Apparently books about British royalty never go out of style, even for American readers, and this is a decent addition to...
Another dogged attempt to rehabilitate Bloody Mary.
Whitelock (Early Modern History/Univ. of London) does a fine job fleshing out this complex character who was destined for greatness—as the first-born of Henry VIII—yet doomed by the religious schism of the era to become “the queen of regrets.” From an early age, Mary Tudor (1516–1558) was shamelessly used as a pawn in European politics by her father, betrothed alternately to the French then Spanish throne and fixed as Henry’s heir then disinherited with his marriage to Anne Boleyn. Eventually Mary was cast out by her beloved father for her refusal to repudiate her mother, Katherine of Aragon, and her Catholic religion, and she was put under house arrest. However, under the threat of death, she was forced to sign “Lady Mary’s Submission” acknowledging her illegitimate status and Henry as supreme head of the Church of England. Her staunchly Protestant brother Edward VI’s suspicion that Mary would “provoke great disturbances after I have left this life” came swiftly to pass after his untimely death and her rocky accession to the throne in 1553. Catholic rituals were restored, Protestants and other rebels were thrown on the pyre or imprisoned, an unpopular marriage to Philip of Spain was concluded and the country was essentially torn apart. Elizabeth I had witnessed Mary’s courage and defiance as Britain’s first “warrior queen,” and surely marveled at her intelligence, education and ability to run government affairs. Yet Elizabeth prudently forged another way, cautious in all things, keen to popular sentiment, wary of the foreign entanglements that had ensnared her sister and, above all, eschewing marriage to a husband whose power could undermine her own. Whitelock provides a lively, well-structured treatment of this major figure of British history.
Apparently books about British royalty never go out of style, even for American readers, and this is a decent addition to the genre.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6609-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
SEEN & HEARD
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