David Bogosian

Dreadful

Revisado: 02-10-23

Don’t let the title fool you. This book is maybe 10% about the city and 90% a disjoint, pointless memoir of the author’s childhood and youth. There’s very little that’s interesting, even less that’s memorable. A thorough waste of ink and my time.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Fascinating man and period of history

Revisado: 07-23-21

An excellent book that focuses on Polk's presidential achievements in expanding the boundaries of the US, than in his domestic policies. I found the particular ways in which he approached the Texas, NM, CA, and OR land grabs fascinating and indicative of a man with a real purpose. The book is also peopled with a range of colorful, engaging, enigmatic characters that are far too many to list. These are B-list people whom we may have heard something about, but really know nothing whatsoever (unless you are a specialist and have done research). John Fremont, for instance; Henry Clay; J. Q. Adams; and several future presidents including Taylor and especially Buchanan. The narrative of the battles of the Mexican-American war is well done, with adequate detail but not overly ponderous. Of course, maps would be crucial but this being an audio book, they are sadly missing. Overall a very interesting book.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Very disappointing

Revisado: 03-09-21

As a big fan of Winchester's earlier books, I was really let down by this one. There is no real story, no central core. It's merely a series of anecdotes related to land and issues surrounding ownership. A few are interesting, others simply mundane. He takes a very favorable view of cultures which did not believe in personal ownership of land, deplores the Western belief in personal ownership, and yet never reconciles this with his own purchase of over a hundred acres of woodland in upstate NY, something upon which he dwells in detail but never really explores. There are real questions here: how should a culture that believes in land ownership interact with another that doesn't? What are the rights and wrongs of that clash? How might things have gone more equitably? But he doesn't deal with any of this. He spends a whole chapter talking about modern experiments in communal ownership of land without ever really explaining what that means in practical terms. Overall, the worst Winchester book I have ever read (and I've read half a dozen).

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 12 personas

Looooong but worth it

Revisado: 05-19-20

Nansen's expedition was incredibly daring and this book tells the story of how he came up with the idea, planned, and executed it. In truth, the section describing their life aboard the Fram could have been very significantly abridged, as so much of it was repetitive. The 28 hrs could have been much better as a 15 hr book and would have been even more enjoyable. There are only so many times you can hear about them hunting polar bears, or descriptions of the northern lights, or the dinner menu on board the Fram. Nonetheless, if you want to get a sense of what these men endured, and particularly the incredibly risky dash for the Pole which Nansen and Johanssen tried, and then their harrowing survival of the trip south, this book is fascinating. The reader is terrific, particularly when his native Norwegian skills are brought to the fore in pronouncing a place name or a personal name.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Dreadful reading!

Revisado: 01-11-20

One might expect that a professional reader would:

a) Not have difficulty pronouncing r's

b) Be able to distinguish cavalry (soldiers on horseback) from Calvary (the hill where Jesus was crucified)

c) Refrain from introducing new syllables into words (i-tit-erative instead of iterative)

d) Know how to pronounce Latin phrases such as sui generis (read as "soo - eye" instead of "soo - ee")

Such expectations would be bitterly disappointed by the appalling performance of Mr Killavey. Aside from such minutiae, his overall approach to the book is reminiscent of 1950s propaganda movies, with exaggerated mannerisms which rapidly begin to grate on the reader's nerves.

With regard to content, the book is reasonably interesting and argues its cases effectively. It provides an interesting summary of all significant military engagements in which the US military has been involved over the course of our nation's history. It's primarily a rebuttal to someone else's book from the 1970s, so if you are not invested in that argument (whether or not there is such a thing as the "American way of war"), you will likely not find the book terribly compelling.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Truth in advertising?

Revisado: 12-18-18

All 50 of the tips offered herein pertain to Rotterdam; nothing is said about Zuid-Holland in any way. I found that rather deceitful, frankly. The tips are potentially useful, some are for cafes or specific things to do. They definitely are not the typical list of museums, churches, etc. Overall not a bad little title, but it is very very short and as an audio book (to which you cannot easily refer), of little practical value. The reader should have polished up his Dutch pronunciation skills before embarking on this.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Unique perspective, but needs to be tightened up

Revisado: 10-28-18

For Vermeer fans, this book offers a sort of mini-biography, including lots of little everyday details as the cost of bread, the magnitude of his debts, the typical price of his paintings, etc. For those (like me) who knew nothing about van Leuwenhoek, it give a lot of insight into a man who, though less enigmatic than Vermeer and whose life is far better documented, is fully as intriguing and interesting a character. There are no breakthrough revelations about Vermeer, but one gets a very rich picture of what his life may have been like.

But the book drags on, it goes too far afield in chasing down details. I found myself skipping forwards repeatedly, and not feeling like I had missed anything. Would have been far better at 2/3 its current size. The narrator does very well, and to her credit tells us when she is on a footnote and when the note has ended, something other narrators are (incredibly) unable/unwilling to do. She keeps sounding interested in the subject, even when I've lost interest.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Tedious and tiresome

Revisado: 09-20-18

Hard to believe the same person who wrote "Remains of the Day" wrote this as well. It took a supreme act of will to endure to the end, but by then I was tired of the same repetitive literary tricks, jaded by this great mystery that really was not much of a mystery to begin with, and had lost all ability to suspend disbelief in the myriad pieces of the story that simply did not make sense. This is an appallingly bad book. Much credit goes to the reader who managed to pull off the performance with poise and a modest amount of interest, but you could sort of tell she was getting bored too.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Awful narration, but interesting subject

Revisado: 09-05-18

The subject is fascinating and would make an ideal book, but McCullough's treatment somehow falls short. It seems to dwell too long on too many areas of peripheral interest, but he does bring out some of the fascinating characters associated with the history of the canal. One problem for an audio book is that there are too many characters, and you can't easily go back a few pages and figure "who was that guy?" He would have done well to limit the narrative to maybe 2/3 of the people and help us follow along better. And the narration is simply appalling. He sounds like he is trying to read this for a class of third graders: much too slowly, with very little animation or color. You are stuck for 31 hours, anyone else could have read this in 24 I dare say.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Simply awful

Revisado: 02-22-18

The author is good at crafting language, but the story is... well... there isn't one. It jumps around, it has no thread to follow, it's confusing and ultimately deeply boring with nothing to say. The narrator does well with the various ethnicities, but is often unclear in her enunciation, with uneven dynamics that make listening even more challenging. I endured through about half the book and then gave up.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona