Satanstoe Book

In grade school, most of us learned the story of English explorer Captain John Smith and his relationship with Algonquian princess Pocahontas. But what about the details surrounding the English explorations in the New World and the establishment of the Jamestown Colony in the early 17th century?

In this new audiobook of The Weight of Smoke (McPherson & Company), author George Robert Minkoff'noted antiquarian, rare book dealer, and playwright'provides a history lesson in first person, as if we are hearing the diary of John Smith during eighteen months after the birth of Jamestown.

This fictional diary is replete with detailed prose and lyrical metaphors, the narrative voice written with a verbose "Elizabethan authenticity." The resonant British accent of actor and book narrator Nigel Gore (Last Knights, Titus Andronicus and Brotherhood) in the audiobook almost convinces us that Captain Smith himself is describing his amazement at the New World, its surprising complexities, and the English dream of what could be.

It is May 1607. Three English vessels land in Virginia to establish the Jamestown Colony. Unlike the Spanish, who made expeditions to the Americas to procure gold and slaves, the English came to the New World to build a nation, considering the indigenous people their allies instead of captives.

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