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Make Me a City

Jonathan Carr

3.60 · Rating details · 185 ratings · 59 reviews

A propulsive debut of visionary scale, Make Me a City embroiders fact with fiction to tell the story of Chicago's 19th century, tracing its rise from frontier settlement to industrial colossus.

The tale begins with a game of chess—and on the outcome of that game hinges the destiny of a great city. From appalling injustice springs forth the story of Chicago, and the men and ...more

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Hardcover, 448 pages

Published March 19th 2019 by Henry Holt & Company

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May 15, 2019 Travel.with.a.book rated it really liked it

Make me a city
First I want to thank the publisher HenryHold for sending me a copy of "Make Me A City" and the author for writting a great story.

I give the book 4.5 stars, the book captures and takes place in chicago in a way of a serie with the same place and different stories.

I recommend you to read this amazing novel because you won't be disappointed about it, the author is able to write an interesting story with great meaning that are interesting to know and read.

As a debut author the book is Make me a city
First I want to thank the publisher HenryHold for sending me a copy of "Make Me A City" and the author for writting a great story.

I give the book 4.5 stars, the book captures and takes place in chicago in a way of a serie with the same place and different stories.

I recommend you to read this amazing novel because you won't be disappointed about it, the author is able to write an interesting story with great meaning that are interesting to know and read.

As a debut author the book is so good, I always have expectations from the debut suthors because everytime I have read anything from a debut author they never failed to satisfy me with sharing their art to the readers.

I loved the characters in the book especially Eliza which I saw myself in her, the book is not very long I have read it really fast and the way the author has written the story is amazing and so inspiring for someone that English is not my first language this book was so understandable.

The synopsis of the book is:
A propulsive debut of visionary scale, Make Me a City embroiders fact with fiction to tell the story of Chicago's 19th century, tracing its rise from frontier settlement to industrial colossus.

The tale begins with a game of chess—and on the outcome of that game hinges the destiny of a great city. From appalling injustice springs forth the story of Chicago, and the men and women whose resilience, avarice, and altruism combine to generate a moment of unprecedented civic energy.

A variety of irresistible voices deliver the many strands of this novel: those of Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable, the long-unheralded founder of Chicago; John Stephen Wright, bombastic speculator and booster; and Antje Hunter, the first woman to report for the Chicago Tribune. The stories of loggers, miners, engineers, and educators teem around them and each claim the narrative in turns, sharing their grief as well as their delight.

As the characters, and their ancestors, meet and part, as their possessions pass from hand to hand, the reader realizes that Jonathan Carr commands a grand picture, one that encompasses the heartaches of everyday lives as well as the overarching ideals of what a city and a society can and should be. Make Me a City introduces us to a novelist whose talent and ambition are already fully formed. ...more

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Apr 07, 2019 Alex rated it really liked it

Big-hearted, brawling, grand, intimate, inquisitive, and full of judgment - this is a novel that captures the dynamic of Chicago in its madcap first century of existence. Carr's novel, which is structured as a series of interlocking short stories, scratches an itch I have long had for good historical fiction set in Chicago's past. It's not quite E.L. Doctorow or Hillary Mantel, but what is? This wonderful re-mythologizing of how a prairie swamp became the city of the century is instantly one of ...more

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Oct 15, 2018 David Eppenstein rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, chicago-history, historical-fiction

This was one strange book. It is a work of historical fiction and probably the most unusual book of that category that I have ever read. I am at something of a loss as to how to approach writing a review of this book. To start I should note that I am a lifelong resident of the Chicago area and an avid fan of the history of Chicago. When I saw this book being offered for review on NetGalley I had to apply for the opportunity to read it. I have given this book 3 stars because it is a satisfactory This was one strange book. It is a work of historical fiction and probably the most unusual book of that category that I have ever read. I am at something of a loss as to how to approach writing a review of this book. To start I should note that I am a lifelong resident of the Chicago area and an avid fan of the history of Chicago. When I saw this book being offered for review on NetGalley I had to apply for the opportunity to read it. I have given this book 3 stars because it is a satisfactory story and worth the time and effort to read but it lacks the spark to make it to 4 stars. This, of course, is my sole opinion and I can readily expect other readers to either agree or disagree as the book's quirkiness will strike people differently.

