A remarkable account that captures the horror of hardship and the power of charity.
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In this memoir, a humanitarian shares her journey from growing up in poverty in India to founding an esteemed charity that helps protect society’s most vulnerable.
Haslam was raised in Kolkata, India, in the 1970s. Her parents were part of the Anglo-Indian community that remained in the country after the British government withdrew in 1947. The family was homeless for the first six years of the author’s life. Despite her father’s being employed full-time, they could not afford a permanent residence. Haslam became accustomed to squatting or staying in slums, during which time she witnessed the deaths of her twin siblings, who suffered from malnutrition. The author was determined to gain an education, and her first break arrived when she was offered a job with Bank of America, where she later became president of its Charity and Diversity Network in India. Devoting her life to charitable causes, including the founding of Remedia, a trust that helps educate hundreds of children in India, Haslam was honored with the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award in 2017. This is a deeply affecting, harrowing story that will remain locked in readers’ memories. Haslam’s delicate, descriptive writing style captures even her most distressing moments, including when she recounts how her deceased baby sister was placed in a tea chest rather than a coffin: “My mother began to seal the top of the chest in place—methodically, like an artist, dripping candle wax along the narrow edges.” Always capable of pinpointing emotions, the author elegantly describes how her childhood shaped her later purpose in life: “I had never forgotten how much the small gestures of kindness in my childhood meant to me and what a difference they had made for my family.” Drawing on her talent as a motivational speaker, Haslam delivers succinct words that have the power to both inspire and offer hope: “Light can come from darkness. My family’s pain is not the entire tale.” The author has lived an extraordinary life—her odyssey, which is skillfully recalled here, will unnerve, move, and inspire readers in equal measure.
A remarkable account that captures the horror of hardship and the power of charity.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-970107-23-4
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Top Reads Publishing, LLC
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
Categories: GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
“A record is so much better when you can believe it.” Dylan is clearly a believer, and he will convince readers to follow.
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The iconic singer/songwriter reflects on a lifetime of listening to music.
Nostalgia abounds in Bob Dylan’s eclectic and eccentric collection of impressive musical appreciations. Examining 66 songs across numerous genres, going back to Stephen Foster’s “Nelly Was a Lady” (1849), the author offers an extensive hodgepodge of illustrations and photographs alongside rich, image-laden, impressionistic prose. There is no introduction or foreword. Instead, Dylan dives right in with “Detroit City,” Bobby Blare’s 1963 single: “What is it about lapsing into narration in a song that makes you think the singer is suddenly revealing the truth?” Throughout the text, the author is consistently engaging and often provocative in his explorations. Regarding “Witchy Woman” by the Eagles, he writes, “The lips of her cunt are a steel trap, and she covers you with cow shit—a real killer-diller and you regard her with suspicion and fear, rightly so. Homely enough to stop a clock, she’s no pussycat.” Deconstructing Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard’s “Pancho and Lefty,” Dylan describes songwriting as “editing—distilling thought down to essentials.” We can see the author’s mind working, reminiscing, but there’s little autobiography here. Where needed, he tosses in some prodigious music history and biography, and some appreciations read like short stories. Often, Dylan straightforwardly recounts what a specific song is about: “By the time you get to Phoenix it will be morning where she is, and she’ll be just getting out of bed.” Pete Seeger’s “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” is a “remembrance of things past,” and Dion and the Belmonts’ version of the Rodgers and Hart song “Where or When” is about “reincarnation.” Also making appearances are Carl Perkins, Perry Como, The Clash, Roy Orbison, Cher, Rosemary Clooney, Johnny Cash, Judy Garland, Nina Simone, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, the Allman Brothers, and the Grateful Dead. Bobby Darin and Willie Nelson appear twice.
“A record is so much better when you can believe it.” Dylan is clearly a believer, and he will convince readers to follow.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 9781451648706
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Categories: BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS & CELEBRITY | GENERAL NONFICTION
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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