Merely mortal Mandy?

How you hear things in politics depends where you stand. Mandy heard things from"the heart of New Labour" not as a dispassionate third man but as a fully committed protagonist. In the ceaseless jockeying for power between Blair and Brown he sides with Tony and paints Gordon as curmudgeonly, unco-operative and clever. Yet as PM Gordon needed Mandy's help and brought him back to prominence for an unprecedented third time, which only goes to show Mandelson's skill as a slippery smooth manipulator who played characters and events to his own advantage - that is, he would say, to the advantage of his country and his beloved New Labour. No wonder Bush called him"Silver Tongue".<br />This is a gripping tale from the days of making Labour again electable after the misuse of Union power and the countrywide Thatcherite drift to the Right up to the nail-biting horse-trading of the coalition a few months ago. It gets down to the specifics of wielding power from the viewpoint of Mandy's monstrous ego, yet with brief acknowledgements that he is merely mortal, though more mortal than most. I liked the passages on his childhood after being"born into Labour" and I liked his affection for his Brussels posting.<br />It could have been written with more colour even though there are colourful characters on every page and the Blair/Brown contest gets a bit repetitive. But as a personalised diary of the minutae of important political events it stands out as a must read.<br /><br />

North Korea

I thought this was an excellent book. Given that entering North Korea is difficult for anyone, let alone US journalists, Barbara Demick has done the best anyone could to understand this bizarre state, through the device of talking to exiles.<br /><br />She befriended and talked to 5 or 6 people, men and women of different ages and backgrounds. Their stories reveal the oddity, not to say brutality, of North Korea and, by inference, the personality of the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Il, who even now rules the country as his own personal fiefdom.<br /><br />What you don't learn is why it has proved so difficult for the rest of the world to bring North Korea out of the darkness. Perhaps if there were giant oilfields there, something would have been done...<br /><br />Other strange and autocratic states have improved over the years: some close to home, such as Albania, others further afield. There are plenty more to go: Uzbekistan and one or two others in Central Asia, Belarus on the edge of Europe, and of course Burma, which still rules its people cruelly and remains a blot on the conscience of the EU, which has done little to change the situation apart from make pious statements. Books like this one are vital components in the quest to bring such human rights abuses more into the public consciousness.

Brilliant & well-researched. Very highly recommended.

This was purchased as a gift for my son who is fascinated by the latter years of Anne Boleyn's life. He reported that he thought it was the best historical novel about the subject that he had ever read & found Alison Weir's research second-to-none. In fact he couldn't fault it in any way. Very highly recommended.The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn

Nelson Mandela's Autobiography

'Long Walk To Freedom' was chosen by our bookclub as we decided that this autobiography was one that everyone should read. We haven't had our discussion on this book yet, but personally, I found it to be a very compelling read and learned much about the fight for freedom in South Africa that hitherto I was fairly ignorant about. It is a long book but well worth reading about the harsh and often brutal struggle that faced a dedicated Freedom Fighter whose only desire was to see all South Africans of all colours live together peacefully as equals. I just wanted to keep on reading his epic story to the end and wish that I had read it years ago.

Must try harder

I'm sure that was written on Chris Mullin's school report at some point. As a lot of the other reviews mention, it is very frustrating that he hasn't tried harder as an MP. Or developed some sort of a spine. There were numerous times during my reading of this book that I screamed out 'Oh for God's sake, stop being such a wuss'. I tend to lose patience with people who think it's a virtue to eschew modern technology (and apparently irons as he's always in a crumpled suit) - Mullin refused a mobile phone and pager, even when he was in government. That bit him on the ass when he missed a phone call that could have moved him up in government. <br />He really did seem to have mixed emotions about being in government and he was honest about it - he wanted to be, then when he realised that he wasn't going to be given a juicy gig right off the bat, he realised that he had more power as a back bencher. That's fine, I respected him when he said he wanted out because he felt he could do more outside government, but then he started to make sounds and drop hints to everyone and their brother that he wanted back in 'if it were more substantial'. And he said himself that if he hadn't told so many people that he was going to vote against the Iraq war, he would have voted for it at the end of the day. There was a big section of him ringing round loads of people taking the temperature as to whether he could worm out of his decision without losing too much face - so him being seen as a hero for his principles doesn't ring quite true, he'd backed himself into a corner. But the book did hold my attention through the whole thing. It also made me realise more than ever that the government really doesn't know what it's doing most of the time.

