by William Shatner with David Fisher ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 16, 2016
A fond remembrance of Leonard Nimoy by one who knew him like no other.
In the original Star Trek series, Mr. Spock’s contemplative temperament was balanced by Capt. Kirk’s emotive and physical nature. Now it’s the captain’s turn to reflect.
It’s hard to believe that an entertainment franchise consisting of five distinct TV series, 12 feature films, numerous comics and novels, an animated series, fanzines, conventions, and a huge worldwide fan base began with an underfunded TV series that only ran for three seasons (1966-1969) before being cancelled by the network for its unprofitability. This year marks the 50th year since the franchise’s birth, and the crew of the Enterprise continues to go where no man has gone before. Though the fabled starship has had many actors at its helm, the original portrayals of Kirk and Spock remain iconic. Shatner (Shatner Rules, 2011, etc.), who will celebrate his 85th birthday in March, memorializes his esteemed co-star in a memoir that spans the half-century of the two actors’ friendship and, with the input of others who knew Leonard Nimoy (1931-2015) well, beyond. From Nimoy’s early years in Los Angeles scrounging for bit roles in TV to the late actor’s charitable support of Zachary Quinto in his 2009 reprisal of the role of Spock, Shatner describes his friend as a serious artist who constantly honed his craft. Though the actors eventually formed a strong bond, Shatner humbly recalls bags of fan mail arriving in the first weeks of Star Trek’s popularity and the jealousy that he felt that the most beloved character on the show was Spock. Fans will devour anecdotes surrounding the making of the series and its posthumous surge in popularity, but Shatner takes readers behind the nonemotive Vulcan visage to reveal the poet, photographer, devoted stage actor, recovering alcoholic, and formidable listener who was his friend.
A fond remembrance of Leonard Nimoy by one who knew him like no other.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-250-08331-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 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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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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