Television anchor Lehrer (Flying Crows, 2004, etc.) offers light amusement in an academia where everyone seems perpetually...
A diversion about scholars of early American history who venerate Ben Franklin—who may have been as unscrupulous as many of them seem to be.
Glamorous Rebecca Kendall Lee, popular historian and TV guest, may have plagiarized a goodly bundle in Ronald Reagan: The Last Founding Father. As a consequence, she stands before an august panel of the ARHA (American Revolution Historical Association), who will determine her fate after verifying the crime. Trouble is, haughty Rebecca has scraped up her own evidence of plagiarism and lets the panelists know she’ll use it against them if they’re arrogant enough to find against her. Meanwhile, even bigger things are going on. As the panel ponders, Philadelphia is commemorating the death of Wally Rush, the great Franklin scholar and author of the wildly popular bestsellers Ben One and Ben Two. The dead scholar’s faithful friend and research associate is historian Reginald Raymond Taylor (he goes by “R”), one of the ARHA panel members on the Rebecca case. R, having grabbed the Amtrak train from the Rebecca hearing in D.C. up to Philly, learns that he’s been declared Wally Rush’s literary executor and, on top of that, that the Babbitt-like president of BFU (Benjamin Franklin University) wants R to head up a Franklin center—with comely and intelligent Clara Hopkins possibly as colleague. As tempting as Clara may be, though, R is already promised to fellow historian (and blocked writer) Samantha. Lots more than just sexual conflict is afoot, however, after R reads the explosive letter Wally Rush left for him. Could it be true? Could Franklin really have done that? It will be up to R to save or forever tarnish the reputation of the great Franklin—even as another revelation, this one about R himself, will make the Rebecca affair look like small change.
Television anchor Lehrer (Flying Crows, 2004, etc.) offers light amusement in an academia where everyone seems perpetually on leave, classroom drudgery a thing unknown.Pub Date: May 24, 2005
ISBN: 1-4000-6198-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2005
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© 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.
