A strong biography of a man who has inspired great love across the ages—a must for shelves and collections devoted to...
Jones (Bosworth 1485: The Battle that Transformed England, 2015, etc.) brings the Middle Ages—and one of England’s greatest knights—to life.
Leaving the final battle of the War of the Roses, the author thrillingly dives into the 100 Years’ War and its shining star, Edward the Black Prince (1330-1376), the eldest of Edward III’s sons. Edward was the epitome of a hero; he was pure of heart and soul and guided by the code of chivalry. He was a warrior, trained by his father in the tournaments and strong enough to lead his men at the Battle of Crécy at age 16. He watched as his father fought Scotland, carefully planning every battle and using the longbow to significant advantage. However, the prince showed his cruel streak as he rampaged from Bordeaux to the Mediterranean, devastating towns in a wide swath. He destroyed Carcassonne to impress his father rather than accept their monetary offer to spare it. With the prince’s help restoring Gascony and winning Aquitaine, Edward III regained almost the entire Angevin empire once held by Henry II. Unfortunately, the prince’s political acumen was lacking, and he treated the defeated Count of Armagnac poorly, a move that would bring him down in the end. An ill-advised raid into Spain—against all better judgment but on his father’s orders—produced a hollow victory and the beginnings of the disease that would debilitate him during much of the last decade of his life. The author discusses the evil legend fostered by Jean Froissart’s writings of the Black Prince at the Siege of Limoges, but the reality was that he was a man of courage, generous to a fault (always in debt), and loyal to his followers. Jones provides a refreshingly even portrait. Even the prince’s greatest enemy, the French king, honored him as no other foe with a solemn memorial Mass.
A strong biography of a man who has inspired great love across the ages—a must for shelves and collections devoted to medieval times.Pub Date: May 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68177-741-2
Page Count: 488
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
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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