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Me. Ignatius is a very intelligent journalist, but…

Revisado: 05-24-24

this work is not a very good novel. His writing style and language usage is no more than at the high school level, and dialogue is very clichéd. The plot is formulaic (although in fairness I couldn’t get past the 7th chapter before bailing - perhaps it picks up).

I wasn’t overly impressed with the narration but the narrator didn’t have much to go with. I know he’s better from his other readings.

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Better than John le Carrie

Revisado: 12-02-23

I cannot add anything more than what the other ***** reviews state - to recap, an amazing story made even more amazing by its reality, told by a wonderful author and narrated wonderfully by John Lee.

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A compelling but angry polemic

Revisado: 04-16-21

Well, Baddiel airs his cumulative but highly valid grievances to what is predominantly British covert antisemitism, grievances that pour out all over the pages of this short book. His points are well taken and well argued. But they will forever be lost on the English, whose antisemitism is centuries old, virulent, but more insidious these days than when Jews were expelled from Britain or put to the sword.

That antisemitism is now a characteristic of the left is an international phenomenon and a not a surprising one, justified by the left by citing the actions of Israel towards the Palestinians. But the actions of the “Zionists” are merely a cover for the endogenous baked-in British version of antisemitism, now expressible, what Progressivism previously would not countenance.

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Not as great as one would expect of Larson and Lee.

Revisado: 04-13-21

In his introduction Larson states that unlike his prior books, everything within this book is historically accurate, and dialog, where it is quoted, is taken from historical records (diaries, minutes, news stories). So far so good. But the problem, of course, is that diarists are not usually skilled authors. And the book is easily 50% quotations knitted together by Larson's narrative.

A friend attempted to read the paper version of the book and gave up in frustration because it required wading through hundreds of quotations and pages littered with quotation marks. While there are no printed marks to distract the listener, the audio version suffers from the same. Here is a fascinating story of two critical years of the second world war, but told through far too many quotations.

Add to this the narration: Mr. Lee is a skilled reader with a distinguished voice and Oxbridge accent who is forced to contort his voice to speak as dozens and dozens of people. Most he does well or passably well. His American voice as FDR, Harriman, etc is impressively well done. Very very well done. His Churchillian voice also rings true and is done without affect or exaggeration.

But his voice as the many upper class women quoted becomes so damn annoying by the third chapter-it is always breathless, excited, and trite. One wants to smack every female character as trivial and superficial because of his portrayal of them, and I cannot believe they are the air headed twits and debutantes they sound like.

This more than anything else made the book unbearably tedious and repetitive. It was an act of will power to see it through to the end, and it was the power of the story that so motivated me.

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A slice of life in pre-revolutionary Paris

Revisado: 03-14-21

Andrew Miller is a masterful story teller and writes superb dialogue that feels completely authentic and contemporary with the era in which he is writing.

Ralph Cosham was the perfect reader. Titian, erudite, great French pronunciation, and droll.

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Who said he can write (books)?

Revisado: 12-05-03

Now I like Steve Martin, but this book is self indulgent and reads like a prolonged and increasingly dull monolog. One must conclude the only thing that got this published was Steve Martin's name. One can practically hear his high school English teacher telling him to use more metaphors; indeed this book has more metaphors than Martin has pennies in the bank (for example). Love your humor, Mr. Martin, but please go back to stand-up and films.

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