A worthwhile primer for adoring acolytes, but too much P.T. Barnum and not enough behind-the-scenes insights for a broader...
Comic book legend Lee offers fans a graphic autobiography in his inimitably jaunty style.
There’s no denying Lee’s place in the pop-culture pantheon. As the writer and co-creator of Spider-Man, Iron Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, and numerous other spandex-clad superheroes, he not only influenced subsequent generations of writers and artists, but also laid the foundation for the multibillion-dollar movie franchises those characters have since spawned. Along with co-writer David (Artful: A Novel, 2014, etc.) and artist Doran (The Vampire Diaries, 2014, etc.)—whose detailed linework is superb—Lee recounts his hardscrabble youth in Manhattan; his entry into a nascent comic-book industry still dominated by horror, Westerns, and romances; military service in World War II, during which he was responsible for the creation of a particularly memorable poster reminding soldiers to do their duty to get treated for venereal disease; and rise from intern to icon as superheroes came to dominate the comics landscape (in large part due to Lee’s efforts). After years of being accused of perhaps claiming too much credit for his creations, Lee casts ample spotlight on artists like Jack “King” Kirby (X-Men, Fantastic Four) and Steve Ditko (Spider-Man), who played equally important roles in developing the heroes that are so ubiquitous today, but he makes sure the light shines brightest on himself. The author’s influence on the comics industry cannot be overstated; even if he sometimes gets too much credit for creating characters and stories, he doesn’t get enough recognition for being the driving force behind connecting those characters to an audience hungry for flawed human heroes. One might argue, however, that among his myriad creations, one of his most impressive—and persuasive—may very well be the legendary Stan Lee himself.
A worthwhile primer for adoring acolytes, but too much P.T. Barnum and not enough behind-the-scenes insights for a broader audience.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-0772-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
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
PERSPECTIVES
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
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