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Debra Hamel is the author of a number of books about ancient Greece. She writes and blogs from her subterranean lair in North Haven, CT. Read more.

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BOOK REVIEWS: 625
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Updated 10-28-24. [Reviews are longer and have ratings. Notices do not have ratings.]

Books by Debra Hamel:

THE BATTLE OF ARGINUSAE :
VICTORY AT SEA AND ITS TRAGIC AFTERMATH IN THE FINAL YEARS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
By Debra Hamel


Kindle | paperback (US)
Kindle | paperback (UK)

KILLING ERATOSTHENES:
A TRUE CRIME STORY
FROM ANCIENT ATHENS
By Debra Hamel


Kindle | paperback (US)
Kindle | paperback (UK)

READING HERODOTUS:
A GUIDED TOUR THROUGH THE WILD BOARS, DANCING SUITORS, AND CRAZY TYRANTS OF THE HISTORY
By Debra Hamel


paperback | Kindle | hardcover (US)
paperback | hardcover (UK)

THE MUTILATION OF THE HERMS:
UNPACKING AN ANCIENT MYSTERY
By Debra Hamel


Kindle | paperback (US)
Kindle | paperback (UK)

TRYING NEAIRA:
THE TRUE STORY OF A COURTESAN'S SCANDALOUS LIFE IN ANCIENT GREECE
By Debra Hamel


paperback | hardcover (US)
paperback | hardcover (UK)

SOCRATES AT WAR:
THE MILITARY HEROICS OF AN ICONIC INTELLECTUAL
By Debra Hamel


Kindle (US) | Kindle (UK)

ANCIENT GREEKS IN DRAG:
THE LIBERATION OF THEBES AND OTHER ACTS OF HEROIC TRANSVESTISM
By Debra Hamel


Kindle (US) | Kindle (UK)

IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY TWEET:
FIVE HUNDRED 1ST LINES IN 140 CHARACTERS OR LESS
By Debra Hamel


Kindle | paperback (US)
Kindle | paperback (UK)

PRISONERS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
By Debra Hamel


Kindle (US) | Kindle (UK)





Book-blog.com by Debra Hamel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Noncommercial - No Derivative Works 3.0 License.



Tarloff, Erik: The Man who Wrote the Book

  Amazon  

4 stars

I have long maintained that any book that includes in its first sentence a reference to chiroprocty is likely to be a rollicking read. Happily, I now have a data point to support my theory. Erik Tarloff's The Man who Wrote the Book starts well: "A deep, dispiriting despondency, an oppressive enervating angst, settled over Ezra Gordon around the time Dr. Jacobs put her hand up his ass." The mood having thus been set, the rest of the book does not disappoint.

At thirty-five, Ezra Gordon's better days are behind him--or so his doctor informs him after having withdrawn from his rump. Ezra, at least, is in no position to argue with her. Divorced and deprived of access to his daughter, he is involved in a seemingly pointless relationship with Carol, the sanctimonious spawn of the blustering Reverend Mr. Dimsdale, chaplain at Buehler College. Ezra himself teaches at Buehler, a Baptist cow college in California, but with too few articles under his belt and no stomach for further deconstruction, his upcoming tenure decision does not look promising.

Broke and miserable, under suspicion of sexual harassment, with his life falling apart, Ezra escapes during spring break to the hedonistic realm of his old friend Isaac Schwimmer, one-time graduate student turned successful publisher of pornography. There he consents to write The Book, a fast bit of anonymous, lucrative porn, which turns out to be likeable by the likes of John Updike, and which consequently turns Ezra's life upside down.

The Man who Wrote the Book is a good read, fast and funny, with amusing, well-written dialogue. Ezra's internal dialogue, the caustic or ironic comments he leaves unsaid, is even funnier.

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