August 8, 2022
"People often ask me if I’m working on a book. That’s not how I feel. I feel like I work in a book. It’s like putting myself under a spell."
"And this spell, if you will, is so real to me that if I have to leave my work for a few days, I have to work myself back into the spell when I come back. It’s almost like hypnosis."
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17 comments:
Spell = flow.
I've read a number of his books and all were well done.
What Sebastian said. It's unfortunate for a writer that getting into flow state takes so much work. That's not a universal trait.
Read all of his books and listened to him voice-over a lot of good television. He's one that'll be missed.
Christmas gift this year was The Wright Brothers. Fathers Day gift was Mornings on Horseback. The Teddy Roosevelt book was better, but I'm addicted. Just got his Panama Canal book for vacation reading. Based on those two books, a great knack for capturing a life in midstream, merely sketching in the important details before and after his focal era.
What a talent. Goodbye, David McCullough.
The Path Between the Seas is a wonderful book. Very thick and so engrossing the length isn't a bother at all.
I read a number of his books liked them all, except the Adams. Could not get through it. I did like the miniseries from the book though.
Nitpick about the Wright book. Great until Wilbur died in 1912. Orville lived to 1948.
After Wilbur death McCullough basically says "and Orville lived another 36 years. The end." (not quite but it felt like that)
I would have liked at least a chapter about those years.
Great writer. I'll miss him
John LGBTQBNY Henry
One of the thing I liked about the Panama book was the detail about how much the French accomplished.
Istr they had it about 1/3 done when they quit
Maybe I need to read the book again. It's been 40 years.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
A libtard and never Trumper. Good riddance.
The voice of history.
His books are always on my list(s) but I've just never gotten around to reading them. I enjoyed his narrations, and also the many times I saw him on CSPAN solo or with other historians.
I've got his "1776" on a pile just steps away but it keeps getting pre-empted.
I give a person a lot of credit, given our culture, if they even give a rip about the past.
So RIP.
Path between the seas - best history book I've ever read, though I still have some other McCullough books I haven't completed. To have all that talent as a writer, and then, on top, to have an incredible narrator's voice.
The Great Bridge is a really wonderful book. I thought--how can a big fat book about the Brooklyn Bridge be anything but a snoozer? Couldn't put it down.
I have argued that John Adams should be required reading for all college freshman (as if!). But if our high schools and colleges required all of their students to read just one McCullough book, we would be much better off as a nation.
RIP, Sir.
Read several of his biographies, but in my opinion his best work was "The Great Bridge", even if it did make me feel inadequate as an engineer.
"I've got his "1776" on a pile just steps away but it keeps getting pre-empted."
I've been listening to that audiobook, but I have to take pauses and read other things or I just feel like I'm dragging through the details, which should feel vivid, but will not if you overdose.
I remember reading "Truman" years ago and realizing this author is just going to describe how everything looks and how everyone feels, whether it matters or not. Who cares about the weather and the look on Bess's face that one day when they rode on a boat? Why is he telling me everything, I wondered. Well, that's just his style. Settle in, or get out.
"Couldn't put it down."
I have never had this feeling about any book.
I do kind of feel that way about the Internet!
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