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Maybe someday
42
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
3/100Critics
81/100Scholars
Author:
John Plotz
Publisher:
Columbia University Press
Date:
June 1, 2021
Leading writers, critics, and scholars show why their favorite forgotten books deserve a new audience. In these thoughtful, often personal essays, contributors â including Caleb Crain, Merve Emre, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Namwali Serpell â read books by writers such as Helen DeWitt, Shirley Jackson, Stanislaw Lem, Paule Marshall, and Charles Portis.
What The Reviewers Say
B-Side Books: Essays on Forgotten Favorites assembles 40 commentators, and each writes a brief (approx. 4-10 pages) summary and appreciation of an overlooked book. The mix of writers is impressive: it includes art historians, a Slavic-language expert, novelists from several nations, a science historian, an anthropologist, a gender historian, a religious studies professor, and essayists. There is a plurality of lit-crit academics (from several continents, and not just full professors), but that’s all right. This is what they do for a living — convince other people to explore and love books that have been (unfairly) pushed to the margins.
Forgotten books earn their readers’ attention.
More than being just a collection of 'what to read next' suggestions, the pieces easily convey a sense of how powerful reading can be. Book lovers are in for a treat..
