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Il Libro Dei Libri Bugiardi. L'avventura Millenaria Dei Falsi Letterari (2009)

by Melissa Katsoulis(Favorite Author)

3.25 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

8817037400 (ISBN13: 9788817037402)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Rizzoli

review 1: I found this very fun reading. Initially I did not like the writing style but then I managed to adapt. All these stories of enterprising (and sometimes really ludicrous) hoaxes are great reading. Sometimes it defies belief that anyone swallowed these to begin with. To be sure, a new Shakespeare find should be greeted with great joy and enthusiasm. But would you not be suspicious if you were asked to accept that the great bard wrote "unfriended, new adopted" as "unnefreynnededde newee adoppetedde"? My favorite story is the group hoax creation of a demand for a book which did not exist (until it was written later), called "I, Libertine." A noctunal DJ and his nocturnal listeners somehow got this non-existent book onto bestseller lists, in part because the New York intellectu... moreals seemed so ready to admire anything on a bestseller list. The DJ and his listeners even created the back-story for the "author," a ex-British Army lieutenant named Frederick Ewing, now a civil servant in Rhodesia. Then the DJ had his listeners report follow-up:"A few days later one woman phoned in to say that she had mentioned the book at her bridge club, and four of her fellow players claimed to have read it, three of them liking it immensely. A college student sent in a graded essay he had produced on 'F.R Ewing: Eclectic Historian': a nine-page paper with footnotes. His professor gave it a B+ and commended him on his excellent research."The book is full of interesting stories, some just fun and some rather sordid and unfortunate. The whole story arc of the hoax, the weakening of the story, the suspicions, and then the reveal is vastly entertaining.And just for the record, I would like everyone to know that MY copy of "The Education of Little Tree" is still in its original cellophane.
review 2: I would have given this a five if the writing hadn't been so strained, and the organization hadn't been so haphazard.There were three major problems with the writing: First, it was muddy and full of unnecessary words (usually adverbs, but often entire clauses) so it was unengaging and hard to follow. This was particularly problematic because each anecdote is only a few pages long, so you're getting upwards of half a dozen names dumped on you in the first paragraph. It would have been easier to keep all that straight if the sentences hadn't been so convoluted.Second, much of the phrasing is cliche and repetitive. Some of the phrases sound absolutely corny.Third, there is a distracting and repetitive use of the same five-dollar words. For example, she used "impecunious" twice within the same couple of pages when there are tons of synonyms that are more straightforward and flow better. Then she uses it again later in the book, and it's just as clunky as the first two uses. A few other words were similarly abused.I wouldn't go so far as to saying the writing was bad, but it felt like the work of a talented high schooler that's trying too hard to sound professional: the prose is just transparently reaching and it detracts from the content.The problem with the organization was that it was practically arbitrary: it starts out chronologically, then once it gets closer to the present it breaks into subjects (like Holocaust memoirs), but then also *kinds* of hoaxes. It sounds alright in theory, if a bit scattered, but so many of the hoaxes could have fallen into several of the categories you have to wonder why she bothered. Furthermore, the distinction she made between different kinds of hoaxes was not solid enough to be a means of organization. She may as well have just arranged them chronologically, or alphabetically.All that aside, the research involved was impressive. It feels like a comprehensive guide and it's a cool idea to have a book on the topic. However, as another reviewer mentioned, the book does start drag on since nothing is shocking anymore after the first couple of hoaxes. I don't blame the author for that entirely since it's not her fault that all hoaxes start to sound the same, but I do think a better writer could have made it a little more engaging. less

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