It is also, however, so unrelentingly negative about Blair, Booth, and many of their cohorts as to become exhausting and...
Two British journalists collaborate on an exposé of Labour Party Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie Booth—without the cooperation of either subject.
Beckett (biographer of Clement Attlee and Aneurin Bevan) teams with Guardian investigative journalist Hencke in an attempt to demonstrate that Blair and Booth are poseurs and liars who have used their political power wisely from time to time but should not be trusted by any voter anywhere in the UK. An in-depth biography of a sitting prime minister is by definition timely; the timeliness is only enhanced by the alliance that has developed between Blair and US President George W. Bush. Both men proclaim themselves devout Christians who are guided by their religious faith. Although something of a rebel through his university years, Blair, born in 1953, began to kowtow to Labour Party kingmakers, big-business political donors, and celebrities during his unlikely rise to the prime ministership, which he achieved in 1997. Engaged to Booth in 1977 and married to her in 1980, Blair relied on her wiliness and savvy in many of the ways that Bill Clinton relied on wife Hillary; it is probably no coincidence that Blair and Booth, Bill and Hillary, are all lawyers. Especially fascinating to celebrity worshippers among American readers will be the chapters on the relationship of Blair and Booth with Princess Diana before her death. Blair’s popularity during his first year as prime minister shot up astronomically, simply because he seemed sympathetic to Diana and her loved ones after the fatal accident, at least when contrasted with the iciness of her former husband, Prince Charles, and the remainder of the Royal family. Although the authors reveal little new about how Blair came to back Bush’s invasion of Iraq after Sept. 11, 2001, the account is filled with compelling details and told with verve.
It is also, however, so unrelentingly negative about Blair, Booth, and many of their cohorts as to become exhausting and exhaustive.Pub Date: March 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-84513-024-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Aurum/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2005
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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