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beastreader's review against another edition
3.0
I am not a history buff so I am not that familiar with most of the authors featured in this book. However it seemed like things that I could find out about the authors from the internet. So what I am saying is nothing new learned other then getting myself familiar with the authors.
However I do have to say that the bad boys and girls of literature at least were productive and made the most of their badness then the celebrities of Hollywood. The authors helped to produce history of great reading. All that celebrities do is make messes and help sell tabloid gossip magazines. They don’t even write the magazines. Oh how our world has changed. I am not a gossip fan. I would rather get my stories from books.
I could tell that Mr. Shaffer did do his homework. He shared details about the authors in this book in good detail. Enough that the reader got something from each short story. Literary Rogues is a good conversation book.
However I do have to say that the bad boys and girls of literature at least were productive and made the most of their badness then the celebrities of Hollywood. The authors helped to produce history of great reading. All that celebrities do is make messes and help sell tabloid gossip magazines. They don’t even write the magazines. Oh how our world has changed. I am not a gossip fan. I would rather get my stories from books.
I could tell that Mr. Shaffer did do his homework. He shared details about the authors in this book in good detail. Enough that the reader got something from each short story. Literary Rogues is a good conversation book.
greenrain's review against another edition
1.0
This book mashed together a bunch of well-known anecdotes claiming to be something scandalous, all the while lamenting the disappearance of self-destructive authors even though the addictions and vices detailed often led to less literary output. In the conclusion, the author admits that being addicted to opium or alcohol is not a good thing, but that no one will remember you if you aren't. There are so many problems with this book that I don't want to bother diving down that hole for several thousand words. The only reason I finished it is because it's short and I'm behind on my Goodreads challenge.
cscottrun's review against another edition
4.0
I truly enjoyed it. While I already knew about many of the events and authors included, Shaffer's descriptions and commentary were incredibly entertaining.
mendelbot's review against another edition
1.0
This book glosses over all of the many writers it profiles. Each bio feels like a Wikipedia page condensed by Reader's Digest. So-and-so was born, got raging drunk, wrote a classic, died (probably early). There is no insight into who these people were, and rarely any discussion about their actual literary output. The author's tone is flippant and irreverant, which does a disservice to some of the literary greats. The book's problems stem from the plethora of writers he actually discusses. Instead of focusing on six or seven authors, thereby delving deeper into each one individually, he presents 25 separate chapters (many comprising more than one profile), and never gets and further than surface details. It also has no idea how to deal with the "rogue" aspect. At times the author seems to condem these people's bad boy behavior; at other times he romanticizes it. Overall a tremendous let down of what is a promsing topic.
travelling_bookworm's review against another edition
dark
funny
informative
sad
medium-paced
3.5
“There was a time when courtesy and winning ways went out of style, when it was good to be bad, when you cultivated decadence like a taste.”
T.C. Boyle
---------------------------------
Don’t meet your (literary) heroes. The chances are they are either raging alcoholics, barely functioning addicts, murderers, or suicidally depressed. Or at least, the ones in this book are.
From scandalous to highly depressing, Literary Rogues is a wild collection of writers from the 18th century to early 2000s that were more notorious in their real life than their literary achievements. The book starts off great, with highly scandalous facts about famous writers of the time that might make you clutch your pearls and maybe lose some respect for some legendary authors. We also have quite the collection of unbearably jaded, boring, and whiny characters (looking at you, Byron) and fragile masculinity drowning in complexes (sort yourself out Hemmingway and Mailer). But we also have unexpected little tidbits like Balzac’s coffee addiction (very relatable).
However, the timeline sometimes jumps around quite a lot, and as a result, some chapters feel so rushed that I asked myself why they were included in the first place. Perhaps the author started the book with more enthusiasm, and got bored along the way; or perhaps he has some clear favorites. (This was the part which annoyed me the most in the book, I suppose. If Frey is your friend, just say that. We didn’t need a long ass chapter of you hyping him up and explaining why him being problematic is actually justifiable or something.)
Overall, this book was intriguing at times as it was shocking, and it just might be that your TBR gets a little larger after reading all the scandals.
T.C. Boyle
---------------------------------
Don’t meet your (literary) heroes. The chances are they are either raging alcoholics, barely functioning addicts, murderers, or suicidally depressed. Or at least, the ones in this book are.
From scandalous to highly depressing, Literary Rogues is a wild collection of writers from the 18th century to early 2000s that were more notorious in their real life than their literary achievements. The book starts off great, with highly scandalous facts about famous writers of the time that might make you clutch your pearls and maybe lose some respect for some legendary authors. We also have quite the collection of unbearably jaded, boring, and whiny characters (looking at you, Byron) and fragile masculinity drowning in complexes (sort yourself out Hemmingway and Mailer). But we also have unexpected little tidbits like Balzac’s coffee addiction (very relatable).
However, the timeline sometimes jumps around quite a lot, and as a result, some chapters feel so rushed that I asked myself why they were included in the first place. Perhaps the author started the book with more enthusiasm, and got bored along the way; or perhaps he has some clear favorites. (This was the part which annoyed me the most in the book, I suppose. If Frey is your friend, just say that. We didn’t need a long ass chapter of you hyping him up and explaining why him being problematic is actually justifiable or something.)
Overall, this book was intriguing at times as it was shocking, and it just might be that your TBR gets a little larger after reading all the scandals.
aegea's review against another edition
2.0
2.5 yıldız, kitap yarım bırakmayı sevmem ama son bölüm olan “amerikan sözcüklerinin kötü çocuğu” kısmında daral geldi bıraktım
tami_provencher's review against another edition
2.0
This book is ok if you don’t already know the biographical info about these literary figures. All of the information & anecdotes included are already well known. There is no new information here. Disappointing.