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A Journalistic Classic

Revisado: 09-29-22

Janet Malcolm’s world-famous essay on the journalistic ethics (or lack there of) of the best-selling author Joe McGinniss during his Ill-fated partnership with his Fatal Vision subject Jeffrey MacDonald is told and narrated with superb distinction. This book is a classic work of non-fiction and is made infinitely better by the Audible experience.

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A Classic Read Yet Not The Complete Story

Revisado: 02-07-22

This is a beautifully written and sympathetic portrait of Diana of Wales that is fair and balanced in her favor and wonderfully narrated. However, it downgrades the Royal Family to an alarming degree as if no member of the dynasty has ever had any redeeming values. Bradford is an excellent writer and researcher but she wrote the book with the tenth anniversary of Diana’s death in mind and garnered herself a bestseller to please the public. On the other hand the author does show the more human and vulnerable side of the narcissistic, manipulative Princess that her sycophantic biographer Andrew Morton chose not to reveal.

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Diana’s Alternative History

Revisado: 03-27-19

This is the alternate ending most people wanted for the iconic Princess of Wales, but it is only a pipe dream on a glorious scale, One cannot rearrange history except in fiction. Yet Diane Clehane has outdone all post-Diana authors in elevating the dead Princess on a higher plane. It is a better novel than Blood Royal, in which the fictional Di shoots Charles and kills him, and leaves none of the bitter aftertaste of the incredible plot of the equally excellent Untold Story by Monica Ali.

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The Forgotten Monarch

Revisado: 08-06-18

Queen Anne was one of Britain’s most formidable rulers. She reigned as the last of the Stuart monarchs until her death in 1714 brought her Hanoverian cousin George I over from Germany to sit on the English throne. Nicknamed Brandy Nan, she was nearly six feet tall (the height of her predecessor Elizabeth I) and was so obese she had to be carried in a sedan chair, yet her leadership skills enabled her to make crucial decisions that would ensure (as it did during Elizabeth’s time) that Britain would remain a major world power. Anne also suffered setbacks in her personal life that would have destroyed anyone with a much weaker character: none of her children survived, and her closest friend the power-hungry Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, became her most redoubtable enemy. Faced with an array of indomitable challenges and few people she could trust other than Sarah’s poor cousin Abigail Masham, whose loyalty never wavered, Anne rose above the petty squabbles at court to leave a legacy that strengthened the foundations of the Empire but have largely been overlooked by most historians. A truly inspiring biography with compelling narration by the wonderful Hannah Curtis. Highly recommended.

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The Defenitive JFK Assasination Book

Revisado: 09-23-17

The ultimate inside story of the events leading up to the JFK assassination and its aftermath. Reveals that RFK believed that there was indeed a conspiracy to murder his brother. David Talbot interviewed many people who had never come forward before to expose that Bobby planned to reopen the investigation once he himself became President but was murdered before he could do so. A mind-boggling indictment of the government, media, and the establishment in the latter stage of the twentieth century.

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A Tragic Royal Romance

Revisado: 08-10-17

This is an incredibly readable historical novel.Clare Corbett is a wonderful narrator, but Daisy Goodwin has a fascinating story to tell. It is a fictional account of a forbidden romance between a British rogue and a real-life tragic European royal whose own life mirrored that of the modern Diana Spencer. In fact the book's cover is a silhouette of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria shown in the foreground in elegant riding garb, while in the background is Althorp Hall, the ancestral home of the Spencers, a favorite haunt of the horse-mad Empress.

Princess Elizabeth of the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach was only sixteen-years-old when she wed her twenty-four year-old cousin the Emperor Franz Josef of Austria/Hungary in 1854. "Sisi" as she was nicknamed, immediately became the most adored royal in Europe, whose fame was second only to her much more distant cousin Queen Victoria. She was considered controversial and ahead of her time, just as was Diana, Princess of Wales in the late twentieth century. In fact, Sisi was the Diana of her day. Both were beautiful, charasmatic, restless, reckless, bored with court life, and married to much older, traditional men, each of whom had courted the older sister: in Prince Charles's case Lady Sarah Spencer, and in Franz's case the unappealing Princess Helene, whom he promptly ditched for Sisi. Both Diana and the Empress loved children, each had the common touch, and both women were obsessed with their appearance, having to contend with voracious photographers motivated primarily by greed. Both also suffered from anorexia/bulimia, and had to deal with unhappy marriages. Neither would ever find contentment or happiness. And like Diana, Sisi suffered a horrible death; although in the case of the Empress, she was actually stabbed to death by a lunatic who hated the noble establishment which ruled Europe in the late nineteenth century.

This novel is actually about a genuine Englishman named Bay Middleton, a dashing cad about society who was the most celebrated jockey of his day, but whose hubris allowed him to take liberties with the beautiful Empress, thereby scandalizing the upper-crust world in which she moved. It is almost an eery precursor of the ill-fated romance between Diana and James Hewitt. Daisy Goodwin is an excellent writer who has perfectly captured the Victorian era during which Sisi thrived as one of its most beloved superstars and one of its greatest horsewomen.

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Best Story of 2016

Revisado: 06-15-17

This is an incredible insider's account of the most notorious campaign in American political history. Hillary was hands-down the most qualified candidate to run for the Presidency since Nixon in 1960, and like him, she lost the electoral college to an opponent who was richer, as well as an unbridled womanizer. The significant differences between Jack Kennedy and Donald Trump are, of course, that while JFK had class, genuine charisma, great charm, superb speaking skills, and respect for his fellow human beings, Trump took the low road, blew the dog whistle, and turned the race for the White House into a national nightmare. Mrs. Clinton should have won this last election. She was by far the better speaker, had a professional grasp of the issues facing Americans in both foreign and domestic policies, held a more unifying convention, and won all three debates. She also managed to overcome a more viable, far less corrupt rival in the primary process who might have won in a landslide against Trump. This book explains why and how she lost, is a must-read for political junkies, and is perhaps the best work on the Clintons since Sally Bedell Smith's For the Love of Politics.

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Tigergate

Revisado: 06-13-17

An interesting analysis of the Tiger Woods sex scandal and the media hype that fed the beast. An anthropological study of our culture's obsession with fame and misfortune. Superb narration by McConnohie.

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Another Oppenheimer Eye-Opener

Revisado: 05-30-17

Many people believe that only the top tier Kennedys are fascinating: JFK, Jackie, John, Jr., etc., but the author, who wrote a shocking 1993 bio of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s mother Ethel, obviously picked up where he left off and decided to profile the most charismatic, talented, and intellectually gifted of the famous widow's eleven children. Oppenheimer paints a proverbial warts-and-all portrait of the second son of the brood, noting Bob's positive attributes, but detailing much more of the negative ones, mainly his arrogance, which nearly all of the Kennedys seem to possess to a certain degree. Like most of the clan, Robert Junior has a fast reputation and an extremely strong sense of entitlement. He would make a better politician than his brother Joe, but there would be a tremendous price to pay for seeking high office.

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My Thoughts Be Spellbound

Revisado: 05-30-17

The author has written the definitive work and by far the most readable of the Booth assassination sagas in print. The narration is crisp and superb, making this much more of a guilty pleasure than even American Brutus, The Lincoln Conspiracy, or Manhunt. My heart bleeds for not only the Lincoln family, but the Booths themselves, particularly Edwin Booth, who must have borne the greatest shame and burden of any individual involved. It is an even greater crime that his younger brother eclipsed him in death and is still thought of as the more talented of the two. If more widely read, this book would dispel that myth and give Edwin his due place in history as the greatest American actor of the late Nineteenth Century. John Wilkes Booth be damned.

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