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bev_reads_mysteries's review against another edition
5.0
This is Richard Nash at his best. Superb research, combined with the author's wit makes this scholarly work a delight to read. There are so many bits of this work that I love. A few quotes:
"Indeed such is Montagu's enthusiasm, and so engaging is his undisguised admiration, that one is almost obligated to overlook the aside on page 311 where Montagu acknowledges indirectly that Tyson was almost entirely in error in all of his conclusions."
(about Robinson Crusoe): "Throughout his twenty-eight years on the island, goats are as wild as it gets."
(a footnote): "There are, of course, cannibals; but strictly speaking they are foreigners--nonnative natives, as it were--who only venture to Crusoe's island when dining out."
(About the "Anti-Saccharine Society"): "an unfortunate acronym, but that may not have been so relevant in a society that had not yet developed the marketing refinements of T-shirts and bumper stickers."
I was particularly intrigued by his focus in the beginning chapters on the difference between spectacle and curiosity and would like to read more. That, I think is one of the marks of very good writing (research)--it always leaves the reader wanting more...or wanting to learn more about the subject.
"Indeed such is Montagu's enthusiasm, and so engaging is his undisguised admiration, that one is almost obligated to overlook the aside on page 311 where Montagu acknowledges indirectly that Tyson was almost entirely in error in all of his conclusions."
(about Robinson Crusoe): "Throughout his twenty-eight years on the island, goats are as wild as it gets."
(a footnote): "There are, of course, cannibals; but strictly speaking they are foreigners--nonnative natives, as it were--who only venture to Crusoe's island when dining out."
(About the "Anti-Saccharine Society"): "an unfortunate acronym, but that may not have been so relevant in a society that had not yet developed the marketing refinements of T-shirts and bumper stickers."
I was particularly intrigued by his focus in the beginning chapters on the difference between spectacle and curiosity and would like to read more. That, I think is one of the marks of very good writing (research)--it always leaves the reader wanting more...or wanting to learn more about the subject.
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