Rating: 
Summary: How DARE...
Review: After narrowly losing the 2000 election, Al Gore promised us to conduct himself with humility. Instead, he has brought himself humiliation in the eyes of the world. In the time since 2000, he has built an enduring reputation as the most dishonest ex-Vice President since Richard M. Nixon, and brought deep dishonor to our country. He puts on a nice face in this silly little book, but in the shadows, he was planning his unpatriotic and despicable attack speeches recently delivered against President Bush. In these fanatical addresses, he said the president "betrayed this country", "lied", and "played on our fears." HOW DARE Mr. Gore call the president a traitor in the middle of a war. Even if you don't agree with the position, you don't accuse the president of SWITCHING SIDES (that's what "betrayed" means, Al and Tipper) in a war, while the enemy is watching.
Al Gore may be a good family man. But he is also a character assassin and uttered the most disgraceful line ever spoken by a former vice president when he said President Bush betrayed his country. Shame on you, sir.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing but what I expected!!
Review: After the democratic convention, I concluded that the Gore's were two of the most boring, artificial people I have ever seen. This book and the other one as well are a reflection of the phoniness they exhibited on the stage with their adolescent embrace. Their books' contents are an obvious contneance of this plastic and artificiality. It's amazing how the two of them can contort themselves into gumby-like poses and writing posture. It's a sorry state when they are able to fool even one person.The book is replete with a litany of phony descriptions and attitudes. Will the real Gore--Al and his clone Tipster--please appear for all to see. I don't believe even they know who they are and it is reflected in the writing style apparent. I wouldn't be surprised if we are told it was ghost written!!
Rating: 
Summary: Bravo!
Review: Al and Tipper were successful in choosing 'the pick of the litter' from thousands of images by recent American Photgrapers. For the best part, the collection captures the beauty of life and living. The subject matter encompasses affluent America to the poverty stricken, newborns to elderly, conventional family units to the piece mill home, and everything in between. The Gore's selections touched upon the great diversity of Americans yet they capture the emotions, ranging from pure joy to devastation, we have all expierienced that join us together as one.
Hats off to the Gore's, the Photographers which were chosen and the participants depicted. Spirit of Family celebrates photographs which have captured poetry in motion. I found it refreshing. Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Images
Review: Coming from an amatuer photographer and former journalist, I was not expecting much. However, Tipper Gore did not take the pictures, and instead she and her husband selected some photographs to show different families of all walks of life in different stages of existence. Some of the pictures you will have seen before, but most were new to me. It is a good addition to your living room table.
Rating:
Summary: I was hoping for more pictures of same sex couples
Review: I bought the book and was very disappointed. The review mentioned photos of same sex couples but their were only a few and no nudes. I hope I can get my money back. I do think Al and Tipper have a point that, in the future, more American families will look more like the Michael Jackson household. We will see more diversity with same sex parents, transgendered parents and interracial transgendered parents too. The future looks bright but it just did not come out in this book which is a real shame.
Rating:
Summary: Very powerful
Review: I despise both the Republican and Democratic party, and I didn't vote for Al Gore in the last presidential electoral farce, but I must admit I was taken aback by the collection of photos he and his wife, Tipper, assembled in this book. Their authorship is little misleading, however, for they're only editors--not photographers--pulling together--with the help of photographers--a vast array of works by numerous skilled and apparently hardworking camera artists and workers.
Few photo books show the diversity of the human project as this one. The Gores dare to include images a gay couple, of an interracial relationship, of the everyday poverty lived throughout the front and backyards of this country--of the old and the young, the sick and the afflicted, the violent and the peace makers, the believers and the doubters, the workers and their children, the faces and bodies of a cultural mosaic that makes up the republic.
The images are rugged, urbane, rural and rustic in tone. They provide a voyeuristic look into the homes of people we can't see on t.v. or People magazine. Some of them are so personal that we wonder what they mean, but others only mirror the human condition--the living and loving, the believing and doubting, the holding ourselves together despite our frayed existence. These are not wholesome, American pie photos. They break the media codes of slick Hollywood images or stereotypes of family. Seen together, the collection gives off a truer meaning what is family, of how, as the Gores contend, "families are changing." So for me, no one particular photo stands out, even though the individual works of Sylvia Plachy, Nicholas Nixon, Lauren Greenfield, Laura Staus, Eli Reed, and Arlene Gottfried, convey a particular style and depth. I also particularly like the point the editors make in their introduction, that "America's finest photographers have long believed that the greatest subject for their craft is not wars or the dramatic events of history, but the way people interact with one another--how they touch; how they hold their children in their arms; how they get through the day with all the stress, strains, and joys that life hands them; how one generation relates to the next." This is in part what I call the human project. And what better way to capture it than with photography.
...
Rating:
Summary: A Great Way To Reflect On America & Your Own Family!
Review: I sat down and looked through this book and came away pleasantly in high spirits about it. I believe the authors took great time and care to select and arrange the Photographs in what I can only term a labor of love for the Arts and Family. They were able to capture the human spirit in all and where we derive such values from our Fathers, Mothers and Grand Parents. It is even more astonishing the way they were able to show all Americans how our nation has grown to cross all race, religious and even political lines that once separated us as a national family. I commend the authors for doing this work and you know after seeing it; they did it together upon serious communication in their own family. I sense Al and Tipper have learned much about America by seeking out the public goodwill too. I suppose all the campaigning has not left them jaded or disappointed but actually motivates them to do even more public service for others. The book illustrates the Gores own principles and comes out at you by the arrangement of the pictures. I highly recommend you take some quiet time, put on some nice music and look through the book with your own family one by one. It will make every American recall their own struggles and successes and how life can be fun even with burdens and obstacles. This kind of quality time with your husband, wife or children will make you share your own memories with them. And more importantly teach them how to respect and honor those who may look different but love just the same. I think this is what Al and Tipper was trying to convey to all of us in this book and they did so in a marvelous fashion of honesty, reality and humor!
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Book
Review: I thought this would be just another feel good book of pretty family pictures. It was much more than that. The book was arranged to present families in all their different facets and incarnations. I was very pleased with this book and keep it on the coffee table where everyone can browse it. The pictures portray even the most ordinary family noble and beautiful. And that is the truth is it not?
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing but what I expected!!
Review: It's been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and this book proves it. The Gores have said they went through fifteen thousand photographs before choosing the ones they've included, and they've come up with some real winners. One of the cleverest, on P.62, shows a baby clutching a bottle against her face while a business-suited man sits on a nearby bed, clutching a cell phone in almost the same position. For emotional impact, I've seldom seen a photograph comparable to one by Alex Webb on P. 182, which shows a mother tending to her baby on a rooftop. In the background is the lower Manhattan skyline,almost blocked out by the smoke and ash of September 11th. Although the book is expensive, this picture and others make it well worth the price.
Rating:
Summary: Worth a Thousand Words
Review: It's been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and this book proves it. The Gores have said they went through fifteen thousand photographs before choosing the ones they've included, and they've come up with some real winners. One of the cleverest, on P.62, shows a baby clutching a bottle against her face while a business-suited man sits on a nearby bed, clutching a cell phone in almost the same position. For emotional impact, I've seldom seen a photograph comparable to one by Alex Webb on P. 182, which shows a mother tending to her baby on a rooftop. In the background is the lower Manhattan skyline,almost blocked out by the smoke and ash of September 11th. Although the book is expensive, this picture and others make it well worth the price.
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