Books 13 - 19? Banvard's Folly

To quote our old friend Britney - "Oops, I did it again." I'm way behind on catching up on all the missing book entries, but I am feeling much better about making my 12 books a year challenge, now that I'm at book 19 :) I think I'll try and make 30 by the end of the year and see how that goes.

Book #13 - "Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of People Who Didn't Change the World" by Paul Collins. This was probably my favorite of the books I've read recently. Paul Collins is an excellent writer (a McSweeney's boy!) and he brings his stories to engaging and enthralling life in his 13 short tales. The book is a collection of minor biographies of non-famous people who were famous in their times, but for one reason or another never "made it big" in history terms. He covers an expert Shakespeare forgery artist, the most famous panorama artist of 1860's America and Europe, and even a Martin Tupper, author of the "famous in its time but not so famous now" volume "Proverbial Philosophy." Proverbial Philosophy was the graduation present du jour of its day and, to quote Paul Collins,

It is a mark of Tupper's utter obscurity today that buying an original Tupper manuscript is cheaper than paying the photocopy fee for his work at the library.

He isn't kidding. I got myself a second edition used at a local bookstore for $15.

Each story is fun and fascinating - with each anti-hero having their own unique achilles heel. The one downside to the book is that, frankly, by the book's end, it's a bit depressing. Because of the theme of the book, you read along as the hero of each chapter gets excited about their pre-supposed glorious famous future which you secretly know is not to be. It sort of feels like you know a secret that the main character doesn't. And, in each chapter, you watch that hope and optimism dwindle away as the inevitable and precipitous decline happens, and it just starts to wear at you by the end of the book...

But overall, a true gem. Be warned, this book is hard to find. At one of our local bookstores it was shelved away with "general trivia" along with bathroom readers and dictionaries. Seems Mr Collins' heros and books share a similar fate...