William Jenks

Disappointing narration

Revisado: 12-17-24

This is a Paul Vidich novel. That means it's well written, and I will leave others to comment further on that.

My disappointment is in the reader. I am NOT especially critical of readers and am fine with different accents, approaches, genders, etc. My complaint here is that the reader seems to take short breaks (all too often) when she may as well be reading an instruction manual. She'll be going along, reading as you'd expect, and then a few sentences just get read as if she just has to get through the words so a computer AI service will transcribe them and do some search... And then she'll return to reading with normal expressiveness. Maybe this is intended to achieve some effect, but whatever it is, it didn't hit it for me.

It was not enough to ruin the book for me, but it was definitely distracting. Really too bad.

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No longer essential

Revisado: 03-03-24

I read this in 2024, with the benefit of hindsight and some other books that came out at a similar or later time. It may once have been essential, but I don't think it is any longer. Adam Davidson's material covers much of the sketchy business stuff. Isikoff and Corn's "Russian Roulette" covers some other material better. Hettena does a lot by implication, rather than evidence (at least in this book) and he's too ingenuous about some accusations. I'm not defending Trump; but although I found this book interesting and entertaining to a reasonable degree, I'd no longer think of it as the first place I'd start.

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Another fun ride from Cumming

Revisado: 02-12-23

This is a step away from the Le Carre type spy-centered story and toward the somewhat more fantastical "an everyman gets caught up in a complicated spy-related mess" plot. That said, it's a good ride, and if you like Cumming's other work, you'll certainly enjoy this. Not my favorite, but still strongly recommended. (Morocco is a setting for much of the story, and where "the girl" is found, but the principal characters are not Moroccans. This seems to be a complaint from some who do not like the book.) I think it's fair to say that the protagonist is the character best fleshed out and some of the others are a bit shallow, but I think this is partly a device to ensure that we are not entirely sure which side they are on.

The reader's performance is excellent. He does well with "voices" but doesn't go overboard about it.

There are a few who complain about "politics" in this book. I can only say that anyone offended by the (minimal) politics in here seem pretty thin skinned to me. At the beginning "the bad guys" are a left leaning group attacking (I will use the term loosely to minimize spoilers) well known loudmouth conservatives. No one exactly looks good. By the end, the bad guys are still pretty much bad guys, though unsurprisingly one of the main ones has more complex motives. It's a spy story.... At the very end, a few very few not-too-complimentary allusions are made (without naming names or being too specific) to the Trump administration. It's pretty light stuff and hardly a political screed. Honestly, my suggestion if you are that sensitive to a bit of political commentary in a novel is that you find a genre other than espionage. :-)

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Spy-heist-chase story

Revisado: 12-03-22

This is the second in the Charles Jenkins series, of which there are three as of this writing. The first book was more of an espionage-cum-courtroom story, whereas this one is more of a "heist" with an extended chase, with the spy bits mainly giving the framing, rather than being the main point. My own preference is for more "spy" stuff, but the story is nonetheless entertaining and engaging. This reader is excellent.

While you could read this one without having read the first, in that sufficient summaries of the back story are given, I would not recommend that...start with the first one to make the story have more depth.

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Very engaging spy/legal thriller

Revisado: 11-30-22

This book is quite engaging to get through and the performance is great. The reader uses character voices that are not outlandish and are easy to follow.

As other reviews point out this is a semi-conventional spy thriller for a bit that turns a bit less conventional, then takes a sharp turn as our protagonist has to defend himself in court. The narrative is compelling and I certainly wanted to keep hearing what would happen next. Compared to some espionage novels, the story is easy to follow by audiobook. (I don't mean this as a criticism, but there are some novels you really have to be 100% focused and 95% isn't good enough!)

My only quibble was is near the conclusion of the courtroom part. Not exactly Deus Ex Machina, but something just sort of happens that didn't have to and I didn't think was that well motivated. (The author tried to motivate it retrospectively, which sort of helps.)

The fate of not every spy-type-person is resolved in this novel. I haven't read/listened to any of the other books, but it is clear that these storied are continued in volumes 2 and 3 of the series.

Overall: certainly recommended for fans of the spy genre.

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Great history - a bit of a slog for general reader

Revisado: 05-05-20

As others point out, this is a monumental work of history from which virtually any of us will learn. I won't focus on the content for this review; others have, and besides, I'm a chemist, not a historian.

I took this on as the first serious book I read about Reconstruction, because why not start at the top, so to speak. In terms of really building a deep understanding of all the social pressures (and politics), it did not disappoint. However, as a general interest reader, I couldn't help at times thinking I could do with a version that was half or two-thirds the length. There are sections that a general interest reader like me might find to be a big of a slog. In retrospect, his "Short History of Reconstruction" might have been a better choice for me, in that I certainly won't retain all 30 hours worth of detail anyway.

