A Review of the New Tony Blair Book "A Journey"

It seems to be the way that a lot of reviews of the new Tony Blair book “A Journey” are as if they were actually ignoring the book altogether and instead reviewing Tony Blair. Amazon’s user reviews will back this up I’m sure. There are also other people who review it as another politician’s autobiography.

It is a mistake to review this book in these ways and it certainly shouldn’t be considered to be an autobiography, What this book is, in-fact, is an analysis of the juicy parts of Blair’s time as Great Britain’s Prime Minister. It supplements our knowledge of events with entertaining tales and also attempts to give the reader some understanding of Blair’s state of mind.

Bearing this in mind, my score for this book is 8/10. I literally couldn’t put the book down, and was pleasantly surprised at Blair’s degree of familiarity which revealed an emotive side to his choices as a politician. It could be said that the candid nature of Blair’s accounts are what positions this exceptional book above the vast majority of other political memoirs / autobiographies. The way the book is structured makes it easy to read too – meaning “cherry picking” the more juicier chapters wouldn’t result in you losing your way in the timeline of the Tony Blair book. Moreover, Blair’s style of writing should be commended as it draws the reader in without ever being clichéd.

However, despite the aforementioned praise, “A Journey” isn’t perfect I’m afraid. There are times when the writing feels a bit laboured (no pun intended) – particularly at the points in the book which are not quite as interesting as the others,and it seems unnecessary to refer to so many different people, which at times gets somewhat tedious. There also seem to be more family and childhood photos than necessary, bearing in mind the fact that this side of his life is hardly mentioned. Surely he could have included some unique political photos – which would have made the book stand out even more.

On the whole, I think that “A Journey” is a fantastic read and I recommend it strongly. What this book offers to the reader is a frank and truthful report of Blair’s ten years in office. A lot of this book has already been disclosed in the newspapers, but what these little citations can’t contain is Blair’s Character, which you will discover from the outset and it keeps on being revealed throughout the new Tony Blair book.

A Review of the New Tony Blair Book "A Journey"