A light and likable commentary on politics and the media.
The popular CNN talk-show host offers an informal memoir of the Clinton years.
King (Future Talk: Conversations about Tomorrow with Today’s Most Provocative Personalities, 1998) submits that the past eight years have been for him a continuous surprise party. He employs a self-deprecating tone, referring to himself as just “a Jew from Brooklyn” whose political instincts and predictions have proven as unreliable as anyone else’s during these bizarre times when anything goes. “Being wrong about Bill Clinton,” he acknowledges, “was becoming a second career for me.” Beginning with then–Gov. Clinton’s interminable nomination speech for Dukakis at the 1988 Democratic convention, King moves with a growing bemusement and occasional indignation through the events and personalities that have defined the decade. From Ross Perot to NAFTA to Whitewater (King says he still has some actual dirt from the failed development, an on-air gift from James McDougal) to O.J., Paula Jones, Brando, Rush, Monica, Starr, Newt, impeachment, McCain, Columbine, and Elian—on all of these (and other matters) King weighs in, frequently with quotations from the principals who appeared on his show. Often he reveals odd and engaging details, such as the moment during the O.J. trial when Judge Ito chastised Robert Shapiro for his ringing cell phone: the call was from King, who, unaware that he was the cause of the judicial tongue-lashing, was watching the moment unfold on live TV. King declares that his show “has never been about what I think and feel; it’s about how the major players in an issue think and feel. That’s why it works.” There are a few Duh Moments (“A father will never know what a mother has to endure during childbirth”), and King’s history is shaky (he twice suggests that Thomas Jefferson, who was in France at the time, worked on the Constitution), but he nicely captures “a time when crazy ideas have a way of becoming real.”
A light and likable commentary on politics and the media.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-446-52528-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2000
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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