Amazing Life Story

I had no idea Barack Obama had even written a book until this title was selected by my reading group! I found it hard to get atarted but then found it utterly compelling and amazing. I am still amazed that a boy from such an unusual background has ended up being the power of a nation. The book is so honest it hurts - every humiliating feeling and incident is so clearly and deeply described - feelings most of us will have had while growing up but have probably chosen to forget. The writing shows an incredible strength of character as well as a very human side to this boy who grew up to be such a powerful man. It has made me see him as a human being and not just The President of another country. Considering his youth it is written with such maturity and depth it is hard to believe he is still a young man now!<br />Very thought provoking and whatever you may think of his country or even his leadership you will be drawn to him as a person for writing this oh so honest account of a difficult passage from boyhood to manhood.<br />I am so glad I have read it.

well written/translated, absorbing book.a must...

Far from depressing, although shocking , this book is an absorbing read.Having read quite a few books around this subject,I was suprised to find a revelation in every chapter.Primo Levi explores the experiences of the camps and his struggle for survival from a unique angle.His account is moving , honest and amazingly untainted by hatred.He explores the psychological changes experienced by prisoners and makes some very thought-provoking comments.<br />This book is unusually elevating-you're left admiring the good in the human spirit and reading his book certainly left me feeling very lucky.It certainly puts problems into perspective.<br />

Excellent campaigning primer

This is a great read - fascinating, enjoyable and informative in many ways. The book serves as an account of the lead-up to one of the most significant elections in British post-war history and as a primer on how to run a highly effective campaign. Alastair Campbell lays bare the competing tugs and the inevitable tensions that arise in the midst of any political campaign and shows how a now-legendary communications operation delivered a landslide win for a Labour government. I'd recommend this book to anyone with an interest in modern politics and the science and the art of campaign communications. Personal political persuasion aside, anybody with a direct or indirect professional involvement with campaigning or communications in the public or the private sector will learn a great deal from this book. In my view it is as compelling an account of campaigning as Pennebaker's documentary, The War Room, the definitive record of Clinton's road to the White House, masterminded by Carville and Stephanopolous.

Touches The Heart

When I learnt this book had been published my heart quickened and, for a brief moment, I was transported back to 1979. I remembered how, as a child, I had knelt and prayed in earnest for Timothy and his brother - without being fully aware of the enormity of the horror that they had faced. For in a small way the ripples from this tragedy affected my own childhood. For not only did it bring me momentarily closer to God, it also rocked my naive view of this world. This notion that nothing bad or wicked ever happens to nobility.<br /><br />On reading this book I was touched immediately and immensely by the emotional understanding and emotional intelligence of its author. These qualities are very easy to mock. But are more difficult to fully understand. As with the temporal, so it is with the spiritual. For one is left feeling nourished in a spiritual sense by this book too. More completed - more secure. To be honest this book wasn't what I was expecting from a 45-year-old aristocrat. It was human. It had warmth. It had depth. <br /><br />Having come from a family who were domestic servants, I know only too well the bond of love that exists between those who serve and who are served. Like most forms of love, it is difficult to express and to quantify in mere words. For even though a relationship between a master and a servant is, by definition and necessity, an unequal one. A sense of mutual respect and an unspoken love does often exist - and then flourishes. This is especially so when the youngest members of the Household are involved. For it then borders on a sort of mutual devotion. A devotion which you too can experience and understand, as it is now encapsulated in its most finest and beautiful form within this book. For when I was a child my grandmother would often refer to me as young Master Neil. An attempt to reassure me that, in her eyes at least, I was very much equal in worth to the children that she loved but served. However, this book made me consider something for the very first time - that by calling me young Master Neil, she had also elevated the children who she served to the status of much loved grandchildren. <br /><br />What with its attention to detail, the obvious and literal painstaking research, and its most vivid and yet so beautiful recollections, one is far too easily lost and absorbed by this read. I couldn't put it down. Nor avert my gaze. For the photographs are beautiful, poignant and, in their own way, quite upsetting too. For it touches on matters of the heart and of the human soul. What it means to be human and to experience a great tragedy. Indeed, the quality of this work begs a very simple question. Is the author right to suggest that only his brother had inherited those qualities that made him a focused and organised perfectionist in this life? For these qualities are surely in evidence and abundance here. Perhaps then, this is the greatest tribute that the author renders to his brother. For by losing his twin Nicholas, and thereby losing a part of himself, he has become much more like his brother in return. It is difficult not to conclude therefore that the greatest gift Nicholas has rendered to Timothy in death is this. That Tim may experience and know what it means to be fulfilled in this life - to become fully human.<br /><br />I can't recommend enough that you purchase this book. If you only purchase one book this year, make sure it is this one. Not just to read it. But to reflect on it. For it will challenge you intellectually, emotionally and, perhaps most importantly, spiritually. It will take you on an emotional roller coaster of a ride - a sad voyage that will challenge and nourish your perceptions and emotions. It did for me.

