We review a lot of books for possible inclusion in Select Editions. Hundreds a year. Some of them, well, just don’t make the grade. Just for fun, we thought we'd share the following entertaining review excerpts from a former editor who, when he didn’t like a book, didn’t leave you guessing about his opinion!
“A real tour de force of nastiness, brutality and paranoia. It makes you want to take a bath when you've gone just 100 pages into it--which is as far as I got. Now that I've put it down I feel better, thanks.”
“Insomniacs, however, will welcome this book for it's profoundly soporific effect.”
“Contrary to the publisher's letter, this is nowhere near as good as To Kill a Mockingbird, to which it bears no more resemblance than a mockingbird does to a buzzard.”
“Narrative drive? With this author It goes right off the road.”
“Ho-hum on the range.”
“Maybe the movie will make things clearer. On the other hand, a movie could also make things a lot worse.”
“Jumbled plot, clumsy writing, remote subject… Need I say more?”
“Don't look for much in the way of original drama or much action in this slow, predictable western … We've been here so many times before that we could might just come up with a new genre: Rancho Deja Vu.”
“Too little suspense, too many characters, too much murky history, and a plot that goes wildly awry. On the plus side, the British edition does come with a nice silk ribbon to mark your place. When was the last time you saw one of those?”
The upshot here is that sometimes the review is more fun to read than the book...
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