In Praise of the Informative Book Review

By Staff

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<span class=”subhead”>Before praising <a title=”John Barry’s recent review” href=”http://citypaper.com/arts/story.asp?id=14933″ target=”_blank”>
<font color=”#800080″>John Barry’s recent review</font>
</a> of</span> Simon Sebag Montefiore’s <i>Young Stalin</i> biography for the Baltimore <i>City</i>
<i> Paper</i>
<span class=”subhead”>, I should probably disclose that the last biography I read was Chester Brown’s brilliant <a title=”comic-strip biography of Louis Riel” href=”http://www.drawnandquarterly.com/shopCatalogLong.php?st=art&art=a3dff7dd51fc01″ target=”_blank”>
<font color=”#800080″>comic-strip biography of Louis Riel</font>
</a>. Before that, there was something about Jackie Robinson and his imaginary stick-ball friend, maybe when I was about five years old? </span>
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<span class=”subhead”>Perhaps I’m just not the biography-reading type. It’s hard for me to get excited about the secret lives of sports figures, politicians, celebrities, and Civil War generals. So forgive me as I pay Barry’s article perhaps the most underhanded compliment you can give a book review: It’s so well-written and informative that it could stand alone. I finished feeling educated, rather than teased. I felt like I didn’t need to go read Montefiore’s book. Barry capably details Montefiore’s insights into the life of Stalin, then gets down to the brass tacks explaining why this book is important.</span>
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<span class=”subhead”>So, thank you informative book review. And for biography-lovers, well, you can’t ruin a good book by disclosing the plot. After all, we knew more or less what going to happen to Stalin from page one anyway.</span>
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<em>–</em>
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<a title=”Jason Ericson” href=”https://www.utne.com/bios/utne-reader-interns.aspx” target=”_blank”>
<em>Jason Ericson</em>
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