A thoughtful portrait of a complex world leader.
An in-depth portrait of a woman of contradictions.
An emeritus law professor and member of the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies, Lahav takes a feminist perspective in her examination of Golda Meir (1898-1978), the former prime minister of Israel, seeking to show how “she balanced her womanhood with her political ambitions.” Born in Kiev, Golda (as she preferred to be called) was the second daughter in a traditional patriarchal family; she was expected to marry and become a homemaker. The family moved to America in 1906, settling in Milwaukee, where Golda became increasingly oppressed by her parents’ strictures. When she was 14, she took off for Denver, joining her older sister. There, she became attracted to the nascent Zionist party and began her career as a Zionist-socialist activist. By 1921, she had married and moved with her husband to Palestine, where her “energetic talents” were prized. The marriage, though, suffered, even after the couple had two children. Golda and her husband separated, and she relegated her child care to nannies so she could devote herself to politics. Despite misogyny both within Israel and abroad, Golda rose to prominence. Although she was not named to the nation’s first cabinet in 1948, a slight that angered her, she soon gained central roles: as minister of labor and social security in 1949, minister of foreign affairs in 1956, and Israel’s first female prime minister in 1969. Lahav tries to understand Golda’s lack of interest in feminism, her refusal to “challenge the othering of women,” and her vehement criticism of the women’s liberation movement by speculating about what Golda “might have” felt and by posing salient questions. Famously called “the ablest man in the cabinet” by her mentor, David Ben-Gurion, she was deeply aware that she navigated a man’s world, but as Lahav shows, she felt no responsibility to break the glass ceiling for other women. Her interest was solely in the survival of Israel.
A thoughtful portrait of a complex world leader.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-691-20174-0
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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