by Aldo Schiavone translated by Jeremy Carden ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 2017
A levelheaded, engaging reading of the Gospels and historical account that forms a solid sense of this pivotal personage and...
A literary study of the Roman governor of Judaea who condemned the prophet Jesus—reluctantly—to death.
Roman scholar Schiavone (Spartacus, 2013, etc.) reveals a deeply human story in the encounter (both historical and biblical) between a charismatic teacher denounced by the Jewish priests for fomenting “false” and dangerous preaching and the rather tone-deaf but benign Roman governor who did not care to make trouble with his Jewish constituency. In this slender, elegantly translated work geared toward lay readers, Schiavone navigates between memory—by the four writers of the Gospels, especially John, “the closest to the context of first century Palestine”—and history—Josephus and Philo of Alexandria, “two first-century intellectuals”—to help in the reconstruction of these contested events. The narrative culminates in the climax of Jesus’ preaching and testimony in Jerusalem and the trauma—the Crucifixion—that forms the Christian final sequence. Schiavone treads carefully through the narrative by the Gospel writers to get a sense of Pilate’s character and role as a governor who held his job for 10 years, which was rare—he was obviously valued by the emperor. Having arrived at the governor’s palace in Jerusalem in the early hours of the morning after being identified by one of his disciples, Judas, to the Roman authorities, Jesus was taken for interrogation by Pilate, who feared a trap by the Jewish authorities, the Sanhedrin, on this eve of the Passover. The governor could allow a criminal pardon, and he offered the assembled crowd either Barabbas, a notorious criminal, or Jesus, and the crowd still demanded the death of Jesus. Why? What had he done, Pilate wanted to know? He was declared a “sacrilegious blasphemer,” and, as the so-called King of the Jews, he was too dangerous for the community to let him live.
A levelheaded, engaging reading of the Gospels and historical account that forms a solid sense of this pivotal personage and his role on the epic stage.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63149-235-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 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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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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