For true believers only—and even they are going to have a hard time lasting through this dull book, which actually...
A droning, 400-page toast to George H.W. Bush.
In his first book, Sununu, the former New Hampshire governor and longtime chief of staff known as “Bush’s Bad Cop,” tries to set the record straight on his old boss, relying mainly on willful blindness to his faults, a flattering reinterpretation of his failures, and a gross exaggeration of his accomplishments. Readers inclined to the view that Bush was underrated, or at the very least a decent, ethical, and kind man (no argument there), might be put off by Sununu’s starry-eyed perception of Bush as a leader whose life is a testament to his selfless love of country and whose grasp of domestic and international politics was so sure and subtle that no one saw how brilliant it was. The president’s slowness to act on getting rid of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was just an example of a master gunslinger biding his time for the right moment. In the author’s view, Bush’s actions in Desert Storm were sure and unwavering; the Margaret Thatcher who said, “Don't go wobbly on us, George,” is nowhere to be found. The Bush who blundered so badly by saying, “Read my lips—no new taxes” isn’t the one that’s important; it’s the Bush who saw the error of his ways and nobly raised taxes anyway. All of this might be regarded as pardonable bias if the book were at least an interesting portrait. Although Sununu does have his share of anecdotes and some glimpses of life inside the White House, the book is primarily written in press release prose, thickly woven with cut-and-paste positions, platform planks, and robotic quotes from the commander in chief.
For true believers only—and even they are going to have a hard time lasting through this dull book, which actually encourages more skepticism than it erases.Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-238428-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Broadside Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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
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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