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Bezig met laden... Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks (editie 2022)door Patrick Radden Keefe (Auteur)
Informatie over het werkRogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks door Patrick Radden Keefe
Top Five Books of 2023 (406) Bezig met laden...
Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. This is a collection of articles that Keefe previously published in the New Yorker. Each of the articles is interesting and worth the read, but I was not happy with the title of this book. "Rogue" is a pretty mild term for a Mexican drug runner, a homicidal Dutch gangster, an unscrupulous arms dealer, and some of the other people profiled in this book. On the other hand, you really have to wonder what TV chef Anthony Bourdain is doing in this company, not to mention Judy Clarke, the attorney who defended the Boston bomber. While her client was a mass killer, the article is about her, not him. I guess what I am saying is that this book should have been better edited so that the collection made more sense, and that its theme should have been more accurately entitled. Apart from that, it was a very good read. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
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"From the prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Say Nothing and Empire Of Pain, twelve enthralling stories of skulduggery and intrigue by one of the most decorated journalists of our time "I read everything he writes. Every time he writes a book, I read it. Every time he writes an article, I read it ... he's a national treasure."--Rachel Maddow. Patrick Radden Keefe has garnered prizes ranging from the National Magazine Award to the Orwell Prize to the National Book Critics Circle Award for his meticulously-reported, hypnotically-engaging work on the many ways people behave badly. Rogues brings together a dozen of his most celebrated articles from The New Yorker. As Keefe says in his preface "They reflect on some of my abiding preoccupations: crime and corruption, secrets and lies, the permeable membrane separating licit and illicit worlds, the bonds of family, the power of denial." Keefe brilliantly explores the intricacies of forging $150,000 vintage wines, examines whether a whistleblower who dared to expose money laundering at a Swiss bank is a hero or a fabulist, spends time in Vietnam with Anthony Bourdain, chronicles the quest to bring down a cheerful international black market arms merchant, and profiles a passionate death penalty attorney who represents the "worst of the worst," among other bravura works of literary journalism. The appearance of his byline in The New Yorker is always an event, and collected here for the first time readers can see his work forms an always enthralling but deeply human portrait of criminals and rascals, as well as those who stand up against them"-- Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)364.16Social sciences Social problems and services; associations Criminology Crimes and Offenses Crimes of propertyLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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So many things turned me off. The chapters did not tell stories in a coherent way. For example, the Swiss banker traipsed confusingly around the country and never seemed to be clear whether he was truly bad or incompetently good. Article could have made the point - instead it just wandered.
The wine chapter was a similar mess. It's hard to have interest in people buying priceless (or fraudulent) bottles of wine that I don't drink nor can I savor by rhetoric. This was the opening chapter in the book - you'd think it would have been the strongest. If it was, that was a bad omen for others. I persevered for a few more chapters.
Some stories I already knew. For example, Trump's rise to his candidacy has been told many times. I didn't need to read it again and skipped it. In contrast, I had never read Bourdain's books so figured I'd learn something about him. It was some bright moments but how did it get into the book in the first place? Bourdain hardly measured up to the subtitle's promise ("True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks") since Bourdain was none of them. But what I found particularly annoying was the chapter ended with one sentence about him ending his life - no explanation why even though I had just finished reading pages and pages of how he worked and what he obsessed about. Yeah, I get the chapter was originally published when Bourdain was still alive but the book is new. He couldn't update the material?
In summary, the book was an obvious attempt to do as little work as possible using repurposed articles that had already their day. And even then, the writing style was lacking coherency. The author would throw out tons of facts, much of which were largely irrelevant, sometimes adding his own opinions, and burying the lede - obviously intentionally - otherwise, these stories could have been much shorter.
Yes, I get that he had put a lot of work into the long-form articles earlier and it's nice to give them a 2nd life. That just wasn't enough to justify this book. He should have been more selective or revised, slimmed down, and rewrote much of the material.
Of the 5 people who attended our book club for this book, 4 (including me) disliked the book and the remaining person liked it but admitted that she knew the author personally as a childhood friend so that likely biased her opinion. ( )