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runsonespresso's review against another edition
4.0
I struggled with giving this 3 or 4 stars. I think it lands somewhere in between. 4 because of historical significance but 3 because of how it's presented. I think it may have been to soon and Jackie doesn't come across well at times. It also didn't really add much if you know anything about JFK or the time period.
kmj98's review against another edition
5.0
I am actually listening to the oral histories. Listening to her voice is so amazing. Hearing everything around her, like car horns, planes, the lighting of a cigarette, John-John running sbout in the background. It is very nice. She has great insight into people in the administration and cabinet appointees. I think some books, like these, should be listened to, this one especially because it was originally recorded on tape. and transcribed into oral histories. A job well done. I still am on the fence as to whether she would have wanted these to be made public, but if Caroline believes so i must trust in her. Jackie was such a private person that also wanted people to know the importance and truth about government and the presidency, It is truly a tightrope walk. In this case, it was well executed by the Foundation and Caroline.
sonia_reppe's review against another edition
I read this for work; I am not the audience for this so I cannot rate it. I will say that the footnotes are so small, as footnotes tend to be; but there were so many footnotes, it was like a third of the book. I couldn't read all those tiny footnotes.
judyward's review against another edition
4.0
In January 1964, Jacqueline Kennedy and Robert Kennedy approved an oral history project which would preserve memories of the assassinated President and his administration for the Kennedy Library. As part of that project, Jacqueline Kennedy recorded eight and a half hours of conversations with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. during the first six months of 1964 about her life with John K. Kennedy. Obviously, she was interested in presenting a particular view of John F. Kennedy and their life together and her intention was also that the tapes would not be made public for a hundred years. Caroline Kennedy and her children decided to release the tapes early bcause of their historic significance. While discussing Kennedy's opinions of world leaders, political events, politics, and his family, friends and advisers, these tapes also are an interesting insight into Jacqueline Kennedy herself. I was surprised by how much she seemed to admire Joseph P. Kennedy and how dismissive she was of Rose Kennedy. And her opinions of Charles de Gaulle and the French were interesting since she was so closely identified with French fashion and culture. And, in light of what we now know about John Kennedy's marital infidelities, her dislike of Martin Luther King because of the charges of womanizing are totally understandable. I listened to these tapes and, no doubt, I found them even more interesting because I can clearly remember the Kennedy administration and the horror of those days in November 1963.
pheash95's review against another edition
5.0
The book really good. I would recommend this book if anyone like history and want to read about Jacqueline Kennedy life with John F. Kennedy.
manadabomb's review against another edition
3.0
So i finally got an audible account and this was the first book I downloaded. I felt it necessary to hear Jackie in her own voice and own words. For someone who did not live through this era, this was very interesting and somewhat boring.
I'll get the boring out of the way, and it's not much but still.... Arthur Schlesinger, Jr and Jackie talked about JFK and his legacy. There was considerable talk about certain members who were either in government or the press or just around the president. I will admit that my history knowledge is not nearly good enough to know who all of these people were. So therefore, I got a little bored. That was it. No more boring.
Hearing Jackie speaking was awesome until the times you realized what she just said (Did she really say THAT?). You could tell she was doing her best to preserve JFK's legacy, perhaps even build it up, but she was also very candid. While I'm sure JFK had flaws, although no one seems to admit it, you will not know it from these tapes. I understand what they were trying to accomplish with the tapes but I think they seem a bit....I don't know. It's tough to put my finger on.
Jackie had very candid opinions about everyone, including MLK, Jr. (Who knew he liked orgies??) and she has been blasted in the news since this book came about about being so candid. On that note, I need to say: everyone has opinions. At this point, she was removing herself from the public eye and why shouldn't she be allowed to speak her mind? Especially since these tapes were not to be released til after her death. I don't fault her for this at all. In her mind at the time, it seems she did not consider herself valuable to the public and was working on helping JFK's legacy, not her own.
This is well worth the listen, I think, if only to hear a little piece of history. I'm sure folks who lived through this time will appreciate it even more. And for the record, thank goodness Jackie's opinions on "a woman's place" changed as she got older. I cringed at some of the antiquated ideas of how a woman should be/act/live.
I'll get the boring out of the way, and it's not much but still.... Arthur Schlesinger, Jr and Jackie talked about JFK and his legacy. There was considerable talk about certain members who were either in government or the press or just around the president. I will admit that my history knowledge is not nearly good enough to know who all of these people were. So therefore, I got a little bored. That was it. No more boring.
