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Summary: It is good
Review: I am reading this book for an AP US/VA History class over the summer. I like very much the first 100 pages, it was a page turner. Now that I am near page 300, I am getting kind of bored with the plot. When the new characters who are not as interesting as teh first ones are introduced, things get a little boring. I do think it it a great book, and all interested in history should read it.
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Summary: husband's favorite book
Review: I can vouch for this book since my non-reader husband actually read it twice. Along with TaiPan, this is one of his favorites. Personally, I can't get into Michener but there has to be something there....
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Summary: This was my favorite Michener book
Review: I enjoyed the beginning section describing the history of the Native Americans.
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Summary: Classic James Michener
Review: I have read about half a dozen Michener books now, and have enjoyed them all. The voyage chapters in between this book are really fun to read, especially the story of the Canadian Goose told from the perspective of the Gooose. James Michener is a great history teacher. By the way for those in other reviews who wish for more books by him, he died in 1997
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Summary: Michener's Finest Volume!
Review: I have seen some reviews for this book by some of the amazonshoppers and I'm shocked. This book shows a panorama of the originalcolinization and settling of the United States. It takes a few orignal families each of them symbolizing a certain faction in america. For example the Steed family, they are a group of wealthy educated Americans who have succeded greatly in the "new world" fleeing religious persecution from England. If enjoy history and fine fiction this is the novel for you. Michener masterfully weaves history with fiction. Obivisouly by the length of the book he has a large scope of events. Well worth the time I wish this book could go on perpetually. END
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Summary: The history of a Nation through three families
Review: I love learning history of other countries through a book like this. Michener entertains and teaches history of America and you can't stop reading about it. I think his merit is to humanize history so we can like it so much. Alaska,Hawaii,The Covenant also taught me a lot.
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Summary: My Favorite
Review: I read James Michener's CHESAPEAKE for the first time while I lay in a hospital bed recovering from my first total hip replacement. It was my introduction to this talented story teller. CHESAPEAKE has entertained me more than once since that first read and has easily become my favorite in Michener's long line of Best Sellers. The author's characters always seem real as does the action and dialogue. It is difficult to seperate truth from fiction as you read through the well developed plot of this Best-Of-The-Lot novel. If you are unfamiliar with this author's work, grab a copy of CHESAPEAKE and sit down to great entertainment.
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Summary: This is a great book!
Review: I read this book quite a few years ago, before Amazon.com came into being. Whenever I think of what my favorite books are, Chesapeake is always on my list, regardless how much time has passed. In a word - it is "fantastic"!.I would recommend the book to anyone. The magic of the book has stayed with me over the years even though I don't remember many of the characters or all of the stories contained in it. Other Michener books I have read are: Alaska, Covenant, Centennial, and Space. Chesapeake is the best of the Michener I have read so far; Centennial is the worst.
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Summary: Worth every page!
Review: I suggested this book to our book club as a read because I was born and raised on the Chesapeake Bay. My career has since taken me away from my beloved 'land of pleasant living' but reading Michener's book was like a taking a month long vacation back home. His vividly detailed descriptions of the estuaries, mixed with the chronology of the principle families, all intricately woven with and seasoned by historical events made this the best historical novel I have ever read. The only down side is how home sick this has made me. Well worth every page.
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Summary: Two stars solely for the subject matter.
Review: I'll start by admiting that I typically do not read "historical fiction," but read this out of an interest in the Chesapeake Bay. Michener seems to have begun this book with a list of (worthy) Chesapeake-related things to highlight, such as crab cakes, skipjacks, Labrador Retrievers, and the natural beauty of estuarine wetlands, and created generations of one-dimensional characters (e.g., inbred swamp-dwelling white trash and pure-hearted Quakers) and an overbearingly moralistic plot to tell how they came to be. Also, the editing of this book is pathetic -- poor grammar and misuse of "big" words are rampant. I much prefer the historical writing of Madison Smartt Bell (All Soul's Rising) and T.C. Boyle (World's End - only semi-historical). If this book had been about something I wasn't interested in, like... New Jersey, I never could have finished it.
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