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Sue's ABC Book Reviews |
| Each week our font of literary knowledge, the very well-read Youth/Community Services Librarian Sue Gammon, reviews a book on ABC Radio Wide Bay. Her reviews are also published here... | |
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Title: Who Wants to be a Billionaire? The James Packer Story Author: Paul Barry Series: n/a Imprint: Allen & Unwin, NSW: 2009 Reviewed: 29 October 2009 Genre: Non-Fiction - Biography Rating: 3 / 5 |
| The irony of this book is that, like James Packer's life, so much of it is about Kerry Packer. Having written an earlier biography of Packer Senior, the author still spent at least a third of this bio concentrating on the father rather than the son. That may of course be an indication of how impossible it is to write a story only about James, given his father had such an influence on his decisions and behaviour. What does come across very clearly is that Barry has no liking for Kerry Packer, and shows him as a bully, an arrogant businessman and a less than perfect father to his son. It appears that James found it impossible to please his father when growing up, and struggled with the same problem throughout his adult life as well. When things went well, Kerry took the credit for it, and when things went bad, James was the scapegoat. Barry looks in detail at the One.Tel affair, James Packer's love for buying casinos, and his fight to establish himself away from his father's publishing and broadcasting empires, which led him to his involvement with Scientology and Tom Cruise. Paul Barry has been criticized by Kerry Packer's friends for some of the comments supposedly made by James in this biography. Given James Packer did not talk to the author for this book, it is hard to know how Barry can presume to know his thoughts. Regardless, the biography is well-written, very topical and somewhat alarming in its description of the influence this family has had over Australian political leaders, and the privileges Packer Senior demanded and received because of his wealth and power. Time will tell whether James Packer follows in his father's footsteps. |
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