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56 ratings, 3.30 average rating, 20 reviews
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published
March 2007
by Paidos Iberica Ediciones S a
binding
Hardcover, 391 pages
isbn
8449319854
(isbn13: 9788449319853)
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 152)
recommended to Ginnie by:
Trebro
PW thinks it would have made a better article than a book but I'll go for it anyway.
"Homer's first work, alluded to by Aristotle, was supposedly a comic epic poem. Byron's memoirs were posthumously destroyed, and Ben Jonson didn't live to complete his final play, a pastoral tragicomedy. Flaubert, who suffered seizures that were probably epileptic, kept the text of a scientifically accurate novel about insanity locked up inside his head. At 15, Scottish freelance critic Kelly beg...more
"Homer's first work, alluded to by Aristotle, was supposedly a comic epic poem. Byron's memoirs were posthumously destroyed, and Ben Jonson didn't live to complete his final play, a pastoral tragicomedy. Flaubert, who suffered seizures that were probably epileptic, kept the text of a scientifically accurate novel about insanity locked up inside his head. At 15, Scottish freelance critic Kelly beg...more
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Bingung sebenarnya mau dimasukin rak apa. Ini cerita tentang buku2 yang hilang atau yang rujukannya ditemukan di suatu tempat tapi tak ada lagi yang bisa menemukannya kembali. Sub judulnya aja: "An Incomplete History of All The Great Books You Will Never Read".
Misalnya "Kitab Musik"-nya Kong Hu Cu, yang hilang selamanya dalam Periode Pembakaran Buku besar-besaran di Cina semasa Kaisar Pertama. Pada zaman Dinasti Han, ketika bacaan kembali diperbolehkan, para cendekiawan...more
Misalnya "Kitab Musik"-nya Kong Hu Cu, yang hilang selamanya dalam Periode Pembakaran Buku besar-besaran di Cina semasa Kaisar Pertama. Pada zaman Dinasti Han, ketika bacaan kembali diperbolehkan, para cendekiawan...more
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Read in August, 2007
An excellent book for people who want to know a little bit of everything. This book has been sitting next to my bed for the past few months. Each chapter is a fairly concise summary of a well known author, focused on a work, or works of that author that has been lost. Moving forward through time from the Ancient world to modern times, it provides a very interesting selection of western literature. While it is depressing to learn how much has been lost, it also makes one aware of how very much is...more
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Read in June, 2008
I got maybe a third of the way through this book before I gave up. A fascinating topic, but Kelly's going chronologically by author lifetime, and I barely got past ancient Greece. We will never read the lost works of Sappho, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Agathon, Aristophanes, Xenocles, Menander, or Callimachus, who have all blended together into one giant playwright in my head now (except for Sappho, who I loved previously, and Menander, because apparently they found one of his plays and it ...more
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Read in March, 2008
A fascinating book I've been reading in chapters for almost 2 years now (I have the receipt - I got it 4/21/06, which also happens to be the anniverary of the founding of Rome, at Borders in Kingston, MA, not long before I moved back to RI). A book about many other books - books we know were written but have been lost, or books that authors planned and never wrote. My favorite chapters are the earlier ones - Homer, Sappho, Aeschylus, Euripides, etc. By the time one is halfway through the book on...more
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Read in January, 2009
great idea, lousy execution.
the author's long-winded, vague, tiresome style torpedoes (and SINKS) a first-class idea.
one of those books where you read a paragraph & go "what?"
the author's long-winded, vague, tiresome style torpedoes (and SINKS) a first-class idea.
one of those books where you read a paragraph & go "what?"
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read lightly in and out, favorite sections include charles dickens and laurence sterne.
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Read in September, 2008
Interesting premise, but an extremely dry book. I usually like reading books about books and reading, but this one did not really engage me. The idea of looking at "missing" books (i.e. books mentioned in other books but that did not survive) is an interesting one. However, this book mostly lists things, which after a while does get a bit tiresome. An ok book, but not one I would really recommend unless you are some hardcore bibliophile or history buff.
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Read in December, 2007
A fascinating idea, and in parts very funny and educational, but overall a bit too densely packed with facts for this lightweight reader. Huge a mount of historical detail, liberally peopled with famous and obscure literati geniuses (genii?) The author assumes an encyclopeadic background such as his own, which meant I struggled sometimes - but I did finish it and for the most part enjoyed it.
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Read in May, 2008
A guidebook about books that were planned, but not written, those which disappeared from the surface of the Earth to not be found again by different means (robbery, burning down by the author after a religious coversion and thoughts that literature was paganism, claim that part of the novel was lost after the author's death, theft).
Nice position
Nice position
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Read in February, 2008
A collection of short essays about lost works of literature. I was quite surprised to learn how many potentially great books had been lost (almost all of Aeschylus, for instance) and the circumstances under which they were lost (the great Confucian purge!). Perfect bathroom reading.
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Read in September, 2007
An adorable read, perfect for keeping next to the bed and flipping through while trying to fall asleep.
I'm a little miffed by his take on Swinburne and sometimes questioned his sources/historical take, but otherwise it's a fun read.
I'm a little miffed by his take on Swinburne and sometimes questioned his sources/historical take, but otherwise it's a fun read.
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Read in August, 2008
It's too bad Borges didn't write this book. I liked the idea of such a book but mostly didn't care about the particular books that he wrote about. He does mention the lost 113 pages, but just to make fun of it.
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Read in June, 2008
Great fun! Also clearly retailing bullshit (mostly, but not entirely marked as such), which only serves to make it even funner--why let standards of accuracy stand in the way of a good story?
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Pretty enjoyable account of lost books, real and otherwise, and the way people have interacted with them. Borges did it better, though.
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the story of the ones that got away, awesome read, Col left it on the nightstand and I had to have a peek...then I couldnt put it down
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A great history of literature lost and never found. Particularly interesting sections on the ancient Greeks.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in May, 2008
Kelly somehow manages to make vanished literature almost as interesting as the stuff that survived.
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A collection of Unsolved Mysteries of Literature. Big fun for nerds like me!
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recommends it for:
literature lovers
Interesting survey of ancient literature & modern.
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currently-reading (on 14 people's shelves)
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