Though some pieces begin jauntily but fade into irrelevance, Morris generally keeps readers engaged, as she has done...
The nonagenarian historian and travel writer invites us into her private world with a mixed but amiable daily diary of her thoughts, observations, and reflections.
Morris (Battleship Yamato, 2018, etc.) does not dwell overmuch on the indignities and tribulations of old age; rather, she celebrates the fact that she is still alive and (mostly) kicking, taking pleasure in the grand and mundane in like measure. She does not mention being a pioneering transsexual, nor—since her traveling days are now few—her fame as one of our most accomplished travel writers and historians. Many of the entries are lighter than air, others nostalgic or wistful, chipper or gloomy, lilting and poetic, naïve or mildly cynical. Some deploy philosophical insights on the human condition and sharp assessments of current world events. The book moves from humor to veiled melancholy to sharply delineated sense of place, with some of the author’s own sprightly verse for grace notes. While her chief subject is her home of 70 years, Wales, Morris definitely has some bees in her bonnet. Whatever pops into her head gets equal time, from Brexit and agnosticism to the abomination of zoos, the malleability of memory, the better angels of Britain's imperial era, the U.K.'s current malaise, her special affection for the United States, the intimate presence of the books in her personal library, the horrors of the daily news, the spellbinding mysteries of birds, and the seductive traps of ego. There's also an ode to Montaigne, asides on her longtime companion Elizabeth, a dissection of monarchical absurdities, an appreciation of technological advancements, an accounting of the marvelous menagerie of keepsakes in her home, and an elegy for the changing nature of the English character.
Though some pieces begin jauntily but fade into irrelevance, Morris generally keeps readers engaged, as she has done successfully for decades.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63149-536-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
IN THE NEWS
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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