Curiosities of Literature: A Feast for Book Lovers

By John Sutherland

Book Overview

How much heavier was Thackeray's brain than Walt Whitman's? Which novels do American soldiers read? When did cigarettes start making an appearance in English literature? And, while we're about it, who... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1616080744
• ISBN13: 9781616080747
• Release Date: January 2011
• Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

If you love Victorian and 20th Century literature

you will certainly enjoy this book. Sutherland, who is an English professor at University College London, has made a career of writing about oddities and conundrums in Victorian literature. This book is different in that it provides light-hearted, short articles about a wide range of literary topics such as Proust's asthma, Thomas Carlyle's wedding night, and the odd circumstances of Thomas Hardy's burial. He also provides entertaining lists, such as the most difficult literary works to read (Finnegans Wake is mentioned), books with canine first-person narrators, famous misquotes, youngest and oldest novelists, and books, according to a 2007 survey, least likely to be finished by readers. (War and Peace is included.) Sutherland wears his erudition lightly and is very funny. Unlike the other reviewer who pronounced Sutherland pompous and arrogant, I found this book is so witty and enjoyable that I actually read part of it at the beach.