I absolutely love them. Poland was probably my favorite, used that for a book report in high school while the other students picked 200 page ghost written athletic biographies. Michener and Clancy used to be my long flight entertainment in the days prior to seat back entertainment.
Amazon has them on Kindle specials fairly often.
[mhendo
I am a Wilbur Smith fan. I have read all of his books and enjoyed them. I have no idea as to how authentic they are though. I would also like MrDibble’s opinion of them
OP checking in…
I just realized that I *have *read a couple of (non-traditional) Michener works:
The Novel and Journey.
I recall enjoying both very much.
mmm
The Source and Hawaii were favorites of mine and I read them until the paperbacks fell apart. However, I always skipped the first chapter of Hawaii despite my interest in geology. I’ve read several of his other books but these still stick in my head though I haven’t read either of them in 30 years.
It took me about 5 years to finish The Source. True. I could only take so much at a time. Same with Hawaii. But I liked them both. Sort of gave up on him after that.
I too liked Hawaii and The Source. Hawaii had some errors in it, but I read it at the time of my first move here, in 1991, so that was interesting. I read Mexico, which alternated between “present day” (1950s, I think) and the past – the present-day portions were silly, but the parts covering the past were good.
Don’t forget about the (don’t really think it’s a spoiler) fact that every segment taking place at the tell traces the descendants of the original caveman- all the way to the Arab guy. (or was it the Jewish guy? It’s been a while.)
So am I the only one who’s read Caravans?
No, I read that one about five or six times. In other words, I really liked it.
He also wrote a book on politics that is surprisingly interesting today, maybe even more than when he wrote it in 1960: “Report of the County Chairman”.
He analyzes the 1960 presidential election by giving a very detailed description of political activity at the most local level–the county and the precinct committee,as they try to convince voters to support JFK.
At the time, it was written as a political report about JFK’s campaign. But now, it is even more interesting, as a historical and sociological look at American society in 1960.
Michener describes men from the Democratic party having meetings with local businessmen trying to convince them to vote for JFK. And separate meetings where women campaigners met with their wives.
He describes the new suburban housing developments, where all the houses were identical, but built in two models at two prices --eight thousand dollars, or sixteen thousand–and the different ways that the campaigners related to the different sub-categories of the new middle class.
He discusses the oh-so-important issue of JFK being a Catholic, and attempts to overcome the prejudice against him for that.
And in the end, he comes to the conclusion that all the effort was basically useless…very few citizens changed their minds .
A surprisingly good read.
centennial was pretty good …especially the bit on how the midwestern farms ended up using migrant labor in the last 1/4th of the book also although she was a spoiled brat I felt sorry hor how the protagonist’s daughter ended up… I never have watched the whole mini-series that was based on it tho
also, the bridges of Toko-Ri was great too although I knew how it was going to end … the parts about the first jet fighters were interesting too
Smith’s OK, not my usual genre but I’ve enjoyed a couple of his books. He at least has an advantage in that he’s (mostly) writing about stuff he know, so the “feel” is accurate.
An exception would be the Ancient Egyptian series, but I enjoyed that anyway (as a fantasy novel)
Dredging memory as best I can – I think I’ve read fiction by Michener as follows: Tales of the South Pacific, The Bridges at Toko-Ri, The Drifters, and six of what a poster calls “the big fat ones”. I’ll admit to not being a tremendous fan – have found much of the wealth of information, interesting; but to me his writing style, and his putting-together of anyway the big fat offerings, are somewhat crude. Nonetheless, for my taste easy, and mostly agreeable, reading. Another confession: nearly all, read by me some decades ago – I now remember very little of the content of any of them (this I feel to be “down to” me, rather than Michener !).
I also hated The Drifters– but read it throughout, without actual excruciating pain: as remarked above, everything I’ve come across by Michener, I’ve found highly readable, “whatever else…” To me, the whole premise and content, and the youthful ghastly characters, came across as vomitously twee / gooey / cloying. Worst of all for me, was the sort-of-mentor character whom the kids acquire – approx. of their parents’ generation: a rather crisp, highly-organised kind of military type; conservative in many ways, but oddly, with a considerable degree of empathy / sympathy vis-a-vis the kids. This guy is referred to as “the Tech Rep”: for me, his “smug rough diamond” whole being, was detestable. I just wanted the kids to die; but I hoped for a long-drawn-out and horrible death for the Tech Rep.
As with the other works – I read TBoT-R throughout, and quite enjoyed the experience; but now remember almost nothing about the book. My being a railway enthusiast causes me sometimes to react to – in the broadest sense – works of art, in perverse ways not intended by their creators. One is informed that the novel’s eponymous bridges, in North Korea, carry a rail main line, vital to the China / N.K. side in the conflict for maintaining the southbound flow of war-waging gear; hence their being a crucial bombing target. I found that – irrespective of anything about Cold War good / bad guys – my sympathies were with the imagined heroic North Korean railwaymen, giving their all to keep things rolling in defiance of the Yanks and their bombs.
“Topic-drift department” post –
Something by Michener which I’ve read and liked (albeit, as per my previous post, read long ago and almost all forgotten) – non-fiction: his Iberia, publ. 1968. About his experiences of Spain and Portugal: I think – memory perhaps at fault – particularly Spain, which he loved and where he spent much time (to be honest, I remember nothing about the book’s coverage of Portugal). At the time, I found much of what he had to say about Spain and the Spaniards, informative, perceptive and interesting. I think I recall correctly, that Michener – not being any great distance to the left on the political spectrum – considered the Franco regime not to be Utopia, but not horrendously evil either.
I’ve read several of Kenneth Roberts’s novels: greatly enjoyed – to me, more enjoyable than Michener, and I seem to remember more about Roberts’s books. I don’t think it would have occurred to me to “name the two in one breath” – I perceive big differences between their respective bodies of work, though both can be categorised generally as “historical”.
Roberts’s Oliver Wiswell particularly appealed to me – likely, in part because of my being British – the War of Independence seen from a Loyalist point of view. I had to like the way in which Wiswell, the hero and first-person narrator – displaying prejudices which one in his position would tend to hold – opines that most partisans of independence are variously malcontents / dodgy characters / feigning revolutionary zeal to help them in pursuit of base gain / unstable and violence-prone / the 18th-century equivalent of the tinfoil-hat brigade. Not imagining for one moment, that Roberts genuinely thought that the USA should not have come into being: as authors like to remind us, IT’S FICTION – some of an author’s characters will not share the author’s own views.
The Arab guy. (I reread it last year on my Kindle) The family’s original name was Ur.
I’ve never read him, but for some reason I’ve always imagined his tomes to be rather dry. Is there much in the way of humor in the typical Michener work?
I absolutely devoured his novels in high school, after *The Source *appeared (in what I now realize was a fit of hilarious optimism on the teacher’s part) on a summer reading list for my 9th grade history class. I think I was probably the only student who read it but I ended up returning to it on a few more occasions over the years.
I don’t remember much in the way of humor. The draw to his books (and I think college was the last time I read anything of his, so my memory is a bit fuzzy) is the scope. He manages to create these multi-generational storylines that feel coherent and whole. When he names the book, say, “Hawaii,” he really is making Hawaii the main character, and uses these broad, sweeping arcs to write about it.
Hawaii does have some funny bits. In the modern day section one of the present day descendants of missionaries (who came to Hawaii to do good, and did quite well) writes a story about his ancestors, illustrating it with pictures of how small and tightly packed the sleeping areas for the missionary couples were, and then listing the dates of birth for the children born to those couples.
I also liked that the dig in the book missed some important artifacts.
It came within feet of discovering the first El, right?