You guessed it: I’m a sucker for a book like The Art of the Epigraph. Rosemary Ahern collects 250 examples of the quotations, song lyrics, invented snippets, and jokes that launch some of our greatest books. Ahern organizes the epigraphs by themes: Life, Tell the Truth, Love, The River of Time, etc. If your favorite writers include Flaubert, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, Patti Smith, George Eliot, Vladimir Nabokov, C. S. Lewis, Lorrie Moore, Samuel Johnson, Karl Marx, Susan Sontag, and Mary Higgins Clark you’ll really enjoy this book. I did. GRADE: A
I, too, love books like this. I always read epigraphs and have actually discovered other writers and works through them. Many years ago, I was quoting the line “Behind every great fortune is a great crime” (Balzac?), which was something I think I’d heard Alistair Cooke say on “Masterpiece Theatre”, and without missing a beat my mother shot back, “Oh, that was the on the opening page of The Godfather.”
You’re right, Deb. That epigram from THE GODFATHER did come from Balzac’s Le Père Goriot. Your mother is pretty sharp!
Good catch! Sounds like one worth seeking out.
Jeff, there’s delight on every page of THE ART OF THE EPIGRAPH!