Time Out 1000 Books to Change Your Life (Time Out Guides)

Who can talk more authoritatively about the importance of books than the people who create and critique them? In this thoughtful collection, major writers and critics discuss the books that changed their lives and offer informed suggestions for titles that might do the same for others. Organized around themes inspired by Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man," the book covers a diverse array of subjects and includes classic to contemporary fiction and nonfiction, as well as graphic novels. Serious yet accessible survey essays are complemented by top ten lists chosen by Time Out's unrivalled team of critics. The book also includes fact boxes perfect for dipping, along with brief, autobiographical "Reading Experience" pieces by famous readers and writers. Designed as both a reference and an entertaining read, the book includes commissioned illustrations, photographs, and vintage book jacket images.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1846700523
• ISBN13: 9781846700521
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Time Out
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 0.94 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.8" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Much of interest- but could have been a lot better

This book about books has a lot of interesting material in it. It asks writers about books which changed their lives. It presents seven sections from Infancy to Old Age and Death- as outlined in the famous Shakespearean passage on the Ages of Man (Stages of Life). It contains four lead essays for each sections within which various titles are recommended. Among the lead essays Kate Clanchy writes on the Age of Innocence, Infancy- Adele Geras on Childhood and Telling Tales- Michael Bywater on Old Age. I found the section on 'life drawing ' or biographical writing by A.C. Grayling interesting. He speaks of why people love biography as a form. He speaks of the story element, the capacity to follow the stages of a life and learn from it, the gossip element which he does not look down on. He has a special interest in the biographies of philosophers and says that there are a very few outstanding ones, citing two on Wittgenstein one by Ray Monk. The chapter on Adulthood has a section devoted to Manhood. And there is a survey of war- writing and list of recommended titles. Among those titles is Michael Herr's 'Dispatches' which is one of the most disturbing and difficult but I suspect truest pictures of war ever given. The writing of another great war- correspondent Vassily Grossman is also on the list. There is a section on books about Working which maintains that this is one of the great ignored subjects of Literature. Dickens it is said never really wrote about people actually at their work. The book often seems insular with a bit too much British focus on the British. Many of the readers selected to give their response give responses which to my mind are most often rather unexciting. The work has a helpful index of the thousand titles recommended. However within the chapters themselves the small summaries of the works are often poor and inadequate. This work is a kind of dip-in and skim and get what you can work. Again there is much of interest in it but I felt it could have been done in a much deeper and comprehensive way.