An intriguing account with insights into competition and control.
A woman recounts how she conquered the male-dominated world of competitive shooting in this debut memoir.
Koo does not fit the usual profile of an expert pistol shooter. Her race, gender, and age all make her something of an outlier, but this has not kept her from becoming a record-setting winner at “the NRA National Action Pistol Championship, known as the Bianchi Cup.” The Hong Kong–born, San Francisco–raised Koo did not even begin shooting until her late 40s, and so this memoir has quite a bit to cover of the champion’s life before she ever picked up a gun. She discusses her early years in China and the experience of immigrating to California, where her conservative parents continued to keep a traditional Chinese household. She describes meeting her future husband, Carlos, with whom she would raise children and start a real estate business—though both those things included significant strife and tragedy. Koo alternates between recounting a career-threatening accident in 2013 and her subsequent recovery and trials from earlier in her life: the death of one of her children in infancy, her husband’s extramarital affair, and her first firearm safety class, which she enrolled in specifically to allay her fear of guns. Throughout her meteoric rise in the world of shooting, she reaffirmed her faith in God, her family, and herself—a woman who never allowed men to determine her place in the world. With the help of debut author Pahl, Koo tells her story in accessible, precise prose that mimics her controlled persona while nevertheless displaying some affecting cracks: “I couldn’t stop looking at the photo. As I stared at it, I started to shake uncontrollably. I felt like my legs had been cut out from beneath me. Who was the woman, and what was she doing with my husband?” Readers acquainted with Koo’s shooting career will likely be especially interested in this book, but much here is familiar and universal. As an immigrant, mother, and wife committed to her family business, Koo will likely remind many readers of close relatives or themselves.
An intriguing account with insights into competition and control.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5043-8849-8
Page Count: 188
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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