A Commonwealth of Thieves: The Improbable Birth of Australia Audiobook

" I wanted to know more about the founding of Australia Well, this is the book. But it only looks, in excruciating detail, at the first convict transports and their initial stabs at surviving in what we think of today as a sweet paradise but back then was inhospitable to the point of starvation Way too much detail but I suppose you do get many main actors and many mundane actions if it's real history instead of fiction "

" Neither terribly interesting or revealing. This is more a narrative of the tenure of Governor Arthur Phillip of New South Wales (who first led the penal colony 1786-92) than an account of early Australia per se. And that narrative is an endlessly repeating cycle of problem colonists (no surprise there), bad relations with the Eora aborigines (again, no surprise), and food shortages (ditto). Keneally doesn't take things anywhere and the book eventually peters out. "

" Interesting read, great facts, confusing style. yes America, the criminals were sent to you before you spit the dummy, so no more "Australia was founded by criminals unless you hold up the mirror too. "

" Zzzzzzzz...zzzzzz... Oh, what? No, I'm sorry Mr. Keneally, but I didn't hear a word you said after 'the'. You put me right to sleep. I know I'm not supposed to sleep in class. I'm not trying to be funny. Now wait just a minute, sir. Don't blame me for your tone and monotonous droning. I won't tolerate it. I love history, always have, always will. It's not the history to which I'm opposed- its you. Had you decided to make this introductory lesson entertaining I could have kept my eyes open. Had you written it in a scholarly manner I would have eaten it up with a spoon and most likely had arguments with you in my head about whether or not your hypothesis and conjecture were correct or warranted. You did neither of these things. Please, please, please Mr. Keneally do not interrupt me, I'm speaking. You wanted to know why this was such a tremendous bore and now I'm telling you. There is no life here. Popular histories are popular because of the life their authors breathe into them with anecdotes and amusements and all sorts of devilishly delicious factoids that can be seen a funny or irreverent or scandalous or joyful. This was nothing more than a rote account of facts. It sounded to me like an elongated chapter in a high school World History textbook. Rubbish. Just absolute rubbish. There is no information here we couldn't have gathered ourselves in a week and put into a PowerPoint presentation that would have been over in 10 minutes tops. And I could understand the lack of juicy bits had you this been a scholarly work that focused on a simple thesis and extrapolated data and present us with primary and secondary documents, but this was not the case either. Instead we get a list of names, a list of dates, a few dry anecdotal histories and a handful of facts that read like a wiki. Now I'm going to go back to napping. You may have done your research, dear man, but you don't know how to present the facts worth a damn. "

" Well written blending the engagement of a novel with the accuracy of a historical account. You read yourself into it! "

" I loved reading this book. Tom's voice is entertaining and educational and makes me wish I could talk to him/read his work every day. He knows just the right stories to pull from history to give a micro and macro look at the founding of Austrailia. "

" I thought this was very interesting...very well written and enjoyable. "

" The book was interesting, a nicely balanced view of the convicts, military and natives. I suspect I'd have gotten a touch more out of it if I knew more about Australia going in, there were many references to the children of so-and-so being the famous whomevers. "

" Great historical account with popular touch. Lots of unheard stuff here. "

" Very good! I could not put it down. "

" It took me several minutes to read each sentence, they were that difficult. So after several pages, I quit. Too bad, I think it could've been a good story. "

" A very interesting book about the beginnings of Australia. "

" am really enjoying this book! "

" Okay, I now know waaaay more than I ever thought I wanted to know about the convict ships to Australia. He did give a little more of the Aborigine point of view than you normally get and that was good. "

" It is interesting but not riveting, but I believe that has more to to with the subject matter rather than the writer. "

" I really enjoyed this. The book is written like historical fiction so it has the feel of a "story" but is all based on the journals and records of the time. I wish the author went a little further into the future during the epilogue, but c'est la vie. "

" Interesting to hear about the British convicts that first came to Australia. Didn't care for the writing style. "

" I thought this was very interesting...very well written and enjoyable. "

" It took me several minutes to read each sentence, they were that difficult. So after several pages, I quit. Too bad, I think it could've been a good story. "

" Great historical account with popular touch. Lots of unheard stuff here. "

" The narrator of this audiobook does an excellent job providing the quoted participants with different voices. If you like history I think you'll find much to enjoy with this one. I loved it. "

" The title of this book caught my eye, especially being that it was written by the author of Schindler's List! Though I enjoyed the history presented and the amazing detail, there were several chapters that seemed to go ultra-slow for me. "

" Well written blending the engagement of a novel with the accuracy of a historical account. You read yourself into it! "

" It is interesting but not riveting, but I believe that has more to to with the subject matter rather than the writer. "