A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety
(Libby/OverDrive eAudiobook)

Having written several books already on his religious beliefs, his years in the White House, his childhood Carter looks back on 90 years of life and offers lessons learned as well as information not covered in his previous works. New material includes his time in the navy, his years as a farmer involved in community projects, the backstories to his gubernatorial and presidential runs, an intimate look at his marriage as it has grown in equal partnership, and his relationships with other presidents. He offers commentary on racial changes in the nation, from his early days playing with boys from African American families who lived nearby to witnessing the slow integration of blacks in the U.S. military to dealing with the harsh racial climate of Georgia that objected to any efforts at integration and with challenges to Carter's more progressive impulses that figured in his bids for local offices. Interspersed among the essays are poems, drawings, and photographs that enhance the feeling of intimacy as Carter reveals private thoughts and recollections over a fascinating career as businessman, politician, evangelist, and humanitarian.--Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2015 Booklist

While there's no gainsaying Carter's active and selfless post-White House life, this uneven volume is largely a superficial treatment of events and personalities covered elsewhere in more depth, including by the former president himself. Readers unfamiliar with his almost 30 other books may find something new, but even they are likely to be frustrated by passing references to major life events. How did a young Carter feel when his close friend in the Navy killed himself after a hazing? What led him to fall in love instantly with his future wife, Rosalynn? Why was a weekend with a dying Hubert Humphrey among the most "interesting" of his life? Carter doesn't say. He also seems to credit the successful passage of the 1978 Camp David Accords, perhaps his most significant presidential achievement, to his fortuitous decision to make a thoughtful gesture to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin's grandchildren. Carter's rise from poverty to the most powerful office in the world is inspiring, but this book, complete with average-at-best poetry and artwork, reads more like a vanity project than a lasting source of inspiration and information. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

On the occasion of Carter's 90th birthday, the 39th U.S. president and Nobel laureate (A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power) delivers a memoir that reads like two separate books. The first five chapters provide insights into Carter's upbringing and the events that shaped his life until he and his family arrived at the White House in 1977. Especially fascinating is the author's account of his service in the navy and the difficulties that his family faced, including living in a housing project in the mid-1950s. Chapter six offers vignettes on political issues during his presidency. While one would expect Carter's musings on topics such as the Iranian hostage crisis, his commentary on events such as the eruption of Mount St. Helens and the return of a crown to Hungary seem extraneous. The last chapter focuses on Carter's thoughts about current issues. Even though some are germane, others, such as his paragraph on a clairvoyant who aided him in finding missing documents, make it somewhat difficult to take him seriously. VERDICT Appropriate for lay readers interested in Carter's place in the history of the presidency.-John R. Burch, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Notes at 90 from a former president at peace. There is little in the way of score settling in the latest from Carter (A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power, 2014, etc.) and not much that is likely to ignite controversy the way that Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006) did. With his long-standing marriage, the Carter Center, and a Nobel Peace Prize, along with more than two-dozen books that have "provided a much-needed source of income for my family," the author has enjoyed one of the longest and richest lives since leaving the presidency. He has also established himself as a respected and activist public figure, and he still can't figure out why the press treated him so negatively during his one term in Washington. "I had negative coverage in forty-six of the forty-eight months I served.This was a problem we could never understand or resolve but just decided to accommodate what we couldn't correct," he writes. The presidency and the campaign for re-election receive short shrift here, perhaps as Carter has written about them at length before. Instead, he writes, "some of the more personal and intimate events in my life are covered here for the first time," including his military years, a career in which he might have remained (and which wife Rosalynn resented him for leaving) if the death of his father hadn't returned him to the family farm. Carter pays only cursory attention to his political ascent as a perennial outsider who became state senator, governor, and, in the wake of Watergate, president. Only an offhand remark on a Gallup poll of 32 "names of potential Democratic nominees. Mine was not among them," suggests the surprise and significance of his triumph. The drawings and poems by the author add even more of a personal touch, though crises in his marriage and his "estrangement" from the Obama presidency offer the most noteworthy revelations. A memoir that reads like an epilogue to a life of accomplishment. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Having written several books already—on his religious beliefs, his years in the White House, his childhood—Carter looks back on 90 years of life and offers lessons learned as well as information not covered in his previous works. New material includes his time in the navy, his years as a farmer involved in community projects, the backstories to his gubernatorial and presidential runs, an intimate look at his marriage as it has grown in equal partnership, and his relationships with other presidents. He offers commentary on racial changes in the nation, from his early days playing with boys from African American families who lived nearby to witnessing the slow integration of blacks in the U.S. military to dealing with the harsh racial climate of Georgia that objected to any efforts at integration and with challenges to Carter's more progressive impulses that figured in his bids for local offices. Interspersed among the essays are poems, drawings, and photographs that enhance the feeling of intimacy as Carter reveals private thoughts and recollections over a fascinating career as businessman, politician, evangelist, and humanitarian. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

On the occasion of Carter's 90th birthday, the 39th U.S. president and Nobel laureate (A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power) delivers a memoir that reads like two separate books. The first five chapters provide insights into Carter's upbringing and the events that shaped his life until he and his family arrived at the White House in 1977. Especially fascinating is the author's account of his service in the navy and the difficulties that his family faced, including living in a housing project in the mid-1950s. Chapter six offers vignettes on political issues during his presidency. While one would expect Carter's musings on topics such as the Iranian hostage crisis, his commentary on events such as the eruption of Mount St. Helens and the return of a crown to Hungary seem extraneous. The last chapter focuses on Carter's thoughts about current issues. Even though some are germane, others, such as his paragraph on a clairvoyant who aided him in finding missing documents, make it somewhat difficult to take him seriously. VERDICT Appropriate for lay readers interested in Carter's place in the history of the presidency.—John R. Burch, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY

While there's no gainsaying Carter's active and selfless post–White House life, this uneven volume is largely a superficial treatment of events and personalities covered elsewhere in more depth, including by the former president himself. Readers unfamiliar with his almost 30 other books may find something new, but even they are likely to be frustrated by passing references to major life events. How did a young Carter feel when his close friend in the Navy killed himself after a hazing? What led him to fall in love instantly with his future wife, Rosalynn? Why was a weekend with a dying Hubert Humphrey among the most "interesting" of his life? Carter doesn't say. He also seems to credit the successful passage of the 1978 Camp David Accords, perhaps his most significant presidential achievement, to his fortuitous decision to make a thoughtful gesture to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin's grandchildren. Carter's rise from poverty to the most powerful office in the world is inspiring, but this book, complete with average-at-best poetry and artwork, reads more like a vanity project than a lasting source of inspiration and information. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit. (July)