Leslie

A fine romance

Revisado: 09-04-23

I really enjoyed this love story between two women, a tough business executive and her young new assistant. Both the characters and the development of their romance are believable and sympathetic. If the plot gets a little fanciful from time-to-time, well that's part of what we read romance novels for, right?

The author, Melissa Good, got started as the Queen of Xena, Warrior Princess fan fiction, and was so good that she was actually hired to write for the show, so she knows how to write a great story. The reader is excellent and does justice to the story. I would recommend this to anyone interested in a satisfying lesbian love story.

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A Pleasant Story of the French Monarchies

Revisado: 12-09-22

If you're looking for a fun overview of French kings and queens, with some battles thrown in, you will enjoy this. It's not a history of France as much as a story about the personalities, foibles and scandals of the French monarchies, with a brief bit about the two World Wars at the end. And John Julius Norwich has a delightful old-fashioned upper-class British delivery in reading his own book. But there is nothing at all about the ordinary people of France. Nor is there any attempt to explain the "whys and wherefores" of the great events that pass through the narrative. The French Revolution is presented mostly as something that just happened to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette for no particular reason. The reader is told that the overthrow of Napoleon III and the Paris Commune of 1870-71 occurred because the people of Paris were "bored." I did enjoy the book as a well-written, well-narrated trip through 1,400 years of French royalty. But don't expect an actual history of France.

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I couldn't stop listening!

Revisado: 11-02-22

If you've ever enjoyed a Mel Brooks movie, you will love this book. I listened to it over a weekend and was sorry when it ended. It's filled with great stories and interesting tidbits about his work and life, and just overflows with Mel Brooks' joy in life. And listening to him read the book feels more like sitting down with Mel Brooks while he tells you these stories. I cannot recommend this audiobook too highly!

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Unbalanced and Biased

Revisado: 07-27-22

There are two flaws in this book that made it extremely disappointing for me. First, it is not really a history of England, but rather the story of recent English history with a prologue attached. The medieval period gets a sort of "once over lightly" treatment. The Early Modern period gets a bit more. But nearly half of this 43-hour book is devoted to the last 200 years and more than a quarter to the period from World War II to the present. The Viking invasions, the Norman Conquest and Magna Carta combined (a period of 300 years) get about the same coverage as the six years of World War II. So if you're looking for a book that covers the entire history of England, this is not it.

Second, it is quite triumphalist, with every bad thing the English have ever done downplayed or given the "whataboutism" treatment. For example, in discussing colonialism in Africa there is an admission that, yes, there were atrocities, but rather than seriously considering how and why such things happened and what their long-term consequences were, the author immediately pivots to: but look what the French did or the Dutch or the Germans. As for World War II, the author's view is essentially that the British won the war, the Americans were basically incompetent, and the Soviets were way over there in the east doing something, but nothing important enough to talk about. Just one example: according to the author, the D-Day landings went "smoothly" because the British planned really well, while the Americans were bumblers who like to exaggerate about how difficult the landings at Omaha Beach were. (This is not to say that Americans don't inflate our role in the European theater of the war and disregard the importance of the British and the Soviets, but neither approach is good history.)

The last 10 hours or so of the book are dedicated to the post-war period, with what I found tedious detail about the political issues of the day. This is nearly as much time as the whole Middle Ages got. And the author reveals himself to be a very strong Tory partisan. Margaret Thatcher is the hero of the age, who did everything right, and the Labour Party consists of a bunch of silly clowns. Certainly, people can have different opinions about these things, but the book doesn't even attempt to hide its partisanship.

Full disclosure: I am an American with an undergraduate degree in European history, with an emphasis on the medieval period. So I am no doubt more interested in that period than the average reader. But regardless, the emphasis of the book is completely unbalanced. And I am something of an Anglophile, so I don't mind a bit of pro-English bias. But this author just goes way too far in finding an excuse for everything and metaphorically cheering "Rule Britannia!"

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Excellent Introduction to the Reign of Elizabeth I

Revisado: 09-07-20

Heretic Queen is a well-written and entertaining history of Elizabeth's reign. The focus is on the religious issues that faced the country during the Reformation, disputes between and among Catholics and various Protestant groups, both inside England and internationally, but it also provides on overview of her reign in general.

