A detailed chronology of the rise of a popular magazine.
The story behind one of the founders of Essence magazine.
In 1968, after the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, with blacks rioting across America, the last thing most people were thinking of was launching a magazine geared toward black women. And yet, in 1969, that's exactly what Lewis and three other men, none of who had any magazine experience, did. For the first five years, funding was a major issue, but then the magazine, which originally was going to be called Sapphire, "turned the corner, looking as if it might actually become a Thoroughbred and start running in the black." Essence did become that thoroughbred, with a circulation of more than 1 million readers. The concept of success and empowerment became the focus, which, for black women at the time, was definitely a new idea. Lewis combines stories of his childhood in the 1940s and ’50s in Virginia—where he worked long hours in the field alongside his grandparents and lived without running water or electricity—with the rise of the magazine. Readers can see firsthand how the strength and perseverance that were instilled early on aided Lewis through the multiple obstacles he encountered in the magazine business. Bickering and infighting between various editors, a lack of respect among the founding partners, passive-aggressive tactics in the management, and the corruption of power and a possible takeover of the company threatened the future of the magazine. All of this caused Lewis such aggravation that he broke out in hives; ultimately, however, the magazine prevailed. After 35 years, Lewis is considered a leading magazine publisher in the country; through his modest and sincere voice, readers will understand why.
A detailed chronology of the rise of a popular magazine.Pub Date: June 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-0348-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
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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