Review of "Sharing Good Times," by Jimmy Carter

 Review of

Sharing Good Times, by Jimmy Carter, ISBN 9780743270335

Five out of five stars

Retirement is not his thing

 Years ago, when former president Jimmy Carter was in the news I told a couple of my co-workers that he was a far better ex-president than he was a president. His list of accomplishments in the economic and political arenas are very impressive and he has met with many of the major world leaders. Especially interesting was his rendition of his time with North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung. There is the real belief that had Kim Il-Sung not died soon after, there could have been a comprehensive deal between the United States and North Korea.

 This book is a non-sequential memoir of Carter’s life, starting with his childhood in rural Georgia. While readers familiar with Carter’s boyhood will learn nothing new, those passages are short. What is really interesting are his travels around the world, his hunting and fishing in remote places and his activism in improving the lives of people in the Third World.

 The Carter Center is one of the leading advocates for human rights and one of the leading organizations in monitoring elections around the world. Carter is also a very hands-on person in building houses under the Habitat for Humanity program. As Carter mentions in this book, Habitat for Humanity is a world-wide organization, something that is not well-known.

 From climbing mountains to jogging in remote places to traveling to other countries and meeting with their leaders, Jimmy Carter and his wife ‎Rosalynn Carter have indeed kept busy since he became an ex-president. It is clear that they have enjoyed their life since then, whether it be in events involving family or just the two of them on yet another adventure. Jimmy Carter also demonstrates once again that he is a very good writer, the prose is simple and understandable. This is a fun book to read, far more than a simple, “How I spent my retirement” synopsis.