I am not sure if this has been dealt with before, and I am unsure whether Cafe Society is the right place for a memoir and a political one at that but here goes.
They are fools, they are bloody fools and there is the Right Honourable Tony Blair, Barrister-at-Law.
I had purchased the book hoping to get an insight into the workings of lets admit it one of the most influential men of the last generation, and what I got was a a treatise on how “everything is not my fault and it is someone else’s, and even when its my fault, well I was right and everyone else was wrong, and there really was another story which will prove I am right even if I am not”.
I expected little, but seriously even if you are to stick to your guns, please make it coherent and readable.
I refuse to read it on principle and your review sadly confirms my preconceptions. I am a bit surprised that his publisher didn’t spring for a competant ghostwriter though.
In the Watcha Readin’ thread for this month, there’s a poster reading it who likes it, as you can see here and here, including that Blair “scathingly lists his faults.” Perhaps since you say you “expected little,” that was a self-fulfilling prophecy?
“Scathingly lists Brown’s faults” not his own. Waste of 12 pounds that book. The only interesting and informative part is about the NI Peace Process and perhaps what he says about the Foot and Mouth crises. Too much of the rest of the book is an attempted and not very good justification for his decisions, again not something which is per se fatal in a memoir, but they way he goes about it is whats a let down.
AK84 is correct, I was talking about Blair weighing Brown’s pros and cons, not his own, in that sentence. But he does confess errors of his own, far more bluntly than in any American politico’s autobio that I’ve read. He doesn’t blame everyone else by any means. I haven’t finished the book yet but overall I’m enjoying it. His discussions of Bill Clinton, dealing with Prime Minister’s Questions, handling Princess Diana’s death and its aftermath, and trying to get a Northern Ireland peace accord, are definite highlights.
Oops. Never mind on that count then. But it sounds like an interesting read overall even though I usually prefer third-person biographies to first-person accounts. I may have to check it out once it becomes available here.
