his on-air voice) are literally and figuratively punctuated with exclamation points. Without delving into any controversy,...
Longtime sportscaster Wolf offers high-spirited anecdotes and opinions in this quick read.
"We're the country of fast food—quick and move on." Although Warner Wolf made this statement while discussing soccer's lack of success in the US, he might well have been describing his own literary style. Chock-full of anecdotes and told at a rapid- fire pace, his 112 "chapters"—most of which are only two to three pages long—are organized in a stream-of-consciousness style, in which Wolf switches from one topic to another. Using the enthusiastic tone that has made his sports coverage so popular with radio and TV audiences in the Washington, DC, and New York City areas (where he has broadcast for more than 30 years), Wolf focuses most of his attention on the big-time sports of baseball (especially the Yankees), football, and boxing. He also makes mention of golf, hockey, bowling, horse-racing, and even soccer (but only to explain why he doesn’t follow it). Non-sport stories include tidbits about his family history (his parents were in vaudeville) and warm, respectful appreciations of Don Imus (on whose syndicated radio show Wolf's sports updates have found a national audience). Some of these anecdotes describe the business of sportscasting, but most of them are name-dropping exercises involving the athletes, politicians, and movie stars Wolf has encountered during his long career. And when Wolf complains about something (such as the NFL overtime rule), his rantings are brief and harmless. The best reason to read this book, then, is not Wolf's opinions but his catchphrases and style, which (like
his on-air voice) are literally and figuratively punctuated with exclamation points. Without delving into any controversy, this is a light read that amuses rather than informs.Pub Date: March 6, 2000
ISBN: 0-446-52559-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2000
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
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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