When I started to read the book I was greatly disappointed. It was difficult to read as the author ostensibly quoted from journal and diary sources for his information and these entries were written by people with marginal literacy skills. If that wasn't enough the author then skips around to stories about other characters whose life events occurred at different times. So there were leaps in time and story and characters. It began to feel as though this book was an anthology or collection of short stories about various minor characters whose lives were lived during various periods during the history of Chicago. It also became apparent that this book was not really a history of Chicago but about the people the author chose to depict that lived during the creation of this city. In that view the book became more acceptable to me. I have always found histories that report events from the perspective of the people that lived through the events, the frontline soldier for instance, to be highly interesting and informative. Such perspectives give the event a more human scale and appreciation. So when I viewed the story in that manner I was put in mind of Theodore Dreiser's "Sister Carrie" as this book seemed to create a similar tone. It was about obscure and forgotten characters from the history of Chicago and their struggles as this city was being built. Surprisingly, however, my belief that this was an anthology or collection of biographical sketches of forgotten Chicagoans was soon put to rest.

As the book progressed the stories of these various citizens were dovetailed, intersected, and merged with the stories of the other characters. With this occurrence the book took on another form entirely and became more of a novel with a mysterious flow whose course was unknown. Then more puzzling yet was the idea that this book was actually to be taken as an excerpt from an early 20th century work by a Professor Milton A. Winship from the University of Chicago. Whether or not Prof. Winship was a real person or a fiction I have as yet been unable to determine. So far I have found nothing to verify his existence so I assume he is fictional as is his book which was promoted as an alternative history. This professor espoused the belief that it was the historian's job to weave the collected facts of history into a more palatable form and that if this required the use of assumptions and intuition or creativity then so be it. After reading that I more clearly understood what the author may have been trying to achieve as the professor's book excerpts clearly paralleled the book. So was this book about the professor's book or was his book merely being used as a source by the author? That was part of what confused me and still does. All through the book the author notes the alleged sources from which the material used has been derived though without footnotes I am unable to verify the legitimacy of these sources. More fiction?

On the whole I enjoyed the book as it took me on an unexpected ride. I learned a bit about my city that I did not know and that is always a good thing. I also admired the author's imaginative telling of a story and weaving these disparate lives into a plot that spanned a century of Chicago history while at the same time giving meaningful reference to significant events in the history of this city. I probably should give the book 4 stars but I guess I am a purest about my hometown history and since the history was merely a setting for the author's story and not the centerpiece it will have to be three.

In closing I need to mention that this was a NetGalley ARC that was sent to me in exchange for an objective review. ...more

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Apr 19, 2019 Amanda Barlow rated it it was amazing

I read this having seen it as Times Book of the Month and wasn't disappointed. It is a fascinating depiction of the rise of Chicago, which is an interesting story by itself, but it is the journey of the characters through which it was so cleverly portrayed. Took a while to get used to the different voices, but very well worth it, and a great read. Really recommend it.
...more

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Apr 19, 2019 Hugo Glass rated it it was amazing

I thought this was an incredible book, I haven't seen one written in this style before. With each chapter the character changed and the medium changed, it starts off as a history book "the alternative history," before visiting a range of characters - an upcoming entrepreneur (and real estate gambler), Irish canal builders, an engineer, and others in a range of mediums - third person, diary entry, news article etc. It was this variety that made the book such a fascinating read. For someone lookin ...more

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Nov 15, 2018 Scribe Publications added it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, america, biography

Jonathan Carr’s brilliant novel could not be more relevant to today’s world. Make Me A City explores the nature of history itself — both the official record and the suppressed stories that lie beneath. Covering a century, from mid-western wilderness to the bustling modern city of Chicago, it has a correspondingly large cast, but incidents and characters are interwoven to create not just a satisfying narrative but a working model of how civilisation comes into being, for better or worse. This nov Jonathan Carr’s brilliant novel could not be more relevant to today’s world. Make Me A City explores the nature of history itself — both the official record and the suppressed stories that lie beneath. Covering a century, from mid-western wilderness to the bustling modern city of Chicago, it has a correspondingly large cast, but incidents and characters are interwoven to create not just a satisfying narrative but a working model of how civilisation comes into being, for better or worse. This novel itself is a city, one that contains the myriad hopes, ambitions, disappointments and loves of its citizens, as they work like coral insects to build the structure in which they live and die.
Richard Francis, Author of The Old Spring and Crane Pond