Thoroughly impressive

A thoroughly impressive piece of work and the most comprehensive biography of de Gaulle I have come across in the English language. It is elegantly written, authoritative, reliable and very perceptive. I was also very moved to read about his personal life and the profound relationship he had with his daughter.<br /><br />

The life story of an original

This book is the story of her early years in peacetime Somalia, as a teenage extremist in Kenya, escape from an arranged marriage, education and fame in Holland, the ritual murder of collaborator Van Gogh and final exile as an academic in NYC. <br /><br />And what awaited her in America? The Harvard muslim chaplain in leaked emails in April 2009 was revealed as a supporter of capital punishment for apostates. In this double-think world, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a highly-educated, talented and notably graceful hero of our times, is our brilliant and patient guide.<br /><br />She is much hated and mocked by Somalis, having rejected wholesale the ideology brought to their homeland by Arab slavers. Yet she obviously appreciates Somali culture, writing warmly about her family throughout, its many extended members, the eccentric second wives, secret marriage to a handsome cousin and even pow-wows with elders in a Dutch caravan over her rejection of marriage (!)<br /><br />I remain haunted by descriptions of incidents during her early prominence in Holland. <br /><br />After likening Muhammad with a modern paedophile on Dutch TV, she had been given police protection due to murder threats. Meeting a journalist in a hotel, word reaches the guards that several posses of North African muslims are arriving in cars, tipped off by disapproving hotel staff. She is immediately bundled out of a fire door and sped away to safety. <br /><br />On other occasions, CCTV picks up stalkers ringing the bell to her flat, insanely oblivious to arrest. She had left her home by this time, and like Geert Wilders after her, flitted between remote army bases and other hide-outs. <br /><br />Despite remaining in genuine danger from self-righteous religious psychopathics, Ayaan has nonetheless thrived since this terrifying time. In recent years, she has set up her own think tank on islam and women - theahafoundation.org. I'd recommend its meticulous reports. <br /><br />This is one of the few books I've put everything on hold to read straight through. Read it and share it.

A Haunting Story

This book left me feeling slightly desperate and hugely sad, but at the same time better informed about the mindset of Jews during WW2 - contrary to popular opinion they did not all go like lambs to slaughter. The subject of the story, Hershl Sperling, should still be alive today if his resilience and determination to survive the war years are anything to go by. Yet, he is not, and the search for the answer to why he is not is the central point of the story. When Mark Smith discovers that Hershl used to say 'Auschwitz was nothing', he had to find out why - what could possibly be worse? The author follows a trail starting with the discovery of a pamphlet, part of which was written by Hershl in the years just following the war, and which describes his time in Treblinka and his escape from it. He then goes on a holocaust detective story, visiting Krakow, Warsaw, Treblinka, Auschwitz and other places to try to piece together why a man survived so much but, in the end, killed himself. I highly recommend this book.

