Sarah P.

Most creditable biography of the modern Windors

Revisado: 04-20-24

I'm obsessed with the British royal family. Both facts and baseless gossip distract me from my own worries and keep my hands off video screens, which hold a dangerous fascination for me. But I have to say that Seward's book is possibly the most creditable Windsor biography yet. I could hardly put it down. It features detailed and sympathetic portraits of the people who influenced King Charles. I disagree with the reader who wrote "Every chapter is just miscellaneous stories tossed in and stirred." I detect a structure to Seward's book that strengthens its coherence rather than detracting from it.

In particular, Seward found in letters, held in public and private collections (as well as other published biographies), references to how the major players thought about various well-known episodes in the 20th and 21st century. She also quotes members of the family and longtime family friends and staff who seem to have had enough faith in Seward to report conversations and incidents never written about before. Or anyway new to people who have never met a member of the family. She also manages to pull credible nuggets out of such questionable accounts as Prince Harry's memoir "Spare."

I've heard Seward talk about the Royal Family on YouTube and found her to be frankly on the side of tradition and the British monarchy. But that sure didn't stop her from laying out the facts that she uncovered, assembled and assessed without seeming to cater, by the time she finished, to any single one of Windsors or to heir detractors.

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A view from inside the circle of the Royal Family

Revisado: 01-09-24

I feel I must counter the reviewers who found Anne Glenconner's narration annoying. I'm familiar with her voice from YouTube and documentary interviews, so of course I knew what to expect. And her natural, if non-professional pauses and breaths sound better than all right to me. Compared to many overly dramatic professional narrators, who more often than not are Ameircan, and those men, especially, whose narrative style is either more drone or chant than reading, I prefer Lady Glenconner's reading. I recommend you listen to the sample before dismissing this recording.

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More like Atkinson than Carré

Revisado: 10-19-23

It's OK, but the narration's snappy irony made me feel that not much was at stake. Although Herron has been compared to Le Carré, Herron has the smaller imagination and a more accessible wit. It sounded rather like one of Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brody novels, which are less political fables than personal journeys of discovery.

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Mispronunciations Abound

Revisado: 03-18-23

I've always like Bernadette Dunne's deep, intelligent and fluent voice, but someone should have told her that 'ou' in Parisian French is 'oo' as in 'fool', not 'oh.' 'Couture' should sound more or less like 'coo-tyure'. St. Laurent's muse Betty Catroux's name rhymes more or less with 'ah-choo' or 'Ah,TRUE! The word and the name appear at least a hundred times each throughout the book, so Dunne's faulty vowel is impossible to ignore. Otherwise, and except for the lack of the guttural 'r' of native French speakers and calling a central figure in the book 'Jock' when his name is Jacques, Dunne shows a passing familiarity with French pronunciation and syllable stress. This is not to say French people in different regions may not veer away from Parisian French, but these consistent mistakes are most annoying. A shame. The book has wonderful quotes from people who knew St. Laurent and Lagerfeld well over many years. It answers all my questions about these enigmatic, brilliant and self-absorbed fashion giants. I was surprised to discover how candid their closest muses, friends and business associates were in interviews with Drake and others that Drake quotes from. I appreciate the author's clear-eyed appraisal of the men's work at different periods of their careers. I find Drake generous towards both of them and even towards the dissolute object of their jealous desire, the dandy Jacques de Bacher. A good, honest piece of work by a fashion journalist. This is rare among the hoard of cheerleaders who go to lengths never to let their readers know when a designer collection, or the designer's entire oeuvre, isn't good.

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2/3 of a Thrilling Ride

Revisado: 09-14-21

If you're a Viking-worshipper, trust the bad reviews. If you want to read exciting history from the perspective of a passionate scholar with an idiosyncratic perspective, ignore them. The first two-thirds of this book couldn't be more absorbing. Does Price, who is one of the most influential archaeologists working today, come at the topic looking for some 'woke' elements? Sure he does, but the sheer amount of research he brings with him will wow you. In his telling at the beginning of the book, I don't quite recognize all the elements of the Viking Creation Story found in Vǫluspá (part of the Poetic Edda, which contains almost all we know of the Norse pantheon), but his ability to envision a story from the lines of enigmatic Old Norse poetry, which was already archaic by the time it was written down, is utterly compelling. Only towards the end does Price flag, racing through accounts of the late Viking diaspora without the same emotional investment he brings to the pre-Viking age and the all-important 7th, 8th and 9th centuries. In his introduction, he mentions a habit of procrastinating that raises his stress levels as his publication deadlines near; you'd need a copy of the book itself to find that confession. BTW, even the title "Children of Ash and Elm" is controversial; that turns out not to be a bad thing.

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Cliched drivel.

Revisado: 07-23-21

Tripe. The clichés just pile up, as French exploits all the tropes about the long suffering Irish, page after page, hour after hour. More of a navel-gazer about the meaning of life in dysfunctional Irish families than an interesting or intricate crime novel. Jesus save us. How did Tana French get a reputation as the finest crime writer of her generation? Consider another one of her popular books, Broken Harbor. I knew the mother did it about 45 minutes in. French is a predictable hack for readers who think just being being Irish means you've got the soul of Joyce or Yeats.

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What is it with British reticence?

Revisado: 07-16-21

As usual in so many novels set in the early and mid 20th century UK, no one is willing to explain to anybody else what's going on — in this case about social niceties, sex, sexual assault, innermost thoughts, or fears — so disaster ensues and engulfs a family. It's absorbing. And the time was, not so many decades ago, when the story would have been horrifying. But in the new millennium, when so much candor prevails at least among the literate, it's hard not to feel fed up with all the repression. By the way, I had no difficulty figuring out what happens at the end, unlike at least one commentator online. I did have trouble keeping track of who was related to whom and at what remove. That's often a challenge with an audiobook. The narrator was quite good — calm, mature, and deep-voiced. Keep Anne Flosnick in mind if you're sensitive to the quality of narration.

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Gripping Addition to History

Revisado: 05-12-21

Juliet Stevenson, with her deep voice and unhurried pace, is an asset to any audiobook she narrates. Her perfectly pitched acting skills also add life to every character she voices. American women narrators, who tend to pitch their voices way too high and to read with so much expression they exhaust my nerves, could learn from her example. The true story told here magnificently rights the wrongs that so long hid the achievements and humiliations of Virginia Hall as she courageously ventured into enemy terrain to help defeat the Nazis. Men either took credit for her triumphs or buried them in the vast archives of Britain's WWII campaign.

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Icky Story of a Great Writer Who Was an Icky Man

Revisado: 05-12-21

Nothing Tomalin tells us about Charles Dickens's behavior towards his wife, children and mistress — most of it unforgivable — undoes the brilliance of his novels. I wish I could cancel such a selfish man from my cultural heritage, but that would mean forgetting "Bleak House," "Great Expectations," and "A Tale of Two Cities" Can't do it.

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Fascinating but Also Troubling

Revisado: 05-12-21

Jaouad's account is terrifying and grueling. As harrowing as her illness, however, is her treatment of the boyfriend who saw her through it. She acknowledges that her own emotional neediness demanded superhuman endurance from him but I get the impression she still doesn't recognize the trauma she inflicted. She's not at all a bad writer and I approve of her recording the audiobook herself. If you don't already know, you'll never guess who boyfriend No. 2 turns out to be.

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