Make Me A City is a multitude of novels all rolled into one — a wonderfully sprawling epic about Chicago’s founding fathers (and mothers), a searching exploration of colonialism in action, and a compelling collection of stories about people and places. But it is something else too, the one thing that is known to all of us, namely a single, tender map of the human heart. In Make Me A City Jonathan Carr draws on his considerable talent to tell the story of Chicago through the eyes of its many inhabitants, exploring life, death and what is left behind with admirable deftness and style. This is a bold, thrilling debut from a seriously good writer.
Francesca Rhydderch, Author o f The Rice Paper Diaries

Absolutely magnificent. Carr grasps the complexity of a city’s history, the individuals who shape it, those who gain and those who suffer. The prose is graceful and vibrant, the gradual unfolding of the interrelated lives of these people is superbly done. This is an elegant, richly enjoyable book.
Tricia Wastvedt, Author of The River

Make Me A City’s scope and scale is quite breathtaking. It digs deep into the history of Chicago to uncover hidden stories about the people who built it. Its clever way of dealing with competing historical narratives is very exciting. A real pleasure to read!
Gerard Woodward, Author of I’ll Go to Bed at Noon

Make Me A City is a thrillingly ambitious and ingeniously accomplished first novel. This is a stunning debut by a new and instantly important literary voice.
Robert Olen Butler, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

A wondrous, bold and playful first novel. Seductively fascinating characters, real and imagined, populate this fiction with their interweaving and intergenerational stories. But the hero’s journey belongs to the city itself … An exhilarating ride.
Linda Jaivin, The Saturday Paper

Carr’s intricately woven debut evokes the history of nineteenth-century Chicago while showcasing important but little-known historical figures and fictional people from different walks of life who contribute to its development. The chronologically arranged chapters vary in style, from straightforward narrative to spot-on pastiches of news articles and diaries to excerpts from a compiled ‘alternative history’ text whose contents are cleverly self-referential … Ambition, injustice, and opportunity all play roles as Chicago expands outward and upward. Over time, the disparate stories, which span the entire century, intersect in delightfully unexpected ways.
Sarah Johnson, Booklist ...more

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Feb 28, 2019 Erin Cataldi rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2019

Dense and overwhelming at times; but the scale, beauty, and depth of this novel is jaw dropping and makes it worth the effort. Make Me a City is a novel that shows the rapid growth of Chicago from 1800 to 1900 from a variety of different viewpoints and formats. From letters to chapbooks to interviews to essays and orations; the character building is immense. And what's crazy is most characters are just minor footnotes, there are a few who keep popping up over the decades along with their descend ...more

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Mar 08, 2019 Joan Happel rated it really liked it

Carr’s entertaining and uniquely written novel relates the “history” of Chicago’s first hundred years. Using many plot devices to unfold the story to readers, the novels storyline comes to us through excerpts from an “alternative” history manuscript, journal entries, letters, and newspaper articles among other devices. There is an eclectic mix of characters and their descendants, both historic and fictional, some who travel through the narrative, while others appearing only briefly.

This sweepin ...more

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Mar 03, 2019 Melissa Dee rated it really liked it

Make me a City is a sprawling, raucous, noisy novel set in the early years of Chicago. Told through the lens of the founding father Pointe du Sable and his descendants, “City” delves the depths of the striving, ambitious, often criminal but always energetic stories of the first inhabitants of the city on the prairie.

I loved the way story kept returning to the family of du Sable. In every generation, the history kept returning to the lie that formed the founding story, and its reverberations thro ...more

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Oct 08, 2018 Rissa rated it did not like it

Shelves: netgalley, nook

Make me a city 1.5⭐️

Chicago intrigued me because thats my home but it fell flat.
The characters were richly developed (a bit too much at times) and the city was minuscule in comparison.
I wasnt a fan of the writing and found it difficult to get through. We bounce through so many timelines and so many people that it was hard to follow and even harder to enjoy.

