nothingforpomegranted's reviews
637 reviews

Isaacson’s writing style in this book is eminently readable. I was consistently surprised by how many pages I had to turn back to get another look at an image after reading for what felt like seconds. I loved the inclusion of the figures, Leonardo’s paintings and journal entries. This truly brought the story to life, especially because I am not so well-versed or even appreciative of art and art history. In fact, even with the images and Isaacson’s explanations, I did not see all of what made Leonardo’s art exceptional. 
However, this biography granted me a new admiration of Leonardo’s widespread curiosity and brilliance. Though the biography did not offer quite the portrait of Leonardo’s life, which I tend to enjoy in biographies, it did expound on his notebooks and journals which contain endless troves of information and surprising questions. I did not realize how extended Leonardo’s scope of interest, research, and accomplishment spanned, and it was fascinating to read about him. 

I always like when a biographer’s love for his subject is evident in the writing. This was definitely true in this case, though at times it felt like Isaacson approached Leonardo as an inspiration more than as a subject, granting me a bit more insight into Isaacson’s personal hopes and aspirations than I particularly cared about. Furthermore, Isaacson took some of the Freudian and psychological analysis a bit too far for my tastes, though he always made it very clear when he was expressing his own opinions or suspicions. 

Overall, this is definitely worth the read, and I am willing to read other Isaacson biographies, but I’m not sure if I will read all of them. 

Over the past year, I have been listening to Mark Scarbrough’s Walking with Dante podcast. It took him two and a half years to record episodes about all 34 cantos, and I listened to it over the course of an entire year. 

It was incredible to listen to this slowly and with commentary that provided insight into the history, poetry, and references. Scarbrough has a clearly evident passion for Dante, and I always love hearing about other people’s passions. That said, I cannot honestly say I share Scarbrough’s enthusiasm. I learned a lot from him, but there were several chapters that I just tuned out because it was too much information and I’m just not interested enough. 

Nonetheless, this listen gave me a new appreciation for the incredible feat of writing this poem in the 14th century. Dante’s poem-in-process is all the more remarkable with the understanding that he probably had no drafting paper. The references and intricate and amusing, and the exploration of language play really was meaningful. 

I look forward to listening to Purgatorio as the podcast continues, but I’ll definitely take a break to read a couple other classics. 

This is exactly what it is billed to be: a quick, engaging, detailed explanation and exploration of the United States Constitution. It was helpful to review some of the finer points and the history of how this document has been applied throughout history, and I would definitely recommend this to curious students and citizens. 

A fascinating portrait of an unbelievable year in New York history.  As the book continued, I was shocked by how many dramatic events occurred within a single year in this powerful city. I loved Mahler’s thesis that New York has struggled but continues to be an iconic, essential city that will consistently rebrand and recover. 

The baseball, the race relations, the mayoral race, the blackouts, the looting and burning, the serial killer—all these seemingly disparate elements were clearly connected throughout 1977, but it was a bit challenging to follow the book’s back and forth organization. 

This series of vignettes begins with a reflection on aging, quite literally as a woman glances in a mirror and sees her mother. The stories overlap and explore beauty, mother-daughter relationships, parenting, and grief. 

This book was brief and beautiful, a meaningful treatise on what it feels like for young women to grow up and grow old. 

Set is a Moscow literary workshop, this novel is based on the author’s own experience as a young writer. It is intensely reflective and internal, and I had a hard time connecting with the characters and following the plot. 

A disturbing fable about the culture of blood feuds among Albanian mountain people and the wealthy amateur sociologist who takes his new bride on a honeymoon to observe them. The novel begins with Gjorg lying in wait for the man he is responsible for killing because he had killed his brother, knowing fully that pulling the trigger effectively ensures his own death sentence, to be enacted within a month. The conflict between duty, honor, and desire for life pervades the entire novel and characterizes Gjorg’s ultimate demise. Simultaneously, Bessian and his wife are fascinated (and distressed) by the customs of the mountain people and the emerging discovery of the sheer quantity of active blood feuds, made all the more apparent and chilling to the reader by the chapter written from the perspective of the blood lord, responsible for collecting the blood tax  throughout the region. 

This was a quick read that welcomes deep analysis. The characters were intriguing and complicated, and it offered a peek into a culture I know very little about, which is exactly what I’m looking for when I buy books when I travel. 


If you liked…
The Pearl - fable, short and quick, family dynamics and desperation, conflicts of duty and desire
Don Quixote - a foolish adventure story with bizarre side characters and innkeepers who like to gossip

we enjoyed this while listening to it and appreciated that it didn’t take itself too seriously, but it honestly just wasn’t that interesting

The story of this story is absolutely remarkable and entirely tragic. Acclaimed French novelist of Russian Jewish origin Irene Némirovsky began writing this series of novellas as reflective contemporary fiction in 1941, tracking the intimate details of villagers lives in France during the German occupation. Unfortunately, her series was never finished because the author herself was deported to Auschwitz where she was murdered in August 1942. The manuscripts of the first two novellas were discovered within her journals nearly fifty years later by her surviving daughter.

This novel consists of the two completed sections: the first following the paths of several citizens fleeing Paris on the eve of German invasion; the second, villagers adjusting to life under occupation with German soldiers living in their homes. Némirovsky focused heavily on the tiny details that make up a life, even a life that may seem rife with drama. No particular moment is given greater emphasis for any obvious reason, and in her notes on writing Némirovsky explains her desire for this novel to last beyond the war, when readers are no longer quite as familiar with German occupation and French manners, her desire to avoid sensationalism.

In many ways this read like typical historical fiction of this era, which used to be a favorite genre of mine. Indeed, I used to say that I would read basically any historical fiction about the French resistance during the Second World War. In recent years, I have distanced myself from Holocaust fiction, finding myself wary of dramatized stories and preferring to read nonfiction if anything. With that in mind, I sometimes found myself uncomfortable while reading, irked to be reading Holocaust fiction when I have tried to avoid it. Reconciling this reaction with the truth of this story made me glad to have read the Preface to the French edition (found in the back of this edition) before starting to read the story and also overwhelmed me each time I re-remembered that this was written contemporaneously. Strikingly, there are few resistance fighters in this story and fewer clear heroes. Némirovsky’s fiction is heartbreaking and beautiful, depicting humanity with all its complications and with an incredible power to humanize the very German forces that she knew were likely to bring about her own murder before the novel was every finished. 


If you liked…
Madame Bovary - everyday life, odd juxtaposition of sensual and vulgar, French character
Jane Austen - descriptions, portrait of a community, free indirect style
84, Charing Cross Road - a story of everyday people connecting over their particular passions and the beauty of writing (especially in the first Appendix) 

I listened to this book through the libro.fm Educator ALC program. Overall, it was an engaging memoir with powerful reflections and listener questions. I appreciated Patrisse’s pure love for her family and the stories that she shared. I would have liked to read more about her own vulnerability and individual memories beyond those that demonstrated her responsibilities to her family and her path to creating the Black Lives Matter movement. I knew that I would not agree with everything in this book, and I do not, but I think that it was a mostly personal (rather than political) story, which made it far more engaging and less frustrating. However, there were two moments when Patrisse referenced “occupation in Palestine,” with absolutely no context and no real reason. This was the only political struggle outside of BLM that she referenced with any specificity, and I found that unnecessary and troubling.