Specs2789

Astonishingly good book

Revisado: 05-15-24

i'd heard about this novel for years but resolutely refused to read it, convinced, for some reason, that it was about a dauntless matriarch in Indiana or thereabouts.

Not a bit of it. The Congo in the days of Lumumba is the setting for most of it. Four little women are taken there by their madly evangelical preacher father and long-suffering mother. Their tribulations are epic, the physical world that surrounds them is sensuously vivid. Each sister takes a different path, as does the mother, but the pattern comes together.

A most absorbing read.

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Surprisingly engrossing book

Revisado: 05-15-24

Accounts of Resistance heroism in occupied countries during WWII are fairly thick on the ground. This one distinguishes itself by a clever structure, well-defined and sympathetic characters, a genuine build-up of tension and a most vivid evocation of Rome. Highly recommended.

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An extraordinarily good book

Revisado: 03-01-23

This history of Ukraine from its earliest moments draws a portrait through the ages of a most complex region. I have always been especially interested in Eastern Europe and the Mongols but could not put this down after that. For the first time understanding of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth dawned. I began to take my knowledge of Cossacks beyond "And Quiet Flows the Don".
The various partitions creating yet more ethnic minorities throughout Eastern and Central Europe left Ukraine riven religiously and politically, crushed between empires on all sides. Yet somehow its people kept rising from their knees, producing more food, industrial products and manpower than most of its neighbours. Black moments, too, especially periodic pogroms of its many Jews. But what a tale of endurance and re-emergence.
Essential reading.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Excellent overview

Revisado: 09-27-22

This is a useful introduction to recent subcontinental history. it is particularly strong in describing the different developments among subregions. Recommended

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Gripping and committed read

Revisado: 09-13-22

The wealth of detail--political, historical, human--does not overbalance a galloping narrative. I learned a lot, and not only about Rwanda. Highly recommended.

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Great beach reD, and a bit more

Revisado: 05-16-22

Surprisingly engaging, with plot twists almost to the end. Might look for more by this author.

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Terrific panorama of chivalry and its underside

Revisado: 12-03-21

I read this book decades ago and liked it then. Tuchman gallops effortlessly around late-medieval Europe, keeping Enguerrand de Coucy, the 7th of that name, as her central point of reference. The Audible take does not disappoint.

The 14th century was a particularly confusing one, with the two waves of the Hundred Years War, the beginning of the Wars of the Roses, vanishing central authority in France, the machinations of Burgundy, the Papal Schism, the rise of Protestantism, all interspersed with terrible visitations of the Black Death. Tuchman's message, I think, is that chivalry died of its own rigidty, coupled with a failure to practice what was preached in its name. (Sounds a bit like the Catholic Church, in parallel agony at the time.)

The Audible version is wonderfully read and most engaging. One irritating detail, and unfortunately it recurs frequently, is that "joust" is pronounced "joost" rather than "jowst". it is possible that this is a tribute to the French pronunciation, which if so would have prevailed at the time. It is distracting, however, and a few other pronunciations struck me, no expert, as dubious, not least of "Mainz".

All in all, a terrific book. I miss it already.

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Excellent overview

Revisado: 08-10-21

This is an excellent overview of the three decades to the end of WWII, including a deft race through the war itself. Lively and detailed, never cumbersome. Good narration, though with a few surely preventable mispronunciations of foreign words. Recommended.

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interesting and well read

Revisado: 04-23-21

Ron Chrtniw provides an excellent overview of more than a century of American and British finance. Recommended.

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Excellent

Revisado: 04-02-21

This is a vivid and well-rounded account of a pivotal period in recent (ish) American history. I worried at times that the muckrakers were running away with the story but Doris Kearns Goodwin hauled them back into proper alignment. I suppose Taft was the real revelation. A very good read/listen.

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