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Where I'm Reading From: The Changing World of Books by Tim Parks (view source)
Revision as of 09:06, 9 October 2020
, 09:06, 9 October 2020no edit summary
{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=Where I'm Reading From: The Changing World of Books
|author=Tim Parks
|isbn=9781784701796
|website=http://tim-parks.com/
|videocover=1784701793|amazonukaznuk=<amazonuk>1784701793</amazonuk>|amazonusaznus=<amazonus>1784701793</amazonus>}}
Books, eh? – who here doesn't just love them? (And if you don't, please exercise greater mouse control as you click away.) Some of us love books about books – and that includes a lot of us here at the Bookbag. And who better to turn to regarding books than [[:Category:Tim Parks|Mr Tim Parks]], who writes them, writes about them, educates about them, translates them, teaches the translation thereof, blogs professionally about them… He tells us he has a split personality in that different worldly territories know him for different things, whether that be essays, travel writing, seriously serio-comic fiction, or just for being 'that bloke who never exactly set the world on fire but does do a definitely reliable turn every time I've tried him'. This, being the pick of four years' web posts for the ''New York Review of Books'', is his clearest statement in book form about books, and yes, it is yet again a pretty reliable turn.
If books are the bread, the addition of this volume is too little marmalade – and this from an author who complains rightly of the editor too eager to take the pith out. You don't get enough spread of content, you don't get enough depth and flavour of Parks, and when things do bulk up and concentrate on translation, which is the focus of the fourth quarter, you hit the crust of repeated ideas and make a U-turn to where you've already been spreading. Like I say, a clumsy metaphor. Parks, for sure, is a greater user of words than I am, and he knows his stuff. I know just enough to think this didn't fully deliver, for various reasons. I didn't dislike it at all, and I did go against his suggestion of stopping when I'd had my fill, but as reliable an effort as it was from beginning to end it wasn't quite as substantial as I had expected.
I must thank the publishers for my review copy. We also have a review of Parks' [[Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and Healing by Tim Parks|Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and Healing]].
[[This is Not the End of the Book; by Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carriere]] is a great look at all things paperback, hardback and cyber to read.