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phillipjedwards's review against another edition
3.0
Obviously I can't resist books about books - which of us here can? And the idea behind this one is beautifully simple: for each day of the year a summary of a classic book, including the first line and a quote about it. But it only gets three stars from me because, as I worked my way through it (no, I was never going to ration myself to a page a day for a whole year) there were times when I felt I was being hit over the head by the Stars and Stripes, as one very American book followed another. Of those authors featured more than once, two-thirds are American (including Annie Dillard who has three books featured - the same number as Dickens and Tolstoy) while the only author featured four times is Henry James. The non-fiction titles are almost exclusively about America as well. Still, the summaries are excellent, and those first lines could come in handy round here...
mscoutj's review against another edition
4.0
A great introduction to some of the world's classics, it gives the first line, a short description and then a quote from author/reviewer/editor of the work. I'd heard of the majority, read quite a few, but the editors cast a pretty wide net, so there were a fair amount of which I had never heard.
silvernfire's review against another edition
3.0
I did read the entire book as intended, beginning on January 1 and ending on December 31. It introduced me to many books I'd never heard of and told me enough about all the books that I have a pretty good idea of what they're about. In this case, I'm not likely to pursue most of the books mentioned, simply because Ephron's taste in books is different enough from mine that I'm just not interested in most of her choices. I enjoyed how she arranged her summaries: if something about a book tied it to a particular date, the book was listed on that date. But her book gets only three stars from me mainly because in the end, it's a collection of 365 plot summaries (no, not set up for a leap year!) and that's as deep as it gets. Also, I wish she had listed the original publication date for all the books, which would've helped me get a feel for them. But overall, it was an interesting way to get through a year and I'm glad I read it.
debnanceatreaderbuzz's review
3.0
A very opinionated collection of suggestions for reading. Many of these choices would be acceptable to most critics, but many are of the seasonal variety, here today and gone tomorrow. I found a couple of new suggestions that I added to my wishlist, so all was not lost.
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