by Sarah Palin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2013
A stocking stuffer for Palin fans.
The former Alaska governor searches for the culprit leeching the joy out of Christian Christmas.
Palin (America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag, 2010, etc.) calls foul on the incremental disintegration of the Yuletide season by those who seek to reinvent the holiday by removing the religious element and replacing it with what she calls a “secular winter festival, which launches on Black Friday and ends sometime after Kwanzaa.” The outspoken conservative points the finger at American atheists offended by religious crosses and the presentation of Nativity scenes, the latter of which she proudly advocated for in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska. Palin’s ruffled feathers are due in large part to the corporatization of Christmas, particularly the attempts of big-box retailers to strip the holiday of its holy name and heavily religious connotations. As she dissects these injustices, Palin offers scenarios and examples in hopes that readers will make their own decisions about what to do when confronted with these same issues. The author also shares seasonal anecdotes and family photographs of her life in Alaska during the holiday season—e.g., playing Christmas morning Eskimo Bingo, “a gift-swapping game and the only time we enthusiastically encourage the kids to be greedy.” Of course, this is Palin’s turf, so these nostalgic, family-friendly memories are often accompanied by the obligatory backhanded jab, as when she describes gifting husband Todd with a powerful new firearm one year “to combat the anti-gun chatter coming from Washington.” The author tritely dismisses the media altogether and shows great dismay toward a nation increasingly rethinking its religious allegiances. At the very least, Palin is very occasionally entertaining as she displays her conservative convictions across the diminutive pages of this stylishly produced book, which concludes with a chapter of traditional family sweet and savory recipes.
A stocking stuffer for Palin fans.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-229288-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Broadside Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
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
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 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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