Book Reviews

Treasure found on E-bay - Resistance: Memoirs of Occupied France

Pete — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 13:46:21 -0400

The BBC reports that an import yet forgotten book appeared on E-bay. As Translator Barbara Mellor notes, "Notre Guerre, Souvenirs de Résistance, Agnès Humbert, 1946. The listing on French eBay didn't give much clue as to the treasure that lay in store...Humbert's journal sent shivers down my spine. The powerful immediacy of the narrative, the raw intensity of the subject matter, the compelling presence of Humbert herself - all were overwhelming, electrifying."

The publisher of the new translation is Bloomsbury

Books Maketh the Man

birdie — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:26:30 -0400

Attempting to tell an author's life through the books he read is a risky enterprise. In this remarkable new biography of Oscar Wilde, Thomas Wright makes a convincing start with his claim that books were the greatest single influence on his subject's life. Wilde's first reading of some of his favourites was, says Wright, 'as significant as his first meetings with friends and lovers'. Indeed, he later used gifts of books to seduce young men.

His passion (apart from young men) was Balzac. Literary Review of Thomas Wright's new title "Oscar's Books".

10 Books Not To Read Before You Die

Blake — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:14:46 -0400

The producer of at least three television shows that you may quite like shares with us his definitive list of books that just aren't worth the bother.

1: Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

From what I can gather it’s Mills and Boon from the olden days, and really boring Mills and Boon at that. I did try reading a Jane Austen novel once, but it hadn’t got going by fifty pages so I guiltily gave up; the characters spoke in a very oblique way and it seemed to be all about hypocrisy and manners and convention; worse than that, it was really difficult to find the doing word in a sentence.

Librarian probes unsolved case, finds danger

Blake — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:44:48 -0400

"Death Books a Return" (Pemberley, $17.95), the second novel in Marion Moore Hills' mystery series, features Juanita Wills, the "Scrappy Librarian." The reviewer says "This is a book you'll like."

If she's killed, can she leave enough evidence that Cleary can figure out who did it? Or, will he get there before she is killed? After all, someone must have heard the shots in the library. Whoever heard of shots in the library?

Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet

Bibliofuture — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:48:06 -0400

Book review at Salon.com of the book "Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet"

How do we know what we know? A new book takes a long view of knowledge, from ancient oral traditions to the rise of universities and the Internet.

We live in the information age, when networked computers give millions of users unprecedented access to communications and data. But so what? That is, in effect, what Ian McNeely and Lisa Wolverton have to say at the conclusion of "Reinventing Knowledge: From Alexandria to the Internet." The authors are indeed hard to impress. Their small book takes a long view -- an exceedingly long view, beginning with the birth of Western civilization in the philosophical academies of ancient Greece and wending its way, century by century, to the present. McNeely and Wolverton remain unpersuaded that the Internet is as revolutionary as it's cracked up to be.

Full review here.

LitMob: Book Reviews with Passion

Blake — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:03:38 -0400

App Scout: The world of book reviews can be stuffy and uninteresting, with lengthy and long-winded reviews written by authors and critics who may understand their source material but may not relate terribly well with the reading public, or people who would love to get into books but find reviews more difficult to digest than the books themselves.

Enter LitMob (litmob.com), a new kind of book review blog. Rather than focus on lengthy descriptions of the author's background, influences, and similarities to other works, LitMob cuts to the core of the text, giving you a synopsis of the plot, enough tantalizing information to get you interested in the book, and enough background information to make you want to pick it up, all without reading like Ben Stein sounds.

'Little Book' Tells A Wonderfully Big Story

Bibliofuture — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:03:48 -0400

Books We Like by Maureen Corrigan
Fresh Air from WHYY, August 20, 2008

Selden Edwards' debut novel, The Little Book, has what they call in the publishing biz a great "back story." Edwards began writing the novel in 1974 when he was a newly minted English teacher; during summer vacations (and, I would guess, tedious faculty meetings) over the next 30 years, Edwards kept plugging away at his novel. Now, at long last, the magnum opus has been published.

Read or listen to full review here.

Coldblooded Commerce in Coldblooded Contraband

Bibliofuture — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 08:47:05 -0400

Book: THE LIZARD KING The True Crimes and Passions of the World’s Greatest Reptile Smugglers
Review in the NYT: In “The Lizard King,” his book about the wild world of reptile-dealing chicanery, Bryan Christy describes a smuggling incident at Miami International Airport. An Argentine man who claimed to be carrying a suitcase full of ceramics turned out to have crammed all this into his single piece of luggage: 107 chaco tortoises, 103 red-footed tortoises, 76 tartaruga turtles, five boa constrictors, seven rainbow boas, seven parrot snakes, 20 tarantulas, 10 scorpions, 90 tree frogs, 20 red tegu lizards, about a dozen other lizards and two South American rattlesnakes. It was one wiggling, squiggling, brilliantly packed load of trouble.

"Books" a Memoir by Larry McMurtry

birdie — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:46:48 -0400

Reviews (mixed mostly) are sprouting up (in those publications that still have book reviews) for Larry McMurtry's new book simply entitled "Books".

McMurtry, in addition to being an author (Terms of Endearment, Last Picture Show, and the Pulitzer prize-winning Lonesome Dove), has been a bookseller in Archer Texas for the last forty-some years, and that is primarily the subject of this, his fortieth book.

Reviews: SF Examiner, NYT, Chicago Sun-Times and the Boston Globe.

New Volume on the History of Children's Books

birdie — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:12:20 -0400

Scripps News reports: From the publication of the lesson-filled "New-England Primer" to the midnight bookstore parties for the latest "Harry Potter" volume, children's books have provided a valuable -- and fascinating -- window into American culture.

That's the premise of "Minders of Make-Believe" (Houghton Mifflin, $28), the newest book by children's-book historian Leonard S. Marcus. In this highly readable book aimed at adults, Marcus details the rise (and, often, the fall) of major U.S. children's-book publishers, as well as the key role played by librarians in the 20th century in determining what American children should read.