From a confident, accomplished, and multitalented man, this is an effective demonstration of how to live a fulfilling life.
An uplifting memoir whose essential message is that the best way to defy the limits of time is to live fully in the moment.
Williams, former director of Space and Life Sciences at NASA, reports that the experience of living “a lifetime in a moment” came to him while floating freely in space replacing a faulty gyroscope outside the space shuttle Endeavour. The author, a retired astronaut who has also been an emergency room physician, an aquanaut, and a CEO, fills the narrative with dramatic moments, both high and low. Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight in 1961 was an inspirational moment for Williams. In the first part of the book, he chronicles a youth spent learning resilience and independence. Keen to explore, face challenges, and learn from his failures, he gained entrance to medical school. In the second part, Williams recounts his time as an ER doctor and an astronaut. He writes vividly of the long winnowing process endured by applicants and the rigors of the Canadian astronaut program. In the third part, the author discusses his experiences as mission specialist, a senior executive at NASA, and in a NASA underwater research lab. Throughout the narrative, the author demonstrates an uncanny ability to recall decades-old conversations. These mostly have the ring of truth, and even if they are not the actual words, they make the narrative a smooth reading experience. Though he does not use the phrase “the power of positive thinking,” the philosophy is ever present in the subtext. Williams also writes with equanimity about his special needs child and a bout with prostate cancer. Through his work and personal life, teaching moments abound. “Time is our most precious resource,” he writes, “not to be squandered but to be nourished into rich experiences that will stay with us forever.”
From a confident, accomplished, and multitalented man, this is an effective demonstration of how to live a fulfilling life.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6095-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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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