A palatable, lively rendition of the British imperial blues.
A succinct romp through the perennially popular gyrations of British royalty.
There is no end to American fascination with British royalty, and no facet of this entertainment that Washington Post contributor Farquhar (A Treasury of Royal Scandals; A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten American, etc.) will not ply. In fact, this snappy chronicle of English kings, queens and knaves proves a terrifically accessible history of English dynastic dysfunction, told in brief chapters, including genealogical charts gracing the beginning of each “house.” With the focus on the curious personalities themselves—and there are plenty, from monstrous Henry VIII to her limpid steadiness, Good Queen Bess—hilarity and pathos abound. Despite the surpassing familiarity of many of these tales, they become irresistible and even moving in Farquhar’s able hands. Among others, the author looks at the boy king, Edward VI, who inherited Henry’s throne at age 9 and proved, in his brief life, a surprisingly forceful leader, navigating the machinations of his two scheming uncles and throwing his two older sisters off from the right of succession; Charles I, who was beheaded, his remains sold as “ghoulish souvenirs” to the crowd; and the extravagantly licentious Charles II, along with his memorable mistresses Barbara Villiers Palmer and Nell Gwyn. There are a few moments of fresh splendor, such as the quixotic story of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the young Stuart grandson of James II and pretender to the English throne; the loathsome marital relations between George IV, “a selfish, overindulged libertine,” and his second wife (and cousin) Caroline of Brunswick; and the touching affection young Victoria expressed for her beloved husband, Albert (“my heart is quite going”).
A palatable, lively rendition of the British imperial blues.Pub Date: March 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7904-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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