Oliver Tearle

This started off super-slow for me for the same reason any overview of history does: it starts with ancient history. I know it's important. I know it influences just about everything today, but it's, forgive me, a bit dull.

Once we got through The Classical World and the Middle Ages though, things picked up. For each age, Tearle selects a few texts that can, or should, be considered significant. Some of them are the no-brainers we've all heard of (Shakespeare) and some are names or titles that have unjustly fallen into oblivion (Mary Elizabeth Braddon, whom he argues might be the author of the first English detective novel. Trail of the Serpent). Whether widely known or not, Tearle tries to focus on thoughts, ideas, or facts that aren't widely known so that there's something new here for likely anyone, no matter how well read.

Informative, readable, and once past the Middle ages, very enjoyable.… (lisätietoja)

Snappily written blog-type entries on a range of miscellaneous literary tidbits. For example, our national motto comes from Virgil, apparently in a pesto recipe. That factoid raises a shortcoming of this work: there are no references. Anyone with a mind to follow up on a particularly interesting fact will be disappointed that the author does not provide his sources. Presumably he had them in front of him at the time, so it would not have been too very difficult to include them as endnotes. So enjoy the trip, but unfortunately it cannot provide the jumping off point for further inquiry.… (lisätietoja)

The author states that the aim of this book is to "bring to light the lesser-know aspects of well-known books, and to show how obscure and little-known books have surprising links with the familiar world around us". The book has generally managed to accomplish the stated aims. This book is a collection of bits of information and commentary (with toilet humour attached) about the best-known and the least-known books ever written in English, European and American literature. At first I found this book amusing and interesting, after a while it got rather tedious.
… (lisätietoja)