Centennial: A Novel

The historical American mountain west. Backed up by facts and data. Centennial was written about a region of Central Colorado. Makes me want to move there. He writes about the people and places with depth and clarity. This was book was the basis for a TV mini-series in 1976. Read it; enjoy it.

I read this book the first time shortly after being introduced to the plains and moving there. I lived on the prairie described here. I was there when the movie of this book was made and was the closest house to the Indian village where Lame Beaver stole the horses. Just a few miles from the town that was to become Centennial in the movie. I explored the old foundations of some of the houses that were abandoned by the farmers. I truly fell in love with Colorado through this book and though I now live in the mountains in Central Colorado anytime I need a warm hug of reassurance that everything will be okay I look to this book or watch the movie where I can identify so many locations and remember the silence of the plains and those never ending blue skies.

I remember my dad had this book on the back of the toilet for years in the 80's. It took him a long time to make headway with that being his only chance to read. And it is a long book. It definitely held my attention throughout. Caveats to that - I am very interested in the history of the West, being a native to Southern California. The story telling makes the history come alive, to be sure. I used Amazon's whisper synch and jumped back and forth between listening while walking the dog and driving and reading when I could. The whisper synch is a little buggy, but I do love it and wish Amazon would offer more titles with that nifty feature. The actor in the reading on Audible was appropriately low key - almost like a professor reading a history test. At first that concerned me, but it worked well for this book. It wasn't distracting as some over-actors on Audible can be. If you are interested in Western history, this is a fun read and I would recommend it. Unless you are a power reader, plan on it taking some time. I lost track of the lineage of all the characters after a while since it is so long and my reading cycles are limited. But I'm not sure how you could cover such a vast subject with good engagement and story lines better. And that said - I am just assuming the stories are relatively true to the times they represent - I'm not enough of a history buff to do fact checking.

"Centennial" is a vast sprawling epic about an area northeast of Denver. It starts before human history and carries on until 1976. Once human beings inhabit the area various individuals and their offspring become entwinned in tis ongoing history. I completely enjoyed the novel, with the exception of the ending, of which I will not specifically detail.I have been reading James Michener novels in the order of their publication. Of the ones I have so far read, this one reminds me in format of "Hawaii" which I also enjoyed. I would say these two novels are my two favorie James Michener novels thus far and I might lean towards "Hawaii" as my favorite.My copy of this novel is over 1000 pages. It took me approximately a month to read at a mostly casual pace. As is often the case, I also listened to an audiobook at the same time. The audiobook, narrated by Larry McKeever was of high professional quality. Occasionaly I increased the speed of the reading on my device to match my normal reading speed.***** I intend to remain vague about the end of this novel, but feel free to skip this part. *****The only problem I had with this novel is the end. I felt the author used the end of the novel to expound upon his own vision of American Society, ecology, etc.... That, of course, is his right. I just felt it was the weakest part of the novel. In that context, the novel reminded me of his previous novel, "The Drifters".***** End of reference to the end of the novel. *****In summary, I am very glad that I read this novel. Although fiction, James Michener mixes in a lot of historical detail. I did parallel reading and study, and I LEARNED A LOT. That is one reason that I enjoy James Michener novels so much. They are enjoyable but they are vast sprawling works that demand a commitment. After some months I intend to read another. Thank You...

Michener's books always provide an in-depth, well researched history of the area of focus, in this case, Centennial Colorado. I found the pre-historic segment slow but once the story involved his fictitious characters, it was engaging and drew you into the history of the times. It was told from many different perspectives, Indian tribes, settlers, British land investors and more recent generations of all of these people. I learned a great deal in the process as it brought the history to life through their personal tales set. It's a very long detailed book but worth the time.

Mitcheners bombenfeste Vorstudien

ho comprato questo libro, che è indicato come nuovo, in realtà la copertina non è perfetta come dovrebbe essere un libro nuovo. il prezzo certamente è da libro nuovo, più di 20 Euro. Lo tengo lostesso perchè mi serve subito.

Extraordinaria experiencia con personajes entrañables

If someone had told me that this was a true story (excluding the bits only about the animals) that this was based on a true story I would've totally believed them. Fascinating storytelling .