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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
This was interesting, but it's 100% process and nothing about the books, and that's not a good thing because:
1. At times she gets to be quite dull or just plain uninformed about the process. As one example of many, Morgan may have something to say about how we can obtain books from far away in the internet age, but she is far from the best writer on how the internet is changing our reading habits.
Hence we could have done without perhaps a third of that material.
2. I, and I suspect most readers, would have liked to have known what handful of her 196 books I should seek out and read myself. As she points out, reading time is short, and I'm not going to read even a quarter of the books she read. But I sure would have appreciated her insight into which half dozen or dozen I should push to read.
1. At times she gets to be quite dull or just plain uninformed about the process. As one example of many, Morgan may have something to say about how we can obtain books from far away in the internet age, but she is far from the best writer on how the internet is changing our reading habits.
Hence we could have done without perhaps a third of that material.
2. I, and I suspect most readers, would have liked to have known what handful of her 196 books I should seek out and read myself. As she points out, reading time is short, and I'm not going to read even a quarter of the books she read. But I sure would have appreciated her insight into which half dozen or dozen I should push to read.
This was a slog, I just was not getting anything from it.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
While I knew going in that this wasn't just a list of books she had read, I really felt the lack of any elements of memoir were missing from this book. It felt like a missed opportunity and left it lacking any sort of authorial voice. Anyone who did a lot of research on books could have written this.
However it is really interesting and is a good deep dive.
Good book overall but disappointed as I can feel all the areas it could have been better.
However it is really interesting and is a good deep dive.
Good book overall but disappointed as I can feel all the areas it could have been better.
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5 stars. I've been working on a books of the world project myself (albeit at an excruciatingly slow pace) and really enjoyed this. I think the low ratings come from readers who expected a rundown of the books she read - which is already available on her blog and would just be repetitive. Instead, she ties the books she read together through chapters that explore, among other things, biases in translation, the challenge of finding books in countries with oral traditions, and why reading novels makes people more empathetic. The academic style occasionally reads a bit awkwardly, like a college thesis, but the content is important. And - from her blog - just found out that MADAGASCAR WILL HAVE ITS FIRST-EVER ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF A NOVEL THIS YEAR! Awesome. I know what I'll be reading in October.
This was not what I expected. I thought it was going to be a list of the books Morgan read with some synopsis and commentary. While there is a listing of the books and materials read, this book was so much more. It was an in-depth look at the literature and publishing opportunities around the world. The upshot of it is that there is not much out there for publishing if you are not a major, well-established country. There is so much talent out there and so many voices that just are never going to heard or represented. It was very informative and eye-opening, but a little depressing.