For diehard fans only.
Charming but insubstantial memoir from the most prolific James Bond.
Moore, who stewarded the Bond franchise through its arguably most frivolous series of films, recounts his life in a similarly breezy manner, with a relentless chirpiness that eventually begins to lull the reader into a pleasant stupor. Moore dutifully catalogs his cozy early childhood, wartime deprivations, early career, etc., in an agreeably light, jokey tone, reveling in a scatological sense of humor and displaying a talent for the well-turned anecdote. This same jocular, weightless approach extends to the author’s reminiscences of failed marriages, serious illnesses and other major life events. Moore takes us through the production of The Saint and The Persuaders (with some choice stories about eccentric, pot-smoking co-star Tony Curtis), which set the stage for his signature role as James Bond. There are plenty of behind-the-scenes tidbits about the making of his Bond films, mostly on the order of stunt snafus and pranks. Moore shows little willingness to gossip about his co-stars—though he includes a poignant curio about Hervé Villechaize’s whoring in Hong Kong—and no inclination to analyze the character of Bond, noting only that his take on the character was “lighter” than predecessor Sean Connery’s. No kidding. Moore seems oddly oblivious to any notions of artistic quality, fondly recalling his work in such universally reviled films as The Cannonball Run and Boat Trip without irony, and evinces little interest in the craft of acting beyond having a nice time with fun people and cashing a big check. Fair enough, as he reserves his passion for UNICEF, which despite being noble makes for very dull reading.
For diehard fans only.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-167388-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Collins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2008
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
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
