101 of 105 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Quotations Reference, November 3, 2006
This review is from: The Yale Book of Quotations (Hardcover)
A good quotations collection will give the definitive wording of quotations, provide information as to the quotations' sources and eliminate spurious sources, and be interesting enough to read or browse in its own right, even when no particular quotation is sought. The Yale Book of Quotations does all of these things, and it does them better than its nearest competitors (Bartlett's Familiar Quotations and The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations). The Yale Book of Quotations is the first new comprehensive collection in many years, and it has benefited from a rethinking of the quotations selected, the use of modern databases to track quotations back to their origins, and comparison with those original sources to assure accuracy.
The immediately noticeable difference is a selection that is more likely to appeal to a modern American audience. Bartlett's has pages of quotations from Dryden, most of which inspire neither recollection nor pleasant surprise. Yale has 12 quotations from Dryden, which is enough to include all the genuinely familiar Dryden quotations. On the other hand, Yale has 23 quotations from George W. Bush, many uttered after Bartlett's was last updated. Yale includes extensive selections of proverbs and sayings, political slogans, television catchphrases, and other familiar lines. In general, although Yale's use of literary quotations is comprehensive (there are, for example, 455 quotations from Shakespeare), the quotation selection tends to be relatively less literary and more inclined toward quotations of contemporary interest, particularly to Americans. It may be for this reason that, frankly, Yale is just a lot more fun to browse.
Less dramatic, but perhaps ultimately a better indicator of usefulness, is the impressive level of research that went into compiling the Yale Book. Have you ever wondered who said "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch"? Yale cites to several authors who used versions of this line, the earliest of which ("such a thing as a 'free' lunch never existed") was in the Reno Evening Gazette on January 22, 1942. It is unlikely that such an obscure source could have been located without modern databases. It was indeed Horace Greeley who said "Go West, young man"; Yale spends a quarter of a page discussing this quotation, which it notes is one of the great examples of the prevalence of misinformation about famous quotations (both Bartlett's and Oxford get it wrong). The Yale Book of Quotations offers a level of scholarship and reliability that is simply not otherwise available.
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73 of 75 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Bartlett's vs. YBQ, March 21, 2007
This review is from: The Yale Book of Quotations (Hardcover)
A copy of this handsome new volume was given to me for my eighty-first birthday, so, at that age having so little time to waste, I immediately set about to test this YBQ against my much older Bartlett's (1968 edition).
YBQ is certainly more fun. Harry S. Truman appears, of course, in both books, but it is the YBQ that quotes Harry's letter to Paul Hume: "I have just read your lousy review [of my daughter's concert] .... You sound like a frustrated old man who never made a success, an eight-ulcer man on a four-ulcer job..." No, nothing like that in good old Bartlett's.
YBQ has the wit, and is obviously more up-to-date, but I must say that Bartlett's is better organized, and has more scholarship, at least scholarship of the kind that I appreciate.
I was happy to see that both books will give you one of my favorite lines of poetry, usually cited in the original French, from Villon: "Mais où sont les neiges d'antan ?" ('But where are the snows of yesteryear ?'). Both books have this line, in both French and English, but only Bartlett's will lead you to it if you look for the French 'neiges' in the index. To find the line in YBQ, you need to look in the index for 'snows,' not actually a word used, even in English, by those who love this line.
Speaking of indexes, well, the YBQ's is awful. It is radically shorter than Bartlett's. It will not lead you to a page number but only to the name of the writer-source of the quotation. And these sources are not always easy to find in the body of the YBQ because the page headings are organized in an eccentric way.
But my biggest problem with the YBQ arises from its quirky way of dealing with disputed attributions. Shapiro, the YBQ's editor, is good about signaling when there is a problem. But he feels called upon to come down on one side or another about whether a given quotation is genuine or spurious.
Here are some examples:
Concerning George Washington and that famous hatchet, Shapiro tells us "apocryphal" (p. 804) without bothering to tell us why he thinks so. Lenin's statement about "useful idiots," Shapiro says, "seems to be a myth" (p. 452). On the other hand, he comes down on the side of authenticity in the case of a statement made by the Nazi-era Pastor Niemöller (p. 551). To his credit, he seems neutral in the case of an alleged statement by Adolf Hitler (p. 361).
These questions of attribution are difficult, and absent a great deal of research, are difficult to make. I think that he is almost certainly wrong about Niemöller, but nobody will expect him to be an expert on everything. It would have been much wiser for him to simply state, in most if not all these cases, that there is doubt about authenticity, to give whatever sources are available, and to let it go at that.
YBQ has a total of 1067 pages. Not bad. But my old Bartlett's has 1750 pages, each one of which seems denser than those of YBQ. Much of the difference comes from the fact that Bartlett's has a magnificent, thorough index of quotations, taking up 593 pages. YBQ's index of 212 pages is no by means puny, but it doesn't compare. Fortunately I do have enough space for both of these works, and they now stand side by side, in uneasy companionship, on my long-suffering shelf.
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39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Well researched...but incomplete, May 4, 2008
This review is from: The Yale Book of Quotations (Hardcover)
It is my strong belief that any person, in any profession, can benefit from a well placed quote or two. I purchased this book because good quotes are often overused and poorly sourced, and a good source of strong quotations can be invaluable.
I was pretty disappointed with the book once I got it. The emphasis seems to be on determining the exact wording and true original source of the quote: Very important details indeed, but accurate boring quotes are still boring quotes. The Yale Book of Quotations seems to have missed the point. Often we want to motivate, prove a point, or illustrate an idea with the use of quotations, and this utility of quotes should have been the primary focus.
I find the book to be only 1/2 as useful as I had hoped (deciding between 2 and 3 stars was tough). When I think of the hours spent by researchers and collaborators to find an original source, my mouse creeps toward the middle star. When I think about the full page dedicated to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards quotes, which are, in fact, all excerpts from original sources that are available today (you guessed it, Rolling Stones albums), my pointer jumps sharply to the left.
Its not a bad book, just not what I expected. Not as useful, not as interesting. So don't make the mistake I did, and find out what this book offers before you make the purchase.
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