Reviews for Six Men

The average rating for Six Men based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-05-03 00:00:00 Amber Kurash The book has become very dated. Think of it as 6 in-depth profiles ala Vanity Fair. These are written with an understanding that the reader will already know something about the subjects. While I'm well read, I don't think I've ever heard of H.L. Mencken or Bertrand Russell other than seeing their names on the cover of this book. If I'd been an adult at the time of the book's publication and had read it then, I'm sure it would have received a much higher rating from me. The chapters on Chaplin, Edward VIII, and Stevenson are OK. The chapters on Mencken & Russell are dull as dirt. I had to look up "catafalque." This quote from Alistair Cooke describing Vice President Henry Wallace made me think of Mrs. Clinton, "...a man who had picked up an evangelical concern for humanity but had little affection for human beings." Another Allistair Cooke quote, following the Cuban Missile Crisis, "Only I.F. Stone wondered aloud what would have happened if Khrushchev had not backed down. It is a question whose answer must await the next nuclear bluff, which may not be between two giants, but between half a dozen nations aspiring to giantism." And one more, "We went off to the train in much better spirits, settled in two dumpy elbow chairs of the parlor car, and were soon sliding under the river and out onto the Wellsian industrial nightmare of the Jersey flats." One of 8 or 10 books I received from an uncle's estate. I've been interested in Cooke ever since reading in a William F. Buckley memoir that Buckley and Cooke had lunch together in NYC every 4 or 8 weeks, and that they were good friends. I think Cooke must have had that magic power that everyone liked him.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-04-28 00:00:00 Jack Brendle INTERESTING, PERSONAL GLIMPSES ��in our century, more people have come out everywhere to catch a glimpse of Charles Chaplin than did so for any other human in history.� (Kindle location 129) Although Alistair Cooke�s collection of vignettes, Six Men: Charlie Chaplin, Edward VIII, H .L. Mencken, Humphrey Bogart, Adlai Stevenson, Bertrand Russell stands little chance of ever ranking among my favorite reads, and Cooke�s writing style leaves much to be desired, I did, overall, enjoy reading his personal vignettes of these six luminaries of the twentieth century. Recommendation: If some of these men rank among your favorite people, you should probably read this volume�else not. �(�Life,� he [Bertrand Russell] once wrote, �is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.�)� (Kindle location 2605) Open Road Media. Kindle Edition, 186 pages.