Curiosities of Literature: A Feast for Book Lovers

you will certainly enjoy this book. Sutherland, who is an English professor at University College London, has made a career of writing about oddities and conundrums in Victorian literature. This book is different in that it provides light-hearted, short articles about a wide range of literary topics such as Proust's asthma, Thomas Carlyle's wedding night, and the odd circumstances of Thomas Hardy's burial. He also provides entertaining lists, such as the most difficult literary works to read (Finnegans Wake is mentioned), books with canine first-person narrators, famous misquotes, youngest and oldest novelists, and books, according to a 2007 survey, least likely to be finished by readers. (War and Peace is included.) Sutherland wears his erudition lightly and is very funny. Unlike the other reviewer who pronounced Sutherland pompous and arrogant, I found this book is so witty and enjoyable that I actually read part of it at the beach.