The curious reader : a literary miscellany of novels & novelists

The curious reader A literary miscellany of novels & novelists

Book - 2021

"Readers rejoice! From Mental Floss, an online destination for more than a billion curious minds since its founding in 2001, comes the ultimate book for lovers of literature. From Americanah to War and Peace, from Chinua Achebe and Jane Austen to Jesmyn Ward and George R.R. Martin, learn surprising facts about the world's most famous novels and novelists. The Curious Reader will delight bookworms everywhere. This literary compendium from Mental Floss reveals fascinating facts about the world's most famous authors and their literary works. Readers will learn about George Orwell's near-death experience during the writing of 1984; meet the real man who may have inspired Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Darcy; discover which... famous author kept her husband's heart after he passed away; and learn about the influence of psychedelics on Dune. The Curious Reader also contains the most-loved book-related articles from 20 years of Mental Floss, including "Cat-Loving Writers," "Famous Authors' Unfinished Manuscripts," "Literary Characters Based on Real People," and "Books You Didn't Know Were Self-Published." This literary miscellany is certain to inspire book lovers, aspiring writers, students, and teachers alike to discover a diverse selection of curated literary works--leading to an expansion of their library!"--Amazon.

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Subjects
Books and reading > Miscellanea.
Fiction > Miscellanea.
Authors > Miscellanea.
Trivia and miscellanea.
Illustrated works.
Genres
Trivia and miscellanea
Illustrated works
Published
San Rafael, California : WeldonOwen [2021]
Language
English
Corporate Author
Mental Floss (Firm)
Corporate Author
Mental Floss (Firm) (editor)
Item Description
Includes index.
Physical Description
288 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 25 cm
ISBN
9781681887555
  • Introduction
  • 1984
  • A Came of Thrones
  • A Prayer for Owen Meany
  • Americanah
  • As I Lay Dying
  • Beloved
  • Brave New World
  • Catch-22
  • Crime and Punishment
  • Don Quixote
  • Dune
  • Fahrenheit 451
  • Frankenstein
  • Giovanni's Room
  • House Made of Dawn
  • In Search of Lost Time
  • Infinite Jest
  • Invisible Mao
  • Jane Eyre
  • Kindred
  • Little Women
  • Lolita
  • Lord of the Flies
  • Midnight's Children
  • Moby-Dick
  • Murder on the Orient Express
  • My Brilliant Friend
  • Never Let Me Co
  • On the Road
  • One Hundred Years of Solitude
  • Outlander
  • Pride and Prejudice
  • Salvage the Bones
  • Slaughterhouse-Five
  • Sons and Lovers
  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  • The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
  • The Alchemist
  • The Bell Jar
  • The Call of the Wild
  • The Catcher in the Rye
  • The Color Purple
  • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
  • The God of Small Things
  • The Grapes of Wrath
  • The Great Gatsby
  • The Handmaid's Tale
  • The Haunting of Hill House
  • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
  • The Joy Luck Club
  • The Jungle
  • The Kite Runner
  • The Lord of the Rings
  • The Lowland
  • The Metamorphosis
  • The Old Man and the Sea
  • The Road
  • The Stand
  • Things Fall Apart
  • To Kill a Mockingbird
  • To the Lighthouse
  • Ulysses
  • Uncle Tom's Cabin
  • Waiting
  • War and Peace
  • Our Favorite Novels that Didn't Make the Cut
Review by Library Journal Review

With sumptuous, visually stimulating spreads, this book (by the editors of the e-magazine Mental Floss) delivers on its promise--to unearth strange stories, bizarre facts, or unexpected details about the books on our shelves. Many readers could unearth most of these details by following internet rabbit holes, but the book's wise curation acts as both microscope and telescope, zooming in and out on particular texts to provide fascinating insights on writers' private lives, as well as big-picture advice and anecdotes. For instance, the biographical and textual facts that ground Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar lead to a discussion of five books about mental illness, from Kate Chopin's The Awakening, to Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life. The section on Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go opens up a bigger conversation about genre, along with some details about Ishiguro's life and narrative style, and a list of nine other novelists who (like Ishiguro) have won Nobel Prizes. VERDICT Good for curious readers, whether they want to delve into authors and books they love, feel competent faking knowledge about books everyone else seems to have read, or just dip into and out of literary worlds.--Emily Bowles, Lawrence Univ., WI

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