Customer Reviews

Living a Political Life

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Kunin was a state legislator for many years, lt. governor and governor of Vermont. I enjoyed her book very much. It is perhaps the best memoir of a career in state government I have read.

Kunin's book is mostly about her ascent to the top of Vermont politics, not what she did once she got there. More of the book is devoted to her career as a legislator and ver various campaigns than her tenure as Governor. She tells her story very much as that of a woman in politics, not just a political player. All this, I think, gives the book a more universal appeal than a Vermont-centered book would.

Kunin is an excellent storyteller, but what makes the book truly special is its degree of frankness. Contemporary politicians generally don't write good books. Too often their books are pieces of revisionist history, extended press releases, or platforms. Kunin's book is nothing like that. She names names, she explores her doubts, she even commits the ultimate political taboo of expressing frustration with constituents. Beyond all that this is a flat out interesting, well-written book.

Kunin is an interesting character. She does a good job of conveying her sense of wonder at the improbability of it all. Kunin was not only the first woman governor of Vermont, she is also a Jewish immigrant who fled Nazi occupied Europe as a child and whose father committed suicide. Interestingly, she doesn't much discuss her parents and their generation, and her story of fleeing Europe until near the end of the book, when she mounts the podium for the first time as Governor. This is an excellent device. Kunin plunges right into her political journey rather than the traditional, "When I was a child" By the time she tells us about her parents, we have reason to be interested in them. And their story is so unusual that it could make for an interesting book in itself. All that adds up to convey the point that her arrival was not at all anticipated by her past. This is a great way to end a book about politics.

State politicians seldom produce books. This is a welcome exception. The book seems to have staying power and should be read by anyone interested either in state politics, or women in politics. I enjoyed it immensely.

This book really makes a lot of sense. I enjoyed it and learned a lot about Governor Kunin. Being from Vermont, I can relate to everything that she has done for this state, and she in turn became (in my opinion) one of our greatest governors. I highly recomend this book!

I had to read this book for a college course in "Woman in Politics." I am so glad I did. I still list it as one of my all time favorite books and Ms. Kunin as a role model.

I found Ms. Kunin's road to a political life a very interesting and inspiring one. Though it's been 3 years since I've read "Living a Political Life," I am reminded of Ms. Kunin's journey to be true to herself as I travel my own journey as a wife, mother of three boys, secretary for our own business, a full-time outside career in politics and local voluteerism. I believe she tried to portray a women who could do it all and have it all if you believe in something and have a passion for it.

Any women, young or old, working, stay-at-home mom, student, etc. would benefit from reading this book. This book also makes a great gift.

What makes this book unique is it's honesty, as Governor Kunin share's her personal thoughts, fears and reactions to the challenges she faced in leadership. In a world where better marketing is a cheap solution for those problems that should require systemic change, and where image seems to be increasingly more important than substance, it is refreshing to read a real human account of a unique set of human experiences.

The one criticism I would express is the marketing of this book as female specific. I am a small town mayor, have been in elected office for eight years, and can vouch that much of what the author attributes to being female specific perspectives in leadership are in fact universal.

"Living a Political Life" was too absorbing for me to stop reading once I had started, but, like a kidney ridding the blood supply of excess nitrogen, I had to actively filter out about a fifth of what I read. If you find that simile hard to take, you may want to prepare yourself: former Governor Madeleine Kunin's book is as dense with figures of speech as a college creative writing assignment might be. The level of rhetorical flourishes and psychological self-examination that can hold the interest of the reader for four pages in an autobiographical essay becomes a little much in a political memoir of nearly four hundred pages. However, I salute Kunin for writing a truly unusual and worthwhile account of her political career from candidate for alderman to governor.

Anyone interested in politics, especially those who might want to plunge into it, will profit greatly from Kunin's candid description of her journey. She describes fortuitous and misguided decisions with equal depth, one of her book's great assets. She illuminates the process of finding allies, often in unlikely places. The story also shines a unique light on Vermont in the 1970s and 1980s in the midst of a remarkable transition from "rock-ribbed Republican" to firmly Democratic.

I only wish that Kunin did not spend on the order of a paragraph per page throughout the book returning to rhetorical restatements of her doubts about balancing life as a politician, mother, and wife, especially as she herself raises them far more often than anyone else does. Important questions, I agree, but if "Hamlet" were cluttered with this many reprises of "To be or not to be," audiences would walk out.

i found the book interesting with the female outlook on politics but it was quite boring in some ways. She seemed to dweel on some topics much more than needed.(for example:she had 200 pages worth of ideas but somehow expanded it to 400 pages with repetitiion)
in some palces this book is very iinteresting but in other places it is excrutiatingly boring