Archive: Christopher Schoppa
What You See Is What You Get: Judging Five Books by Their Cover
Is it ever forgivable to judge a book by its cover? As a bookseller for 10 years and a member of the Book World staff for nearly as long, I've been conditioned to frown on such a practice. But I'll admit to having been enraptured by a book's cover (and...
By Christian Pelusi | June 5, 2008; 06:21 AM ET | Comments (6)
Five Novels That Take on Real-Life Historical Puzzles
Fiction is so tidy, with its beginnings, middles and ends. Real life often isn't, and history is rife with those tantalizing unknowns -- mysteries never solved, strange events never explained: Jack the Ripper, the vanishing of Amelia Earhart and the crew of the Marie Celeste, the fate of the settlers...
By Christian Pelusi | March 27, 2008; 07:09 AM ET | Comments (9)
Gift Books That Please the Eye
I'm not sure at what point in the history of publishing that art and photography books began to be called "gift books," which to me seems a derisive term (think easy all-purpose present for that hard-to-please whomever). That's a shame because the best books in this category are so much...
By Christian Pelusi | November 22, 2007; 07:03 AM ET | Comments (3)
