Customer Reviews

Books of the Century: A Hundred Years of Authors, Ideas, and Literature

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I must confess - I am an avid reader of the NY Times Book Review, and just about every other major book review I can get my hands on. So I jumped at the chance to read a compilation of reviews spanning the past century. And I have not been disappointed. This is probably not the type of book you want to sit down and read from cover to cover. Rather, it's something to nibble from whenever you have a spare moment.

With the NY Times having online reviews available from only 1980, I had never seen the vast majority of those included. Not only is it fun to see critics' initial impressions of such favorites as One Hundred Years of Solitude and Portnoy's Complaint (as well as the nexy review comparing The Godfather's Michael Corleone to Alexander Portnoy), but the Oops! reviews and author interviews are also worthwhile.

If you love books, and enjoy reading how others' perceived them when they were first released, you can't go wrong with Books of the Century.

If you like books (which I presume you do if you're hanging out on the Amazon.com website :)), and especially if you like book reviews (ditto!), you're going to LOVE this book. Gleaned from a century of New York Times book reviews (plus interviews and letters to the editor), "Books of the Century" gives us the some of the best in 20th century literature, as seen through the eyes of some great reviewers (e.g., WH Auden on Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings"). I can't decide which is more entertaining and edifying -- reading a well-written review which really "nails" a book, or laughing over a ridiculous "panning" of what would turn out to be a great classic.

My only MAJOR criticism of this book is that it includes almost NO science fiction whatsoever. Besides being one of my personal favorite genres of literature, there are just some great all-around WRITERS missing here: Philip K. Dick, Olaf Stapledon, Alfred Bester, HG Wells, and many more. I mean, I can understand that "Books of the Century" wasn't thousands of pages long, and obviously couldn't include EVERYTHING, but leaving out an entire GENRE of literature? I seriously question the editors' judgment on this omission (and that's why I give "Books of the Century" four stars instead of five)!

Besides that problem, which can be solved by checking out David Pringle's "The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction," I strongly recommend "Books of the Century." The New York Times Book Review section is a national treasure, and this is a select sampling of that treasure. An excellent book for a lazy summer afternoon...enjoy!

Being in my early thirties, I have always felt somewhat ignorant about true classics and the great writers that always seem to be mentioned in current reviews and commentaries. This book will help other relatively young bibliophiles who were raised in the time of the prolific ?? Stephen King and romance queen Danielle Steele. Great literature is something that seems to be hidden from the masses, for whatever reason. BOOKS OF THE CENTURY gives readers a beginning, a start on their journeys to finding great reading and great writing that seems to be so lacking today.

This book selects hundreds of representative reviews from NYT's "Book Review". This's a great book! It reflects the taste and the trend of American (or put it boldly, contemporary) literature and lit-crit. Numerous witty articles and perspectives prevail here. While in retrospective, we can find how precise the words were to some great literature works when they were just published. Typical examples like reviews of "Ulysess" ,"The grapes of Wrath". Such reviews undoubtly testify the high-standard of NYT's review. This is a must for book lover.

I must confess - I am an avid reader of the NY Times Book Review, and just about every other major book review I can get my hands on. So I jumped at the chance to read a compilation of reviews spanning the past century. And I have not been disappointed. This is probably not the type of book you want to sit down and read from cover to cover. Rather, it's something to nibble from whenever you have a spare moment.

With the NY Times having online reviews available from only 1980, I had never seen the vast majority of those included. Not only is it fun to see critics' initial impressions of such favorites as One Hundred Years of Solitude and Portnoy's Complaint (as well as the nexy review comparing The Godfather's Michael Corleone to Alexander Portnoy), but the Oops! reviews and author interviews are also worthwhile.

If you love books, and enjoy reading how others' perceived them when they were first released, you can't go wrong with Books of the Century.

I can't imagine how I ever lived without it. Every reader on my shopping list is getting a copy for the holidays, and every writer on my shopping list is getting one, too!

This kind of work makes excellent reading. If you like it, I'd recommend a subscription to The Times (of London) Literary Supplment. A great review contain a micro-education about an entire field.

And here's a note for previous reviewer of this book: the terms "genre" and "literature" are considered by many to be mutually exclusive. Very little of science fiction is of literary quality. That's one reason you don't see much of it reviewed in the New York Times, or in this book.