Location: Harris Theater
Author: James Hornfischer
Book: Neptune's Inferno
I went to the reading with Avan so I apologize if some of this is a reiteration. I tried not to read his response beforehand so I don't say the same things over.
So going into this reading I really had no idea what to expect. Is this author an older gentleman? The topic was on a battle in WWII and I did not know if maybe he had been in it and was discussing his own personal experience. I did not know the background of the author but that did not change the information he provided his audience with. We were definitely the youngest people in the audience which is probably why the speaker did not go into great detail about the time period right around the battle he was talking about. There was a group of 10-15 marines sitting right in front so that is probably part of the reason that there was no reason to provide additional information. Most of the people in the audience had relatives that were alive during this time period, if they were not alive themselves. I was not expecting the author to be in his 50s though. He was very passionate nonetheless.
During the reading and the presentation the author was introduced onto the stage after a short introduction of his books and a brief history of his life. Immediately the author jumped into his topic of the war and this one battle that took place over two and a half hours. Don't get me wrong, it was a very interesting and inspiring reading. The authors entire reading was filled with facts and knowledge. Anybody who was listening could easily tell that this man knew a great deal about the war and his topic of his books. If you had no previous knowledge, however, it was very hard to follow along with. He spoke as if you had read his books and as if you knew what he knew about the war and the specific battle. As Avan said, I would like to go to another one to see if my reaction would be the same as this one. Overall it was definitely worth it.
Christopher,
ReplyDeleteSounds like an interesting reading! You're right in that is sounds like a lot of the people who attended had read the book or maybe knew a lot about that time period. But regardless, it sounds as if you still learned something and got something out of it. Glad you did!