Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.12 AVERAGE
3.12 AVERAGE
An odd book, it read as if it were written in the eighties or nineties, before mobiles and Google, but it kept reminding me it was more current than that.
The character stuff felt really out of place, until it slowly, slowly came into focus.
The plot lines and "conspiracy" was fantastic, though!
The character stuff felt really out of place, until it slowly, slowly came into focus.
The plot lines and "conspiracy" was fantastic, though!
The fact that I took two years to read this says more than I wish to write about this book.
First book i couldn’t finish in years. Too many sex scenes and didn’t like the sexual lens used over every woman character
This book is a cross between literary fiction and a conspiracy theory book - a book about a book conspiracy. I really enjoyed the book all the way through.
The book centers around a set of hidden letters that claim to lead to a lost Shakespeare play. There are three narratives that are interspersed in the book. The first is the contents of the letters themselves. The second is the first person narrative of the lawyer who was entrusted with the manuscript before it's owner was killed. The third one is about the man who found the manuscript in the first place. Eventually the two narratives end up touching when the two men's stories connect.
The stories of the two men are pretty different and yet they have some parallels that make them interesting to examine together. There are enough twists to keep the book interesting, and in the end it's pretty clear how obvious the truth was all along, but I still liked figuring it out at the same time as the main characters do.
The conspiracy is not along the lines of Dan Brown's books. It's a more of a story than an attempt by the author to concoct a complicated puzzle.
This is a solid recommendation for those who like to read adventurish stories that aren't larger than life and are populated by seemingly real people.
The book centers around a set of hidden letters that claim to lead to a lost Shakespeare play. There are three narratives that are interspersed in the book. The first is the contents of the letters themselves. The second is the first person narrative of the lawyer who was entrusted with the manuscript before it's owner was killed. The third one is about the man who found the manuscript in the first place. Eventually the two narratives end up touching when the two men's stories connect.
The stories of the two men are pretty different and yet they have some parallels that make them interesting to examine together. There are enough twists to keep the book interesting, and in the end it's pretty clear how obvious the truth was all along, but I still liked figuring it out at the same time as the main characters do.
The conspiracy is not along the lines of Dan Brown's books. It's a more of a story than an attempt by the author to concoct a complicated puzzle.
This is a solid recommendation for those who like to read adventurish stories that aren't larger than life and are populated by seemingly real people.
The Book of Air and Shadows is quite the weighty tome, but its intriguing characters and intricately plotted revelations make it quite an engrossing read.
I enjoyed the rich cast of wonderfully flawed characters - no paragons of personality in this book. All of the characters appear to be a believable mix of noble and ignoble, which I think is a marker of books I enjoy. Hey - none of us are angels or demons, but we may behave like one or the other from time to time. ;)
I personally did not enjoy the cryptography aspects of the book so much, but people who are into that sort of thing might really like it. The same goes for the book-geek and film-geek info - I breezed right through that without comprehending much of it. (I did read this for fun, not education. But as a bonus I do now know what secretary hand is, and I'm curious about Polish films. And Chinatown. I've never seen it, and one of the books' main characters would probably write me off as subhuman because of it. :P)
The last quarter of the book was a whirlwind. Given information from an unreliable narrator and motivations that didn't quite add up, my mind was racing to figure out what was going on before it was all revealed. I managed to figure some of it out, but not all of it.
I enjoyed the rich cast of wonderfully flawed characters - no paragons of personality in this book. All of the characters appear to be a believable mix of noble and ignoble, which I think is a marker of books I enjoy. Hey - none of us are angels or demons, but we may behave like one or the other from time to time. ;)
I personally did not enjoy the cryptography aspects of the book so much, but people who are into that sort of thing might really like it. The same goes for the book-geek and film-geek info - I breezed right through that without comprehending much of it. (I did read this for fun, not education. But as a bonus I do now know what secretary hand is, and I'm curious about Polish films. And Chinatown. I've never seen it, and one of the books' main characters would probably write me off as subhuman because of it. :P)
The last quarter of the book was a whirlwind. Given information from an unreliable narrator and motivations that didn't quite add up, my mind was racing to figure out what was going on before it was all revealed. I managed to figure some of it out, but not all of it.
When I started reading this book I didn't think I'd like it, and wrote some initial thoughts on my blog, here The book of air and shadows | Khanya. But it seemed to improve as it went along, and in the end I rather enjoyed it.
