A witty, colorful portrait of Camilla as human that should offer food for thought for Anglophiles and those seeking an...
The first full-length biography of one of Britain’s more reviled public figures.
In this richly detailed look at Camilla Parker Bowles (b. 1947), prolific royal family chronicler Junor (Prince Harry: Brother, Soldier, Son, 2014, etc.) adds to her growing library of portraits of members of the household of the Prince of Wales. For many readers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, the Duchess of Cornwall is a woman with a past in need of redemption. Cast widely in the press as the dissembling “other woman” responsible for the dissolution of Charles’ marriage to the hugely popular Diana Spencer, Camilla is portrayed here as the opposite: a playful, self-effacing pillar of strength and kindness who is “unwavering in her support” of her husband and family. The author tips her hat to her subject early on, writing, “when history comes to judge her, Camilla will not be seen as the woman who nearly brought down the House of Windsor” but rather “recognised as the woman who shored it up.” Admitting that Camilla “will never be universally loved because of the early scandal,” Junor makes the compelling case that she “came into Charles’s broken marriage and gave him something to live for when he was in despair.” Mercifully, though, much of the author’s portrait attends to Camilla in her own right. Junor shows how Camilla’s upper-class upbringing and identification with her war-hero father formed her character and aspirations, influenced her pursuit of and first marriage to the philandering Andrew Parker Bowles, and affected her actions now as a “thoroughly grounded,” philanthropic, devoted mother and grandmother who just happened to fall in love with the heir apparent to the British throne.
A witty, colorful portrait of Camilla as human that should offer food for thought for Anglophiles and those seeking an antidote to her toxic reputation.Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-247110-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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