text: How can a best-selling author like Simon Winchester take an event as exciting as the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 and turn it into a tedious snooze-fest? One answer: write as if you had just discovered an adjective mine and were free to throw in extra descripitive terms on every line until listeners scream for an end to florid phrases. Another: strive to break the record for most clich?s in a single paragraph. Finally: write about events in 1906 as if no one but Simon Winchester had ever before thought about their consequences -- thus, everything in this tedious narrative becomes about Simon. Simon and the raccoons; Simon on the failing American economy; Simon attempting to reproduce American accents. This is a CD set for avoiding
  