Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I did not expect a great book on this subject by Susan Cheever, but I expected a fun and readable book. This is neither fun nor interesting nor particularly readable. Not only is _American Bloomsbury_ rife with factual errors -- an inexcusable breach considering the subject matter, upon which so much ink has been spilled that there is no excuse for shoddy research -- it is written in a bizarrely disjointed, juvenile tone and is the most poorly edited book I've seen in years. The interpretation of personalities and events are embarrassingly shallow, and the author can't decide if this is a personal reflection or a historical literary overview. Why, for instance, should we care about Cheever's revelation on p. 43 that "my ancestor Ezekiel Cheever was part of the [Salem witch] trials"? Ah, nepotism! Ms. Cheever must assume that her great literary name will interest readers of this book. Is there any other reason to skip into first person in the eleventh chapter of a book about the Transcendentalists? I'm such a huge fan of the Transcendentalists that I'll read *anything* on them, but slogging through the rest of this stilted mess is going to take a LOT of commitment. If you haven't purchased it yet, do yourself a favor and get the eminently superior _Emerson Among the Eccentrics_ by Carlos Baker. Read anything by David Robinson. Read _Daughter of Boston: The Extraordinary Diary of A Nineteenth-Century Woman Caroline Healey Dall_ by Helen Deese. Read Megan Marshall's marvelous contribution, _The Peabody Sisters_, read Phyllis Cole's absolutely brilliant _Mary Moody Emerson And the Origins of Transcendentalism_. There is such a wealth of wonderful books out there on this subject, there's no reason to support this shoddy effort.