by Robert Traynham Coles edited by William H. Siener Sylvia Coles ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 15, 2016
A multifaceted life story that will enthrall architecture and history buffs as well as scholars.
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A beautifully crafted debut memoir about an award-winning African-American architect who broke through societal barriers and helped others do the same.
Written and compiled with the assistance of Siener (A Guide to Gloucester County, Virginia Historical Manuscripts, 1976) and Coles’ wife, Sylvia, this engaging account tells the story of a successful 50-year career and passion for social justice. Born in 1929, Coles was raised in the heart of Buffalo, New York. He attended the University of Minnesota as the sole African-American student in architecture and received his master’s from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Founding his architectural firm in 1963, Coles’ love of the city and its people is reflected in his work. For example, he designed the award-winning Joseph J. Kelly Gardens housing complex to complement the community’s existing cityscape. Meeting and working with community organizers—such as the Rev. Richard Prosser and Saul Alinsky—allowed Coles to combine his thirst for activism with the occupation he loved. Commissioned by Prosser, Coles designed Buffalo’s “Friendship House,” a local hub for social programs, activities, and a food pantry. Dedicated to helping more minorities become architects (Coles referred to black architects as an “endangered species”), he hired 30 African-American architects and interns from 1964 to 2004. In 1995, he became the first African-American chancellor of the American Institute of Architects. Coles’ smooth-flowing prose is a pleasure to peruse, and his voice is memorable. For example, when a teacher discouraged Coles from becoming an architect because “there were no Black architects,” the young design student refused to give up: “Undiscouraged, I resolved to be an architect and one of the best.” Adorned with a variety of color and black-and-white photos and some of Coles’ designs, this informative page-turner is suitable for both in-depth analysis or an afternoon of browsing. Some of the photos—like one with Coles and Saul Alinsky—are particularly intriguing. The book includes appendices for further exploration, such as articles written by Coles.
A multifaceted life story that will enthrall architecture and history buffs as well as scholars.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9839170-2-1
Page Count: 140
Publisher: Buffalo Arts Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Donald Hall ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 2, 2014
That sense of joy infuses these gentle essays. “Old age sits in a chair,” writes Hall, “writing a little and diminishing.”...
The writing life at age 85.
In this collection of 14 autobiographical essays, former U.S. Poet Laureate Hall (Christmas at Eagle Pond, 2012, etc.) reflects on aging, death, the craft of writing and his beloved landscape of New Hampshire. Debilitated by health problems that have affected his balance and ability to walk, the author sees his life physically compromised, and “the days have narrowed as they must. I live on one floor eating frozen dinners.” He waits for the mail; a physical therapist visits twice a week; and an assistant patiently attends to typing, computer searches and money matters. “In the past I was often advised to live in the moment,” he recalls. “Now what else can I do? Days are the same, generic and speedy….” Happily, he is still able to write, although not poetry. “As I grew older,” he writes, “poetry abandoned me….For a male poet, imagination and tongue-sweetness require a blast of hormones.” Writing in longhand, Hall revels in revising, a process that can entail more than 80 drafts. “Because of multiple drafts I have been accused of self-discipline. Really I am self-indulgent, I cherish revising so much.” These essays circle back on a few memories: the illness and death of his wife, the poet Jane Kenyon, which sent him into the depths of grief; childhood recollections of his visits to his grandparents’ New Hampshire farm, where he helped his grandfather with haying; grateful portraits of the four women who tend to him: his physical therapist, assistant, housekeeper and companion; and giving up tenure “for forty joyous years of freelance writing.”
That sense of joy infuses these gentle essays. “Old age sits in a chair,” writes Hall, “writing a little and diminishing.” For the author, writing has been, and continues to be, his passionate revenge against diminishing.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-0544287044
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2014
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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