By Maureen Corrigan
5 stars
In the introduction, Maureen Corrigan suggests reading or rereading The Great Gatsby before continuing on with her book. Taking that advice, I set this book aside and jumped back into Fitzgerald's world (the last time I read the book was about 15 years ago) and I discovered that it really is better the older (and wiser) you get. Corrigan's book is a fantastic amalgam of criticism, Fitzgerald biography and insight into how a book goes from being a flop to an American masterpiece. I have read several of these type books in recent years and this is by far the best. Possibly because Gatsby itself is such a readable yet intricate book. I am always, always, always fascinated by people who read one book compulsively and normally I don't quite understand it but after this reading experience I do believe I will pick up The Great Gatsby for another read. I received a free EGalley of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl
Pub Date - April 28, 2015
4 stars
When I first started this book I had a hard time getting the image of Tina Fey's Bookaneers from the Sesame Street skit out of my head (forgive me, I have kids). Once I settled into this swashbuckling jungle adventure about book piracy, I found in much more sophisticated. The narration switches between an aging bookseller with fabulous tales of the Bookaneers and a waiter with an unfillable love of literatures. The Bookaneers are a group of individuals whose illegal maneuverings sought to bring popular titles to America before the copywriter laws went into affect. The two most famous Bookaneers go one last mission to a Samoan island in order to steal a novel from an ailing Robert Louis Stevenson. There are beautiful descriptions in this novel of literature, the physical book, passion and the jungles of Samoa. I definitely highlighted a good number of lovely lines. I did at times find the actual story to be a bit dull, and I thought that attributing so much danger and adventure to this line of thievery felt a little forced. Overall, though, this is a great book for book-lovers and it was interesting to think about the time before copy-write laws being a bit of a wild west for the world of literature. I received an EGalley of this book from Penguin's First-to-Read program in exchange for an honest review.
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