In a way it reminded me of [b:The de Vinci Code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101] in that the characters go running around in search of a myterious artifact, pursued by shadow villains, with secret ciphers that need to be solved. But [b:The book of air ans shadows] seems to be better written, and the plot holes are not quite so crass and annoying.
I suppose one of the reasons I found [b:The da Vinci code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101] annoying is that history is my subject, and that book was based on obviously bogus history. In [b:The book of air and shadows|609801|The Book of Air and Shadows|Michael Gruber|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1401761829s/609801.jpg|596283] the plot revolves around accidentally discovered ancient documents that seem to point to a hitherto unknown play of Shakespeare which might be found if only the coded letters can be deciphered. Perhaps the difference is that I know more about history than I do about Shakespeare and dramatic art generally. I mean I've read some of Shakespeare's plays and seen some of them performed on stage and screen and found them enjoyable enough but truth to tell I found author Samuel Beckett]'s [b:Waiting for Godot|17716|Waiting for Godot|Samuel Beckett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327910301s/17716.jpg|2635502] or [a:Jean Genet|29952|Jean Genet|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1226526836p2/29952.jpg]'s [b:The Balcony|667483|The Balcony|Jean Genet|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347324100s/667483.jpg|1506004] just as enjoyable, if not more so. No doubt this will mark me as a Philistine among the true devotees of Shakespeare, but I'm just saying that this is why my bullshite detectors were more sensitive to [b:The da Vinci code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101], and if there was similar nonsense in this book, I was less able to detect it.
But [b:The da Vinci code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101] was simply ludicrous. A character who was supposed to be an expert cryptographer could not detect simple mirror writing, and they went on puzzling about it for several pages while the reader is urging them not to be so thick and just get on with it. In [b:The book of air and shadows|609801|The Book of Air and Shadows|Michael Gruber|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1401761829s/609801.jpg|596283], by contrast just about every character has a go at deciphering the coded letters, and somehow manage to solve the puzzle with ridiculous ease.
Though there are plot holes, they are not quite as annoying as in some other books, and it is generally better written, and there are some occasional quite astute observations.
There are two main characters: a rich intellectual property lawyer, Jake Mishkin, and a poor book shop assistant, Albert Crosetti, who dreams of being a film director. They only meet about halfway through the book, and the lawyer's story is told in the first person, while the film fan's is told in the third person. At one point after they have met they are discussing movies and life, and Mishkin is interested in Crosetti's view that movies really determine our sense of how to behave, and more than that, our sense of what is real.
It's bits like that that make the book worth reading, and that particular bit reminded me of [a:Jean Genet|29952|Jean Genet|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1226526836p2/29952.jpg]'s [b:The balcony|667483|The Balcony|Jean Genet|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347324100s/667483.jpg|1506004].
In a way it reminded me of [b:The de Vinci Code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101] in that the characters go running around in search of a myterious artifact, pursued by shadow villains, with secret ciphers that need to be solved. But [b:The book of air ans shadows] seems to be better written, and the plot holes are not quite so crass and annoying.
I suppose one of the reasons I found [b:The da Vinci code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101] annoying is that history is my subject, and that book was based on obviously bogus history. In [b:The book of air and shadows|609801|The Book of Air and Shadows|Michael Gruber|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1401761829s/609801.jpg|596283] the plot revolves around accidentally discovered ancient documents that seem to point to a hitherto unknown play of Shakespeare which might be found if only the coded letters can be deciphered. Perhaps the difference is that I know more about history than I do about Shakespeare and dramatic art generally. I mean I've read some of Shakespeare's plays and seen some of them performed on stage and screen and found them enjoyable enough but truth to tell I found author Samuel Beckett]'s [b:Waiting for Godot|17716|Waiting for Godot|Samuel Beckett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327910301s/17716.jpg|2635502] or [a:Jean Genet|29952|Jean Genet|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1226526836p2/29952.jpg]'s [b:The Balcony|667483|The Balcony|Jean Genet|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347324100s/667483.jpg|1506004] just as enjoyable, if not more so. No doubt this will mark me as a Philistine among the true devotees of Shakespeare, but I'm just saying that this is why my bullshite detectors were more sensitive to [b:The da Vinci code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101], and if there was similar nonsense in this book, I was less able to detect it.
