Though some consider Blair chilly and staunchly belligerent, her memoir indicates that there’s a soft center there somewhere.
The wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair shares her personal and political life in a talkative, entertaining memoir.
Born Cherie Booth to two young British actors, the author’s childhood was somewhat idyllic until her father abandoned the family to cultivate another relationship. Blair offers a breezy take on her youth and upbringing, thus priming readers for the juicy bounty of her adult years with husband Tony and the varied controversies she would spend years buffering. Developing a bright, headstrong personality early on, Blair pursued a law career—though the bar, at that time, was “overwhelmingly masculine”—and blossomed while a pupil barrister in the late ’70s. It was during those lean academic years that she met Tony, a handsome law student with blue eyes that “seemed to see right through me.” A heady romance led to marriage four years later and, eventually, four children. The author hardly minces words when it comes to their relationship: She admits to heavy petting on a double-decker bus and describes her youngest son Leo’s birth in excessive detail. As Blair juggled motherhood and a barrister’s career, her husband’s increasing political involvement in the Labour Party spawned a triumphant campaign for prime minister. During their inaugural term, the Blairs met the Clintons in the first of many pleasurable evenings together (though the Monica Lewinsky scandal put a damper on things), and she cites a pleasurable visit to the Bush ranch years later. The author’s blatant disdain for the news media embarrassingly capped the end of her husband’s last term after she took a final jab at relentless media hounds perpetually perched on their Downing Street doorstep. Throughout the book, Blair’s plucky forthrightness shines through.
Though some consider Blair chilly and staunchly belligerent, her memoir indicates that there’s a soft center there somewhere.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-316-03145-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
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
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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