A pleasant but predictable read.
One woman’s yearlong mission to adhere to the advice Oprah Winfrey offered in her show, magazine and website.
At age 35, Chicago-based yoga teacher and graduate student Okrant kicked off 2008 by swearing to follow all of Oprah’s directives and record her experience in a blog, “Living Oprah.” She conceived of this quest because, in her view, no one other than Oprah “reaches as deeply and thoroughly into every corner of a woman’s existence.” The book is organized by month, and each chapter is prefaced with an overview of how much money and time she spent on the projects. The exact measurements of her endeavor are broken down at the end of each chapter in charts recording cent and five-minute increment devoted to watching every Oprah episode, including reruns, taking online quizzes about her happiness and health and adopting a shelter cat. Her journey required an inordinate amount of shopping for “must-have clothing,” Oprah-endorsed food items, gardening equipment, a weighted Walkvest (“Oprah said, ‘Get that thing’ ”), XM Radio, recommended movie tickets, Dr. Oz–approved supplements, a weekend getaway, home hair dye, etc. Though she grew increasingly exhausted, Okrant maintains a jovial, self-effacing tone. But the results are mixed. The author finds the talk-show host overly focused on physical appearance, and, by June, her “capacity to enjoy repetitive infotainment ha[d] dwindled.” Benefits include de-cluttering her apartment, committing to both the Best Life Challenge and a 21-day vegan diet, trying new recipes and invigorating her sex life with her seemingly good-natured, patient husband. The greatest upside, of course, was the attention the author’s blog garnered, evidenced by her thousands of readers and unsolicited attention and publicity, including an appearance on NPR, tickets to the Oprah show and a book deal. Unsurprisingly, Okrant’s memoir reads like a printed-out blog, tracking quotidian tasks and revelations, the most significant of which is the value of finally turning off her television.
A pleasant but predictable read.Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59995-239-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Center Street/Hachette
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2009
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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