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The Coffee Trader - David Liss

Libre

Member
Anybody read this? I thought it was tremendously good. So many elements. I won't say much about it (don't want spoilers in this post). I will say it takes place in 17th century Amsterdam. There are so many fascinating elements - the origins of the commodities and futures market, the Secret Jews and Conversos, the vibrant characters. The main character's adversaries seem so menacing.
The setting is so well established that one day after reading it on my bus ride in to work, when I stepped off the bus, for a few moments as I walked up 6th Ave, I felt like I had stepped into a time warp into a futurisic society -ours. WOW! The tall buildings, the multitudes, the cars. They all seemed like Things To Come, and that the real world was the one I had been inhabiting on the bus, in the pages of this remarkable book.
 
I haven't read this one, but I did read both A Conspiracy of Paper and A Spectacle of Corruption - both of which were excellent.

I believe some of the characters cross over between The Coffee Trader and these two, but they take place about 20-30 years into the future and are set in England instead of Amsterdam.
 
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