This is neither a romanticized life story nor a dry scholarly history. Rather, it is a serious non-academic history - the kind of book that lets you learn a lot without getting bored. Plus the reader is outstanding and kept my interest throughout.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Desperately in Need of an Editor

Revisado: 09-03-20

This could have been a really good book if it were about half as long. There is a lot of interesting information in this book, which is primarily about John Huston, with a lesser amount about Walter, and Angelica and other family members appearing mostly as relevant to John's life. The first half is interesting, with a lot of information about Walter's life and career and the early years of John's career. But the second half degenerates into endless and tedious details about all of John's many marriages, relationships and affairs, and various disputes between John and other family members, friends and colleagues.

The author apparently got extraordinary access for interviews with Huston friends and family members, which is great. But it felt like he just dumped into the book everything that everybody had to say about everybody else regarding every incident in John's life, all unedited. It turns into a giant gossip-fest, with everybody getting their digs in at others. There were so many people quoted and so many scandalous events discussed in exhaustive detail that I finally gave up even trying to keep track of who all the players were and what they going on about at any given time. I just let it play in the background while I did other things. Occasionally late in the book the author would return to John or Angelica's professional career and I could start paying attention again. 37 hours of this was too much.

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esto le resultó útil a 6 personas

A Treat for Musical Fans

Revisado: 08-05-20

A great book for fans of musicals and of Hollywood history. It provides a tremendous amount of information about the birth and development and significance of the film musical, discusses the great and sometimes not so great films and stars, and analyzes the details of specific numbers. It’s beautifully written and beautifully read. A winner!

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Wonderful Re-Telling of Norse Myth

Revisado: 06-11-17

This was a delightfully entertaining re-telling of some of the great stories of the Norse gods, Oden, Thor, Loki and the rest, along with lots of giants, dwarves and assorted magical creatures. It is beautifully written and accessible to almost anyone. The narration -- by the author -- enhances the stories. My only "criticism" is that I wish it was at least twice as long. I was so sorry when it ended. Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in mythology, European history, or just a good story.

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Enjoyable biography of basketball's founder

Revisado: 06-22-15

This was a fun listen. I knew the basics: that James Naismith had invented basketball in the 1890s to give his students at the YMCA an indoor sport to play in the winter. But this book provided me with a lot more information about how the game came into existence and how it grew and changed in those very early years. It should be of interest to anyone who likes basketball or sports history. Naismith himself, although evidently a very good and intelligent man, doesn't come across as especially fascinating. Indeed, as it turns out, he didn't care for most of the innovations and the competitiveness which most people love about basketball today. He was a very proper, very religious late Victorian gentleman. I imagine he would be shocked by the game today. As a result, the portion of the book about his life after the game was invented is less interesting. Still, basketball fans owe Naismith a huge debt, and if you are at all interested in how the game came to be, this book is worth a listen.

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All of Western Philosphy Leads to Ayn Rand?!?

Revisado: 06-22-15

This is a fairly shallow and superficial overview of Western Philosophy The author's premise is that there is huge divide between Plato and Aristotle, and that all of western history is shaped by that divide.The author, Herman, goes so far as to say on a few occasions, that historians have it all wrong. Various major historical events weren't determined by economics or religion or culture, but entirely by the tension between Plato and Aristotle. This premise is exaggerated and simplified to the point of being ridiculous. In support of his premise, Herman tries to jam every subsequent thinker in western history into his Plato/Aristotle dichotomy, no matter how poorly they fit. I should point out, as well, that there is considerable controversy over whether there really is or was such a great divide between Plato and Aristotle in the first place. Certainly, any such divide is nowhere near as stark as Herman portrays it. As with so much in this book, the author simply ignores all evidence that doesn't support his premise, and exaggerates the rest to make it fit.

But the most bizarre part of this book is the end, where Herman reveals himself to be a worshiper at the shrine of Ayn Rand. Herman ends his book by a lengthy discussion of Rand, portraying her as the great culmination of all Western Philosophy. In doing so, he proclaims men like John D. Rockefeller as the true heroes of western civilization, dismisses John Maynard Keynes in one sentence as just some "communist," states without any evidence that the belief the US government played a role in winning World War II is "a myth" (according to Herman, the war was won entirely by heroic industrialists), and blithely ignores those parts of Rand's views which make most people very uncomfortable. Up to that point, I thought the flaws in the book were a result of the author's lack of in-depth knowledge of many of the philosophers he discusses. But in the last quarter of the book it becomes clear that his omissions and exaggerations are part of a deliberately selective approach to facts. This book is shallow, dishonest and, in the end, just plain silly. Paul Hecht did a very nice job reading it, however.

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esto le resultó útil a 88 personas