Hard to follow at times but also a reliable and amply researched guide for Tudor enthusiasts.
The most dysfunctional family in English history gets its due.
After two books focusing on major chapters from the history of the Tudors (The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Tragedy, 2009, etc.), de Lisle aims to tell the story from the beginning in this comprehensive but often complicated volume. Beginning with the 1437 marriage of Henry V’s widow, Catherine, to a lowly chamber servant named Owen Tudor, it becomes the story of a family dominated by both the lust for power and a battle for the soul of England. The players range from the manipulative Margaret Beaufort to her cruel (and guilt-wracked) son Henry VII to his ruthless (and guilt-free) son Henry VIII, whose yearning for a male successor involved six wives and sparked an endless rift between Catholics and Protestants. It’s a fascinating, violent, morally complex story not only about the way power corrupts, but how it makes rulers both vulnerable and paranoid. It’s also an extremely eventful slice of history, and de Lisle occasionally gets winded trying to wrestle the narrative, and its ever-expanding cast of characters, into a manageable shape. Major characters arrive and suddenly die with barely a send-off as we rush to the next battle or coronation; facts pile up without always getting properly processed. De Lisle doesn’t stint on the drama, however, whether it’s Mary, Queen of Scots getting hacked to pieces or Elizabeth I eloquently bracing her troops for war with Spain. She also capably separates fact from myth, pursues still-unsolved royal mysteries, and provides perspective about the kind of pre-Enlightenment mindset in which you could be boiled, burned, beheaded or hanged for believing in transubstantiation.
Hard to follow at times but also a reliable and amply researched guide for Tudor enthusiasts.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61039-363-8
Page Count: 560
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
At this rate, Tyson may write a multivolume memoir as he continues to struggle and survive.
An exhaustive—and exhausting—chronicle of the champ's boxing career and disastrous life.
Tyson was dealt an unforgiving hand as a child, raised in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn in a "horrific, tough and gruesome" environment populated by "loud, aggressive" people who "smelled like raw sewage.” A first-grade dropout with several break-ins under his belt by age 7, his formal education resumed when he was placed in juvenile detention at age 11, but the lesson he learned at home was to do absolutely anything to survive. Two years later, his career path was set when he met legendary boxing trainer Cus D'Amato. However, Tyson’s temperament never changed; if anything, it hardened when he took on the persona of Iron Mike, a merciless and savage fighter who became undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. By his own admission, he was an "arrogant sociopath" in and out of the ring, and he never reconciled his thuggish childhood with his adult self—nor did he try. He still partied with pimps, drug addicts and hustlers, and he was determined to feed all of his vices and fuel several drug addictions at the cost of his freedom (he recounts his well-documented incarcerations), sanity and children. Yet throughout this time, he remained a voracious reader, and he compares himself to Clovis and Charlemagne and references Camus, Sartre, Mao Zedong and Nietzsche's "Overman" in casual conversation. Tyson is a slumdog philosopher whose insatiable appetites have ruined his life many times over. He remains self-loathing and pitiable, and his tone throughout the book is sardonic, exasperated and indignant, his language consistently crude. The book, co-authored by Sloman (co-author: Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss, 2012, etc.), reads like his journal; he updated it after reading the galleys and added "A Postscript to the Epilogue" as well.
At this rate, Tyson may write a multivolume memoir as he continues to struggle and survive.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-399-16128-5
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
Rhimes said “yes” to sharing her insights. Following her may not land you on the cover of a magazine, but you’ll be glad you...
The queen of Thursday night TV delivers a sincere and inspiring account of saying yes to life.
Rhimes, the brain behind hits like Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, is an introvert. She describes herself as a young girl, playing alone in the pantry, making up soap-opera script stories to act out with the canned goods. Speaking in public terrified her; going to events exhausted her. She was always busy, and she didn’t have enough time for her daughters. One Thanksgiving changed it all: when her sister observed that she never said “yes” to anything, Rhimes took it as a challenge. She started, among other things, accepting invitations, facing unpleasant conversations, and playing with her children whenever they asked. The result was a year of challenges and self-discovery that led to a fundamental shift in how she lives her life. Rhimes tells us all about it in the speedy, smart style of her much-loved TV shows. She’s warm, eminently relatable, and funny. We get an idea of what it’s like to be a successful TV writer and producer, to be the ruler of Shondaland, but the focus is squarely on the lessons one can learn from saying yes rather than shying away. Saying no was easy, Rhimes writes. It was comfortable, “a way to disappear.” But after her year, no matter how tempting it is, “I can no longer allow myself to say no. No is no longer in my vocabulary.” The book is a fast read—readers could finish it in the time it takes to watch a full lineup of her Thursday night programing—but it’s not insubstantial. Like a cashmere shawl you pack just in case, Year of Yes is well worth the purse space, and it would make an equally great gift.
Rhimes said “yes” to sharing her insights. Following her may not land you on the cover of a magazine, but you’ll be glad you did.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4767-7709-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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