Exhaustive and exhausting

This is a scrupulously researched biography, carefully packed with detail. Clearly great effort has been taken not to exclude anything. <br /><br />Hugh Trevor-Roper was clearly a brilliant maverick, with a staggering grasp of language. His correspondence with Bernard Berenson (see"Letters from Oxford) is a delight to read. <br /><br />Adam Sisman explains everything scrupulously, yet time and again I found myself wanting to hear from Trevor-Roper himself. I ploughed on through this biography, waiting for the whole thing to become airborne and arouse genuine excitement. This only came towards the end, when the saga of the Hitler diaries unfolded. <br /><br />Other than that, this biography was a chore to read, exhaustive and exhausting. <br /><br />A good biography should somehow throw light on wider things. It should illuminate, entertain and make us see ourselves differently for a while. <br /><br />But somehow the mass of detail presented here diminished the subject, and created a depressing effect.<br /><br />This book was the literary equivalent of TV's Gillette Soccer Saturday. In other words, instead of being able to see actual football, the viewer sees commentators watching football instead and is somehow insulated from any genuine excitement.<br /><br />To summarise, a brilliant man presented to us by a less than brilliant biographer. <br /><br /><br />

A Very impressive and accomplished work.

This book sat unread on my bookshelf for quite awhile before I actually made myself read it. Well, I just wish that I had read it sooner because this is a truly outstanding & accomplished work. The author tells the story of 3 women, her grandmother, her mother and finally herself. This isn't some chick lit book; there are no silly love stories and half-arsed attempts at `women power'. Wild Swans is about China, its people, the culture, customs and most importantly its complex political history. When you're reading this book its easy to forget that you are actually reading fact, that the events, some of which are truly terrible, actually happened.<br />The book starts at the turn of the century and proceeds to the present. A large part of the book focuses on communism. Chang doesn't talk about the subject in a detached unemotional way. We learn about the subject through the lives of people she introduces us to. The flaws of the pre-communist government are laid out and Chang takes pains to explain exactly how this affected the average man/woman on the street. Using various means, including her own mothers life story the reader learns exactly how communism was able to take hold in China.<br /><br />The sheer amount of detail is quite extraordinary, and some of the little `tit bits' of information are so fantastical I suspected them of being untrue. For example Chang tells us about how traffic lights were called into question, red meant stop, but red is also the colour of communism and therefore should not have negative connotations. She also tells us how they were encouraged to rip up grass and flowers, as they were considered too bourgeois.<br /><br />This book covers a lot of ground and it features numerous people. The reader is overloaded with information. That said, the glossary is brilliant and very helpful if you need to remind yourself of certain people. Personally, despite not being a quick and easy read I found it very engaging and I loved the style of writing, its matter of fact yet emotional at the same time. This is a book written by a passionate lady who had alot to say and you can't help but admire her and her relatives.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />

A cracking read and terrific investigative journalism

I disagree completely with the long winded 1 star review. the 'reviewer' is missing the point. This is a terrific read and an insight into the character of one of the most charasmatic, interesting and colourful figures of the 20th century. The author interviewed people WHO WERE THERE!!<br />You will find 'Ari' available somewhere but I would recommend this book as one of the definitive books on Onassis.<br />I salute you Mr Evans

Conspiracy?

An interesting read but some things don't add up for me. Perkings' role as an Economic Hitman is not a conspiracy as such, according to him. It was just a matter of going into various countries persuading them to take out loans so that country then becomes beholden to certain corporations,banks and other countries. Does that not sound like a conspiracy to you? It is interesting how he shows how easy it is to get sucked into the system of corruption because he himself gained from it - this was mentioned in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion i.e. most will be ignorant of the banking and debt scam but those who are aware will go along with it because they will personally benefit from it in some way. For me Perkins downplays the conspiracy element too much which is a little suspicious.

george orwell; homage to catalonia.

OK if you want to know Orwell's view of the Spanish Civil war. A good account of the politics of the time, written in textbook fashion rather than Orwell's more cynical style.

Bear with it

starts off interesting then I lost the plot a bit but as too many charactors mentioned, please bear with it as 2 thirds in you finally get to the good bits and it seems much easier to read.