Customer Reviews

H.L. Mencken: Prejudices: The Complete Series (Library of America)

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Not much more can be said about Mencken that Kevin didn't cover in his review. This two volume set replaces a "selected" version that I had in my Mencken collection. I will pass the selected version along to a friend. Mencken is a true word smith in the highest order. He has a way of presenting things that has me rolling on the floor in laughter, pounding my fists on my armchair in anger and shaking my head in disbelief as he exposes tedious frauds, ignoramuses, cheap rouges, hypocrites, and other grasping, selfish, dishonest mammals that are hell-bent on robbing us of the fruit or our labors. For those who aren't familiar with Mencken, I highly recommend this set.

I was largely unfamiliar with Mencken's writings until recently but I decided to take a chance on these two volumes. How lucky I am that I did! These essays are wonderful. H.L. Mencken is a writer I can enjoy without feeling he is talking down to me... intelligent and witty discourse makes his Prejudices a engaging and educational at once. Even the format is perfect... well-bound and small, but not paperback-sized. I will be enjoying these for many years to come.

Being familiar with events in early 20th Century America will help in grasping the insights that Mencken delivers. His words reveal the true cynic. He is not gentle with many and he can truly wound those he reviews, literary and political and educational. Read it and laugh. Read it and weep over the loud and abrasive contemporary media personalities. Mencken would cut deeper in excising the tumors of nonsense than all the shouting and ranting and raving of our contemporary idiots. Worth reading.

Good Amazon service and delivery. Less expensive than same edition through Library of America.