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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
This “book of books” serves as a comprehensive introduction to award-winning classics old and new. Arranged in almanac form, each day of the year features a new book to explore. Many are relevant to their corresponding dates and begin with the book’s opening sentence. What follows is a plot summary and a sentence or two about the book’s history. Lastly, each entry ends with a few words of review, praise, or criticism. I adored this compilation; the author is intelligent, succinct, and VERY well-read. Be forewarned, however, the summaries contain major spoilers that may affect future reading experiences. I read this all at once but it would be wonderful to spend a year savoring each adventure. Highly recommended!
This was just okay. Maybe I’d have enjoyed it more if I’d read one entry a day, rather than reading the book straight through, but I’m not a “passage a day” type reader. Frankly, while the content is very interesting, each entry is only slightly longer than what could be included in a day at a glance calendar, and I enjoyed reading a bit about some of my favorite books, but for books I haven’t read, I’d rather get information about those books from Goodreads’ members, book description fields, etc. This is kind of a nonessential work, in my opinion.
A great book, a gift from my cousin, Kathy, and one that I am sure I will refer to often. I started off, a year ago, reading each day's entry, one a day, usually at bedtime. As time went on, though, I read ahead or skipped days. I've checked the books I've read and turned the pages for books that I want to read (and there are many).
Not bad, overall. A lot of the books mentioned I knew about. The most beneficial aspect of this book, at least for me, was that it mentioned books that I had and when reading it's descriptions or characterization I realized it wasn't for me. So it was great because while it made me want to pick up a few books, solidify some I had, it made me want to get rid of some too, which was great. I was surprised by what I learned, some books I thought one thing but it was really something else. I think at one point or two I remember feeling like this was too much information like maybe a bit of a spoiler. But overall it wasn't bad. I liked that it was classics because then I learned about so many books that I don't actually intend to read but I at least understand them more now. But I think the classics category was also a hinderance. I kind of wish, there were more beyond the Western Canon or some more that were classics but not the most popular. There were a few but not enough.
This is an exhaustive list of 365 books recommended by the author, an English professor herself. There is no Stephen King, no Jodi Picoult, no "Twilight" in this list. What there is is a list of classical favorites from "Beowulf" and Homer to Eugenides' "Middlesex". The books mentioned vary from the antiquities through the mid-2000's. Likewise, nearly every genre and every type of story has an entry here, from Latino literature, to seasonal Christmas favorites, Asian literature, Native American, Indian and even African. Some of the authors are quite well-known: Twain, Melville, Austen, and Bronte, but there are plenty of other authors and books I've not heard of before.
Each entry fills a page with the book title & author, the opening lines of the book, a brief synopsis of the plot, characters and themes, and then closes with a snippet of a review of the book from another reviewer or sometimes a quote from an interview with the author.
If there is a fault with this book, it is that at least one book description is glaringly incorrect: "Huckleberry Finn"'s synopsis has obvious faults that anyone who has read the book would know to be incorrect. I don't know if there are other book errors listed; I've not read many of the books listed here. Nonetheless I added a significant number of books to my be to-be-read pile after reading this.
Each entry fills a page with the book title & author, the opening lines of the book, a brief synopsis of the plot, characters and themes, and then closes with a snippet of a review of the book from another reviewer or sometimes a quote from an interview with the author.
If there is a fault with this book, it is that at least one book description is glaringly incorrect: "Huckleberry Finn"'s synopsis has obvious faults that anyone who has read the book would know to be incorrect. I don't know if there are other book errors listed; I've not read many of the books listed here. Nonetheless I added a significant number of books to my be to-be-read pile after reading this.
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Obviously I can't resist books about books - which of us here can? And the idea behind this one is beautifully simple: for each day of the year a summary of a classic book, including the first line and a quote about it. But it only gets three stars from me because, as I worked my way through it (no, I was never going to ration myself to a page a day for a whole year) there were times when I felt I was being hit over the head by the Stars and Stripes, as one very American book followed another. Of those authors featured more than once, two-thirds are American (including Annie Dillard who has three books featured - the same number as Dickens and Tolstoy) while the only author featured four times is Henry James. The non-fiction titles are almost exclusively about America as well. Still, the summaries are excellent, and those first lines could come in handy round here...
A great introduction to some of the world's classics, it gives the first line, a short description and then a quote from author/reviewer/editor of the work. I'd heard of the majority, read quite a few, but the editors cast a pretty wide net, so there were a fair amount of which I had never heard.
I did read the entire book as intended, beginning on January 1 and ending on December 31. It introduced me to many books I'd never heard of and told me enough about all the books that I have a pretty good idea of what they're about. In this case, I'm not likely to pursue most of the books mentioned, simply because Ephron's taste in books is different enough from mine that I'm just not interested in most of her choices. I enjoyed how she arranged her summaries: if something about a book tied it to a particular date, the book was listed on that date. But her book gets only three stars from me mainly because in the end, it's a collection of 365 plot summaries (no, not set up for a leap year!) and that's as deep as it gets. Also, I wish she had listed the original publication date for all the books, which would've helped me get a feel for them. But overall, it was an interesting way to get through a year and I'm glad I read it.