RaveThe Wall Street Journal... a wide-ranging chronicle of the role of coffee in American culture and commerce and, above all, in the fascinating history of El Salvador, a small country along Central America’s Pacific Coast that is rich in coffee beans but not in traditions of political stability or broad-based property rights ... Mr. Sedgewick sets so many themes and story lines in motion that his narrative might have easily become overwhelming were it not for his deft handling of them. There is no mistaking where he stands, but one needn’t subscribe to all his righteous judgments to value the rich tapestry he has woven.
Denise Kiernan
RaveThe Wall Street JournalAs we learn in The Last Castle, Denise Kiernan’s affectionate portrait of Biltmore and its sometimes turbulent history, the man who brought this pile into being, and who claimed it as a part-time home, was George Washington Vanderbilt, the ‘poorest’ of the Vanderbilts...Much of Ms. Kiernan’s narrative, naturally, focuses on George Vanderbilt and his pursuit of an extravagant dream: to own a country estate worthy of Gilded Age royalty. But the book also shows how, after his death, his widow managed both to keep Biltmore going (if on a reduced scale) and to raise their intelligent if fun-loving daughter. Ms. Kiernan’s research is prodigious … The Last Castle, with its engaging narrative and array of detail, allows us to pay a visit without discomfort and with all the pleasure of a stroll through one of American history’s more stately pleasure domes.
