A warmly sympathetic, authoritative biography of a true public servant.
The life of a dedicated public figure in the often dismal world of economics.
Veteran journalist and news editor Ullmann draws on 150 interviews with Yellen; her husband, economist and Nobel laureate George Akerlof; their son, economics professor Robert Akerlof; and Yellen’s many friends and colleagues to create an admiring portrait of a woman that he—and many others—compares to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Born in 1946, Yellen is the daughter of a physician whose caring and generosity made a lasting impact on her. “Thinking about the plight of the unemployed, their pain, their economic insecurity, and how they must feel,” Ullmann writes, “has been part of Yellen’s makeup since her father treated so many down-on-their-luck patients.” As the author demonstrates throughout, empathy informs her thinking about issues such as interest rates, banking regulations, unemployment, inequality, and gender bias. In a field dominated by men, Yellen encountered sexism most overtly in her six years teaching at Harvard. After graduate school at Yale, mentored by the like-minded James Tobin, Yellen found Harvard cold and hostile. She left happily in 1977 for a position as staff economist in the international division of the Federal Reserve. After marrying Akerlof the following year, the couple taught at the London School of Economics and then at Berkeley. Yellen was praised for being a clear, accessible professor, and her 23-year career in academia ended when President Bill Clinton appointed her to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in 1994 and as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors in 1997. Although bristling at the “old boys’ environment” of the Clinton White House, Yellen stood out as earnest, dedicated, unassuming, honest, and frank. All of these qualities served her when she succeeded Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve Chair and, most lately, as the first female secretary of the treasury. Ullmann explains clearly the economic crises, decisions, and controversies that have marked Yellen’s storied career.
A warmly sympathetic, authoritative biography of a true public servant.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5417-0102-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
A rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.
In this debut memoir, Bahamian millionaire Bastian offers insight into building a business.
The author was a millionaire by the time he was 19, an impressive feat considering he began his working life filling stockpots and rolling napkins in his father’s Nassau restaurant, a locals’ hole-in-the-wall far from the city’s tourist hotels. “In many ways, I started ten steps behind the starting line in a world where opportunities felt few and far between,” writes Bastian in his introduction. A poor student with a gambler’s risk tolerance and a salesman’s eye for an unserved market, the author dropped out of college to launch his own satellite installation business—the first of its kind in the Bahamas—eventually expanding into prepaid phones and other electronics. With this book, Bastian uses his personal experiences to illustrate the steps aspiring entrepreneurs should consider when building their own empires. “My goal isn’t just to tell my story,” he explains; “it’s to provide you with a starting point, a strategy, and the encouragement you need to take your first step toward something bigger.” The book alternates between memoiristic chapters describing the author’s youth and career and instructional chapters outlining the best practices to “become a lion” (his preferred metaphor for a brave, risk-taking captain of industry). From evaluating one’s skill set and choosing a suitable goal to the practicalities of regulation and taxes, Bastian walks the reader through the complicated processes of starting and maintaining a successful enterprise. While much of the advice is of the boilerplate variety, the author offers it with clarity and candor, devoting an entire chapter, for example, on how to fail productively. It is the biographical material that lends his advice unusual weight—Bastian’s stories of flying back and forth between the Bahamas and Miami to personally import satellite dishes are fascinating enough to stand on their own. Readers may be unable to replicate his success, but there is no denying that his tale is inspiring.
A rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9798891882485
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Advantage Media Group
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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