My Remarkable Journey by Larry King

Reviewed for Edwards Book Club
Published by Penguin Canada, 2010

What a strange feeling to be reviewing "My Remarkable Journey" by Larry King! With a rare gift of communication, he takes us on his journey through life beginning as a little Jewish kid in Brooklyn through local radio to global TV fame. From the loss of his father who died of a heart attack at work and the loss of his grandmother two weeks later, Larry King seems always to be looking and finding love only to lose it again. The book is very revealing, honest and fascinating, not because of all the famous names that populate the book, but because of how these people react and communicate with him. The respect for who he interviews, and the respect which is shown him comes through loud and clear. But so, too, comes his downfall with his arrest and in his own personal life at that particular time.

He reads people with great insight and passes it on to the reader. Sure, he sometimes comes off sounding a little self-absorbed, especially when he is not on the air, but it is his story, and in fact he may not even be aware of it. He is just as often overwhelmed by his success and often feeling undeserving. But get him on the air with any influential person, or even as he would say, the plumber, and lightning strikes. On the air or in the book he has a way of letting his guests, and his readers, feel comfortable and thus interested. While reading this book, I felt that I really got to know a lot about Larry King, but also some understanding of why he has married so often and divorced so often, and a feeling of family seems to exist around his children and himself. The shock of learning his first wife had given him a son he never knew about toward the end of the book when she was dying, soon gave him one more son to love.

I think the best parts of his book, though, are those from breakfasts at Nate 'n Al's. There he is one of the guys, with friends he grew up with, friends he has made since and maybe that is "home" after all. My personal take is, if you still have friends you knew as a kid, you have had a meaningful and successful life.

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit by Lucette Lagnado

Originally posted Dec. 1, 2007
Full name: The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World

I thoroughly liked this book. Lucette Lagnado speaks from the heart about her family's life with respect and candor. Mostly autobiographical in content, the history of the family and particularly the patriarch is the backbone on which it is written. A complete "riches to rags" story, the early part of the book deals with a world completely alien to post-war Egypt and its Jewish population. Fleeing from their country of birth and rich lifestyle into the unknown life of refugees with "no state", no home, is a journey of changes, separation, religious deprivation, illness, and much more. Lucette "Loulou" takes this journey and relates it without prejudice or blame. She gives us an understanding of the life of a refugee immigrant in the post-war world of the 1950/60s and beyond; a time of change not just in the country they have left but in the countries to which they flee. The suffering of the father trying to raise his family in the ways of both a strict religion and a strict culture is described with the perspective of both a little girl with great love for her father and as a young lady gradually breaking with tradition. She has written this book in a gentle, insightful and caring way that can teach us a lot without hammering it in.

Pieces Of My Heart: a Life by Robert J. Wagner with Scott Eyman

Originally posted Thursday, November 20, 2008

The autobiography of a well-grounded man who never lost his awe of life or the movies. He also was humble enough to allow friends to help him in his darkest hours. A man whose gentility reminds one of an earlier time. This is the story of "Pieces of My Heart: a Life" told by Robert J. Wagner. The story is candidly told with no Hollywood excess overpowering the theme. That is not to say there is nothing Hollywood about the book, how could there not be? In fact, there are a lot of interesting insights into a number of legendary actors. What R.J., as he was known, relives in this book is very much a living history of movie acting from the 1950s to the present. Many of his best friends through the years were from the earlier days, Clark Gable, Fred Astaire, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy... He has the determination, the talent, the luck and the willingness to work hard, and even more, puts the movie rather than himself first; ego has no place in his agenda. His work ethic is admirable and his goal is to "always make it fresh."

He was fortunate to have grown up in California and as a boy worked at the Bel-Aire Stables. On his breaks he was able to watch the golfers at the Bel-Aire Country Club, where his father was a member. This is where he first saw some of his greatest movie heroes.

This is a deeply personal story, and he bares his all for us, and, I personally think, for his children. This is the first time he bares his soul in his memories and details of his two marriages to Natalie Wood. This book is full of love for friends, personal relationships, his children, and the profession he has chosen. This story is told not by a star but by a real person. I think he says it all when he writes "I think my ability to sustain a long career has been at least partially a result of my ability to sustain long relationships, sometimes through succeeding generations." I highly recommend this book, not just for movie enthusiasts, but for the joyous embracement of life, and the sharing of his sorrows and overcoming them.

