A charming, unassuming account by Winston Churchill’s granddaughter of the adventures that made him famous during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899—1902. Churchill was just 25 at the outbreak of the war between Britain and the Boer Republics, but he had already published well-regarded books on wars in India and the Sudan. His combination of service in the army and in the press had not made him the favorite of the brass hats; still, he was one of the best-paid reporters covering the war (though not, as Sandys claims, —the highest-paid war correspondent of the day—). In her trip around South Africa, Sandys followed the route taken by her grandfather, spoke to the descendants of many of those who played a role in the events, and found material that had lain unnoticed. Churchill was captured by the Boers while helping (in cheerful disregard of his noncombatant status) free an armored train from an ambush. Although it was conduct that, as Sandys shows from contemporary accounts, would have earned him a Victoria Cross if he’d been anything but a war correspondent, it landed him in a prisoner-of-war camp in Pretoria. His escape 25 days later raised many an eyebrow. It has often been alleged that he took advantage of the plan of two other prisoners to make his escape, yet Sandys is persuasive in demolishing this canard. Churchill’s risky and exciting trip through enemy territory down to the coast 300 miles away and his arrival in Durban just after the British had suffered three defeats in battle launched his career in Parliament. Even the military establishment gave grudging approval. —I must say I admire him greatly,— said Commander-in-Chief Sir Redvers Buller. —I wish he was leading irregular troops instead of writing for a rotten paper.— A pleasant and undemanding excursion into the experiences of the young Churchill in a more chivalrous time. (24 pages b&w photos, 6 maps)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7867-0704-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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