An evenhanded, timely biography of a boisterous politician who "personif[ies] a media-focused, celebrity-obsessed,...
A hard-boiled account of the career of Chris Christie, colorful governor and presidential aspirant, "the first bona fide American YouTube politician."
Peabody Award winner Katz knows Christie well. As a print and radio reporter, the author has covered the governor for more than five years; in this capacity, he makes frequent cameo appearances in the book, sometimes as the butt of Christie’s jokes. In this debut, Katz surveys Christie's career—from failed local politician to U.S. Attorney for New Jersey to governor with reportorial swagger and a strong measure of cynicism. As a Republican governor in an overwhelmingly blue state, Christie had to reach accommodations with the local Democratic warlords in order to get anything done; the author permits these understandings to be viewed as tough-minded practical politics or as grimy backroom deals, depending on the reader's inclinations. For much of the book, Katz seems mildly vexed to have to portray a popular Republican governor working closely with the opposition party to achieve more effective and fiscally responsible government than his state had seen in many years. He freely gives Christie his due in this regard while peppering the narrative with fair criticism and occasional lapses into innuendo and snark. Shifting chronologies sometimes make it hard to follow Katz's otherwise crisp narrative, which comes most vividly alive in his presentation of "Bridgegate," the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge in September 2013 by rogue Christie appointees to inconvenience the mayor and people of Fort Lee. Written in the present tense, the account of the events and the subsequent investigations races forward with the pulse of a gripping political thriller. Never tied directly to the scandal, Christie nevertheless suffered lasting political damage in its wake, as his unvarnished speaking style and Jersey-tough shtick began to work against him.
An evenhanded, timely biography of a boisterous politician who "personif[ies] a media-focused, celebrity-obsessed, blunt-talking U.S. of A."Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-8266-9
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Threshold Editions/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2016
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
