One Brief Shining Moment: Remembering Kennedy

This is a great book from the pictures to the text. It gives you a real person look at John F. Kennedy as the man and then him as President and how the overlapped. Also you get a real incite of JFK's humor and a real glimpse of how he was with his children. You also get a few glimpses at why he made certain choices tat certain times which has not always been covered very well before, but this book gives you it in a regular persons view point which sheds alot of light on what he was going through as well how this train of thinking helped this country. Very good book to add to you any collection.

William Manchester, more famous for "The Death Of A President", has written a good 20th anniversary volume here. There are some nice photos, as well. Interesting note---he thanks several of the Secret Service agents he spoke to back in 1964-1965, givig one the impression that he may have spoken to them once again (fat chance: Emory Roberts passed away in 1973). [...]

This book is not meant to be a historical recollection of scholarly aptitude about the presidency and politics of the late Mr. Kennedy. In the first few sentences of the introduction, Mr. Manchester made that completely clear. His aim, I believe, was to offer an intimate view of the president from the perspective of an intimate friend. President Kennedy had been dead for 21 years before I was born and 41 years would pass after his assassination until I took great interest in his life and presidency this year. In reading this book, I fell in love with every aspect of him: his personality, family, politics, and overall warmth, and though Kennedy's persona is enigmatic in itself, I don't think that I would have admired him as strongly as I do without the masterful yet intimate writing of this book. It doesn't offer an objective or scholarly approach to Kennedy's life. It offers an intimate one. I laughed, cried, and fumed while reading this book, trapped in the illusion that I was actually there with the senator in his race for the presidency, during his presidency, and even in his personal life back in the 50s and 60s, even though the reality was that I was born 21 years after his assassination. I am not too strongly politically inclined; I recommend this book strongly to anyone who just wants to know who the late former president was as a man, son, father, husband, and president. It is a great book. And the fact that it is loaded with pictures is a plus as well.