Buckley's third volume of experiences al sea (following Airborne and Atlantic High) and the fluffiest of the three, full of charm and vacancy. His latest voyage finds WFB trading the Atlantic for the deep, sweet peace of Pacific sunsets. He sets forth on a 4500-mile crossing from Honolulu to New Guinea, with stops along the way at various Edens. He might have started from California, but he couldn't spare the two weeks extra since the Sealestial was not his own yacht and had to be delivered on time. The paradisal voyage has its built-in limitations, starting with the captain's personal messiness: WFB apparently drops wet shorts anywhere underfoot and lets other clothes fall and marinate where they will. He is accompanied by his son Christopher, the writer-Esquire editor, and Richard Clurman, the chain-smoking Time journalist, among others, all of whom are expected to keep private logs that they will later hand over to WFB for distillation. What results, thus, is a book that is all distraetion and padding, with very little straight-ahead narration, Earlier voyages are cannibalized; newspaper articles reprinted whole; David Niven's taped autobiographics are quoted at length. We leap from log to log, and lectures on navigation abound that will interest only fellow yachtsmen. WFB comments that he rarely reads books by those antisocial types who may undertake solo voyages. This snobbery would of course exclude one-legged Tristan Jones' The Improbably Voyage (p. 533), a work of great narrative brio and muscularity, especially when set beside this example of WFB's slack muscles. WFB's voyage is a consciously Grand High Yuppie performance, featuring the usual overwhelming inventory of wines (32 cases at a cost of $2,525.74), beers (50 cases), evening cigars, GooGoo candy bars, Swedish crackers and other delectables, plus a large inventory of classical and jazz cassettes and evening movies for the whole voyage. Even so, at one point, Clurman tells WFB that voyages aren't much fun and are much better to tell about than to experience. Surprisingly, WFB agrees. What with excerpts in The New Yorker and an earlier run-through in Life, and with 200 ravishing color photographs, this coffeetable enricher will likely outstrip its highly successful forebears. What drama appears herein stems mainly from the logs quoted, which show naked nerves.
Pub Date: May 27, 1987
ISBN: 0316114480
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1987
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.
NBA legends Bird and Johnson, fierce rivals during their playing days, team up on a mutual career retrospective.
With megastars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and international superstars like China’s Yao Ming pushing it to ever-greater heights of popularity today, it’s difficult to imagine the NBA in 1979, when financial problems, drug scandals and racial issues threatened to destroy the fledgling league. Fortunately, that year marked the coming of two young saviors—one a flashy, charismatic African-American and the other a cocky, blond, self-described “hick.” Arriving fresh off a showdown in the NCAA championship game in which Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans defeated Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores—still the highest-rated college basketball game ever—the duo changed the course of history not just for the league, but the sport itself. While the pair’s on-court accomplishments have been exhaustively chronicled, the narrative hook here is unprecedented insight and commentary from the stars themselves on their unique relationship, a compelling mixture of bitter rivalry and mutual admiration. This snapshot of their respective careers delves with varying degrees of depth into the lives of each man and their on- and off-court achievements, including the historic championship games between Johnson’s Lakers and Bird’s Celtics, their trailblazing endorsement deals and Johnson’s stunning announcement in 1991 that he had tested positive for HIV. Ironically, this nostalgic chronicle about the two men who, along with Michael Jordan, turned more fans onto NBA basketball than any other players, will likely appeal primarily to a narrow cross-section of readers: Bird/Magic fans and hardcore hoop-heads.
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-547-22547-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.
A basketball legend reflects on his life in the game and a life lived in the “nightmare of endlessly repetitive and constant pain, agony, and guilt.”
Walton (Nothing but Net, 1994, etc.) begins this memoir on the floor—literally: “I have been living on the floor for most of the last two and a half years, unable to move.” In 2008, he suffered a catastrophic spinal collapse. “My spine will no longer hold me,” he writes. Thirty-seven orthopedic injuries, stemming from the fact that he had malformed feet, led to an endless string of stress fractures. As he notes, Walton is “the most injured athlete in the history of sports.” Over the years, he had ground his lower extremities “down to dust.” Walton’s memoir is two interwoven stories. The first is about his lifelong love of basketball, the second, his lifelong battle with injuries and pain. He had his first operation when he was 14, for a knee hurt in a basketball game. As he chronicles his distinguished career in the game, from high school to college to the NBA, he punctuates that story with a parallel one that chronicles at each juncture the injuries he suffered and overcame until he could no longer play, eventually turning to a successful broadcasting career (which helped his stuttering problem). Thanks to successful experimental spinal fusion surgery, he’s now pain-free. And then there’s the music he loves, especially the Grateful Dead’s; it accompanies both stories like a soundtrack playing off in the distance. Walton tends to get long-winded at times, but that won’t be news to anyone who watches his broadcasts, and those who have been afflicted with lifelong injuries will find the book uplifting and inspirational. Basketball fans will relish Walton’s acumen and insights into the game as well as his stories about players, coaches (especially John Wooden), and games, all told in Walton’s fervent, witty style.
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1686-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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