The stories behind the stories

There are always stories behind stories. Stephen King doesn't remember writing Cujo because he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time. Mark Twain's attitude toward slavery changed just as Huck Finn's does in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Diana Gabaldon's Outlander was inspired by Doctor Who.

If you are curious about such stories, then The Curious Reader: A Literary Miscellany of Novels and Novelists (2021), edited by Erin McCarthy, was designed for you. And designed is the right word, for this Mental Floss book is beautifully designed and artfully presented. Scads of notable books, from 1984 to War and Peace, are explored in bite-sized chunks with fascinating tidbits about each book and its author.

There are a number of extra features that add to the pleasure of the book, including rejection letters sent to authors for books that later won acclaim and a group of books that were self-published before some publisher finally got wise. And there are lots of illustrations.

Everyone who reads this book will wonder why certain books were included while others were not. I'll confess that some of the included books I had never even heard of. Those who compiled the book apparently had there own disagreements, for at the end four pages are devoted to novels "that didn't make the cut." Some of these I've never heard of either, but I agree A Confederacy of Dunces should have been included.