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170 reviews for:
Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience
Shaun Usher
4.29 AVERAGE
170 reviews for:
Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience
Shaun Usher
4.29 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
This is an amazing collection of letters that have been written over the centuries by many different people that might or might not have changed the course of things.
Absolutely entertaining, and I hope, people keep on writing letters, it is such an amazing thing, thinking about it.
Absolutely entertaining, and I hope, people keep on writing letters, it is such an amazing thing, thinking about it.
As the title suggests, what an eclectic collection of letters, telegrams, and correspondences. I enjoyed reading them so much and found myself looking up details on the writer's lives to expand my knowledge. The book is large and not easily held, so I opened it up on the kitchen counter and read it intermittently as I sat on a bar stool nearby.
My review: https://headfullofbooks.blogspot.com/2020/03/review-and-quotes-letters-of-note.html
My review: https://headfullofbooks.blogspot.com/2020/03/review-and-quotes-letters-of-note.html
Absolutely beautiful. It’s a book I know I will go back to again and again.
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
I've had this book for ages, but never got around to reading it, but I'm finally glad I did. This is an eclectic collection for 125 letters from a wide variety of correspondents. The majority of the writers or recipients of the letters you will have heard of, but it is always fun to read some of their private thoughts that make their way into letters. This is a well-curated collection and makes me nostalgic for the days of long form communication.
What a treasure this book is—and how sad that future generations won’t have more letters like these with which to better understand those who came before them. What struck me most of all was how difficult it has always been to be a person. Some of these letters were pure human mess, and there was strange comfort in knowing that others have struggled through things I’m feeling now (or have felt before). This book is truly a good mine for the human experience, and I loved it.
Honestly, this book (and the blog it comes from) is simply breathtaking. Reading letters is something I've come to appreciate more the older I get, and this collection is a beautifully diverse curation of the humorous, the weird, the loving, and the heartbreaking (sometimes all in one letter). As noted in the book's introduction, the dates of these letters spans from the 14th century BC up until the 21st century (albeit with quite a bit of skew toward the 19th and 20th centuries). I think one of my favorite things about this book was how universal certain themes are. I mean, here are writings than span literally more than a millennium, and yet there's still so many commonalities between so many seemingly dissimilar people.
For me, this wasn't the kind of book I could devour in one sitting - it was difficult to read more than a few letters at a time and not feel the weight of it. Like traveling in a time machine, or trying on another person's life for the briefest moment! In a way, it's exhausting - but also thrilling, and something I wanted to savor. In all honesty, by the time I've now finished (two months after starting it, whoops), I've forgotten many of the letters that early on left me thinking, "Oh, I have to remember to mention THIS one in my review!" I'm actually kind of pleased about that, because I can look forward to being surprised by them again next time I read through this.
For me, this wasn't the kind of book I could devour in one sitting - it was difficult to read more than a few letters at a time and not feel the weight of it. Like traveling in a time machine, or trying on another person's life for the briefest moment! In a way, it's exhausting - but also thrilling, and something I wanted to savor. In all honesty, by the time I've now finished (two months after starting it, whoops), I've forgotten many of the letters that early on left me thinking, "Oh, I have to remember to mention THIS one in my review!" I'm actually kind of pleased about that, because I can look forward to being surprised by them again next time I read through this.
dark
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
medium-paced
This was a very interesting book.
I've never read a collection of letters before, so I was quite curious when I started reading it. Because it is composed of various letters from completly different times and people and backgrounds.
And so it was only natural that the content is so diverse, too. And I really liked it. Especially with the contrast of very old and new letters, it felt like traveling back in time. Of course there were some letters I didn't like that much or that weren't that exciting to me, but that's completely okay.
And on the opposite, there were some letters that really, really touched me and I reread them again and again. And again. I think my favourite one has to be the one from Henry James to Grace Norton. It's so brilliant.
I also felt like I learnt quite a lot. For example I didn't know Mahatma Ghandi wrote a letter to Adolf Hitler (it never reached him); or how bad the handwriting of most famous people is. Because the photos of the originals printed next to the translation were often horrible. But it was also so fun to see the originals, it made it so much more authentic to me.
All in all a really sweet, sad, happy, insightful, reflective, informative and hilarious book. And so many more emotions I can't describe. I loved it.
I've never read a collection of letters before, so I was quite curious when I started reading it. Because it is composed of various letters from completly different times and people and backgrounds.
And so it was only natural that the content is so diverse, too. And I really liked it. Especially with the contrast of very old and new letters, it felt like traveling back in time. Of course there were some letters I didn't like that much or that weren't that exciting to me, but that's completely okay.
And on the opposite, there were some letters that really, really touched me and I reread them again and again. And again. I think my favourite one has to be the one from Henry James to Grace Norton. It's so brilliant.
I also felt like I learnt quite a lot. For example I didn't know Mahatma Ghandi wrote a letter to Adolf Hitler (it never reached him); or how bad the handwriting of most famous people is. Because the photos of the originals printed next to the translation were often horrible. But it was also so fun to see the originals, it made it so much more authentic to me.
All in all a really sweet, sad, happy, insightful, reflective, informative and hilarious book. And so many more emotions I can't describe. I loved it.