by Wilt Chamberlain ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1991
``When I play games I am so competitive that...I will take full advantage of any slip...to the point where many...kiddingly accuse me of cheating. How else are you going to accuse a seven- foot 300 pound man of cheating but kiddingly?'' Intimidating as ever, basketball great Chamberlain (Wilt, 1973, coauthored by David Shaw) reveals a lot more than probably intended in this wordy wit-and-wisdom collection. On the playing floor, Chamberlain was sensational—his arrival in pro basketball totally disrupted the established salary scale, after which he redesigned the game, popularized it, and set a pile of still- standing records. But at the writing table, he is, alas, opinionated, resentful, and unconcerned about continuity, organization, or consistency. (At one point he's a gourmet; later, his favorite food is white bread with peanut butter and mayonnaise.) Chamberlain is also concerned with his stature and sexuality (``few recognize the sensualness I have in this seven- foot frame'') to the point where his isolation, never really dealt with, is painful to consider (though he's not concerned ``to see [his] athletic prowess embodied in offspring''). And he just can't let others be great: Globetrotter Meadowlark Lemon is okay, but team-player centers like Celtic Bill Russell and L.A.'s Abdul Jabbar are limited pretenders. After some obligatory respect, Chamberlain gets to his point: ``There may never have been a star athlete used as a yardstick as much as I....'' (What about Babe Ruth, Pele, Joe Louis, Bobby Jones?) As for today's talent, ``centers now are making $2 million a year...if you pro-rated my salary for what I did...I'd be making $20 million.'' Like Muhammad Ali, Wilt was the greatest, but there's no lilt or wit to make his tale palatable. Ali knows it took Joe Frazier to make him immortal, but Wilt stands forever alone with those awesome records. (Thirty-two pages of b&w photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-679-40455-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1991
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by John Gierach illustrated by Glenn Wolff ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 2, 2020
In these insightfully droll essays, Gierach shows us how fishing offers plenty of time to think things over.
The latest collection of interrelated essays by the veteran fishing writer.
As in his previous books—from The View From Rat Lake through All Fishermen Are Liars—Gierach hones in on the ups and downs of fishing, and those looking for how-to tips will find plenty here on rods, flies, guides, streams, and pretty much everything else that informs the fishing life. It is the everything else that has earned Gierach the following of fellow writers and legions of readers who may not even fish but are drawn to his musings on community, culture, the natural world, and the seasons of life. In one representatively poetic passage, he writes, “it was a chilly fall afternoon with the leaves changing, the current whispering, and a pale moon in a daytime sky. The river seemed inscrutable, but alive with possibility.” Gierach writes about both patience and process, and he describes the long spells between catches as the fisherman’s equivalent of writer’s block. Even when catching fish is the point, it almost seems beside the point (anglers will understand that sentiment): At the end of one essay, he writes, “I was cold, bored, hungry, and fishless, but there was still nowhere else I’d have rather been—something anyone who fishes will understand.” Most readers will be profoundly moved by the meditation on mortality within the blandly titled “Up in Michigan,” a character study of a man dying of cancer. Though the author had known and been fishing with him for three decades, his reticence kept anyone from knowing him too well. Still, writes Gierach, “I came to think of [his] glancing pronouncements as Michigan haiku: brief, no more than obliquely revealing, and oddly beautiful.” Ultimately, the man was focused on settling accounts, getting in one last fishing trip, and then planning to “sit in the sun and think things over until it’s time for hospice.”
In these insightfully droll essays, Gierach shows us how fishing offers plenty of time to think things over.Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6858-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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by Dave Lowry ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 2005
A broad and deep look at Japan’s medieval referents, and a capable illustration of a martial art form steeped in rich...
A reflective and entertaining journey through Japan, as the author seeks to reconnect with his martial arts sensei.
Lowry is a student of koryu (not to be confused with kendo), a style of Japanese classical swordsmanship. Koryu is a medieval art, like Noh and the tea ceremony, a style of combat born on the battlefield–but more importantly, it’s a way to address the world (though an esoteric one: Lowry may well be the only American practicing the art in the United States). Indeed, present-day practitioners refrain from exercising its fatal possibilities. Lowry’s sensei left the U.S. to return to Japan, urging Lowry to follow. Though his life headed in a different direction, he never forgot his training–when the time was ripe, he journeyed to Japan to join his sensei. The narrative revolves around this pivotal decision, and it provides a warm center from which the author expounds on such topics as the glories of a Japanese bath; the evolution of the Samurai caste; the peculiarities of Japanese landscape architecture; the elements of proper sandal-tying; the custom of the premarital shenanigans called yobai; and the teachings of mikkyo Buddhism. He also includes the vital story of the sword–what it reveals about Japanese life and technology, social structure and aesthetic values, etiquette, apprenticeship and the process of education. Lowry’s seriousness lends an earnest cast to the proceedings, but he’s not without a sense of humor–commenting upon his accomplished slurping of noodles, a friend’s wife notes, “He really sucks!”
A broad and deep look at Japan’s medieval referents, and a capable illustration of a martial art form steeped in rich tradition.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2005
ISBN: 1-890536-10-5
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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