A shrewd and sympathetic portrait of a fascinating, complex “modern” woman.
A modern reconsideration of the notorious life and career of the early-19th-century Anglo-Irish aristocrat and novelist.
Lady Caroline Lamb (1785-1828) has been the subject of countless works of literature and film adaptations, her place in history both illuminated and sullied by her affair with Lord Byron. Fraser, the celebrated biographer and novelist, delivers a lean yet spirited account, offering further nuance to Lamb’s story within the thorny aristocratic society she inhabited. Narrated with dramatic verve and wit, this is ripe material for a potential TV series. Early on, Fraser establishes Lamb’s restless nature and eccentricities as well as her strengths. At an early age, she enjoyed a great deal of freedom, and she was exceptionally creative, well read, and multilingual. She was also remarkably caring toward those less fortunate and forward-thinking regarding women’s rights, occasionally disguising herself as a pageboy to gain entrance into male establishments. Because Lamb was prone to emotional outbreaks, Fraser conjectures that she perhaps was bipolar. At 19, she fell in love with and married William Lamb, an up-and-coming politician (he later became Lord Melbourne and prime minister). Within a few years of their marriage, Caroline got entangled in a brief yet passionate love affair with Lord Byron that would consume much of her future existence. In scrutinizing the scandalous nature of Lamb’s behavior, Fraser asserts how criticism reflected less on her extramarital activity, conduct that ran rampant among this society, than on her uninhibited publicizing of the affair, spotlighted in her anonymously published novel Glenarvon, a Gothic romance with thinly veiled portraits of Byron and herself. “It was the obvious connection with Lord Byron, calling attention to Caroline’s famous romance, which outraged the grand Whig ladies, themselves involved in endless extramarital affairs, to say nothing of mothering children by their lovers,” writes Fraser. “She refused to abide by the Whig code of maximum discretion—and maximum dissipation.”
A shrewd and sympathetic portrait of a fascinating, complex “modern” woman.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9781639364053
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.
A future basketball Hall of Famer’s rosy outlook.
Curry is that rare athlete who looks like he gets joy from what he does. There’s no doubt that the Golden State Warriors point guard is a competitor—he’s led his team to four championships—but he plays the game with nonchalance and exuberance. That ease, he says, “only comes from discipline.” He practices hard enough—he’s altered the sport by mastering the three-point shot—so that he achieves a “kind of freedom.” In that “flow state,” he says, “I can let joy and creativity take over. I block out all distractions, even the person guarding me. He can wave his arms and call me every name in the book, but I just smile and wait as the solution to the problem—how to get the ball into the basket—presents itself.” Curry shares this approach to his craft in a stylish collection that mixes life lessons with sharp photographs and archival images. His dad, Dell, played in the NBA for 16 years, and Curry learned much from his father and mother: “My parents were extremely strict about me and my little brother Seth not going to my pops’s games on school nights.” Curry’s mother, Sonya, who founded the Montessori elementary school that Curry attended in North Carolina, emphasized the importance not just of learning but of playing. Her influence helped Curry and his wife, Ayesha, create a nonprofit foundation: Eat. Learn. Play. He writes that “making reading fun is the key to unlocking a kid’s ability to be successful in their academic journeys.” The book also has valuable pointers for ballers—and those hoping to hit the court. “Plant those arches—knees bent behind those 10 toes pointing at the hoop, hips squared with your shoulders—and draw your power up so you explode off the ground and rise into your shot.” Sounds easy, right?
“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780593597293
Page Count: 432
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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