An easygoing, not particularly deep visit to a place where presidents are “more reflective, playful, and energized by the...
A portrait of the Camp David retreat, from a former commanding officer of the facility.
During the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, Giorgione, a retired rear admiral, was the CO at Camp David, a sprawling compound in the Maryland woods that includes a theater, bowling alley, pool, gym, horseshoe pits, driving range, bicycles, golf carts, helicopter port, chapel, weather station, maintenance shops, and gift shop, as well as the presidential quarters and many guest cottages. True to its mission, Camp David has no place for the press, and, as can be expected, the author does not offer details regarding security arrangements. Since World War II and the days of Franklin Roosevelt, whose cottage had the only indoor plumbing, there have been countless officers posted with their families at the now-luxurious getaway; command is regularly rotated. Giorgione consulted with other COs to provide this pop history of a vacation spot with a strictly limited clientele. For more than seven decades, every president and his family have enjoyed fine amenities and devoted treatment. (No word from Giorgione, though, regarding the present occupant of the White House, who seems to prefer to rusticate at Mar-a-Lago.) The author opines “that the president is a person like you and me, as far as a psychological and emotional makeup go,” a debatable assertion. Camp David has also been a site for many summits and diplomatic meetings that kept the staff working overtime. The crew must be strictly apolitical, offering every president the utmost respect that the military owes the commander in chief. Civilians, however, may detect, despite relaxed presidential pleasantries, a faint air of obsequious servility. Along with the placid yarns of chief executives and their folks, the author also offers some basic counsel on the art of management.
An easygoing, not particularly deep visit to a place where presidents are “more reflective, playful, and energized by the hills and forests that surround them.”Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-50961-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
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
© 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.
