Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty by Anderson Cooper
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I love Anderson Cooper so listening to him narrate this Vanderbilt story was a definite plus. I don’t know a lot about this time in history so did find many aspects of this story very interesting. However, I also found parts of this quite dull. There were times where they went into excruciating detail about things that seemed unnecessary (Truman Capote, the mining accident, the sailboat race, etc). Other times they seemingly glossed over important information.
I also think the title is misleading. This really was not about the Rise and Fall of the Vanderbilts. Little was explained about why they lost their fortunes. The readers can assume it’s because they were wasteful in the spending, but nothing was discussed about what became of the business.
This book was more a collection of random stories about selected Vanderbilt family members. Some more interesting than others. A large chunk of time was spent in describing clothing and mansions, etc. The structure of the book did not work for me. The book began with the last Vanderbilt moving out of the Breakers but then never returned to tie up that storyline.
The stories captured my attention enough that I did plan to read Consuela’s memoir and possibly more about Gloria Vanderbilt.
Overall, I liked it but was not wowed and I think if I had not been listening, I may not have finished it.
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