A thoroughly professional report on the rise and near fall of Rupert Murdoch as the planet's ranking multimedia baron. In recounting how the Australian-born, English-educated maverick built a transnational empire that encompasses newspapers, book publishers, a Hollywood movie studio, magazines, UK satellite broadcast facilities, and a US TV network, Shawcross (The Shah's Last Ride, Sideshow, etc.) doesn't shrink from discussing whether his subject is a force for good or ill. While giving Murdoch full credit for appreciating what had to be done to capitalize on the information age's commercial potential, the author frequently taxes his subject for taking acquired properties (Fax, London's Tunes, New York's Post, TV Guide, etc.) down market. Nor does Shawcross put much stock in the administrative or operational acumen of the vaultingly ambitious, opportunistic Australian (who became a US citizen so he could legally own American TV stations). Indeed, the author devotes much instructive attention to how fiscal legerdemain (coupled with recession) almost put paid to Murdoch's debt-burdened holding company toward year-end 1990. A Citicorp-led bailout staved off disaster at the 11th hour, however, allowing Murdoch to retain control of a restructured, albeit no less powerful, enterprise. Whether this reversal of fortune was in the public interest, though, is an open question for Shawcross. Noting that Murdoch (whom rivals call "the Dirty Digger") is a uniquely important broker of entertainment and news, Shawcross fears that he may (absent the socioeconomic restraints imposed upon corporate competitors like Bertelsmann, Paramount, and Time Warner) continue to appeal to the more base tastes of reading and/or viewing audiences. Along similar lines, the author takes frequent exception to Murdoch's penchant for adversarial labor relations, as well as to his enthusiasm for American culture and unfettered capitalism. A worldly-wise rundown on a visionary magnate.
Pub Date: Feb. 2, 1993
ISBN: 0684830159
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1992
This is our life, these are our lighted seasons, and then we die. . . . In the meantime, in between time, we can see. . . we can work at making sense of (what) we see. . . to discover where we so incontrovertibly are. It's common sense; when you-move in, you try to learn the neighborhood." Dillard's "neighborhood" is hilly Virginia country where she lived alone, but essentially it is all those "shreds of creation" with which every human is surrounded, which she is trying to learn, to know — from finite variations to infinite possibilities of being and meaning. A tall order and Dillard doesn't quite fill it. She is too impatient to get about the soul's adventures to stay long with an egg-laying grasshopper, or other bits of flora and fauna, and her snatches from physics and biological/metaphysical studies are this side of frivolous. However, Ms. Dillard has a great deal going for her — in spite of some repetition of words and concepts, her prose is bright, fresh and occasionally emulates (not imitates) the Walden Master in a contemporary context: "Trees. . . extend impressively in both directions, . . . shearing rock and fanning air, doing their real business just out of reach." She has set herself no less a task than understanding emotionally, spiritually and intellectually the force of the creative extravagance of the universe in all its beauty and horhor ("There is a terrible innocence in the benumbed world of the lower animals, reducing life to a universal chomp.") Experience can be focused, and awareness sharpened, by a kind of meditative high. Thus this becomes somewhat exhausting reading, if taken in toto, but even if Dillard's reach exceeds her grasp, her sights are leagues higher than that of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea, regretfully (re her sex), the inevitable comparison.
Pub Date: March 13, 1974
ISBN: 0061233323
Page Count: -
Publisher: Harper's Magazine Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1974
An authentic and fresh extension of the author’s successful Web series.
Writer, producer and director Rae, famous for her popular Web series, "The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl," channels her humor and attention to detail into this eponymous collection of personal essays about all the embarrassing moments that have made her who she is.
Sharp and able to laugh at herself, the author writes as if she's unabashedly telling friends a stream of cringeworthy stories about her life. Having grown up with the understanding that laughing at and talking about people was a form of entertainment and bonding, Rae continues the tradition by inviting readers into her inner circle and making her own foibles her primary focus. Almost 30, she opens up about nearly everything in her life, from her lifelong fear of being watched while eating in public to acutely awkward experiences with Internet dating and cybersex. The theme that race plays in this book is integral, although Rae's approach, as with all of her subjects, is decidedly humorous and lighthearted; she veers, always, toward a personal tone as opposed to one that's political or polemical. Her unwavering candidness, the sheer energy of her voice and the fact that she clearly finds herself to be terrific material make her a charismatic, if occasionally exasperating, narrator worth rooting for. Having been in a committed relationship for seven years, Rae unpacks how her Senegalese parents’ union contributed to her attitude (indifference) toward marriage. Some readers will find her proclamations and direct confessions offensive and be turned off; others may be offended but laugh out loud anyway. In Rae, her audience has landed on a singular voice with the verve and vivacity of uncorked champagne.
An authentic and fresh extension of the author’s successful Web series.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1476749051
Page Count: 210
Publisher: 37 Ink/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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