- DUNKIRK: FIGHT TO THE LAST MAN WAS A GOOD READ, BUT IT READ TOO MUCH LIKE A TEXTBOOK. TOO MUCH INFORMATION FOR MY TASTE AND WAS TOUGH TO READ AND KEEP TRACK OF WHO'S WHO AND WHO'S WHERE DOING WHAT. I DON'T RECOMMEND THIS FOR LIGHT READING. (Amazon Customer Review of Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man.)
- In depth analysis of the global economies and its effect on American Jobs and American Corporations. What I really like is the fact that you don’t have to be a Ph.D. in Economics to relate or understand the book. The author does an excellent job to explain his point of view. (Amazon Customer Review of Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat)
I have no doctorate in History, but I have read many books about World War II. This one, Dunkirk, was the most difficult to get through because it read “too much like a textbook” when it would have been much better as an engaging narrative of a crucial episode in the history of the world. The World is Flat has been on the New York Times Book Review “Bestseller List” for two years. Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man has yet to appear there; while it is a later book, it has been available since November. I have read both books and thoroughly agree with these reviews.
I have to admit that I bought the Dunkirk book because I’ve long had an interest in the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from the beaches of France in 1940, without which the Germans would probably have won WWII; but I found the The World Is Flat more interesting and readable. I do not have a doctorate in Economics either, but it was clearly written and well explained.
1 comment:
I think you can remove the quotation marks from "like a textbook", sir. The phrase isn't a cliche or unusual, and I don't think you intend the Ironic Quotation Marks, that imply a question about the validity of a term. Aside from that, yes, I know what you mean. It reminds me of when I read a novel by Doctorow years ago. After a while I was distracted by the neat progression of paragraph after paragraph, each the same length. It was almost like the so called workshopped quality so many new novels have now, including some good ones. Reading one, you can almost imagine the writer repeating all the rules to herself, being careful not to do this or that. I believe that quality can often strangle prose, make it sound artificial, too deliberate, and writerly.
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