Curry learned much from his father and mother: “My parents were extremely strict about me and my little brother Seth not going to my pops’s games on school nights.” Curry’s mother, Sonya, who founded the Montessori elementary school that Curry attended in North Carolina, emphasized the importance not just of learning but of playing. Her influence helped Curry and his wife, Ayesha, create a nonprofit foundation: Eat. Learn. Play. He writes that “making reading fun is the key to unlocking a kid’s ability to be successful in their academic journeys.” The book also has valuable pointers for ballers—and those hoping to hit the court. “Plant those arches—knees bent behind those 10 toes pointing at the hoop, hips squared with your shoulders—and draw your power up so you explode off the ground and rise into your shot.” Sounds easy, right?
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780593597293
Page Count: 432
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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