Of particular interest to aviation buffs, but valuable for anyone interested in how a life lived with integrity prepares a...
The hero pilot who made the successful emergency landing in the Hudson River tells his story, assisted by bestselling author Zaslow (The Girls from Ames, 2009, etc.).
On Jan. 15, 2009, about 95 seconds after takeoff, US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of geese, knocking out both engines. Less than four minutes later the plane was floating in the Hudson with all aboard alive and largely uninjured thanks to the cool decision-making of Captain “Sully” Sullenberger. In countless public appearances since the incident, Sullenberger has emerged as an appealingly modest, straightforward guy, a demeanor maintained here in his easygoing, no-frills account of his Texas boyhood, his early infatuation with flying, his years at the Air Force Academy, his peacetime military career and his experiences as a commercial pilot, where safety procedures became somewhat of a specialty. The author recalls lessons learned from his parents, instructors, colleagues, his fitness instructor wife and his two adopted daughters, all of whom contributed to preparing him to handle the dire emergency that made him famous. Careful to credit his fellow crew members, especially First Officer Jeff Skiles, Sullenberger rejects the “hero” label, reserving that for folks who place themselves consciously in danger, rather than for those who have a crisis thrust upon them. The author insists he successfully managed the situation because of a decision made many years ago about the kind of person he wished to be. He claims to have summoned a courage and sense of responsibility common to many other ordinary people faced with extraordinary circumstances. Sullenberger also addresses the dramatic water rescue and his post-flight celebrity, and he answers some of the many moving messages he received. He attributes much of the media attention to timing. People battered by foreclosures, hammered with job losses and stung by decimated savings accounts looked to the story of Flight 1549 and saw that there are “ways out of the tightest spots.”
Of particular interest to aviation buffs, but valuable for anyone interested in how a life lived with integrity prepares a man for the ultimate challenge.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-06-192468-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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