Carter’s book aims to make senior citizens, especially those in nursing homes, laugh, think and live more healthily.
In this far-ranging book, Carter provides his readers with jokes, stories and essays, history lessons about Jamaica and health care tips. Although much of the information can be found on the Internet, his engaging material and simple format will appeal to older readers. Senior citizens will be amused by the jokes Carter offers, many of which are geared toward their generation and have protagonists to which they can relate. For instance, in “Did ‘Old-Timers’ Set In?,” when a friend praises the protagonist for calling his wife “darling” and “sweetheart” after 53 years of marriage, the protagonist claims his pet names are merely the result of having forgotten his wife’s name 10 years ago. The jokes are succinct and snappily written, and readers will appreciate their easy wit. Additionally, Carter provides an intriguing historical account of Jamaica, contemplating simple elements like the country’s kitchen facilities and segueing into the more complicated role of women in Jamaican society. Carter employs a fascinating metaphor of “metamorphosis in the reverse” to describe contemporary Jamaica, claiming that the “emerald isle of the Caribbean has become a loathsome haven of crime and violence,” a “loathsome caterpillar.” Most useful are the health and safety tips Carter offers (with Eunice Carter, RN) in the book’s final chapters. Those who are elderly, particularly those who may be living alone, will gain tremendously from the advice offered. This advice is broadly inclusive, alerting readers to simple measures that nevertheless can be of great assistance; for instance, the author’s claim that “floors should be of non-slip and low glare material” and readers should “never combine multiple medications in the same bottle.” The book helpfully lists symptoms for various illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes, giving readers a reference to check before calling a physician, should they suspect illness. Additionally, the book offers tips to avoid illness altogether. With the wide range of topics covered, readers may wish the book included an easily referenced index. An intriguing, somewhat unwieldy, genre-defying book with much to offer senior citizens.
Pub Date: Dec. 21, 2011
ISBN: 978-1466382923
Page Count: 198
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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