But [b:The da Vinci code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101] was simply ludicrous. A character who was supposed to be an expert cryptographer could not detect simple mirror writing, and they went on puzzling about it for several pages while the reader is urging them not to be so thick and just get on with it. In [b:The book of air and shadows|609801|The Book of Air and Shadows|Michael Gruber|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1401761829s/609801.jpg|596283], by contrast just about every character has a go at deciphering the coded letters, and somehow manage to solve the puzzle with ridiculous ease.
Though there are plot holes, they are not quite as annoying as in some other books, and it is generally better written, and there are some occasional quite astute observations.
There are two main characters: a rich intellectual property lawyer, Jake Mishkin, and a poor book shop assistant, Albert Crosetti, who dreams of being a film director. They only meet about halfway through the book, and the lawyer's story is told in the first person, while the film fan's is told in the third person. At one point after they have met they are discussing movies and life, and Mishkin is interested in Crosetti's view that movies really determine our sense of how to behave, and more than that, our sense of what is real.
'surely not,' Mishkin objected. 'Surely it's the other way around -- filmmakers take popular ideas and embody them in films.'
'No, the movies come first. For example, no one ever had a fast-draw face-to-face shoot-out on the dusty Main Street of a Western town. It never happened, ever. A screenwriter invented it for dramatic effect. It's the classic American trope, redemption through violence, and it comes through the movies. There were very few handguns in the real Old West. They were heavy and expensive and no one but an idiot would wear one in a side holster. On a horse? When you wanted to kill someone in the Old West, you waited for your chance and shot him in the back, usually with a shotgun. Now we have a zillion handguns because the movies taught us that a handgun is something a real man has to have, and people really kill each other like fictional Western gunslingers. And it's not just thugs. Movies shape everyone's reality, to the extent that it's shaped by human action -- foreign policy, business, sexual relationships, family dynamics, the whole nine yards. It used to be the Bible but now it's movies. Why is there stalking? Because we know that the guy should persist and make a fool of himself until the girl admits that she loves him. We've all seen it. Why is there date rape? Because the asshole is waiting for the moment whem resistance turns to passion. He's seen Nicole and Reese do it fifty times. We make these little decisions, day by day, and we end up with a world. This one, like it or not.'
It's bits like that that make the book worth reading, and that particular bit reminded me of [a:Jean Genet|29952|Jean Genet|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1226526836p2/29952.jpg]'s [b:The balcony|667483|The Balcony|Jean Genet|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347324100s/667483.jpg|1506004].
My recollection with this one is that I was really excited about it in the first half, and it all fell apart in the second half.
A couple of good quotes from the book:
"There are three kinds of history. The first is what really happened, and that is forever lost. The second is what most people thought happened, and we can recover that with assiduous effort. The third is what the people in power wanted the future to think happened, and that is ninety per cent of the history in books."
"Did you know that Switzerland was a very poor country before the Second World War? Then it was suddenly very rich. That's because they supplied the Nazis with all kinds of technical goodies from factories that couldn't be bombed because they were oh so neutral. Then there's the matter of the 150 million reichsmarks the Nazis stole from exterminated Jews. That's nearly three-quarters of a billion bucks in current dollars. I wonder what became of that? Not to mention the art."
A couple of good quotes from the book:
"There are three kinds of history. The first is what really happened, and that is forever lost. The second is what most people thought happened, and we can recover that with assiduous effort. The third is what the people in power wanted the future to think happened, and that is ninety per cent of the history in books."
"Did you know that Switzerland was a very poor country before the Second World War? Then it was suddenly very rich. That's because they supplied the Nazis with all kinds of technical goodies from factories that couldn't be bombed because they were oh so neutral. Then there's the matter of the 150 million reichsmarks the Nazis stole from exterminated Jews. That's nearly three-quarters of a billion bucks in current dollars. I wonder what became of that? Not to mention the art."
Fabulous premise, with a breathless, page-turning style and compelling characters. Unfortunately, one of the later plot twists is overly convoluted and the ending didn't live up to everything that had come before.
Shakespeare, gangsters, lovelorn bookstore clerks..mystery!. . but this is a prime example of the bane of being a successful author, no one dares edit you anymore--and this author needed to be edited down. Too much superfluous stuff about the characters and the art of ciphering. .ugh! Reminded me of James Mitchener who hired researchers and then couldn't edit out all the arcania they gave him!