by Sharon Stone ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 30, 2021
Fans will blissfully revel in the intimate if restlessly delivered details in this perceptive memoir.
The celebrated actor reflects on a life of success, activism, and cleansing self-discovery.
Stone (b. 1958) begins in the hospital in 2001, when a severe brain injury nearly ended her life. She then backtracks to her youth growing up with three siblings in the “snowbelt” of northwestern Pennsylvania. She excelled at school but distanced herself from an aloof, damaged mother, a woman who never had a chance “to imagine a life where she could be whatever she chose.” As a teenager, Stone waited tables while entering local beauty pageants, which led to Manhattan modeling jobs and a move to Hollywood in the early 1980s. The author breaks down her iconic roles in Basic Instinct and Casino. Regarding the controversial interrogation scene in the former, she writes, “there have been many points of view…but since I’m the one with the vagina in question, let me say: the other points of view are bullshit.” While sharing a host of madcap episodes throughout an eventful life, she also proudly describes her impressive “life of service,” her Buddhist faith, and the adoptions of three sons. She also contributes juicier stories about co-hosting the 2008 Cannes Film Festival with Madonna and the controversy that erupted following a stray comment to reporters. Stone then moves on to her “second life,” when she endured “the loss of all things we call dear,” including her father, marriage, health, and financial security. Though the memoir is unevenly, frenetically narrated, that will only deter readers unfamiliar with Stone’s persona. Delivering a barrage of self-reflective anecdotes, she is consistently candid, alternatingly tender and feisty, and always witty. In conclusion, Stone offers thoughts on wisdom, modesty, and vulnerability as well as some startling admissions about “being sexually abused throughout my life.” Encouragingly, Stone has reconciled with her mother. “Today,” she writes, “my mother and I are at the beginning of our relationship.”
Fans will blissfully revel in the intimate if restlessly delivered details in this perceptive memoir.Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-525-65676-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
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SEEN & HEARD
by Matthew McConaughey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 2025
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Lionel Richie ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 30, 2025
There’s an abundance of love and gratitude in this wildly entertaining, utterly charming memoir.
A look at the life of one of pop music’s most enduring stars.
Pop star and American Idol judge Richie opens his memoir with an account of his 2015 appearance at the Glastonbury Festival in England, where more than 175,000 people gathered to watch him perform some of his many hit singles. The singer reacts with disbelief to the crowd’s enthusiasm: “Did I dream all of this up? If not, I mean—How in the world did this even happen?” His book, marked with wide-eyed disbelief about his own success, aims to answer that question. Richie movingly tells the story of his childhood in his “forever home” of Tuskegee, Alabama; he was a “painfully, awkwardly, horribly shy” boy who struggled with anxiety and undiagnosed ADHD. While a student at Tuskegee Institute, he joined the funk band the Commodores, who in short order became a sensation, playing residencies at Smalls Paradise in Harlem and opening for the Jackson 5 on tour. With no small amount of gentle self-deprecation, Richie writes about his hit singles with the band, including “Easy” and “Three Times a Lady.” He left the band in 1982 and embarked on his solo career, which saw him take the top of the charts with songs including “You Are,” “All Night Long,” and “Hello,” which cemented his status as a worldwide icon. Richie’s book is infused with gratitude; while the reader gets the sense that he is aware of his talent, there is nothing in the book that comes off as bragging, and he still seems star-struck when writing about celebrity friends such as Stevie Wonder and Gregory Peck. Richie is refreshingly open in the book, which functions as both a fun memoir and a love letter to music and his beloved Tuskegee.
There’s an abundance of love and gratitude in this wildly entertaining, utterly charming memoir.Pub Date: Sept. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9780063253643
Page Count: 496
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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