The Bookman's Tale: A Novel of Obsession

I consider 2.5 stars (rounding to three) a generous number for The Bookman's Tale. Charlie Lovett had a crackerjack idea for a book mystery. He obviously did a goodly amount of research into books, bookmaking, bookbinding, bookselling, book restoration, and document forgery. This is all laid atop what I must presume was Lovett's preexisting fondness for Elizabethan drama, and particularly for that of William Shakespeare. Lovett's good idea and subsequent research eat up all 2.5 stars and is, effectively, where the good news ends.Lovett is just not a very good writer. (I base this judgment tentatively on only this one of his several books.) The word "pedestrian" stuck in my mind after about 35 pages and stayed with me for the duration of the book. His dialogue is wooden. His attempts to write a credible sex scene are doubly wooden, and he seems to have a particular attachment to "nipples," which come up surprisingly often, as erogenous zones. The love story begins with a difficult-to-imagine mutual attraction that later blooms into the obligatory exploratory sex scenes and occupies about half half the book without significantly advancing the story. Too often, this sub-plot seems like filler, padding out a story that a more talented writer might have turned into a 600-page obsession novel. For a relatively short work, Lovell creates a large walk on/walk off cast of characters that clutter the story with forgettable names. The novel consists of 55 short chapters that time-hop between "real (current) time," "earlier current time (the love story)," "and historical time," which made good narrative sense for the novel's central premise. In execution, however, the incessant jumping about, the cluttered dramatis personae, and myriad a-HA! moments contributed to a knotted narrative yarnball that forced me to backtrack when I should not have had to. Oh, and there's a ghost...yes, but not a Hamlet's father, Banquo, etc. type ghost that advances the story, but a George and Marion Kirby/Topperesque type ghost that comes aboard simply like an occasional terse chorus but that contributes nothing to advancing the story and is intended to be endearing but serves only to pad the story out a bit more. My Kindle text is annotated with numerous "augh," "AUGH!" and "AAAUUUGGGHHHH!"s. I nevertheless persevered, primariliy due to the story's overlap of Victorian painting and a presumed surfacing of an undiscovered literary relic of the greatest writer in the history of the English language. Unfortunately, however, what also kept popping into my mind was the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. Lovett's text might easily have come out of the Grosset and Dunlap story mill of numerous Franklin W. Dixons and Carolyn Keenes. The main story fired off like a timed string of Deus ex Machina and crazy-coincidence moments.I was happy for the brevity and a quick read. I should also add that the audiobook narrator I listened to while walking was workmanlike but struggled with English accents and crashed and burned trying to reproduce 16th century tavern talk. In all, his contribution boiled down to one second-rate accent for the myrid number of English(wo)men in Lovett's story. I consider myself a hardcore recreational Bardolator and consequently took a small measure of satisfaction from The Bookman's Tale, a pretty, allusive title for a bibliomanically-haunted novel, but this was mostly for the technical discussions. Overall, my trip through Lovett's Tale was mostly a gripe-filled slog.

I liked the characters and the lighthearted romance between Peter and Amanda. Peter’s social anxiety gave him a vulnerability that feels relatable.

This book is somewhat derailing. The chapters toggle between this time and that time. This time being the 20th century, where lives a book antiquarian grieving for his recently departed wife; and that time being the 16th and 17th century wherein the mystery behind the Shakespeare debacle unravels.I nearly gave-up reading this book because I don’t like being pulled out of character wherein I’m just beginning to feel comfortable. And, I don’t read ‘love’ stories for a reason. Most are sappy, drenching in predictability that invariably elicit an eye roll or two. Well, there are exceptions, of course (The Notebook, and The Bridges of Madison County immediately come to mind). So, having said this, I‘d be remiss if I didn‘t mention that Lovett has managed to slither-in a ‘love’ story, of sorts, within the pages of this book about books.When Peter Byerly flips through an 18th century study of Shakespeare’s forgeries, a small Victorian watercolor falls out – and catapults Peter into a quest to locate the artist. The miniature painting, though 100 years old, clearly bears a striking resemblance to Peter’s dead wife. In Peter’s search for the artist, he falls into a rather sticky rare find: the *Pandosto. A text, written by Robert Greene in 1588, and said to be the template for Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. It has been noted, in The Bookman’s Tale, that within the pages of the Pandosto is the marginalia handwritten by Shakespeare himself.Weaving historical data throughout his fiction, Lovett gives the book lover a taste of the sublime whilst Peter makes it his mission to find the real William Shakespeare of Stratford.[Peter] “….. slipped through an open doorway into the back room, where books lined every wall. He closed his eyes for a moment, imaging the cocoon of books shielding him from all danger, inhaling deeply that familiar scent of cloth and leather and dust and words. His rushing pulse began to slow, and when he opened his eyes he scanned the shelves for something familiar-a title, an author, a well-remembered dust jacket design-anything that might ground him in the world of the known.” page 2https://blacknightblues.wordpress.com/

I had just read "Contested Will: who wrote Shakespeare? " by James Shapiro and was looking for a novel to read next when I stumbled upon this in the Kindle Christmas sale. From the description I thought it was a love tragic love story with something to do with books in it. To my surprise the main thrust of the action is to do with the whole question of who wrote (or forged) Shakespeare, and included everything I had just read about in Shapiro's book! The parts set in the 16-17thC are based on well-researched historical fact. The later parts are imagined but convincing. Although it gets a bit Dan-Brownish in the pursuit of the trail of clues (which from me is not a compliment!) I still give it 5 stars for the love story and the history.

The central character in this book is Peter Byerly, an American bibliophile and book dealer, resident in England, who unearths documents of potentially huge significance to Shakespeare historians, and, in doing so, becomes embroiled in a centuries-old feud between two families of English landed gentry.There are actually four time lines to follow in this novel, but it is so beautifully written, in an easy style, that it is quite hard to put the book down. It also helps that the chapters are quite short, in the manner of Dan Brown, but with a more believable plot.This is a brilliantly engaging book which I can thoroughly recommend.

I have been after a hardback copy of this book for ages , when it arrived I was over the moon , perfect condition just like a new one , cannot fault it , it was a very reasonable price , really pleased with seller .

After reading the blurb I expected to love this book, but it's so poorly written. The author clearly knows a lot about the subject but he dumps all of that into the book with very little character development and a very weak plot. The characters are wooden and dull and there's far too much exposition which makes it all feel very clunky.Perhaps the author should have written this as non-fiction? I'm halfway through but tempted to give up. Very definitely wouldn't recommend it.

Nice idea but a bit bitty, not enough depth to any of the characters.