Some Quick But Interesting Tuesday Book-Mail

[@ShawnMorey-sx7wm]

Grant wrote a great book on himself, published by Twain.

[@anthonysuppa1118]

Ken Burns did make a documentary on Mark Twain about 20 years ago and it's exceptionally well done.

[@Mnnwer]

Which two biographies of Twain did you think were brilliant?

[@carolinasiqueira752]

I never read any Mark Twain. I have been meaning to read Huckleberry Finn for a while.

[@LouiseReader]

You should put both of those on the pile for tonight! The length and depth of your reaction to the Twain book must surely push it to the top of the pile? Was Twain a drinker? That's what I thought of with the "darker forces" references, that would be understandable if you're forced into exile by bankruptcy and then your wife and daughters die. I think the huge success of James will feed the popularity of the Twain biography as well.

[@gandhiangles3213]

So jealous you have an advance copy of Ron Chernow’s biography of Mark Twain.

[@valpergalit]

I had the same reaction to the pub sheet calling Twain America’s first literary celebrity as you were reading it. How hard is it to write a pub sheet without making outrageously misguided assertions? Haha

[@monaedoyle3631]

I had to study books by Mark Twain in high school. We had to do book reports on his books. I don’t think that they should assign you books to read as a student. I felt that we should have been able to pick books. I would have liked to have picked books that I wanted to read as a student.

[@Tolstoy111]

Do you think music students should pick their own music to study? Or science students pick their own science?

[@monaedoyle3631]

@ I just think that when it comes to reading and literature students should be allowed to pick books they want to read.

[@Tolstoy111]

@@monaedoyle3631 Students are in school to learn. Nobody would tell a chemistry teacher that they have to engender a "love of chemistry" in their students.

[@monaedoyle3631]

@ it depends on the teacher. I had teachers that made certain classes fun.

[@carolinasiqueira752]

​@@Tolstoy111I think it depends if the objective is to have students that like to read or students that vaguely know what happens in a few canonical books.

[@franciscolealgonzalez1333]

The cover of the first book is, without a doubt, AI-generated. That's why it is so generically and artificially ugly. It is also very possible that an AI machine wrote it. This is a very sad state of affairs.

[@ShawnMorey-sx7wm]

I wonder, if, he'll reference Twain's autobiographies.

[@Sandwichism]

Steve I think you should try to be less flabbergasted by pub sheets. They’re just pub sheets. I’m not interested in what some copy writer at the publishing company was forced to mill out, I’m more interested in the works themselves, and I think I speak for most people on this.

[@valpergalit]

I disagree. If a book’s own publisher can’t be bothered to say anything even vaguely intelligent about it, why should any prospective readers care about it either? Not to mention the fact that the employees who write pub sheets are often also involved in the book’s editing process, especially at small presses. Who’s to say an error-ridden pub sheet doesn’t signify an error-ridden book? I’m glad Steve takes them to task. The literary world is full of enough quasi-literate people without publishers fanning the fire.

[@asufluffhead]

So you actually spend all your time on KZbin. 😂