Familiar Poems, Annotated

by Isaac Asimov

Explanatory commentary accompanies thirty-seven frequently anthologized and quoted verses presented in order of the time in which the key event in each poem takes place

Genres: Poetry, Literature

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Works of prolific Russian-American writer Isaac Asimov include popular explanations of scientific principles, The Foundation Trilogy (1951-1953), and other volumes of fiction.

Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.

Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).

People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.

Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.

Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...

Reviews

[Steve Carroll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why yes, I have been buying up out of print Issac Asimov non-fiction books on Amazon. How could you tell? ;-)

This was an odd little book! Asimov is quite open that he hasn't chosen the poems based on their quality and even admits to not liking several of them. The selection of poems is heavily weighted towards depictions of historical events that were broadly familiar to audiences at some point. I'll be honest that I only knew about 1/3rd of them but I'm nobody's idea of poetry expert which is why I picked this up in the first place. Asimov then footnotes the poems adding the historical background or other info that helps you understand what is going on in the poem. The poems are arranged in chronological order based on the events depicted starting with Shelley's Ozymandias and ending shortly after WWI (In Flander's Field). Good stuff.

It's hard to read this and not be at least a little surprised at how impenetrable the references are to a modern, and if I may be bold, reasonably well educated person. When education was revamped to de-emphasize the canon, dead white guys, etc, it basically renders this part of our cultural heritage incomprehensible. I was surprised by how much I didn't understand without Asimov's annotation and these were once well known verses (not just for an elite).

[Anthony Faber · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got half way through it before it ran out of renewals and now SFPL has lost it, so I'll probably never finish it. Most of my interest is in how they lived back then.

[Dylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Isaac Asimov has written some of my favorite fiction novels, those mostly surrounding robotics in the detective genre, but his non-fiction is also superb.

I did not exactly recognize many of these poems, but I enjoyed reading Twas The Night Before Christmas and how it changed people's understandings of Christmas. The information was unique and well-written. The Pied Piper of Hamlin was my second favorite poem, for the poem itself and especially Asimov's contextualization of it.

A lot of these poems seemed to be military in focus. I do not find military history interesting, so I skimmed over a fair amount of the poems/explanations. There were a good solid 7 or so poems I enjoyed learning about.