Thomas Dyja

Started the audiobook but disc 2 was defective and wouldn't play. Seems to be the sort of book that would be better for me to read than listen to anyway. Also, the narrator, David Drummond, annoyed me. I've heard him read at least one other audiobook (Talent is Overrated) and don't recall him bothering me that much, but in this reading he sounds like a cross between an authoritarian 1940s/50s documentary voice and a computer generated voice. It made it hard to hang ideas and facts in my mind--every sentence seemed to have the same pattern, the same rhythm, the same weight.… (más)

"The Third Coast" should have a certain appeal to Chicago "baby-boomers", but the book never seemed to pull all the elements together into a cohesive story. While the book contained a ton of factoids about a wide range of Chicagoans, especially in the 1940's and 1950's, many people included were individuals I'd never heard of before, and am quite sure I'll never hear of again. I thought Dyja spend an inordinate amount of time discussing the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and its school of architecture, including what seemed to be a discussion about every faculty member and department head over the years. In addition to the information about the architectural school of Chicago, there are smatterings of discussions about the music scene, political bosses, the music scene, development of public housing and racial segregation, Chicago theater, etc., but the story ended up disjointed and never quite seemed to find its focus.… (más)