by Zach Anner ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 8, 2016
An inspirational memoir with a seasoned, infectious sense of humor.
Wry anecdotes from the life of comedian, “inspirational leader,” and Oprah protégé Anner.
“I never expected to be a disability advocate,” writes the author in this funny, empowering autobiography chronicling his three decades of life (so far) with cerebral palsy, a permanent condition that hasn’t prevented him from living his dream as a comic, a media sensation, and a motivational speaker. In Anner’s own words, he was born “a crappy baby who failed his way into this world and I’ve been making the best of it ever since.” The result of a premature birth, Anner’s CP emerged, but the condition took a back seat early on during his very public, whirlwind life developing his TV and online persona and his work “humanizing disability.” Anner’s narrative is affably chatty as he escorts readers through the stories of his childhood, the nicknames, the foibles, and the journey toward winning a competition to star in his own (if short-lived) wheelchair travel show, Rollin’ with Zach, on Oprah’s OWN network. His viral audition for Oprah made him a “household name overnight,” and the author recounts his random adventures in speed dating and telling “cripple jokes” onstage as a budding comedian. Not exclusively modest yet free of hubris, Anner’s talky, balanced memoir picks up steam in the second half as the author’s involvement in a radio show, a documentary, and a TV series provide pages of appealing, hilarious riffs, including a tenure as a “Disney Cast Member” and his “cowardly Casanova groove” period spent dispensing dating advice while ignoring his own late-blooming romantic life. After years of hard-won success and personal challenges, Anner still admits, “learning how to stay true to yourself while some people expect you to speak for everyone has been a tightrope walk—which is very hard to do on four wheels.”
An inspirational memoir with a seasoned, infectious sense of humor.Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62779-364-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
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
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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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