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TO THE HEART OF THE NILE

LADY FLORENCE BAKER AND THE EXPLORATION OF CENTRAL AFRICA

Of some interest to exploration buffs, though less so than Martin Dugard’s recent Into Africa (p. 202).

Harem girl to renowned explorer to Edwardian dowager: the improbable life of “a lady of mystery.”

Barbara Maria Szasz, a Hungarian Transylvanian, was born around 1845. Whether out of financial need or some other reason, her parents placed her in a Turkish harem at the age of four. No dark fate that: as Shipman (The Man Who Found the Missing Link, 2001, etc.) writes, channeling the voice of African explorer Sam Baker, “Growing up in a harem was rather like attending a convent school.” Ten years later, now renamed Florenz, our young heroine was put up for sale in an “elite white slave auction,” where Sam Baker and his faithful Sikh companion Duleep Singh happened to be passing by when the harem-keeper Ali put her on the block. Happily, Ali accepted Baker’s bid against that of the local boss: writes Shipman, now in Ali’s voice, “I cannot send you to the pasha. . . . He is a wicked man, selfish and cruel, and you would hate him. You are going with the Englishman.” Morally opposed to slavery but apparently not opposed to romancing a 14-year-old, Baker took Florence, for so she was now called, off to exotic venues such as Bucharest and Alexandria, where “they drank and ate and laughed their way through the night.” The venues got less romantic when Sam resumed his long passion for African exploration, and then Florence’s knowledge of Arabic and her fearlessness came in handy as they combed the African Great Lakes for secondary sources of the Nile. A good story, but the narrative suffers from cuteness: Shipman’s habit of dramatizing the undramatic with invented dialogue (“Sam has brought me the only freedom, the greatest love, and the most lasting contentment of my life. . . . There is no point in living if he is gone”) makes for often tedious reading.

Of some interest to exploration buffs, though less so than Martin Dugard’s recent Into Africa (p. 202).

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2004

ISBN: 0-06-050555-9

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2003

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WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...

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A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.

Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”

A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.

Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6

Page Count: 248

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

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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