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Rating: 
Summary: Like I *need* another thirty years worth of good reading....
Review: As both a very heavy reader of broad tastes and interests, and a librarian (i.e., a professional recommender of books), I'm always on the look-out for new lists of other people's reading recommendations. This one runs to nearly 500 pages, most of it in the form of brief, individually authored articles (from less than half a column in length to two-thirds of a page) on writers who mostly have been originally published in English, ranging from Defoe and Dickens to Patricia Cornwell and Neal Stephenson. There are also nearly three dozen topical essays -- Canada, Fantasy, Film Adaptations, The Sea, Teen, etc -- which I frankly found too idiosyncratic to be of much use. It took me several weeks to work my way slowly through this thing, notepad at hand to jot down authors and titles that were new to me, or which the reviewer convinced me I ought to reconsider. I filled more than a dozen pages, which means I can happily push this volume on other dedicated readers. Not that I don't have some caveats. No such book can be all-inclusive, of course, so I won't complain about the (in my opinion) excellent authors who were omitted. Though I'm annoyed that a relatively minor science fiction author from the '50s like John Wyndham is discussed, but not the innovative John Varley. On the other hand, can you even begin to talk about Robert Coover without mentioning his most widely-read novel, _The Universal Baseball Association, Inc.?_ Or Stephen King with no mention of _The Stand,_ which is as close as he has yet come to a magnum opus? There seems also to be a heavy emphasis on British writers, with many minor names being included out of proportion to less-known U.S. authors; this bias is not noted in the Introduction, but becomes obvious as you browse. Well, an editor's lot is never an easy one. But they really should have included a title index.
Rating:
Summary: a useful and well constructed guide...
Review: This is a useful book for those interested in literature, wishing to expand their reading, or just looking for a good book.The book has two main sections. The first is a series of essays by leading writers in various fields. So Michael Dibdin writes on Crime, Lee Clark Mitchell on Westerns with other essays on other genres and also major countries of fiction such as America, France etc. Each essayist picks 12 examples of the finest books in each field. These short essays are very useful as introductions to a field or area of writing and point you in the right direction for further reading. The second section is an A-Z listing of over 1,000 authors with short biographical details and suggested reading. Taken together these elements make for a most informative guide which I have found very useful to increase my reading and I am sure other lovers of books will find likewise. There are some glaring ommisions - no Haruki Murakami?! - and some of the entries can be a bit snobbish but overall there is a good balance.
Rating:
Summary: a useful and well constructed guide...
Review: This is a useful book for those interested in literature, wishing to expand their reading, or just looking for a good book. The book has two main sections. The first is a series of essays by leading writers in various fields. So Michael Dibdin writes on Crime, Lee Clark Mitchell on Westerns with other essays on other genres and also major countries of fiction such as America, France etc. Each essayist picks 12 examples of the finest books in each field. These short essays are very useful as introductions to a field or area of writing and point you in the right direction for further reading. The second section is an A-Z listing of over 1,000 authors with short biographical details and suggested reading. Taken together these elements make for a most informative guide which I have found very useful to increase my reading and I am sure other lovers of books will find likewise. There are some glaring ommisions - no Haruki Murakami?! - and some of the entries can be a bit snobbish but overall there is a good balance.
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