Hearing Jackie speaking was awesome until the times you realized what she just said (Did she really say THAT?). You could tell she was doing her best to preserve JFK's legacy, perhaps even build it up, but she was also very candid. While I'm sure JFK had flaws, although no one seems to admit it, you will not know it from these tapes. I understand what they were trying to accomplish with the tapes but I think they seem a bit....I don't know. It's tough to put my finger on.
Jackie had very candid opinions about everyone, including MLK, Jr. (Who knew he liked orgies??) and she has been blasted in the news since this book came about about being so candid. On that note, I need to say: everyone has opinions. At this point, she was removing herself from the public eye and why shouldn't she be allowed to speak her mind? Especially since these tapes were not to be released til after her death. I don't fault her for this at all. In her mind at the time, it seems she did not consider herself valuable to the public and was working on helping JFK's legacy, not her own.
This is well worth the listen, I think, if only to hear a little piece of history. I'm sure folks who lived through this time will appreciate it even more. And for the record, thank goodness Jackie's opinions on "a woman's place" changed as she got older. I cringed at some of the antiquated ideas of how a woman should be/act/live.
linda48's review against another edition
4.0
This took awhile to get through - sometimes it read like a history textbook, with every pager annotated and referenced. However, it did give glimpses of the inside workings of the White House and of presidential politics. It was disappointing, however, to hear her reminisce on her marriage and agree with Schlesinger that they had a "Japanese marriage". Reality hits when you read her words and listen to the CDs.
tschmitty's review against another edition
3.0
I thought that it was interesting to read a book in Jackie Kennedy's own voice, but parts seemed to be a bit Who's Who's, and many of the people I knew nothing about and did not really care to find out more, despite the informative footnotes and such. I found the book most compelling when she discussed more personal matters like everyday life in the White House with the president and their children. I also found the section surrounding the Cuban Missile Crises to be touching and surreal. She does seem to hero-worship her husband which is completely understandable given the time that these interviews were done. It would be interesting if we could have heard a contrasting view of Jackie's opinions shared here in her later life if given the chance. I commend Caroline Kennedy for her decision to share these tapes with the world even if the text form was a tad dry to read in spots.Her mother and father were remarkable people who continue to fascinate many people to this day, some fifty years after her father's presidency.
difficultwomanreads's review against another edition
5.0
In all honesty, "Jacqueline Kennedy..." is not a book. It is an interview, transcribed into bound pages with annotations that are indeed necessary--but shouldn't spend so much time defending Mrs. Kennedy's words, which is what they often do. The audio version is much more take-your-breath-away--for it is uncut, the outside interruptions at the ear.
The fact is that the interviews are so often criticized for what Jackie happens to say. She's rarely "PC" by modern standards, trashing LBJ and MLK and... Wisconsin. The interesting thing is that we also seem to understand that she was fully aware of her public image. She knew that she was held to a higher standard, a sort of American goddess-hood, particularly after her husband's assassination. The fact that she is so honest makes her decision to wait fifty years to have the interviews unsealed all the more believable. Jackie knew, surely, that the times would have changed by now. She also knew that what she had to say was history.
The fact is that people are upset by the fact that these interviews shatter the image of Jackie--she is not the saintly, beleaguered wife of a great but flawed man; she is not a drugged out trophy on the arm of a philandering phony; she is not a girl ahead of her time, suppressed by contemporary standards. She is human, and in a way she is so normal by her day that it hurts. She is catty, and she does look down on women like Indira Ghandi and Clare Luce. She does everything she can to preserve the image of her husband, and by extension his family, that they worked so hard to cultivate--though sometimes she's so overzealous in glorifying "Jack" that it became quite clear to me that she was still in that idolatry phase of grief. People shouldn't criticize Jackie for worshiping him in this interview, but look back and realize... Oh. This is four months after she witnessed his brutal murder. This woman still refers to her husband in the present tense for much of the interview, still catches herself saying "on his--I mean, what would have been his forty-seventh birthday".
