Rating: 
Summary: Meandering and Dull
Review: It's rare when I can't finsih a book, but I tried in vain with this for a month and couldn't end it. The author spends far too much time going into detail about a small part of John Dee's life, and seems to lose presepctive about Dee's contributions. We get too much of his court intrigues and that can get mighty dull. This book could have benefitted form being a good deal shorter.
Rating:
Summary: A poor attempt to write about a fascinating man
Review: This book was not what I was expecting. I am quite fond of Dee and consider him to be a highly interesting individual. However, I feel this book misses the mark. The author knows a lot about Dee, but goes about it in the most haphazard way. The writing style leaves much to be desired. It is choppy and hard to follow. The chapters range from just 2 pages to many. If the book were edited properly, it would be worth your time.
Rating: 
Summary: A lot of details, but no story...
Review: Woolley's book is good-hearted, an attempt to help modern readers see John Dee not at the fringes but at the heart of much that was going on Elizabethan England. But the book's execution leaves *much* to be desired...the thread of the story gets lost along the way (especially amidst some of the sordid details concerning Dee's relationship with Edward Kelly). There are a number of interesting facts and anecdotes, but they never quite come together as a coherent whole. And Woolley displays such an appalling ignorance of Catholicism when he attempts to describe the religious background of the period (and in some instances, ignorance of Christianity in general) that I tend to wonder whether he's gotten his facts about Dee's life wrong too. While I'll give the book 3 stars for good intentions, in general, you're better off sticking with Peter French's _John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus_.
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