Enjoyable and informative—one of the best books on the topic in years.
Propulsive story of the mythologized, misunderstood universe of motorcycling.
Johnson (White Heat, 2007, etc.) balances his nerdy-gearhead side with precise, vivid prose and a clear understanding of his subject’s history and technology. The author views the motorcycle as several things—fascinating narrative of technical advancement within an unforgiving marketplace, an eternal social metaphor and the most physically exhilarating experience available. He begins with an intimate discussion of the mythic “open road” (“the landscape writes itself on your body, mile after mile”), reflecting his devotion to his lifelong obsession. Involved with motorcycles for 40 years, he grew up riding, starting with the smallest cycles available to a risk-entranced child, and has ridden nearly every kind of bike: high-end Italian Ducatis, off-road bikes, a Japanese touring cycle and various obscure, much–sought-after British bikes. Johnson ties broad personal experience to countless aspects of the topic, including valuable pointers on how to behave around “one-percenters,” outlaw bikers. He establishes expertise with a highly detailed history of the motorcycle’s development, which began nearly 150 years ago, and became popular enough in the early 20th century so that in the United States and Britain “manufacturers sprang up everywhere”—most of which were slain during the ’70s by the Japanese Big Four (Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki). Johnson argues that innovation has always been propelled by daredevils and eccentrics on the far edge of racing and high-risk riding, leading to no shortage of competitive shenanigans. The author seems addicted to competition and speed himself, covering the insular worlds of “flat-track” (cement) racing, motocross (dirt racing), hill scrambles (crazily risky and incongruously family-friendly), world prestige races like the Isle of Man TT and the Dakar Rally, and the world-record cult that revolves around the Bonneville Salt Flats. Johnson captures the obsessive excitement of motorcycle culture with enough verve to make nonriders understand, and jealous, although he doesn’t undersell its dangers.
Enjoyable and informative—one of the best books on the topic in years.Pub Date: July 27, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5032-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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