I love David Liss, and this book is really fun, especially as an audiobook! (Great reader, by the way). I like the idea of magic having been a much stronger force in the past, and I really enjoyed the engagement with British folklore. And hooray strong female lead character! Still, I find his mor...
I can't let a one star review stand without an explanation. I have never rated a book with only one star and I realize this is probably more a function of disappointment rather than a valid literary evaluation. I have LOVED all of the other books by David Liss. This stew pot of magic, real histor...
The descriptions of Lisbon, the Inquisition and the earthquake which destroyed the city (providentially for Our Hero)are the reason that I gave this book two stars rather than one. That is the good stuff.The not so good stuff - the revenge/retribution/atonement mashup that is the plot, and the s...
For the most part I really enjoyed reading The Coffee Trader by David Liss. The main protagonist is Miguel, a Portuguese Jew, living in Amsterdam, and working as a broker in the emerging stock exchange. Miguel and a Dutch woman, Geertruid, scheme to corner the coffee market. Hampering there eff...
First things first. I was fortunate enough to meet David Liss following a panel discussion at the 2013 San Antonio Book Festival. He was cordial, friendly, but almost the textbook academic nerd. Expected, I suppose, but meeting authors whom seem like they would much rather be locked away in the l...
Billed as a thriller, dark comedy, perhaps even horror novel, The Ethical Assassin might more accurately be dubbed a philosophical puzzler. Imagine the strange amalgam of these traits: reasonable, compassionate, socialist, feminist, and vegan; now place these within an assassin and terrorist. Th...
What I liked:The main character – nothing changed here. We deal here with a very likeable rouge but if you take into account the times he lived in and his underprivileged position within the English society you might judge him even less harshly. Of course Benjamin is hardly a saint - it makes him...