Monday, December 15, 2014

Worth assigning …

Not surprisingly, given that I am a retired book review editor, I get to hear about and see a lot of books their authors or publishers would like to have reviewed. A good many of them seem worth a closer look, but I'm only one guy. Of course, when I was a book editor, I would have simply assigned them for review.
Well, the thought recently occurred to me that I could at least bring such books some attention by mentioning them here as books I would assign were I still in the business of assigning books for review. So this is the first of such posts.
Repeat Offenders is a collection of columns by Bill Bonvie. The columns have appeared in various publications around the country — including The Inquirer, The Oregonian, and The Record of Bergen County, to name just a few.
Now, the way I would go about deciding whether to review a book back in the day when I was doing that was quite simple: I'd flip through the pages and read a bit here and there to see if the writing was interesting. If it was, I'd read a bit more — in this case, a column or three.
Having done precisely that with Repeat Offenders, I can report that, back in the day, I would have assigned it for review.
Bonvie has an engaging style and a distinctly quirky outlook. His idea that, instead of having Presidential primaries, we put the candidates on trial — have them "appear in court for a thorough assessment of their competency and the various charges brought against them by their rivals" — struck me as being well worth consideration. His piece about a woman who was charged and convicted of a misdemeanor for putting change into expired parking meters offers further proof, if any was needed, that law enforcement in this country is often inane. And who knew that some people don't want a lawyer moving in next door?
I didn't read enough to gauge Bonvie's ideological predilections, presuming he has any, but judging by what I did read, his stuff is better than most of the columns you are likely to come across these days.

2 comments:

  1. This is a good idea. I'm always on the lookout for interesting books to read.

    ReplyDelete