An authoritative and sympathetic collective biography.
Renaissance scholar Quilligan closely examines the relationships among four 16th-century rulers—Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and Catherine de’ Medici—seeking to revise the “misogynist narrative” that placed them in “jealous and warlike opposition” to one another. With meticulous attention to the letters and gifts they exchanged, Quilligan argues that the women nurtured a culture of mutual respect based on their family ties and sense of their “shared nature of power.” Their lives were inextricably intertwined: Mary Tudor and Elizabeth were half sisters and religious antagonists; Mary Stuart was their cousin once removed; Catherine, though not a queen, was Mary Stuart’s mother-in-law and “ruled as mother of three different kings.” Considering Elizabeth’s relationship with Mary Stuart, Quilligan asserts that the Protestant and Catholic queens evinced “an essentially similar, tolerant Christianity”—unlike Catholic Mary Tudor, who, during the first three years of her reign, “burned heretics alive, many of them common people but some of them Anglican bishops and archbishops.” Elizabeth accepted Mary Stuart’s request to be godmother to her son James and sent a solid gold baptismal font upon the boy’s birth, symbolizing the queens’ mutual desire for “unity and toleration.” Still, Mary soon melted it down to fund her troops. Other gifts among the women included gems, silver, fine embroidery, books, and tapestries; as Quilligan notes, many of Elizabeth’s 800 pieces of jewelry were gifts from women, not necessarily family. Elizabeth and her cousin never met, even when Mary Stuart, perceived by Elizabeth’s courtiers as a threat, lived for more than 18 years under house arrest in England. When Mary Stuart was beheaded in 1587, Elizabeth, furious, claimed the execution was a “miserable accident” about which she had known nothing. At times, it is difficult to separate the rulers’ political exigency from their familial loyalty, but the book is a useful addition to the literature on European royalty.
An authoritative and sympathetic collective biography.Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63149-796-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
For fans only.
The hoodie-and-shorts-clad Pennsylvania senator blends the political and personal, and often not nicely.
Fetterman’s memoir addresses three major themes. The first—and the one he leads with—is depression and mental illness, which, combined with a stroke and heart trouble, brought him to a standstill and led him to contemplate suicide. The second is his rise to national-level politics from a Rust Belt town; as he writes, he’s carved a path as a contentious player with a populist streak and a dislike for elites. There are affecting moments in his personal reminiscences, especially when he writes of the lives of his working-class neighbors in impoverished southwestern Pennsylvania, its once-prosperous Monongahela River Valley “the most heartbreaking drive in the United States.” It’s the third element that’s problematic, and that’s his in-the-trenches account of daily politics. One frequent complaint is the media, as when he writes of one incident, “I am not the first public figure to get fucked by a reporter, and I won’t be the last. What was eye-opening was the window it gave into how people with disabilities navigate a world that doesn’t give a shit.” He reserves special disdain for his Senate race opponent Mehmet Oz, about whom he wonders, “If I had run against any other candidate…would I have lost? He got beaten by a guy recovering from a stroke.” Perhaps so, and Democratic stalwarts will likely be dismayed at his apparent warmish feelings for Donald Trump and dislike of his own party’s “performative protests.” If Fetterman’s book convinces a troubled soul to seek help, it will have done some good, but it’s hard to imagine that it will make much of an impression in the self-help literature. One wonders, meanwhile, at sentiments such as this: “If men are forced to choose between picking their party or keeping their balls, most men are going to choose their balls.”
For fans only.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593799826
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
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