Christina Widmann's Blog
February 13, 2023
Stephen King - Fairy Tale
Fairy Tale is the latest Stephen King. Is it worth reading or should you stick to his classic horror novels? Keep reading to find out what I'd say to Mr. King if I met him. Dear Mr. King, It reads lik…
June 8, 2022
April 26, 2022
Cäsars Geheimdienst
Dark Rome: Das Geheime Leben der Römer von Michael Sommer
erschienen im Februar 2022 bei C. H. Beck. Ich danke für ein Rezensionsexemplar.
ISBN: 978-3-406-78144-5
Erhältlich auf Amazon.de und im Buchhandel.
Lieber Leser,
ich hatte Latein in der Schule. Da fühlt man sich als Elite: Diejenigen, die wissen, wie das wirklich war mit Cäsar und Kleopatra und den Galliern. Und mit den Graffiti an den Wänden von Pompeii.
Und dann kommt Michael Sommer und schreibt ein Buch darüber. Ein spannendes, unterhaltendes Buch, das jeder versteht, auch wenn er kein Latein hatte. Ich weiß nicht, ob ich ihn loben soll oder mich ärgern, dass er einfach einen Tag der offenen Tür veranstaltet in unserem exklusiven Club.
Acht römische Kaiser wurden ermordet, Julius Cäsar nicht mitgerechnet. Wo die Geschichte interessant war, erzählt Michael Sommer sie ausführlich, ansonsten reicht ihm ein kurzer Satz. Er berichtet uns von Bettgeschichten und Spionen, von geheimen Kulten und schwarzer Magie.
Zeitweise schaute das alte Rom streng auf die Sitten: Ein Politiker wurde abgesägt, weil er die eigene Frau auf offener Straße umarmte. Zweihundert Jahre später konnte Cäsar, der Mann aller Frauen und die Frau aller Männer, sich verheiraten und scheiden lassen wie er gerade wollte. Noch ein paar Generationen später kam Skandal-Kaiser Elagabal an die Macht. Der war zu extrem für die Lehrpläne. Erst hier erfahre ich von ihm.
Gegen Ende zu wurde das römische Reich korrupt und brutal. Die Politik geschah im Hinterzimmer, die Religion zog sich zurück in unterirdische Kultstätten. Ein Geheimdienst kam auf. Sex, Macht und Gewalt - die Realität war besser als jede Fernsehserie.
Von all dem lesen wir bei Michael Sommer. Knapp und unterhaltsam, aber doch ausführlich genug, dass ich etwas lerne dabei - so mag ich meine Geschichtsbücher. Dazugelernt habe ich viel; den Geheimdienst und die Giftmischer-Banden haben mit die Lateinlehrer damals verschwiegen.
Ein gutes Buch ist zu Ende, ein anderes wartet. Wir lesen uns.
Hochachtungsvoll
Christina Widmann de Fran
Cäsars Geheimdienst
Dark Rome: Das Geheime Leben der Römer von Michael Sommer erschienen im Februar 2022 bei C. H. Beck. Ich danke für ein Rezensionsexemplar. ISBN: 978-3-406-78144-5 Erhältlich auf Amazon.de und im Buch…
March 9, 2022
Unsettling
First published in 2019 by Whiskey Winged Lit.
Visit the author on www.williamrhincy.com.
My thanks to Christian Lee of BookReviewsDone.com for the review copy.
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Dear Reader,
Affairs that end in aborted pregnancies. A life-coach with no advice to give, his girlfriend in so much debt that she turns to prostitution. Hincy looks at the underbelly of society. He shows us his characters' naked skin, and it's all scars.
Without Expiration seems to be the debut book of its \npublisher Whiskey Winged Lit. Maybe that's why the collection comes with\n such a cheesy tagline: Are we good people who sometimes do bad things, \nor bad people who sometimes do good things? It's not the theme of the \nanthology. The theme of one particular story, at most.
Hincy is wonderful at metaphors. Hat off, hands down wonderful. Format, he's still experimenting with that: Sometimes he tells a story straight, beginning to end. Sometimes he tells it in puzzle pieces, in seemingly random chunks, making sure we'll see the whole picture only in the end. Sometimes I feel there's a puzzle piece missing. A chunk too large to fill in from the clues. Deliberately, to make me wonder? To make me uncomfortable?
That's what this book does, un-comfort. With one notable exception, a story called LEFT TO SOAK, Hincy's writing unsettles. Read it in small portions. Read it whenever you're ready to step outside your comfort-reading zone.
