An evenhandedly written and aptly timed glimpse of the man behind the mogul.
A straightforward biography of the billionaire Republican presidential hopeful.
Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist D’Antonio (Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal, 2013) scrutinizes the life of Donald Trump in a portrait that’s consistently even-keeled and neither applauds nor particularly vilifies the billionaire businessman. Drawing heavily on a sizable archive of previously published media (as well as 10 hours with the man himself), the author paints Trump in much the same light as his public persona allows: he is an egotistical, self-absorbed, successful business tycoon and undoubtedly the “most recognized businessperson of our time.” The author writes of Trump’s “relentless pursuit of profit,” which began as he came of age in 1970s-era Manhattan after assuming control of his father Fred’s real estate development firm. Time spent at a military academy also molded his temperament and workhorse discipline. Appeasing his indulgences for sex with scores of beautiful women and garnering a reputation for being a ruthless property owner, Trump as always demonstrated a narcissistic braggadocio and hubris, which permeates much of this biography. He’s shrewd and he knows it, and he even takes full credit for the rejuvenation of midtown Manhattan in the late 1970s. Commentary from his ex-wives, son Donald Jr., and a slew of business associates all further confirm The Donald’s lofty hierarchal status as a prolific author, reality TV star, and surprisingly popular political candidate. The past catches up with the present in the book’s final chapter, which offers more refreshing personal perspectives. Even though Trump excommunicated D’Antonio early on for entertaining the opinions of detractors, the author still manages to produce careful, solid spadework in presenting Trump’s life and entrepreneurial legacy through the achievements, failures, and self-promotional salesmanship that continue to captivate media outlets today.
An evenhandedly written and aptly timed glimpse of the man behind the mogul.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-1250042385
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2015
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
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