LADY CATHERINE, THE EARL, AND THE REAL DOWNTON ABBEY

Name: LADY CATHERINE, THE EARL, AND THE REAL DOWNTON ABBEY
Author: Countess of Carnarvon
ISBN: 978-0-385-34496-8

by Countess of Carnarvon ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 29, 2013

Gossipy and fun, with a good history lesson—sure to delight Downton Abbey fans.

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A second sprightly memoir by a real English countess (after her Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey) delineates her forebear’s heyday from the Roaring ’20s.

The name Lord Carnarvon will be familiar to American readers as the discoverer, along with Howard Carter, of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. Carnarvon’s real-life English home, Highclere Castle, became the filming location of the present-day PBS series Downton Abbey, and his class’ shenanigans the inspiration for many characters. Carnarvon died shortly after his amazing discovery (“the curse of Tutankhamun”), leaving his 20-something son to inherit the title of Earl of Carnarvon and all the trappings (and debts) of Highclere. In this book, the author takes up the saga of the new earl, Lord Porchester, “Porchey,” a high-living sportive type, and his new bride, Catherine Wendell, a vivacious, American-born young woman who had been brought up in England after her father’s death when she was 12. Enormously wealthy and well-connected, the couple had two children during the 1920s yet grew alienated as a result of Porchey’s womanizing and divorced in 1936, just as another aristocratic scandal, involving the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson, erupted. Porchey never had much luck finding a suitable replacement for Lady Carnarvon, while Catherine remarried happily yet lost her second husband when he was killed during the war. The author, the present Countess of Carnarvon, digs into the archives with relish for a lively sense of how the glamorous old houses were run, both upstairs and downstairs. Although her tone is rather gushing, her familiarity with this romantic era between the wars lends a winning accessibility for all readers.

Gossipy and fun, with a good history lesson—sure to delight Downton Abbey fans.

Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2013

ISBN: 978-0-385-34496-8

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Broadway

Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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BLACK BOY

A RECORD OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

by Richard Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1945

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This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.

It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.

Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.