Rio Ferdinand

Advantages: A bit easier than other Shakespeare stories.
Disadvantages: Maybe a bit too long like all his other stories.

...I have a soft spot for The Tempest. It's almost like an allegory of the stage - and much more than that, it works on a number of levels - It's a comedy, a romance and a thriller. Ship wrecked on an island Ferdinand is seperated from his royal father and the rest of the crew - He soon meets Prospero (The magician who rules the island) and his lovely daughter Miranda (Who Ferdinand falls in love with.). There are many mysterious and wonderful characters in the play - I especialy liked Ariel and Caliban. Shakespeare must have written his plays not just for a white audience but for the young slaves and servents who had been imported over from other countries to England. Caliban is a representation of a native islander enslaved by the white foreigner - Maybe Shakespeare was saying something about America. Anyway I find... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Vividly drawn, realistic (and often, real) characters and scenarios; lively, rich, exuberant prose.
Disadvantages: Untranslated vernacular expressions may annoy some readers; a tad too many characters.

...contest, marries and divorces an Englishman, then runs off to the hills with her guerrilla lover; the anonymous President and First Lady of the land whose true identities are obvious to all; and even more characters far too numerous to list here. The novel’s main narrator, Rio Gonzaga, makes her appearance at the novel's beginning and relates her tale from her present-day perspective as an adult US resident. She could very well represent the author's alter ego. She has a Caucasian-American for a grandfather, a Spaniard for a father, and rumors of a Spanish missionary and a Chinese woman from Macao somewhere in the family tree. Such mixed genealogies are not uncommon in Filipino families and bear witness to the varied ethnicities of influx populations received over many centuries. Rio grows up as a typical upper middle-class child of the '50s... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Some great stories
Disadvantages: Only for non-Leeds fans

...Cornish village without a television, if it really meant that much to them, but for now I was hooked. Line and sinker." We for whom the magic white shirts are akin to an altar at which to pay tribute share that feeling and will love this book as much as Broadbent obviously loved writing it. Looking For Eric - In Search of the Leeds Greats is a wonderful, wonderful book with Broadbent setting off on a quest to find the once cult hero of Elland Road - Eric Cantona - now better known as the Gallic inspiration behind Manchester United's dominance of the Premiership between 1993 and 1997, and hated almost as much as the latest Judas Iscariot, Rio Ferdinand. As he seeks in vain to track down the gifted Frenchman, Broadbent stops off at the turns to offer us a loving portrait of a number of the greatest players who have donned the white shirt... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful