Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Every essay is full of fascinating details ... plucked from Connell's wide, idiosyncratic reading of histories, biographies, journals, and ancient chronicals, and strung together as skillfully as fine beadwork ... Armchair travel has rarely been so rewarding. The Aztec Treasure House proves that truth, when recounted by an intellectually adventurous novelist, can be at least as entertaining as fiction." George Scialabba, Boston Sunday Globe
Review
"Connell is also an accomplished essayist ... Connell is wonderfully uninterested in his own navel, wonderfully curious about almost everything else ... Connell is skeptical, clearheaded and a sworn enemy of all dogma ... Connell is always on the side of the true rather than the ideal." Brooke Allen, New York Times Book Review
Review
"Every essay is full of fascinating details ... plucked from Connell's wide, idiosyncratic reading of histories, biographies, journals, and ancient chronicals, and strung together as skillfully as fine beadwork ... Armchair travel has rarely been so rewarding. The Aztec Treasure House proves that truth, when recounted by an intellectually adventurous novelist, can be at least as entertaining as fiction." George Scialabba, Boston Sunday Globe
Review
"Every essay is full of fascinating details ... plucked from Connell's wide, idiosyncratic reading of histories, biographies, journals, and ancient chronicals, and strung together as skillfully as fine beadwork ... Armchair travel has rarely been so rewarding. The Aztec Treasure House proves that truth, when recounted by an intellectually adventurous novelist, can be at least as entertaining as fiction." George Scialabba, Boston Sunday Globe
Review
"The Aztec Treasure House, Connell's sumptuous and engaging new collection of essays, puts his astonishing range as a writer on full Display as he evokes doomed explorers, lost languages and ancient civilizations ... [Connell] brushes dust from obscure lives to reveal gleaming narrative gems." John Freeman, Minneapolis Star Tribune