From public relations executive Vaccarino (PR For People, 2009) comes a cross between primer and personal memoir on brand-building and business acumen, built on the artistic principles and practice of ballet.
Self-described as “[m]y not-so-secret life as an adult dancer and how it impacts my life and business,” Vaccarino’s book is a gentle, lyrical pas de deux between author and reader, with specific “steps” such as “Positioning,” “Balance” and “Fall and Recovery” as chapter headings and core principles. Vaccarino slips between childhood memories of her grandmother’s stairs in Yonkers, N.Y., where she took her first steps and gained a child’s insight into discipline and achievement, and her adult world of ballet and business. Her earliest memories are of a passion for dancing; “As a toddler, I danced so enthusiastically, my parents did not want to take me out in public,” and later on, “I danced to the sheer musicality in my own head.” Glimpses of her life’s journey, family secrets and sadness, marriage and motherhood are hung on a trajectory of drawing ever closer to dance and a daily commitment to its pursuit. Throughout the work, tenets of personal ascent (“Our greatest moments of courage are found when we choose to rise higher”) are interspersed with tiny jewels of wisdom, but the connections with and transitions to business and branding are few and far between. Vaccarino’s voice is clear and impassioned on the struggles and rewards of ballet’s principles and discipline, but the application to real-world brand and business skill is slightly out-of-step. Filled with juicy quotes from well-known experts ranging from dance mavens to Willa Cather and Peter Drucker, this book is one woman’s discovery of self-empowerment through dance, heavily weighted toward dance rather than business and with a strong undercurrent of spirituality: “The practice of ballet makes me feel as though I am reaching for an ideal that is close to God.” A sweet meal of practical basics in moving toward consistency and accomplishment at the barre of life, though the connection to business could be more fully established.
Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1936672219
Page Count: 147
Publisher: Cedar Forge
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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