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My Superpower
March 7, 2008
I have a good friend who believes that all humans have at least one superpower. This is something you don't have to try hard to be great at. I'm a decent baker, but I'm much better at spotting books to fill holes in my personal library. I, for instance, have always wondered, "Why isn't there a ridiculously browsable coffee-table or bathroom book on writers and literature?" You know, an instructional time killer with pictures. I'm proud to announce that Defining Moments in Books: The Greatest Books, Writers, Characters, Passages, and Events That Shook the Literary World (Cassell) delivers us from boredom and senseless celebrity lifestyle rags.
Screw Britney, Bradgelina, and TV. Leave this puppy by your porcelain god to get a crash course in world literature. Writers ranging from Monica Ali (Brick Lane) and Mario de Andrade (whom I'd never heard of) to Rumi and Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones) are all here, presented in boxes labeled "Key Passage," "Key Book," "Key Event," and so on. It's like a cross between CliffNotes (short, pity sidebars indicate why something is key) and a Rough Guide, complete with spoiler warnings. No one, it appears, is too commercial or too political—both Jackie Collins for Hollywood Wives and Wole Soyinka for winning the Nobel Prize in Literature make the cut.
I love that there are so many pictures of writers—I'd never known what Carl Hiaasen, Orhan Pamuk, Ezra Pound, Zelda Fitzgerald, or T.S. Eliot looked like before. Then again, I hate that there are movie stills to illustrate scenes from books, but, really, on the whole this book has my heart.
Posted by Heather McCormack on March 7, 2008 | Comments (1)
