Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3324005 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 688 pages

Review
A chronological collection of the best writing from the literary section of the New York Times, between 1896 and 1997, this book includes not only reviews but also interviews with such notables as Emile Zola, D H Lawrence and Milan Kundera; as well as essays from the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Alice B Toklas. Some of the reviews are as interesting for what they reveal about the reviewers as they are for the books they're reviewing, and include such intriguing conjunctions as Joyce Carol Oates on John Updike, Irving Howe on Primo Levi and Stephen Spender on Camus. The book is also a document of changing literary tastes and styles of reviewing, and an added allure is provided by the benefit of distance and hindsight. Fascinating on many levels. (Kirkus UK)

This enhanced version of the centennial issue of the New York Times Book Review offers, in a more permanent form, the pleasures of that retrospective: a broad sampling of pieces drawn from the pages of the section launched in 1897 and thus, given the considerable influence and scope of the weekly journal, a record in microcosm of the evolution of the genre of the book review. The 250 selections include excerpts from essays by influential writers, interviews, and reviews. Some of the reviews seem, inevitably, rather dated. Others (such asa review of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain from 1927) seem to possess an undimmed freshness and accuracy. As McGrath, the current editor of the Review, points out in his succinct Introduction, reviews remain an ephemeral but necessary form, the first and (sometimes) the best response to new work. Gathering so many of them together offers the browser a rare sense of, in McGrath's words, "literary immediacy - of what it was like, of initial and immediate reaction, when some of the most important or influential books of the century first came into view." A lively, often surprising, and entertaining companion for serious readers. (Kirkus Reviews)

Synopsis
A treasure house of literary entertainment, featuring the best reviews, essays, and interviews ever published in The New York Times Book Review, now in trade paperback for the first time. With more than 250 selections, Books of the Century sheds light on some of our greatest writers and how their books were received when first reviewed in The New York Times Book Review, America's most widely read journal of the literary arts. Arranged chronologically, here are reviews of Franz Kafka's The Trial, Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, E. M. Forster's A Passage to India, and Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. The editors of the Book Review have also included such items as letters to the editor penned by Joseph Conrad and Jack London, interviews with Emile Zola and Vladimir Nabokov, essays by Saul Bellow and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and the "Oops!" feature that humbly presents reviews of classics such as Catch-22 and The Catcher in the Rye, which the Book Review initially panned. A time line runs throughout the handsome, oversized volume, highlighting the century's literary landmarks.

Bringing together classic reviews and writings, The New York Times Book Review has created a resource that all book lovers will enjoy adding to their libraries.

From the Publisher
The Ultimate Book-Lover's Gift Book
"Where are the pans of yesteryear? They are here -- along with many more favorible first reactions to modern classics." -- Publishers Weekly

BOOKS OF THE CENTURY marks the first book-length collection of reviews, essays and interviews from The New York Times Book Review, which recently celebrated its 100th anniversary as one of America’s most widely read publications about books. Arranged chronologically, and accompanied by a timeline of literary landmarks, here are nearly 250 original reviews of some of the best and most appealing books of our century, as well as some of the most engaging interviews, essays and letters ever published by The New York Times Book Review. Among the highlights of BOOKS OF THE CENTURY:

· The inaugural reviews of such classic novels as Sons and Lovers, Ulysses, The Great Gatsby, Brave New World, Gone with the Wind, Invisible Man, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Lolita.

· Reviews of the most exceptional nonfiction books of the century, from Sigmund Freud’s General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, to Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking, to Susan Faludi’s Backlash.

· "First Impressions" – early critiques, not always flattering, of writers who would someday become household names, including Agatha Christie, Dorothy Parker, Zora Neale Hurston, Dr. Seuss, James Michener, James Baldwin, Anne Rice, and Sue Grafton.

· "Oops!" –biting reviews of books that would eventually be hailed as timeless, including Sister Carrie, Howards End, The Catcher in the Rye, Catch-22, and The Feminine Mystique.

· Interviews with legendary authors in their prime, including Emile Zola, Willa Cather, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Vladimir Nabokov, Eudora Welty, and Milan Kundera.

· Essays such as Stephen Spender on Henry James; Alice B. Toklas on Americans in Paris; Gabriel Garcia Marquez on Hemingway; Philip Roth on Bernard Malamud; Jay McInerney on Raymond Carver.

· Notable letters to the editor, such as one from Jack London responding to a unfavorable review; one from Alan Greenspan defending Atlas Shrugged; and one from Timothy Leary attacking a review of a Janis Joplin biography.

Topping off the anthology of literary elegies, jabs, and trivia is the "Editor’s Choice," a selective guide to the best books of each year from 1972 to 1997. As Charles McGrath states in his introduction, "The Book Review may not be the single most advantageous window from which to look back at the last 100 years, but neither is it an entirely accidental one....Here, in one way or another, are our fears and anxieties, and, more important, our longings and our dreams. This is really how we thought about what we thought, and how we felt about what we felt."

"The Catcher in the Rye. By J.D. Salinger. This Salinger, he’s a short-story guy. And he knows how to write about kids. This book though, it’s too long. Gets kind of monotonous. And he should’ve cut out a lot about these jerks and all that crumby school. They depress me." -- July 15, 1951

"Gone with the Wind is by no means a great novel. But it is a long while since the American reading public has been offered such a bounteous feast of excellent story telling....He would be a rash critic who would make any prophecies as to Miss Mitchell’s future. She has set herself a hard mark to match with a second book, and I hope only that she will not set too soon about it."-- July 5, 1936

"Finally, I venture a prophecy: Not ten men and women out of a hundred can read Ulysses through.... I am probably the only person, aside from the author, that has ever read it twice from beginning to end. I have learned more psychology and psychiatry from it than I did in ten years at the Neurological Institute. There are other angles at which Ulysses can be viewed profitably, but they are not many." -- May 28, 1922

Customer Reviews

For All Bibliophiles!
Being in my early thirties, I have always felt somewhat ignorant about true classics and the great writers that always seem to be mentioned in current reviews and commentaries. This book will help other relatively young bibliophiles who were raised in the time of the prolific ?? Stephen King and romance queen Danielle Steele. Great literature is something that seems to be hidden from the masses, for whatever reason. BOOKS OF THE CENTURY gives readers a beginning, a start on their journeys to finding great reading and great writing that seems to be so lacking today.

This is a stunning masterpiece.
I can't imagine how I ever lived without it. Every reader on my shopping list is getting a copy for the holidays, and every writer on my shopping list is getting one, too!

Great fun for bibliophiles
I must confess - I am an avid reader of the NY Times Book Review, and just about every other major book review I can get my hands on. So I jumped at the chance to read a compilation of reviews spanning the past century. And I have not been disappointed. This is probably not the type of book you want to sit down and read from cover to cover. Rather, it's something to nibble from whenever you have a spare moment.

With the NY Times having online reviews available from only 1980, I had never seen the vast majority of those included. Not only is it fun to see critics' initial impressions of such favorites as One Hundred Years of Solitude and Portnoy's Complaint (as well as the nexy review comparing The Godfather's Michael Corleone to Alexander Portnoy), but the Oops! reviews and author interviews are also worthwhile.

If you love books, and enjoy reading how others' perceived them when they were first released, you can't go wrong with Books of the Century.