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HOW PRECIOUS WAS THAT WHILE

Name: HOW PRECIOUS WAS THAT WHILE
Author: Piers Anthony
ISBN: 0-312-87464-2

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

by Piers Anthony ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2001

This unsparingly forthright second memoir should ruffle some feathers that badly need ruffling.

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Sequel to the prolific fantasy writer’s previous autobiography, Bio of an Ogre (not reviewed).

After the usual biographical details (a summary of the previous book; a childhood spent in England and Spain, and on to America, where he developed from a child considered subnormal into a superior college student), Anthony emphasizes the determination and persistence necessary to break into print (a workaholic, he considers “writer’s block” merely an excuse for not getting on with the job). With his straightforward, honest approach, Anthony has earned a certain notoriety in the publishing world: he never backs down when threatened by bullies, nor backs off when the facts are on his side (and, since he checks very carefully, mostly they are). He’s dedicated to his readers and spends two days a week answering fan mail. From this correspondence—the fans often pour their hearts out to him—he estimates that one in three or four girls suffer some form of sexual abuse: an appalling statistic, representative or not. Puzzled and resigned, he details the truly disgraceful behavior of most publishers—the current one not excepted—ranging from malevolent incompetence through outright fraud. His fellow SF/fantasy writers evince similarly complex conduct: Isaac Asimov (courageous, but in person a compulsive grabber of female breasts and buttocks); Keith Laumer (a snake in the grass, even before the stroke that tipped him over the edge); Gordon R. Dickson (a drunk who never fulfilled his potential); the irascible Harlan Ellison (a personality clash if ever there was one); the talented, tragic John Brunner. Editors get the treatment, too, from the meddlesome Lester Del Rey to the witty host of the famous Milford Writers’ Conferences, Damon Knight, who allows personal remarks as the basis for critical judgments.

This unsparingly forthright second memoir should ruffle some feathers that badly need ruffling.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-312-87464-2

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Tor

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2001

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

- BOOK REVIEW
LUCK OF THE DRAW
by Piers Anthony

- BOOK REVIEW
CLIMATE OF CHANGE
by Piers Anthony

- BOOK REVIEW
PET PEEVE
by Piers Anthony

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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NIGHT

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...

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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.

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.