Rena Alisa

Love of books

Revisado: 05-07-24

I identified with this author’s love of books. I found the writing, clear and concise and the descriptions lovely. This was a fun book to listen to. What I did not like with the stereotypical characters, They showed no growth or development through the entire book, Every character ended exactly the way that they started. Lack of character change really interfered with my enjoyment of the book. You don’t become a sex maniac in half an hour after not having had a boyfriend for years. There was very little emotional connection between characters. I found the interpersonal relationships extremely mechanical. I wish this author would continue writing because she draws great word pictures. I also wish, she could learn to describe the inner landscape of personality. I wish she had a better grasp of interpersonal relationships, longings and character. When she does, she will write a book we can all rate ‘5’.

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A most interesting slice of American History!

Revisado: 05-04-24

I was not expecting a really enjoyable piece of American history & biography when I started in on this book. I’ve been a fan of Michael Crichton ever since I read Andromeda strain as a youth. I’ve always seen him mostly as a science fiction writer. But, what strikes me now is his great storytelling abilities combined with his thorough research and appreciation of context. Sherry Crichton is not one to invent remarkable characters. But this book shows me that he is a very good at portraying interesting historical characters. I never imagined him as being much of a biographer. This book held my attention and I listened to it straight through, (stopping only to sleep). I am a fan of biography and I want to add this to my list of very good books in this genre. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have.

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A magnificent reconstruction

Revisado: 04-26-24

This book has taught me more
about Galileo the scientist, Galileo the man, his family, his trial and his times than any other biography. It is both fact dense and intensely emotionally human.
This is biographical writing at its very finest!

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Enjoyable Irish fare

Revisado: 04-18-24

I usually have little patience for detective stories. I usually find crime tales quite boring. But this story was recommended by a friend as I prepare for a trip to Ireland. In this respect the story was very successful. It’s a lightweight book. No character development and nothing new. But it has a lot of charming and very Irish characters. The leading mind is a mother superior at an elementary school in a very poor neighborhood. Other ‘solvers’ are her former students.

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Definitely NOT Shogan

Revisado: 04-01-24

This long, long (endless) book is boring, repetitive, racist, misogynistic and dull.

The European men are good-old-boys, Hero’s of WWII. The European women are sweet helpful housewives. The Iranian men - high & low - are all brutal religious fanatics.
The two Iranian women who actually have names are rich, religious & very stupid. Fortunately they are both incredibly beautiful and sexy. They are redeemed by being married and managed by two of the European (G-O-B) men.

IN SHOGUN, James Clavell introduces us to a wonderfully nuanced introduction to Japanese culture. Apparently, Iran has no culture worth exploring. It is just a collection of tribal thugs who can’t appreciate how much better off they were under the colonial rule of the British and French.

Each ‘story’ within this saga is virtually identical to every other one. This could have been be a decent short story. As a short story, it might have been fun and exciting. There is a maximum of about 15 good pages in this horrible, horrible book.

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The (usually) untold portion of contemporary Jewish history.

Revisado: 12-03-23

This is a very workmen, like tale of the Jews of the “Levant”.
In so far as Jewish history is studied at all, we usually learn about the Roman conquest of Judea, the exile to Europe, the spread of Jews throughout Europe, the discrimination, settlements, ghettos, banishment, and so on - usually culminating in the atrocities of the Holocaust. What is rarely taught or even mentioned are the Jews of the so-called ‘Lavant’. i.e., Iraq, Iran, Syria, the Iberian, peninsula, Greece and North Africa. These are the “Sefardim” - Jews, who were banished from Spain and Portugal in 1492 - together with the entire Muslim population of those countries.

Since Islam had a place for Jews and Christians these people could live and prosper throughout North Africa and the Middle East. Spain became as a distant memory of oppression. These Jews spoke Arabic and the local languages but also maintain themselves among the Christians and Muslims of the Levant as a separate population, speaking Ladino - which is a medieval form of Spanish and Hebrew. (Much as Europeans spoke Yiddish-
a mixture of Hebrew and medieval German.). These Jews retained their religion, common biblical and rabbinical roots with their EuropeanJewish cousins. However, they also acquired the culture of the Lavant. They blended and adopted the cultureal traditions of their neighbors.
After WWII, in the early 50s, they were thrown out and expelled from Muslim countries (a fate shared by many Christians of the Levant) .
This book is written in a very personal and interesting style. It is easy to follow and interesting in its details. This is not a great work of literature. It reads more like an act of reporting. Interesting facts, but no character invention or development.
The narration is somewhat breathy and overly feminized. The narrator has a very good grasp of Spanish but unfortunately not of Hebrew, I would give this book a solid ‘C’. It is pleasant and interesting and worthwhile reading as History. I don’t think it is fantastic literature. Learn from it and enjoy yourself while you’re doing so.

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This is what humanity is all about

Revisado: 11-27-23

It has been said that the universe is stranger than we can imagine. It is also true that human beings are stranger and more complicated than we can imagine. It is Oliver Sacks, deep humanity and understanding of psychology that makes this book so interesting. Each human being is an entire universe. No two universes are exactly alike. But we are all related as human beings, even those of us who seem to be very odd or different. It is not easy to understand these differences. But this book is very helpful in seeing some of the extreme differences that human beings have from one another. For me, this book is all about understanding others. But it’s real goal is for me to better understand myself. I hope it works that way for you as well.

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Bland and Boring

Revisado: 11-09-23

These stories aren’t about anything interesting. No plot.
No characters. No information. They are uniformly dull. Save your time and credits for something enjoyable, in-enlightening or entertaining.

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The Saga Continues

Revisado: 11-07-23

Another magnificent biography by Isaacson. I hope I live long enough to read volume two in about 30 years, so I will know how this all turns out. In every endeavor and in every area of life, there are extraordinary individuals who change things for all of us. As with Einstein Steve Jobs, and now, Elon Musk, their stories are fascinating , enlightening and - to a degree - very very sad. I wish Elon well in all his endeavors and I hope he makes it to Mars.

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Who knew?

Revisado: 10-22-23

This is a carefully researched and interestingly narrated piece of history. Only since the fall of the Soviet Union have scholars been able to research the details of Genghis Khan and his successors. I had no idea of the scope, extent or value of the Mongolian civilization in the 13th & 14th century. This is the kind of history you’re never going to find in a school textbook of any kind. I enjoyed listening to it while Knitting. It is rather long, but very well written, and very, very interesting.

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