Not a great book but great fun for soccer fans.
One of soccer’s greatest—and most controversial—all-time players reflects on his life and career.
Short and stocky, fast and aggressive, and supremely confident, Maradona (b. 1961) helped carry Argentina to victory in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, where he earned perhaps his most memorable nickname, “Barrilete cósmico” (“Cosmic Kite”), after scoring the “Goal of the Century” against England in the quarterfinal match (they beat West Germany in the championship). That victory is the ostensible subject of this book, but it is much more. Imagine Robert Evans’ The Kid Stays in the Picture (1994), but the backdrop is the world of soccer rather than Hollywood. Does Maradona settle scores? You bet! Does he call out soccer officials in Argentina and in the sport’s global governing body, FIFA? Absolutely! Do even his compliments come with backhands? Of course. Maradona has clearly never forgotten a slight, and he gets the last word on seemingly every argument in which he fears someone may have spoken last. He pulls no punches, and while there is no doubt that Maradona is an enormous fan of Maradona, he does not always elude his own rapier. The result is a rollicking book festooned with vicious critiques and frontal attacks. Many readers will appreciate a soccer memoir that throws elbows rather than blowing kisses—and while it is “written” by Maradona, it has all of the characteristics of an “as-told-to” account, courtesy of Argentine soccer journalist Arcucci. Maradona presupposes a solid knowledge of soccer—players and coaches and other figures from three decades ago and more enter with nary an introduction—and one has to buy into his view of the world. But there is plenty of guilty pleasure to be had from all the name-calling and vitriol from arguably the sometimes-petulant but always entertaining footballer.
Not a great book but great fun for soccer fans.Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-14-312976-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