Yours sincerely
Christina Widmann de Fran
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Unsettling
Without Expiration: A Personal Anthology by William R. Hincy First published in 2019 by Whiskey Winged Lit. Visit the author on www.williamrhincy.com . My thanks to Christian Lee of BookReviewsDone.c…
November 26, 2021
If only he took his own advice
Dear Reader:
A sceptical reader is a good reader, it says on the bookmark that came with my copy of News And How to Use It. Except if you're sceptical about climate change or any other topic where Alan Rusbridger has an opinion. Yes, he writes that in the book. Openly and without a trace of shame he tells us to fact-check his rivals, but not himself or his brainchild the Guardian. Question his rivals and you're a brave sceptic, question him on the smallest detail and you're a denier.
Sounds good. However, applying this advice takes time, and Rusbridger himself doesn't seem to have enough leisure to follow his own rules. Take his lexicon entry about ECHO CHAMBERS, where he wants to reassure us that echo chambers and filter bubbles are overstated and, according to him, not a problem. He bases this opinion on a single study, this one. It was funded by Google, focuses on people's self-reported behaviour - not the most reliable data - and completely, admittedly ignores algorithms, when algorithms are the whole reason why Eli Pariser wrote his book The Filter Bubble. Going by Rusbridger's own criteria, his page about ECHO CHAMBERS is fake news.
The author builds his book like a lexicon with cross-references. The most frequent reference? see: CLIMATE CHANGE. From almost every other page Rusbridger wants to send us to his favourite topic, to which he dedicates the longest article in the book. It gets annoying. Worse, it gets boring. A deadly sin in journalism, by Rusbridger's own words.
Otherwise, the style and readablity varies. Most lexicon entries contain long paragraphs of quotes from other authors, so much that you almost can't make out Rusbridger's own voice. I didn't count the lines, but I'd estimate that around half of the book consists of direct quotes. The one thing our author writes all by himself is hit pieces.
Rusbridger takes every opportunity to attack his rivals in the publishing industry, especially if they dare to differ from his opinion on see: CLIMATE CHANGE or Brexit. He is quick to point out that they aren't scientists and shouldn't write about those topics. What is Rusbridger? Wikipedia says he studied English Literature. He shouldn't be writing about anything else than the metrics of a Shakespeare stanza, then.
Pick up News And How to Use It if you're prepared to read sceptically from page one and fact-check every article. You'll find good bits, you'll find amusing bits. You'll also find an appalling amount of name-calling, arrogance and hypocrisy. It's the best and the worst of printed news distilled into a book.
Yours sincerely
Christina Widmann
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News And How to Use It: What to Believe in a Fake News World by Alan Rusbridger
Published in 2020
ISBN: 978-1838851613
Get your copy on Amazon.
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If only he took his own advice
Dear Reader: A sceptical reader is a good reader , it says on the bookmark that came with my copy of News And How to Use It . Except if you're sceptical about climate change or any other topic where …
October 30, 2021
So Begins A Fantasy Western Series
Dear Reader,
Cal Cooper has a prize on his head and the cavalry on his heels. There's only one place he can go: No Man's Land, a piece of Wild West not yet claimed by any state. It's where the outcasts go: Humans with too many enemies, but also elves and vampires, werewolves and goblins. All the mythologies converge in a dusty town called Hexed Springs. Luke Atkinson debuts with a fantasy western that pulled me right in.
The worldbuilding will remind us fantasy readers of the Dresden Files: All the stories are true, all the monsters exist in an otherwise normal world. Cal Cooper himself, a gunslinger far away from home, looks like a young Roland of Gilead. However, he has no Dark Tower to find. Without a goal or a purpose he becomes Hexed Springs' odd-jobs troubleshooter, hunting monsters for hire. Until he gets hired to find a little girl. On his way to her Cooper steps on too many feet and gets pulled into the big fight.
Blood Oath sports a likeable male lead, a great supporting cast and a tense plotline. No romance - if that's a must-have for you, you'll be disappointed. Me, I found it refreshing to read about a hero who can talk to women without immediately falling in love.
Is Cal Cooper a hero? Not on the first pages. But he grows into one. I'm looking forward to meeting him again in book 2.
Yours sincerely
Christina Widmann de Fran
Blood Oath: No Man's Land Book 1 by Luke Atkinson
ISBN: 9780578309057
Get your copy on Amazon.
So Begins A Fantasy Western Series
Dear Reader, Cal Cooper has a prize on his head and the cavalry on his heels. There's only one place he can go: No Man's Land, a piece of Wild West not yet claimed by any state. It's where the outcas…
