D. Littman

Great narration, one of Audible’s best narrators

Reviewed: 11-17-24

Odd book, not actually much about Handel’s Messiah. Interesting nonetheless. At times. At other times, not so much.

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Very entertaining

Reviewed: 03-03-24

Entertaining. Especially in its depictions of going to Hollywood as comic nobodies & processes of comedy clubs to script writing to interacting with the industry to success. Narration is good, both of the protagonists themselves & narrators doing passages from individuals who have passed away.

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a great but depressing book

Reviewed: 12-12-23

This well-written & deeply researched (for a popular history) book provides a superb slap-in-the-face to politicians & wannabe white supremacists bent of whitewashing American history, so that contemporary white children aren't made to feel guilty or uncomfortable about the actions of some of their ancestors. The fight against black former slaves (& freedmen) & against both Southern & Northern (in the South) advocates of equality was a pure, unadulterated horror show. The narrative of which was submerged in the subsequent 100 years by the Lost Cause myth & by Northern indifference. I found the book very enlightening but sometimes a hard read as atrocity after atrocity was related by the author. But still worthy of reading. The author also shows, as other books have, that in some ways Reconstruction in the south was doomed from its birth, despite the best efforts of lots of whites & blacks, north & south. And that while the Grant Administration in general & President Grant in particular tried hard to sustain some kind of positive effort, the Union occupation of the South was too light, scattered & isolated to do much good defending black rights & fighting off local white elites, the Klan & other copycats. So that the 1876 election compromise doesn't come as a surprise. Despite what I said above, this book is not meant to be a political document for our times, for the likes of DeSantis & his ilk. This book will stand on its own long after that reactionary wave is past (I hope).

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2 people found this helpful

An interesting book

Reviewed: 09-29-23

A sprawling history of the WW2 Supreme Court that features biographies of all the justices & other key players in the action (e.g., individuals involved in key court cases & individuals in the political & executive branch sphere), & sketches/commentary on major court cases that affected decisions & public policy in the decades thereafter (for better & for worse). The author also attempts to weave in some of the (mostly) well-known historical fabric upon which the justice bios, politics/policy & cases sit atop. If all this sounds ambitious, it is. The author’s ambitions when combined with the book’s structure does lead to both repetitiveness & sometimes a sense of losing’s one’s way (this is sometimes accentuated by audio vs old fashioned reading). The book could have used a stronger editor in places to tame the narrative & grammar. All this aside I did learn a lot from the book despite being familiar with the broad brush of material. This made reading it quite interesting in spite of my grumbling. The narrator does very well with the material as well.

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A new take on the run-up to WW2

Reviewed: 09-19-23

The author takes a new tack on explaining the United States -- before WW2 & in the first months of WW2 -- by focusing on several passengers (& the pilot) of a PanAm flying boat that crashed in Lisbon in 1942. Each biography is interwoven in the book, which sometimes makes for a confusing read as an audiobook, but its worth puzzling through. The US was of course a diverse society in the 1920s & 1930s, and the joy of this book is experiencing the different facets the author chooses to highlight. Since most of us history readers can fall into the fallacy that the past was very homogeneous when compared to our current world. The aircraft angle is alittle bit of a McGuffin that allow Blower to choose among the passengers for interesting angles on that prewar world & the first months of US involvement in the war. The narrator is also excellent.

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Excellent, a classic

Reviewed: 08-02-23

A classic that should be read by all. Hasn’t aged over 100 years, in part because the same issues the author attacked back then still exist today. Beautifully written, not heavy-handed, polemical. And beautifully narrated.

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Great book, great narration

Reviewed: 06-12-23

Author has dug out a terrific amount of material on the activities, leadership & accomplishments of the Truman Committee. I think it is well known that Truman came to FDR’s attention because of the Committee. But I was unaware of how it accomplished the spectacular rise of Truman from an obscure junior senator (with a perhaps undeserved past connected to a political boss) to the vice presidency & presidency. The book is especially good on the higher profile investigations the Committee did during WW2.

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2 people found this helpful

Outstanding narrative history

Reviewed: 04-23-23

Excellent audiobook, covering a tumultuous century that had great meaning for the UK of today & for the “founding fathers” in colonial America, & hence to us in the US in 21st century times. Very enjoyable read.

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3 people found this helpful

Outstanding

Reviewed: 04-10-23

Should be required reading in all Indiana schools, and other states too. Like Ohio & Illinois, 2
other states with the largest 1920s KKK membership. Racism is not just a southern US phenomenon. It wasn’t in the 1920s. And it isn’t today.

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A wonderful collection of stories

Reviewed: 03-30-23

Beautifully written, beautifully narrated, an unnown gem (to me at any rate) of Steinbeck's art. I have loved so many of his other works, East of Eden & the Grapes of Wrath (both 1000 time better than their good movie treatments), Travels with Charlie too. These are available on Audible & are excellent. I listened to Pastures of Heaven in the course of 2 days, couldn't put it down. It turned out to be a perfect separator between my more usual fare of nonfiction & history.

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