It's decades ago for us, long before many of us were born. But for Jackie, this was a moment when the feeling of her husband's blood and brain matter on her hands would have been fresh in her mind. Did she have political thoughts in mind when she critiqued people like President Johnson? Oh, of course. Jackie and Schlesinger even make mention of Robert F. Kennedy running in '68--as was Jack's plan, perhaps. They were the Kennedys. Whether Bobby had any such plans so early or not is uncertain. Personally, I believe that Bobby's personal feud with Johnson affected much of Jackie's perspective on the president. She knew too much of Johnson's somewhat off-putting demeanor and hamminess (so uncouth for the reserved Kennedys), and as we all know, she did turn to her brother-in-law quite a bit after Jack's death. Bobby and Jackie were so close after the assassination that it's no surprise that he gets a lot of the adoring treatment as well, LBJ the shaft. (Though the annotations make it sound like LBJ and Jackie eventually made up and became bridge partners. I think we all know that that wasn't the case.)
Does she remember everything? No. Is she at times petty? Yes. Does she perhaps gloss over the darker side of Camelot? Of course. But I came away with the stamp of a piece of history. If you ever wonder what would have happened had Jack lived on a purely personal level, I feel that these interviews reveal a lot in that respect as well. You can call it spin all you want. But listening to Jacqueline Kennedy's voice, I, a cynic, was left with no doubt that she loved her husband--and for all his infidelity, no doubt that he returned the feeling. Their marriage--and their relationships with their children and extended family, the true gems of the interview--will never be fully understood, I think. But it was a marriage--not a business deal. I felt the love, which was so weird and heart-wrenching and almost ghostly. Call me sentimental, but I adored this in every way.
The fact is that the interviews are so often criticized for what Jackie happens to say. She's rarely "PC" by modern standards, trashing LBJ and MLK and... Wisconsin. The interesting thing is that we also seem to understand that she was fully aware of her public image. She knew that she was held to a higher standard, a sort of American goddess-hood, particularly after her husband's assassination. The fact that she is so honest makes her decision to wait fifty years to have the interviews unsealed all the more believable. Jackie knew, surely, that the times would have changed by now. She also knew that what she had to say was history.
The fact is that people are upset by the fact that these interviews shatter the image of Jackie--she is not the saintly, beleaguered wife of a great but flawed man; she is not a drugged out trophy on the arm of a philandering phony; she is not a girl ahead of her time, suppressed by contemporary standards. She is human, and in a way she is so normal by her day that it hurts. She is catty, and she does look down on women like Indira Ghandi and Clare Luce. She does everything she can to preserve the image of her husband, and by extension his family, that they worked so hard to cultivate--though sometimes she's so overzealous in glorifying "Jack" that it became quite clear to me that she was still in that idolatry phase of grief. People shouldn't criticize Jackie for worshiping him in this interview, but look back and realize... Oh. This is four months after she witnessed his brutal murder. This woman still refers to her husband in the present tense for much of the interview, still catches herself saying "on his--I mean, what would have been his forty-seventh birthday".
It's decades ago for us, long before many of us were born. But for Jackie, this was a moment when the feeling of her husband's blood and brain matter on her hands would have been fresh in her mind. Did she have political thoughts in mind when she critiqued people like President Johnson? Oh, of course. Jackie and Schlesinger even make mention of Robert F. Kennedy running in '68--as was Jack's plan, perhaps. They were the Kennedys. Whether Bobby had any such plans so early or not is uncertain. Personally, I believe that Bobby's personal feud with Johnson affected much of Jackie's perspective on the president. She knew too much of Johnson's somewhat off-putting demeanor and hamminess (so uncouth for the reserved Kennedys), and as we all know, she did turn to her brother-in-law quite a bit after Jack's death. Bobby and Jackie were so close after the assassination that it's no surprise that he gets a lot of the adoring treatment as well, LBJ the shaft. (Though the annotations make it sound like LBJ and Jackie eventually made up and became bridge partners. I think we all know that that wasn't the case.)
Does she remember everything? No. Is she at times petty? Yes. Does she perhaps gloss over the darker side of Camelot? Of course. But I came away with the stamp of a piece of history. If you ever wonder what would have happened had Jack lived on a purely personal level, I feel that these interviews reveal a lot in that respect as well. You can call it spin all you want. But listening to Jacqueline Kennedy's voice, I, a cynic, was left with no doubt that she loved her husband--and for all his infidelity, no doubt that he returned the feeling. Their marriage--and their relationships with their children and extended family, the true gems of the interview--will never be fully understood, I think. But it was a marriage--not a business deal. I felt the love, which was so weird and heart-wrenching and almost ghostly. Call me sentimental, but I adored this in every way.
bmiche's review against another edition
3.0
Check out my review: http://thebountyofmybookshelves.blogspot.com/2012/03/jacqueline-kennedy-historic.html