Audiobook. The subtitle of this dense and delightful book is How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages. The author came across the story of the Aristotelian Revolution while researching causes of religious conflict. The revolution began as the Christian scholastics rediscovered the bulk of Aristotle's writings in what was...
Audiobook. As with his book Absurdistan (see review), Gary Shteyngart is over the top much of the time. Set in the near-term future, Super Sad True Love Story is told through the diaries of Lenny Abramov and the online exchanges between Eunice Park (his beloved) and her friends and family. It is the depiction of the brave new world that is the point; the love story is an effort to mitigate the...
Audiobook. An engaging history of the beginnings of Impressionism with a good bit of the Second Empire thrown in. The richest, best known artist of the time, Ernest Meissonier, now almost forgotten, is a contrast to Edouard Manet, skoffed at and reviled during his time. The title of the book, besides referring to the contrasting judgments of the two artists, is the title of a design by Raphael...
Audiobook. The central date in this book, May 7, 1824, is the premier of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Harvey Sachs sets the stage for that performance, one that apparently was not very well done. The musicians' instruments were likely inadequate to the task and the musicians themselves had little practice for the performance. And so it was years before the brilliance of the music...
Audiobook. This 2009 National Book Award fiction winner was recommended by Pat. After reading several books about or set in the late 1960s, I have moved on to 1974. The unifying event of this book is the tightrope walk between the World Trade Center buildings by Philippe Petit. (A 2008 documentary called Man on Wire documents his walk which lasted about an hour...
Audiobook. The subtitle, The Americans Who Stood with Britain in its Darkest, Finest Hour is true enough, but doesn't quite cover the breadth of the book. Three figures dominate the story during the dark hours of the Blitz: Edward R. Murrow, CBS reporter; John Gilbert Winant, Ambassador; and Averell Harriman, as administrator of Lend-Lease. Their individual stories and...
Audiobook. Recommended by Jennifer, this story was an ideal audiobook. It is a well-read, long, compelling narrative that has plenty of drama with interesting characters and nobody dies. The characters are fully developed; we see their better moments as well as their wretched selves. Only Ella and her father have a limited dimension; they are always good, kind...
Audiobook. This appealing story tells of the recovery from the events of World War II (the great fire) of several characters. The appealing main character, Aldred Leith, is in Japan and China to write a book in 1947. The head of the base where Leith stays in Japan is evil, matched in evilness only by his wife. Their son is dying and his 17 year old sister is his close...
Audiobook. Another inspiring book by Greg Mortenson about his work to build schools, especially for girls, in Pakistan; this one focuses on his work in Afghanistan. (See my entry about Three Cups of Tea.) He was sought out by an unlikely delegation, a group of Kyrgyz nomadic herders from the 100 mile long Wakhan Corridor, the very narrow panhandle of Afghanistan, who have been largely ignored...
Audiobook. A funny book about an aging male academic set in an Ivy with complications of race issues thrown in is hard to imagine. But it manages to be funny and is willing to make just about all of its characters look ridiculous. Howard is the most foolish and out of control; he's a white British Rembrandt scholar who would like to denounce Rembrandt in print if he could...