Thank you so much to Henry and Colt Co via netgalley for sending me an ARC copy of Make me a city by Jonathan Carr. This will be released ...more

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Apr 25, 2019 Fran Fisher rated it it was amazing

A marvelous story, with a cast of characters as deep and varied as the Chicago weather. History, invention, effort and chance play their parts while the writer challenges and informs us. Good work, Mr. Carr, and thank you for this tale.

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Apr 19, 2019 Memu Jophat rated it it was amazing

Wonderfully creative and an exceptional novel

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Apr 15, 2019 SueKich rated it it was amazing

The roots of a rackety town.

To the outside world, Chicago epitomises America – a raucous, bustling city thrusting ever upwards, sinking sometimes to the very depths of squalor and depredation. Sinatra sang about “Chicago, that toddlin’ town”, others called it “the windy city”, skyscrapers sprang up and gangsters were mown down, ethnic divisions ran deep, corruption appeared endemic.

Jonathan Carr goes back still further than this. He provides an alternative view of Chicago’s history throughout t ...more

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Apr 21, 2019 Jude Lawes rated it it was amazing

The sheer scale of this book is incredible. This is not a straight forward book to read, with many characters and many voices, but it's worth it. Really enjoyed it, many congratulations to the author ...more

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Dec 15, 2018 Chaya Nebel rated it it was ok

This is mischaracterized. It is not a novel, but a collection of short stories/vignettes, all peripherally rather than fundamentally involved with the city of Chicago. The first story starts out with the very beginning of the town and a man named Kinzie, who buys a "mansion" from a man named Sable.

From there we jump some decades, to the story of a woman and a man named Wright, a short portion of whose relationship is depicted. The book moves from one vignette to another, often jumping decades, n ...more

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Mar 14, 2019 Kathleen Gray rated it really liked it

Don't expect a straight narrative from this tale of Chicago between 1800 and 1900. Carr has used a variety of voices and sources to pull together what is more a series of vignettes than a conventional novel. This makes for some confusion early on but is ultimately rewarding because it reflects the patchwork nature of a great city. Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable and his descendants figure prominently, as is appropriate. You might find one voice more compelling than another but don't count on it ne ...more

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May 25, 2019 Nancy rated it liked it

Shelves: arc

3.5
"But if what survives of our legacy is a patchwork of threads, I believe the historian has a duty to try to stitch them together." ~the ficitonal Mr Winship, Professor of American History at University of Chicago, in Make Me A City by Jonathan Carr

As a family genealogy researcher, I have delved into many turn-of-the-century place histories in which people still living recollected earlier days. Make Me A City is patterned in part on these late 19th c. volumes. Central is a fictional history of 3.5
"But if what survives of our legacy is a patchwork of threads, I believe the historian has a duty to try to stitch them together." ~the ficitonal Mr Winship, Professor of American History at University of Chicago, in Make Me A City by Jonathan Carr

As a family genealogy researcher, I have delved into many turn-of-the-century place histories in which people still living recollected earlier days. Make Me A City is patterned in part on these late 19th c. volumes. Central is a fictional history of Chicago's first hundred years, offering an alternative narrative of its founding families. Interjected are other fictional primary sources. The overarching narrative is the development of the city, but the stories of these characters drives the book.

Jonathan Carr offers a French-born mulatto trader as the first European to settle at Echicagou where the Illinois River meets Lake Michigan. Jean Baptiste Pointe de Sable built his family an admirable home before an unscrupulous man determines to take it from him.

We follow Jean and his descendants through the century, along with the stories of men who built Chicago, the visionary engineers and the immigrant workers, the con men and the idealistic journalists.

The story keeps weaving back to Jean and those early days when all was set in motion--the disenfranchisement of people of color, the anti-immigrant prejudice, the powerlessness of women.

Toward the end of the book, Antje Van Voorhis Hunter, whose lineage traces back to Jean, travels to see a statue erected by Pullman to commemorate the Massacre at Fort Dearborn. Her grandmother survived that massacre and her version of history has been recorded by Prof. Winship.

The statue portrays a white woman and a baby on the ground with a scantily clad Native American raising a tomahawk overhead. Another Native American stands with his hand out to stop the massacre; this man is taller and wears buckskin trousers. The civilized Native heroically is stopping the violence. No soldiers appear in the scene.

