I've had a lot of sewing to do lately. Sewing requires my hands and my eyeballs, preventing me from reading actual books. BPL cards come with a complimentary Overdrive account, so I raided their mp3 audiobook catalog. Their recommendations algorithm is either a bit squiffy or has an interesting sense of humor, I thought, as it showed me Lena Dunham's autobio (cannot stand her), a load of inspirational "spiritual" titles, and a bunch of stuff by Bill O'Reilly.
I'm still not touching his political stuff, because I don't want to remember half a second after I throw the book at the wall that I was actually reading that on my Kindle, but he's also written a bunch of historical things that didn't look terrifyingly Republican.
And you know what? They're really fun.
Well, if you think reading about assassinations is fun. He does talk a lot about murder. I'm undecided on whether I should be worried about that.
The point is, O'Reilly's Killing [Lincoln | Kennedy | Jesus | Patton] books, about historical deaths, are actually enjoyable and informative. They're written up as quasi-thrillers, sort of like Capote's In Cold Blood, only with 100% more facts and about 75% less melodrama.
O'Reilly does his own audiobooks, and he's one of those people who writes exactly like he talks. He sounds pretty much like he does on TV, with the important difference that history doesn't constantly make him mad. So instead of getting "angry shouty Grandpa, holding forth at family Thanksgiving where no one can get away from him", you get "passionate rambly Grandpa, telling the kinds of stories that make all the kids suddenly want Davy Crockett knives for Christmas", which is easily a million times more entertaining.
I know exactly zero about his co-author, Martin Dugard, but he must either be too mad to let out in public or very boring, because Killing Lincoln sounds exactly like O'Reilly all the way through.
I'm still not touching his political stuff, because I don't want to remember half a second after I throw the book at the wall that I was actually reading that on my Kindle, but he's also written a bunch of historical things that didn't look terrifyingly Republican.
And you know what? They're really fun.
Well, if you think reading about assassinations is fun. He does talk a lot about murder. I'm undecided on whether I should be worried about that.
The point is, O'Reilly's Killing [Lincoln | Kennedy | Jesus | Patton] books, about historical deaths, are actually enjoyable and informative. They're written up as quasi-thrillers, sort of like Capote's In Cold Blood, only with 100% more facts and about 75% less melodrama.
O'Reilly does his own audiobooks, and he's one of those people who writes exactly like he talks. He sounds pretty much like he does on TV, with the important difference that history doesn't constantly make him mad. So instead of getting "angry shouty Grandpa, holding forth at family Thanksgiving where no one can get away from him", you get "passionate rambly Grandpa, telling the kinds of stories that make all the kids suddenly want Davy Crockett knives for Christmas", which is easily a million times more entertaining.
I know exactly zero about his co-author, Martin Dugard, but he must either be too mad to let out in public or very boring, because Killing Lincoln sounds exactly like O'Reilly all the way through.
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