Parker's previous book about royalty, on the Duke of Windsor (King of Fools, 1989), was a gossipy quick read, but Prince Philip makes for a tamer subject with less egregiously dirty laundry. Born in Greece in 1921 to German/Danish royalty, Philip was raised largely by relatives, including his mother's brother, Lord Mountbatten, who urged him to enroll in the Royal Naval College- -where he first met then-Princess Elizabeth. Although the relationship that would develop over many years was said to be ``true love,'' during his wife's first pregnancy the Prince caused a minor scandal by frequenting men's clubs and nightclubs. When Elizabeth became queen, Philip spent much time traversing the globe; he was shooting crocodile and touring Antarctica, for instance, while Britain was facing the Suez Canal crisis. When a friend resigned a palace post under reports of adultery, the tabloid buzz was that Philip and Elizabeth's marriage was also in trouble—but together they remain. So what's here of the promised secret life? Not much. Parker (Five for Hollywood, 1991) reports affairs and a possible illegitimate child, but he depends heavily on printed sources, offers little flavor of the prince's alleged naughty leanings, and pads his account with tedious filler (endless genealogy, long discussions of Philip's charitable works). Of interest to the royalty-obsessed only. (Sixteen pages of photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Oct. 21, 1991
ISBN: 0-312-06444-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1991
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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