A Promise of Hope: The Astonishing True Story of a Woman Afflicted With Bipolar Disorder and the Miraculous Treatment That Cured Her

The author: Autumn Stringam. I reviewed this book in 2006 and posted a short version of my full review. Still based on the proof I read than the final publication, I thought this book was worthy of posting the full review:

This book brings the reader inside the mind of a Bi-Polar Disorder patient in her own words. All the chaos, highs, lows, delusions, anger, and deep depression are felt in a way that could not ever be accurately described by anyone who has not lived the story. Autumn Stringam has lived the story. The depth of the urge to suicide is indelibly written. It is told with no holds barred in the still voice that is often seen in trauma victims describing what has happened to them. A distance that makes the story very compelling and true. There is nothing asked of us other than to believe the story and what it means. No requirement to sympathize with the writer for what she has gone through.

We see her life with her mother’s undiagnosed bi-polar swings and final suicide through a child’s eyes, never dreaming that the same terrors would one day be hers. The illness does not surface until she is an adult and married. From this point on, we travel through her own mind, while at the same time she finally begins to understand her mother. The family once again suffers the same fate as her younger brother also is diagnosed. There seems to be nothing to live for because nothing, no treatment yet used, could do more than remove them from a life into a stupor from which they dare not try to emerge.

Her father begins a quest to find a way to help his children in a way that he had not been able to save his wife. All he wants is for them to be safe. A chance meeting with an animal nutritionist eventually leads to trying a new way, a nutritional concoction of vitamins and minerals, based on the formula for quieting aggressive hogs, “tail biters”. Over the next few years we journey through the miraculous recovery of the siblings. Indeed, both now lead healthy and productive lives.

There are agonizing legal battles to get the product approved. The futile fights with the Canadian government are spelled out completely and succinctly and made me want to join in the fight! I can see it exactly as if I had lived it. I would strongly recommend this book for a number of reasons. For understanding of the bi-polar progress, for the discovery and preliminary trials to improve on any new medical discovery, and for how difficult it is to bring government acceptance of alternative medicine for many illnesses, are three main reasons. This is a real life, Autumn lived this life and tells the truth as it is, plain and simple, with suspense as to what will happen with the discovery, and the final outcome. Read it, you will be glad you did.

The Measure of a Man: a spiritual autobiography by Sidney Poitier

This is not the first autobiography by Sidney Poitier, but it is a powerful one. It is a story of wholeness, of working to achieve the best within himself. The story begins on a small piece of isolated land, Cat Island, in the Bahamas, untouched by the outside world without even the most rudimentary of what most would call necessities, so untouched the locals don’t even know there are necessities, and they may be right. The true essential is family and that they do have.

In this autobiography, Sidney Poitier looks within, the good and the bad, what drives a man, how to maintain dignity when all around attempts are made to remove the dignity. His first view that there was another kind of life, even that there was a world, was at the tender age of ten and a half, when he moved to Nassau, capitol of the Bahamas. This was the first time he lived outside the “Natural” world. A boy used to evaluating risk, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, he had never encountered the new types of risk. The thing is, he had prepared himself for life by believing that he was who he was, that not only could he be as good as anyone else but with hard work he could be better.

This is the basis of the book. It covers many years of looking for answers, taking risks to better himself, searching for meaning, the how, the why, the when, the where. Successful as his career became, he still stretched from within to better himself. He wanted to avoid slipping into thinking things were pretty good as they were. He wanted to maintain his dignity, honour his father, be all he could be, and be the best father he could. I’m summarizing rather than delving too far into the book because the summation is constant for Poitier. I learned a great deal personally from this book and found it moved along very well, although I did notice a bit of a stall or slow spot toward the end which did pick up again, so it didn’t last very long. This is not about black and white except where necessary, this is about being human and where humanity belongs in Nature’s world. I believe it is an excellent book and recommend it for the many lessons that can be learned.