Next book

NO DISRESPECT

It must be hard being right all the time, but controversial rapper and black activist Sister Souljah doesn't mind, judging from her remarkably smug, occasionally uplifting memoir. Let there be no doubt, this ``young sultry, big, brown-eyed, voluptuous, wholesome, intelligent, spiritual, ghetto girl'' has opinions. She is for belief in God, hard work, self-respect, community service, political activism, a strong family structure, and black women sharing their men in the face of a huge supply-side shortage. She is against abortion, narcotics, the welfare system, interracial dating, and homosexuality. Passionate in all things, Souljah's juxtaposition of her activism and her active hormones can produce odd results. When a man she wants turns up at a committee meeting, she recounts: ``I...set to work on how to organize Black students across the country into an African student network. With moist panties and a body that wanted to be touched...I argued that most African students were confronted by the same problems.'' Souljah's political beliefs frequently become little more than sidelines to her accounts of failed romances—indignant stories of a strong, single, sexy black heroine and the brothers who let her down. The men who fail come in all varieties (from her father to her mother's lovers and her own), but Souljah concludes that their shortcomings are the result of centuries of white racist oppression—psychological, political, cultural. Ultimately, the book reveals the psyche of a young black woman who feels she has been betrayed by too many and who trusts no one. Everyone disappoints her. After eight chapters (each named for the guilty individual in question: ``Mother,'' ``Nathan,'' ``Mona,'' etc.), a predictable pattern emerges in which Souljah's initial optimism wears off and gives way first to rationalization, then to harsh condemnation. Part fiery political diatribe, part searing sexual history, part unintentional psychological profile, Souljah throws more heat than light.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-8129-2483-5

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Times/Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1994

Next book

ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN

Bernstein and Woodward, the two Washington Post journalists who broke the Big Story, tell how they did it by old fashioned seat-of-the-pants reporting — in other words, lots of intuition and a thick stack of phone numbers. They've saved a few scoops for the occasion, the biggest being the name of their early inside source, the "sacrificial lamb" H**h Sl**n. But Washingtonians who talked will be most surprised by the admission that their rumored contacts in the FBI and elsewhere never existed; many who were telephoned for "confirmation" were revealing more than they realized. The real drama, and there's plenty of it, lies in the private-eye tactics employed by Bernstein and Woodward (they refer to themselves in the third person, strictly on a last name basis). The centerpiece of their own covert operation was an unnamed high government source they call Deep Throat, with whom Woodward arranged secret meetings by positioning the potted palm on his balcony and through codes scribbled in his morning newspaper. Woodward's wee hours meetings with Deep Throat in an underground parking garage are sheer cinema: we can just see Robert Redford (it has to be Robert Redford) watching warily for muggers and stubbing out endless cigarettes while Deep Throat spills the inside dope about the plumbers. Then too, they amass enough seamy detail to fascinate even the most avid Watergate wallower — what a drunken and abusive Mitchell threatened to do to Post publisher Katherine Graham's tit, and more on the Segretti connection — including the activities of a USC campus political group known as the Ratfuckers whose former members served as a recruiting pool for the Nixon White House. As the scandal goes public and out of their hands Bernstein and Woodward seem as stunned as the rest of us at where their search for the "head ratfucker" has led. You have to agree with what their City Editor Barry Sussman realized way back in the beginning — "We've never had a story like this. Just never."

Pub Date: June 18, 1974

ISBN: 0671894412

Page Count: 372

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1974

Next book

THE LAST OF THE PRESIDENT'S MEN

Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.

Four decades after Watergate shook America, journalist Woodward (The Price of Politics, 2012, etc.) returns to the scandal to profile Alexander Butterfield, the Richard Nixon aide who revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes and effectively toppled the presidency.

Of all the candidates to work in the White House, Butterfield was a bizarre choice. He was an Air Force colonel and wanted to serve in Vietnam. By happenstance, his colleague H.R. Haldeman helped Butterfield land a job in the Nixon administration. For three years, Butterfield worked closely with the president, taking on high-level tasks and even supervising the installation of Nixon’s infamous recording system. The writing here is pure Woodward: a visual, dialogue-heavy, blow-by-blow account of Butterfield’s tenure. The author uses his long interviews with Butterfield to re-create detailed scenes, which reveal the petty power plays of America’s most powerful men. Yet the book is a surprisingly funny read. Butterfield is passive, sensitive, and dutiful, the very opposite of Nixon, who lets loose a constant stream of curses, insults, and nonsensical bluster. Years later, Butterfield seems conflicted about his role in such an eccentric presidency. “I’m not trying to be a Boy Scout and tell you I did it because it was the right thing to do,” Butterfield concedes. It is curious to see Woodward revisit an affair that now feels distantly historical, but the author does his best to make the story feel urgent and suspenseful. When Butterfield admitted to the Senate Select Committee that he knew about the listening devices, he felt its significance. “It seemed to Butterfield there was absolute silence and no one moved,” writes Woodward. “They were still and quiet as if they were witnessing a hinge of history slowly swinging open….It was as if a bare 10,000 volt cable was running through the room, and suddenly everyone touched it at once.”

Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.

Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-5011-1644-5

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2015

Close Quickview