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A YEAR ON THE WING

Name: A YEAR ON THE WING
Author: Tim Dee
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5933-7

MY FOUR SEASONS WITH BIRDS ON LAND, SEA, AND SKY

by Tim Dee ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 20, 2009

A rewarding memoir.

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BBC radio producer and writer Dee compresses memorable incidents from his life as a birdwatcher into a one-year excursion.

The author opens with his first memory of seeing a bird—just after his third birthday—and how his delight in these creatures has shaped his life since. Interspersing his observations with nature poetry by Marvell, Pound, Coleridge, Shakespeare and others, Dee begins his journey in June, with a description of a dream in which his task was to launch all the seabirds from the cliffs of Scotland’s Shetland Islands. The dream, he writes, was similar to the “dizzyingly, exhilaratingly” real experience of standing on the highest cliffs on Shetland’s coast watching the “wheels and flights of birds.” In July Dee takes us on a walk through woods near Cambridge, where the sight of a woodcock overhead reminds him of the earthy taste of the bird, “a mixture of loam and chalk.” In August the author describes learning to band birds to track their migratory patterns, and how he feels like “Gulliver in Lilliput” holding one in his hand. September brings the “birds’ autumn departures,” a crucial part of “the timetable to [his] life.” In November, Dee recalls a painful boyhood memory: While trying to spot peregrines, the author witnessed a man jump to his death from a bridge. A more pleasant experience occurs in April and May, when the spring weather elicits the “inherently warm” notes of birdsong.

A rewarding memoir.

Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2009

ISBN: 978-1-4165-5933-7

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Free Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2009

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | NATURE | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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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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BLACK BOY

A RECORD OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

by Richard Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1945

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This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.

It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.

Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.