Many have commented on the audio quality. I will add mine. To me, this sounds like a recording literally made in the late 1950s. I am comparing it to school movies I saw that seemed old in the early 70s or music recordings of the era. That is, it sounds muted and compressed with background white noise. It just sounds "old" and you'll know what I mean as soon as you listen. That is something that you can just get used to, even if it's a little disappointing. I wished it sounded brighter and cleaner, but it wasn't anything that was going to stop me from listening. It is also true that Dietz pronounces a certain number of words oddly (e.g., miscegenation as if it had a K where the c is), and yes that's a little distracting. However, I found his overall precision of speech to be a plus. There are large sections of the text where you need to know the difference between "freed men" and "free men," and the words are used frequently and near one another. Dietz's diction is such that that distinction (and others) is clear. I am les clear why he or his editor/director didn't catch all the odd pronunciations....but again, he is consistent with them. (And yes, it's a bit slow and didactic, but I think some listeners exaggerate here.) Overalll, the audio is serviceable and clear enough, but it does lend itself to giving the impression that this is a textbook that is being read to you.

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Fact filled, but a bit dry and academic

Revisado: 10-22-19

I am NOT a historian or an expert in this period by any means, but the case laid out here by Bonekemper is based on lots of original documentation and comes across as quite convincing. I'm quite glad I listened to it and I do recommend it.

I do want to be realistic, though. I'm also a professor (though in an entirely different subject), and this sounds/read more like a dissertation than it sounds like a. popular literature non-fiction read. You can hear all the subheads and parallel structure coming across, along with the content. That style might make it seem like a drier-than-necessary read for some. I wouldn't want every book I listened to or read to have this style, but it is fine with me, and it's only a 9 hour listen, not some giant 40 hour tome. The reader conforms to this style, rather than trying to inject any extra "story" through intonation or cadence.

The content here is great. In this era of "fake news," it is interesting to hear such a thorough debunking. I grew up in CA, hardly "the south," yet I recognize elements of the Lost Cause and Lee hagiography from my own public education. Although on one level, the "why" of this mythmaking is obvious, I might have enjoyed hearing the authors thoughts a bit more extensively on this. I presume he wanted to keep it to a pretty objective text, and he focuses on very straightforward evidence and analysis.

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Some good points, but not a great book

Revisado: 07-25-19

First, some context. I am a university chemistry professor and I grew up watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos in high school, running around saying "billions and billions" as if it was both funny and profound. Moreover, pseudoscience drives me crazy. I *wanted* to like this book. I was hoping, at least in part, to see what Sagan had said some years ago could be applied in the age of social media, but of course I had no expectation of that being explicitly mentioned.

Unfortunately, I found this book disappointing. Others have dwelt on the seemingly dated UFO issue, but I didn't see that as a major problem. However, it doesn't seem like it is a coherently written book. It feels more like a set of related lecturers that were edited to turn them into a book without enough emphasis on the editing.. It's repetitive in places and not really coherent from one topic to the next in others.

A very good Audible Original of 2-3 hours length could be made from excerpts of this book. There are some very good and very important ideas here, and some good stories too. The book is not without merit. It's just not the level of content I expect from this icon of my youth and one of the great science communicators of his day.

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Enjoy it on its own terms

Revisado: 07-20-19

The negative reviews here seem to me to be expressions that the readers are disappointed that this is not a traditional hard core biography. It is not. Parts are told out of order and perhaps a quarter of it is a memoir about the author, his personal obsession with presidential memorabilia and trivia. At least half of it is told in a relatively casual tone unlike most Serious Biographies, as well.

Like a lot of people, I've been listening to a lot of presidential (and related) biographies and a couple histories, particularly bridging this antebellum period and its "lesser" presidents. I might have liked a real Serious Biography better, but I also enjoyed this lighter treatment.

This book is not intended for people who already know quite a bit about Buchanan...the type that would read three or four biographies of a major character (Jefferson, Jackson, Washington...whoever). It's a more casual work, and the author names other older Serious Biographies more than once that people who want that can probably find on Amazon, but not in audio format.

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Title = Truth in Advertising

Revisado: 06-18-19

I picked this book in part because there are so few on presidents from roughly Harrison through Pierce. It is read very very well, and the author has a dry sense of humor that comes from time to time. It's clearly an academic work of a professor (or perhaps deriving from a PhD dissertation), but the text is well written and with as good as narrative as one can imagine for the topic. The strength and weakness is how well the book adheres to the the subtitle.

Anyone really interested in Indian policy in the early 19th century will love the detail here. As one with more casual interest in that topic in particular, I was pleased to learn the big picture particularly well, but I got a little bogged down here and there with all the names, etc. A more general interest study of Harrison would have spent some more time on the latter part of his life, for example.

In any case, I can strongly recommend this book to anyone who finds the title intriguing ... others looking for a more general biography of Harrison should just be aware of what they are getting into.

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