The Book of All Books

Reviews / Votes

Beautiful, intellectually thrilling, and possessed of a kind of empyrean wryness that makes it unlike anything else . . . And, thanks in part to the heroic patience and skill of translator Tim Parks, it is often straightforwardly enjoyable and funny -- Tim Smith-Laing * The Telegraph * Engaging . . . Calasso links the tales with reflections on sacrifice, election, evil, separation and redemption - losing, enlightening and perfecting himself in the process -- Nick Spencer * Financial Times * An attractive and approachable reworking . . . highly artful . . . seeks to link mythological thinking with the culture of modernity in Europe . . . biblical stories are often enriched by attractive details from later Jewish legends -- John Barton * Times Literary Supplement * Calasso is among those rare people who can persuade you that it is still possible to grasp almost the whole of human culture . . . his selection is cunning and his narrative gifts considerable -- Stephen Greenblatt * The New York Times * An intriguing and ingenious book . . . lucid and clever without being arcane or simplistic . . . each and every page has an observation, a turn of phrase or a close reading that made me think "I never thought of that" . . . -- Stuart Kelly * Scotsman * Beguiling, surprising . . . vividness and wide-ranging erudition . . . his version of the biblical story is enhanced by its frequent forays into ancient Near Eastern mythology as well as into its Indian analogues -- Robert Alter * Spectator * Illuminates the drama of Goethe's 'book of all books' - the Old testament - in intriguing and provocative ways -- Ian Thompson * Tablet * Calasso . . . once again muses eloquently on the Bible in this 10th entry in his series dedicated to exploring ancient myths and the human search for meaning . . . Readers with any level of biblical knowledge will benefit from Calasso's far-ranging insights * Publishers Weekly *