Customer Reviews

Wit's End: Days and Nights of the Algonquin Round Table

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

 

 

This is the best book out there about the roots, growth and history of the Round Table. Jim Gaines has done a remarkable job of presenting the colorful group. Packed with photos and illustrations, a must-have book for devotees of the Vicious Circle.

Anyone interested in the Twenties, the writing of the Twenties, the birth of mass media, the culture of the Lost Generation or the Algonquin Round Table writers must BUY THIS BOOK!

Oh to have participated with these witty, literary and most times intoxicated giants of this era would have been a delight but certainly not for the thin skinned. You would have had to have kept your wits about you or you would have been sliced and diced by some of the most remarkable and acerbic tongues of this fine table. Here are some truly remarkable characters vividly brought to life by James Gaines. A joyous and intelligent read.

The Algonquin wits were self-absorbed, self-congratulatory, alcoholic and mean. But we loved them so. We have never seen their like since, although a few attempts have been made to recreated their magic.

This is a great book about them - love 'em or not!

This book is a marvelous tale of the Algonquin Roundtable without being overly long or in-depth, yet truly complete and all-encompassing, and with photographs -- plenty of them. Not only in the superb writing, but in the photos, this New York version of the Lost Generation then hanging out in Paris comes to life in its pages. Extremely well researched and written, this is a first-rate book and a must-have for anyone interested in this circle of Big Apple intelligentsia.

What a disappointment. This is a "coffee table book," with much of its space devoted to pictures, to which the text plays a secondary role. The pictures don't seem to have much to do with the text, and worse yet, the pictures aren't much good. They are poorly reproduced, and many are just uninteresting reproductions of advertising posters. At least one picture appears twice. The text is rambling and similarly careless. All in all one feels this is a thrown-together piece of work.

Its saving grace is its interesting subject. But better books on this subject can be found.

This book a treasure cove of rare photos and fascinating details about the Algonquin Round Table, the members of which directly influenced the evolution of American Theatre, Comedy, Literature and Music in the Twentieth Century. I loved it!

Agata Stanford, author, The Broadway Murders: A Dorothy Parker Mystery