Sam Anderson’s marginal book reviews
December 30, 2011
Sam Anderson has published a calendar of his marginal notes in books he read this year. It is a new (and clever) type of book review – a marginal (sometimes snarky) comment on a brief passage in a book. Here is a sample of his reviews:
January
“God’s Justice,” by Anne Carson, in Birds, Beasts and Seas: Nature Poems From New Directions, p. 160
March
The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, by James Gleick, p. 154 (galley)
June
The Luzhin Defense, by Vladimir Nabokov, p. 7
July
1Q84, by Haruki Murakami, p. 41 (galley)
August
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami, p. 198
December
Bleak House, by Charles Dickens, p. 510
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BLT 
I like Anderson’s “reviews” of Anne Carson (yes, she and her writing are “★ [AMAZING]”) and of Nabok. (“oh please”) best. What’s the diff between “funny” and “LOL” in the review of Charles Dickens?
Love it! Glad to know I’m not the only one with margins full of “LOLs” and “oh pleases!”
Kris: Excellent!
Kurk: I think that his point is that even in Dickens’s most Dickensian novel, the author still can’t help but spewing out one punch-line after another.