#2 for Movie Challenge

The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Last King of Scotland is Giles Foden's debut novel of Idi Amin's fictional physician Nicolas Garrigan. Garrigan like most westerners goes to Uganda full of good intentions and idealism. Through the unfortunate run in of Amin's mazerati with a hapless cow Garrigan finds himself inescapably drawn into the horrifying and fascinating orbit of the legendary tyrant. Through the course of the novel Amin becomes more ruthless and erratic. Garrigan continuely allows Amin's charisma to cloud his own better judgement until he finally finds himself the object Amin's wrath. After I finished the book, I read a few wiki's and other internet sites about Amin's reign and was fascinated to learn that many of the major events of the novel were in fact true. Foden seamlessly weaved Garrigan into real situations and into the lives of real people that you never questioned if he was in fact Amin's doctor. Garrigan's ambiguous feelings towards Amin directly reflects the western world's morbid fascination with the dictator and more specifically the to reflect the west's own morbid fascination with the figure as well as western governments complacency in promping up dictators like Amin.


View all my reviews.

First of Movie Challenge

The Ice Harvest: A Novel by Scott Phillips

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Extremely entertaining as an audio book. The night structure and decent writing kept me engage and I will admit I sat in the garage for a second or two longer on a couple occasions to find out how Charlie would get out of one jamb or another. The ending is ridiculous and fairly well forecasted but fits in with rest of the story. If you have a long drive over the holidays, and need something to help the miles go by faster I recommend this harmless, entertaining romp into small town, small time mobster silliness.


View all my reviews.