Sunday, December 12, 2021

Off the Bookshelf: RIVALS! FRENEMIES WHO CHANGED THE WORLD, by Scott McCormick

 

Audible exclusive, Audible original

Narrated by Prentice Onayemi, Samantha Turret, Khristine Hvam, Gabriel Vaughan, Josh Hurley

This is the side of history you don't get in school. The rivalries between political leaders, academics, and royals -- basically people who were smart and should have known better -- but let their pride and hurt feelings and childish natures get in the way. Or they didn't stand up to political and other types of pressures, and did what was expedient, and nobody had the intelligence or tact or maturity to apologize! Dinosaur bone collectors and scientists, Founding Fathers, British Royal Family drama.

This reminds me of Fractured Flickers, a show my brother loves, produced by the same creative insane geniuses who gave us Rocky and Bullwinkle, taking silent movies, adding sound effects, dubbing in dialog that was most definitely not part of the original script, and then creating a new story entirely. Totally silly and fractured.

This is basically fractured history -- showing the cracks and the crackpots and the stupidity of real people, and bringing the larger-than-life characters down to size. Bravo! I hope there are more like this out there. Fun!



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