Though far from comprehensive, Mayer’s intriguing snapshot of Prince Charles reveals the often overlooked intricacies of his...
A brief biography of Britain’s famous king-in-waiting, Prince Charles.
The Prince of Wales has been a mainstay of international media for nearly his entire life. Between his tumultuous marriage to Princess Diana, which tragically culminated in a 1997 fatal car crash, and the nasty rumors that Charles is anxiously awaiting his mother’s death to ascend the throne, there has been no shortage of ink spilled over the prince. Yet despite his presence as a public figure, Charles has maintained a remarkably guarded life. Though he makes hundreds of appearances each year, from hosting world leaders to visiting local businesses across Britain, as a person, he is difficult to define. Longtime Time journalist Mayer has profiled dignitaries of all stripes, and here she sets out to dispel the prejudices dogging not only Charles, but also the institution of monarchy. Bad press and mismanagement have long plagued the Windsors, and politicians have routinely questioned the political and financial legitimacy of the royal family. Yet Prince Charles remains the family’s most active and public representative—for better or worse. Bucking the conventional linear narrative of traditional biographies, Mayer focuses her study of Charles on aspects of his character. Chief among them is his dedication to philanthropy and cultural initiatives. Charles was notably one of the first proponents of sustainable agriculture, environmental activism, and conservation in Britain, famously mentioning that he liked to walk through his garden and talk to his plants. He even founded one of the country’s first organic brands and published a manifesto called Harmony. Mayer also dives into the juicy bits such as family history and his marriage to Diana. Ultimately, she captures the contradiction between Charles’ traditional wisdom and progressive causes and illuminates a man perpetually caught in between the rule of royalty and his need to express himself as an individual.
Though far from comprehensive, Mayer’s intriguing snapshot of Prince Charles reveals the often overlooked intricacies of his personality.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-438-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
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
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
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