Publishers Weekly
05/18/2015
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)
Buffalo News
A Full Life is understated like the man, always warm and human, and in a few instances, even inspirational.
|Los Angeles Times
A warm and detailed memoir of his youth followed by a clear-eyed assessment of the issues he tackled as president and afterward . . . a sweeping overview of a broad range of issues and frequent credit to his wife Rosalynn . . . Carter puts the long arc of his story together the way he sees it. The book includes his accomplishments as a negotiator and peacemaker in the humblest way — as a man who was at work on a larger project, something he continues to be. A primer for the generations who don't know his work and a personal retelling for those who do, A Full Life may herald the reappraisal he deserves.
Christian Science Monitor
The former president is yet a force to be reckoned with. . . . The author takes the reader on an engaging personal journey through the later half of the 20th century, as he saw it.
Booklist
Carter reveals private thoughts and recollections over a fascinating career as businessman, politician, evangelist,and humanitarian.
Booklist
Carter reveals private thoughts and recollections over a fascinating career as businessman, politician, evangelist,and humanitarian.
Los Angeles Times
A warm and detailed memoir of his youth followed by a clear-eyed assessment of the issues he tackled as president and afterward . . . a sweeping overview of a broad range of issues and frequent credit to his wife Rosalynn . . . Carter puts the long arc of his story together the way he sees it. The book includes his accomplishments as a negotiator and peacemaker in the humblest way — as a man who was at work on a larger project, something he continues to be. A primer for the generations who don't know his work and a personal retelling for those who do, A Full Life may herald the reappraisal he deserves.
Houston Chronicle
A wise and moving look back at a truly remarkable man.
Library Journal
06/15/2015
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
JULY 2015 - AudioFile
Clearly no one but President Carter himself should deliver this memoir. The book reflects his perspective on his years in public life as well as his private life. But that’s also the problem with the work. Carter’s reading style is plodding, and he sometimes interjects pauses at odd moments in a sentence. This makes listening more difficult. In addition, there are numerous passages in which he lists the people related to events—such as performers at the White House or participants in an economic summit—which are a bit dry. In print, this wouldn’t be an issue, but listening to the litany is less effective. Overall, the book is informative and at times illuminating, particularly for listeners who’ve never heard Carter read his other works. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2015-05-14
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.
