Reading Still Matters

So I just completed my second Erik Larson book - the first being Dead Wake . And honestly, I was pretty excited to read Devil in the White City because I did enjoy Dead Wake quite a lot, and I had heard a number of good things about Devil in the White City . The questions for me were whether I would like Devil in the White City and whether I am going to enjoy reading all of Larson's book. My logic is simple - if I enjoy the first two books of his that I read then I am going to enjoy them all.  So Devil in the White City was an excellent work, I really enjoy his compelling but clean writing style. He is often compared to novelists, and I think that's fair. What he really does well is put the reader in the shoes of the people he is writing about. Now, the fact that he does this well may not be something everyone likes. For those history purists who don't like the liberties of imagination that are necessary to write this way may not appreciate this approach. At the end of ...

I recently completed Poland: A History by Adam Zamoyski which had been sitting on my bookshelf for a while now. The title should give you a pretty good hint at what this one is about, basically it’s an overview of the history of the Polish people and Polish state from around the tenth century up to the end of the Lech Walesa period following the Soviet collapse.      And for those of you who have been reading Polish history for a while now, this might be a book you have come across before in a different guise. Zamoysky originally published this back in 1987 as The Polish Way , although this is a revised and updated edition which re-evaluates Poland’s past with a "fresh eye." Basically, we have a general extension of the time covered as the book now includes more about post-Soviet developments. So, if you have already read The Polish Way , then be forewarned. I haven’t read The Polish Way, so I am not sure how different it actually is. Right out of the gate, I want to say...