Rudyard Kipling: A Life

Rating:
Summary: Exceptional
Review: Clearly the best Kipling biography in many years. Mr. Ricketts has a fine touch, especially for Kipling's early years. If his later life wasn't as exotic and interesting, that's Kipling's affair. I think the mainstream reviewers had it right ('Splendid,' said The Atlantic Monthly, 'irresistibly readable,' said The New Yorker). Insightful and engaging.

Rating:
Summary: Exceptional
Review: Clearly the best Kipling biography in many years. Mr. Ricketts has a fine touch, especially for Kipling's early years. If his later life wasn't as exotic and interesting, that's Kipling's affair. I think the mainstream reviewers had it right ('Splendid,' said The Atlantic Monthly, 'irresistibly readable,' said The New Yorker). Insightful and engaging.

Rating:
Summary: good start... fades in middle
Review: Mr. Ricketts begins well. Kipling's ancestors are well drawn. His first years in India are well done. The years back in England when he was 7-17(roughly) are very well written. The first years as a journalist back in India, when Kipling had great success with poems and stories, is well doen too. So, the first 140 pages are useful. Then the book gets really boring. Kipling leaves India, circles the world and lives in Englamnd then the US. It's really boring. Mr Ricketts seemed to run out of energy. So read the first part and skip the last.