Antje and her husband discuss the implications of the statue's version of history, "like using perfume to cover up a bad smell." The myth portrayed in the art has become an accepted and shared truth.

"If you take on somebody more powerful than yourself and play by the rules and beat them, they annul the result," Antje thinks, adding, "Then nothing has changed. "It's in our blood," Mr. Winship believes, referring back to the first violence committed against Jean.

I made a family tree to keep the families straight.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review. ...more

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Jun 25, 2019 James Henry rated it it was amazing

This novel has been on my radar for a while now after seeing it as Times Book of the Month. I was certainly not left disappointed. Through its many voices, Make Me a City takes the reader on a journey through Chicago’s 19th century. The style is unusual in that the novel is broken up into many shorter stories which are then linked together by certain reappearing characters and themes. I would argue that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but having said that all of the parts are uni ...more

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Aug 28, 2018 Annette rated it liked it

The book starts with a note about Pointe de Sable, who in 1785 moved to Echicagou to an inhospitable wilderness, where he developed a trade.

The story starts with Eulalie and Isack in 1812, who were to travel to Fort Dearborn due to possible attack of Potawatomie on Echicagou. The same year, she comes back home to St. Charles without Isack and is very sick.

Then the story moves to 1834 Echicagou, where John Wright at the age of 19 is already a notable merchant and storekeeper, and owner of notable ...more

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Dec 11, 2018 Sheri rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Make Me A City by Jonathan Carr

Set in Chicago from 1800-1900 the story revolves around prominent, and founding people in Chicago. Jean Baptiste de Sable, Antje Hunter the First female reporter of the Chicago Tribune (News Paper) to name a few. Told in alternating voices, and different time (frames) we learn of their lives in the "Windy City".

The story moves at a slow pace, with a lot of narrative, and less dialog. There are a lot of characters, but as the story progressed it was a bit easier to ...more

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Apr 16, 2020 Mandy rated it really liked it

This is an original and ambitious novel, which weaves fiction and non-fiction into a chronicle of the first century of Chicago, from its (disputed) founding to its rise as a major city. With real and imagined characters and a variety of narrative forms – diaries, letters, newspaper articles – plus a framing device in the form of a book “Chicago: an alternative history 1800-1900” by a Professor Milton Winship, which lends an air of authenticity to the narrative, it’s wide-ranging in its scope but ...more

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Feb 27, 2020 Allison rated it it was ok

Oh my, what to say, where to begin. I have very mixed feelings with this book.

On one hand- Well, it took me a very long time to get into this book. I found the flow of it to be rather choppy and just too many characters to keep straight. I thought about making a flow chart for myself at one point, it was that confusing, as we'd meet a character and then see that name again many pages later and have to remember why that name sounded familiar- that got tedious. The mention of "excerpts" and "sour Oh my, what to say, where to begin. I have very mixed feelings with this book.

On one hand- Well, it took me a very long time to get into this book. I found the flow of it to be rather choppy and just too many characters to keep straight. I thought about making a flow chart for myself at one point, it was that confusing, as we'd meet a character and then see that name again many pages later and have to remember why that name sounded familiar- that got tedious. The mention of "excerpts" and "sources cited" and the idea that this was all "taken from a book written by a professor" was very disorienting for me, as this was still all a fictionalized history, and an alternative one at that (whatever that means- I'm still not clear, not knowing my history very well I felt like an idiot and at a huge disadvantage honestly- not a nice feeling while reading)- this was simply too much for my brain to handle on top of everything else and instead of adding to the story, truly muddled it for me. Which was it- the author's book or the professor's book or what? I just really didn't "get it." Who was "I" in the end? The professor? Some other person? The author? I didn't like having to work that hard to really understand what was going on and appreciate the novel.

On the other hand- this was a major feat of a book and actually rather interesting, in theory. Once I got somewhat more into the book and invested in it, I did appreciate the craft and literary feat behind this novel. It was interestingly done, that's for sure, and the stories woven together were well told, if a little confusing. I eventually came to enjoy the game of seeing when a character might pop up again and how they were related to other characters recently seen. The lives of the characters intersected in fun ways. I finally figured out the flow of the novel as a whole a little better, too, and that helped me anticipate things and look forward to reading a little more. It just took a lot of work to get to this point.

