Juicy royal history that may or may not be true. Either way, the story of Thomas’ comeuppance and Elizabeth’s reaction makes...
Tudor historian Norton (The Tudor Miscellany, 2014, etc.) looks at Henry VIII’s daughter and widow, but the real story here is Thomas Seymour.
Thomas was the brother of Henry’s third wife, Jane. As uncle to the king, he felt he should have a much more important place, both in the Parliament and in the young king’s care. Machinations were the key to just about everything during the reign of the Tudors; spying, plotting, and backstabbing were the norm. Thomas, who had wooed Catherine Parr before she married Henry, quickly picked up their romance when she was widowed; in fact, they were married just over a month after the king’s death. Thomas hoped his marriage might give him more authority as he sought the governance of the young king, his wife’s stepson. His brother Edward gained increasing amounts of power and made him Lord High Admiral as a concession. Before Parr, he had sued for the hands of both Elizabeth and Mary Tudor, both in the line of succession. Elizabeth’s closest attendant, Katherine Ashley, inexplicably decided that the teenager no longer needed a protective woman sleeping near her bed. That left Elizabeth exposed to Thomas’ morning ritual of entering half-dressed and playing a little “slap and tickle” with the future queen. Whether Elizabeth enjoyed it or whether Catherine might even have cooperated in the game are left to the imagination. “When she was a teenager,” writes the author, “there was one man who had caught her fancy enough to tempt her to abandon herself to him. The Virgin Queen was born out of the ashes of his fall.” Regardless, Catherine, six months pregnant, caught the couple in an embrace and sent Elizabeth packing. The author tells of rumors of Elizabeth’s “illness” that summer, hinting at pregnancy.
Juicy royal history that may or may not be true. Either way, the story of Thomas’ comeuppance and Elizabeth’s reaction makes for a quick, enjoyable read.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-60598-948-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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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