A lively account by an author who has reinvented herself again and again.
In this debut memoir, an octogenarian looks back on an action- and travel-filled life that included becoming a single mother at the age of 40.
For Spector, who published this book at 86, life truly began at 40. For had she not left a loveless, 18-year marriage, she might never have found the gumption to do half the things she recounts in her memoir, much less end up writing about them. It all started, though, with the gumption to do this: “The truck backed up to the bin, reached out its metal arms, grabbed that dumpster, and flipped it over. With a resounding crunch, the couch was pulverized, along with all the other garbage left from my marriage.” And so it began, nearly 50 years of life lived as truthfully and directly as that bit of prose. What followed were boyfriends and girlfriends, sex clubs and self-help, and, in a turn of events that seems totally in character with this book, a near threesome in Marbella, Spain, involving a celebrity with a famous sexual history. Mostly, the work is about Spector finding a second career as a disciple of Carl Rogers, a founder of the humanistic approach to psychology. (She did this after beginning a doctoral program in psychology at 53.) The author is a poster child for making every minute count, and this engaging book is her proof, her diary of a life lived to the fullest as a teacher, artist, writer, and more. It’s all set against the backdrop of her travels, which took her to Africa, Turkey, Britain, Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and Russia, among other far-flung places. Spector has an easy writing style that invites readers to go on these journeys with her, though she does get a tad in the weeds when she’s talking about psychology and the humanistic approach. Still, her memoir vividly chronicles a life well lived, giving hope to many that it’s never too late to try something new.
A lively account by an author who has reinvented herself again and again.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64742-085-7
Page Count: 280
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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