"Would You Do What They Did?" by William Dean Hamilton

About the book:  A collection of biographies of Martin Luther, Francis of Assisi, John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, and the famous martyr Thomas Becket written in creative nonfiction style.

Review:  When given the opportunity to review Would You Do What They Did?, I was excited because I do enjoy biographies. I assumed given the length of the book and the fact that there were four famous Church leaders included, the biography of each would focus on a small portion of their life.  Beginning with the introduction, I saw the author had taken liberty with the historical record of these gentlemen’s lives and pursued his own “atrocious” [my opinion] creative non-fiction [his own term].

He decided to stir the pot of characters muddying the mix.  He uses the tool of humor without success.  He writes extensively of Francis of Assisi and to a vastly lesser extent the other three. This reader questions the author’s intent in such unbalance. I personally felt that his writing leaves much to be desired. There are editing issues with spelling, punctuation, word association, and basic sentence structure.

I was looking forward to reading a good biography, even though I clearly understood that the coverage would be somewhat limited. I was sorely disappointed.

In agreement with the BookCrash Program, I read this book in its entirety. However, I simply can not recommend this book.

DISCLOSURE: I received a complimentary copy from the Bookcrash book review program. Opinions expressed are solely my own.