I would never have read this book if it weren't for my book club and I truly hope my book club will actually try to read this because I sure worked hard at it (I don't see this as their sort of book at all, however), but mostly because, in the end, I could appreciate the work behind the novel through the creatively and cleverly woven stories. I did find myself wondering, as poor as my historical knowledge is, what did actually happen and which characters were really real, so the book did incite my interest in learning more about Chicago history. I wanted a detailed author's note at the end and was frustrated not to get that, I wanted some clarification within all my hard work. Now I'm off to set this book against some real info...or WILL it be real or just SOMEone's perspective? That, I think, is the point.
...more

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May 05, 2019 Faye Purcell rated it it was amazing

This book took me by complete surprise. Expecting a more detailed history of Chicago, when I read the first chapter, which is labelled as an "alternative history" I couldn't work out what was fiction and what wasn't- a story of a city founded by a game of chess seemed quite extraordinary! It becomes apparent further on the style of this author, and the true complex and appealing nature of this book. It tells a story of Chicago in an array of different voices, perspecitves and time frames weaving ...more

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Apr 03, 2019 Renee rated it liked it

Shelves: from-publisher

“The nearer I get to the end, the more shame I have and the less shame I feel. Every year we pile it up, don’t we, all of us excepting the angels? Maybe that’s why we don’t all go lunatic. And why some of us do.”

MAKE ME A CITY is an intriguing tome—marketed as a fictional and “alternate history” to the building of Chicago, the novel follows many disparate threads of remarkably different individuals over the course of one century. Beginning in 1800 “Echicagou” on the estate of Jean Baptiste Point ...more

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Jun 12, 2019 AJ Conroy rated it it was amazing

Howard Zinn meets Devil in the White City meets Micheal Chabon.

I wish I knew whether any of it is a true story, so it's frustrating that there is no author note either way. Even so, I want it all to be true. ...more

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Jun 19, 2019 Rowena Hill rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I must confess to having little prior knowledge of how Chicago came about until I was recommended Jonathan Carr’s beautifully written debut novel, Make Me A City. The author cleverly draws the reader in through a rich and diverse mix of characters alongside various objects such as a watch and a kettle which appear again at different times throughout the book. The individuals’ stories link and interweave and through these different voices, the story of Chicago is told. This is definitely a book w ...more

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May 15, 2020 Dree rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020-reads, arc-galley, the-midwest

I had a galley of this 2019 release, and I got overwhelmed and bogged down, and then had a little reading slump. I finally got to it, and I'm so glad I did.

In this novel Carr tells the story of the first hundred years of Chicago, framed around the supposed 1902 "Alternative History of Chicago" by one Milton Winshop and a variety of "primary sources". He starts with the mulatto first settler of Echicagou, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable--who, we know, really was the first settler of Chicago, but th ...more

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Mar 01, 2019 Alison Hardtmann rated it really liked it

Shelves: my-library

Taking the first hundred years of Chicago's history as his starting point, Jonathan Carr has written a novel composed of inter-linked stories in the form of letters, news articles, excerpts from history books and biographies, as well as traditional story-telling. Make Me a City focuses on the ordinary laborer, the failed businessman, the dispossessed, and outsiders to tell the story of Chicago, from it's beginnings through to the early years of the twentieth century. The protagonist of one chapt ...more

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Apr 05, 2019 Donna Davis rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-abandoned, drc-henry-holt, historical-fiction, reviewed, black-rights, immigration, fiction-adult, net-galley, blogged, literary-fiction

I am always on the lookout for something different, and so I leapt at the chance to read this publication free and early. Thanks go to Net Galley and Henry Holt. It’s for sale now.

The story is set in and around Chicago, back when the city was first born. It tells a tale of shifting alliances and double crosses; yet in other ways it is an old story, one in which a Caucasian interloper cannot bear to see a Black man rise to a position of wealth and influence. It’s not an easy read.

Conceptually t ...more

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Jan 12, 2019 Jypsy marked it as to-read

Make Me a City is a lot of book to read. It is indeed slow going and just frustrating at times. I usually like this type of sweeping saga story, but I got stuck with this one. Maybe too many facts and not enough story to carry it along. Chicago's development through the 19th century is an epic journey, but this book just doesn't quite capture the grandeur of that. ...more

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