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
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
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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