A wonderful volume that takes the reader through roughly a thousand years between the fall of the western Roman Empire and the fallout from the Protestant Reformation. Dan Jones writes an eminently readable prose that kept me engaged throughout the book. He did an excellent job painting a picture of what the Middle Ages were like for those who lived in them and how we, in the vastly different 21st century, can relate to their experiences. I really liked how each chapter was on a different aspect of the Middle Ages, but the narrative stayed mostly chronological. It was a fun and informative read. This is definitely a book you can come back to over and over as a reference or if you just want to transport yourself back in time a thousand years. I’ll definitely be adding more of Dan Jones’s works to my TBR list.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin

Go to review page

emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I picked this one up for my book club and breezed through it in just a handful of days. It tells the story of two friends who go from hospital-bound gamers to world-famous video game designers over the span of roughly 25 years. There were a lot of great, heartwarming moments and discussions on love (and not necessarily romantic love), friendship, and the creative process. I enjoyed getting to know these characters, who from the hop are shown to be imperfect and have to go through great personal growth in order to overcome the obstacles they face. I will say that I thought the precipitating event that brings on the third act of the book felt a bit hokey too on-the-nose in reflecting an issue in today's society. The final 100 pages or so of the book suffer for it, and that's what kept the book from being a five-star read for me. Even still, this was a fun read that I would recommend for anyone looking for a solid work of fiction that's several steps above fluff reading, but isn't a mind-melter either.

How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower, by Adrian Goldsworthy

Go to review page

informative medium-paced

3.0

I was excited to read this book after devouring Goldworthy's wonderful biographies of Caesar and Augustus, but I thought it missed the mark a bit. The decline and fall of the western Roman Empire is, of course, one of the most written about and studied aspects of human history. I enjoy Goldsworthy's brand of scholarship that takes a skeptical eye to popular assumptions and isn't afraid to admit when we simply don't know something. However, the devil was in the details in this volume -- as in there were, at times, too many. The first section of the book on the third century gets totally bogged down in names of emperors, generals, and the important women in their lives. It was too fast-paced for me to be able to follow. The book got a bit more focused as it went onto the fourth and fifth centuries, but it felt more like a compressed narrative of 300 years of Roman history rather than details about how it fell. I wish he would've taken more time to focus on broad topics and trends about the decline and fall of Rome rather than telling us in detail about, for example, the reigns of Constantine and his successors. The blitz of names made this book feel dense and hard to follow. If you want a quick and dirty history of the Roman empire from Marcus Aurelius to Augustulus, you'll be happy with this work, but perhaps not if you want something truly focused on Rome's fall.

More...

fetterov's reviews 101 reviews

fetterov's reviews
101 reviews