A book of humane scope that reveals an intriguing political history and a life of compassion.
A London journalist presents a biography of one of the world’s enigmatic female leaders.
Beginning with the 1991 assassination of Sonia’s husband, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Singh traces back to Sonia’s girlhood, her English education and her eventual marriage, emphasizing the charged atmosphere in mother-in-law Indira Gandhi’s household. The author then discusses the death of Rajiv’s brother, Sanjay, and Indira’s assassination by her own bodyguards, circling back to Rajiv’s term in office, his death and beyond. Singh portrays Sonia not as a strategist aiming for power, nor as a widow pushed onto the stage by tragedy, but as a family-oriented woman inspired by her adopted country. She did not accept the position of president until several years afterward; how reluctance transformed into the will to preserve a legacy comprises much of the second half of the book. Though Singh provides few quotes from Sonia herself, readers will glimpse how she earned the trust of her constituency through decades of personal involvement and with the Nehru tradition of honoring public meetings, all while preserving her own privacy. The author occasionally dwells on darker moments, but Sonia does not appear to rely on sympathy. Readers initially intrigued by the famous namesake (unrelated to Mahatma), by India’s violent, sometimes sectarian past and by the Nehru descendants—often likened to the Kennedys—will find that the author assembles a story of mostly balanced perspective. Readers unfamiliar with Sonia’s life will also discover a woman of surprisingly level-headed strength.
A book of humane scope that reveals an intriguing political history and a life of compassion.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-230-10441-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2011
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
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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