Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair visits Shanghai in July. Blair, whose memoir will be published Wednesday, has been a sought-after speaker around the world despite lingering hostility at home.
The former prime minister recaptures the spotlight with his plan to donate all book fees, including his $7-million advance, to wounded veterans.
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He owns several homes in Britain but spends most of his time abroad. He led the Labor Party to victory three times at the polls but was virtually invisible during the last election. He dominated British airwaves for a decade but has faded from view.
Still, Tony Blair knows how to grab the spotlight when he wants to, and this week, the famous megawatt smile and shrewd eyes are about to be omnipresent once again, along with a lot more gray hair.
The former prime minister's face will gaze out from bookstore windows everywhere with the release Wednesday of his much-anticipated memoir. Pundits, old colleagues, friends and foes are eagerly awaiting their chance to sift through 600-plus pages for revelations, recriminations and regrets of a decade at the pinnacle of British politics.
So far, neither author nor publisher has given anything away.
Even so, Blair has managed to stir the waters before the book's release, giving a huge boost to pre-sale orders but offering his compatriots a reminder of just how divisive and controversial a figure he has remained since stepping down from office three years ago.
He received a staggering $7-million advance for writing "Tony Blair: A Journey." (The original title had it as "The Journey," but was modified after criticism that it sounded too self-aggrandizing even for him.) In his detractors' eyes, the massive windfall was yet another crass example of the Blair Rich Project, his allegedly relentless campaign to amass a fortune on the back of his reputation and connections.
But Blair flummoxed everyone this month by announcing that his advance fee and all other proceeds from the book would be donated to the Royal British Legion; specifically, to a rehabilitation center for wounded veterans.
It was "the good deed that shocked the nation," as the Daily Telegraph put it, coming as it did from a leader who took his country into two unpopular wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Suddenly, Blair was front-page news again. Reaction to the donation was instant, much of it negative, with the father of a fallen soldier calling it "blood money" and others declaring it Blair's attempt to salve his conscience over joining the United States in going to war in Iraq based on discredited evidence.
Within hours, the book shot up to the top 10 sellers on Amazon's British site. (It's slipped back down a bit since then.)
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SOURCE: The Los Angeles Times
Henry Chu | henry.chu@latimes.com
