Selected Book Reviews of Michael Coren
(click book for review or scroll below)
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| The Man Who Created Narnia | Arthur Conan Doyle | The Invisible Man: The Life & Liberties of H.G. Wells | Gilbert: The Man Who Was G.K. Chesterton | Setting It Right |
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Reviews
of "The Man Who Created Narnia. The Story of C.S. Lewis"
"Strong
and moving narrative, this book is as exciting to look at as it
is informative to read." |
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"Coren has written a book for all readers. He brings Lewis to life
in a study which should send adults as well as children scurrying to bookshelves."
London Free Press
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"Impressive biographical work. It would be too much to ask a jury
these days to short-list an unapologetic account of a dead white man's
spiritual journey as a Christian."
Globe and Mail
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"An excellent biography, extremely impressive and well-written."
The Arts Tonight, CBC
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"A fascinating literary biography. Children of all ages will be rewarded
if they explore this book. Coren writes at a challenging and grown-up
enough level to create a kind of bridge for young readers to the stimulating
world of adult biography."
Arlene Pearly Rae, Toronto Star
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"This luminous volume works because Coren makes Lewis believable
and he writes clearly, evocatively and never condescendingly.
John Fraser, Toronto Star
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"Michael Coren's work is a verbal and visual delight."
Faith Today
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"A fine biography written with the skill of a story-teller. Riveting
in its insightful, well researched text, the author has imbued his narrative
with a gentle intimacy while maintaining an objective look at one of the
world's most beloved authors. He is to be commended for bringing his skills
as a biographer and as a superb story-teller to this subjet."
Ottawa Citizen
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"Serious and thoughtful. Immensely readable. On every page Coren
evinces a profound respect for readers and for his subject. A first-rate
biography for children."
Kirkus Reviews
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Reviews of Arthur
Conan Doyle
(To see full-size image of this book cover, click here)
"This trustworthy and reliable study ... Many a reader will be grateful
to him."
Literary Review
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"This excellent new study by Michael Coren ... sober accuracy, sympathy
and stylishness."
Daily Mail
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"Coren writes with no little charm."
Humphrey Carpenter, Sunday Times
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"Michael Coren has solved two of the three problems, and has raised
a fascinating quandary for the third. This is an impressive score in a
difficult case."
Globe and Mail
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"Highly readable and swiftly paced."
Toronto Star
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"A moving portrait ... clear and informative."
Macleans
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"His account is both polished and interesting."
London Free Press
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Reviews of "The
Invisible Man: The Life & Liberties of H.G. Wells"
(To see full-size image of this book cover, click here)
"This excellently written book does the service of exposing such
tremendous flaws in a man who gave entertainment and stimulation."
Sunday Express
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"He was one of the greatest story-tellers of all time and one of
the most challenging of modern thinkers. The furore stirred by Coren's
able book will serve to re-establish those facts."
Sunday Times
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"An elegantly written biography ... constantly interesting. It succeeds
in conveying the energy which suffused Wells."
The Times (Peter Ackroyd)
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"Coren writes with verve. He is never less than brisk and readable;
and his quarrel with Wells gives the book undeniable momentum .... The
questions Coren raises have been played down for too long, and they deserve
the high place he gives them on the agenda."
The Sunday Telegraph
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"A punchy and stimulating book ... Coren is perfectly right."
The Financial Times
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"This is revision with a vengeance, but Coren presents his case with
fairness and restraint. The evidence against Wells, however, is fully
laid out, and should be a matter of chagrin to previous biographers."
The New Yorker
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"Adept and fair. The evidence is incontrovertible, and future commentators
on Wells will have to take account of what Coren has found."
The Scotsman
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"This is a book which moves in precisely the direction that biography
should be taking .. it is informed, it is judgmental, it raises the axe
of iconoclasm and drops it fairly cleanly on the neck of its subject,
severing the head of reputation from the body of life and work. Coren
tells his story at a smart canter throughout, making it lively, robust,
entertaining. Other reputations are in need of the cool reappraisal of
a Michael Coren."
The Irish Independent
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"It marks with clarity and vigour the limitations of this man of
undeniable genius ... devastating."
The Toronto Star
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"Coren's book is a reproach to past biographers of Wells and a cautionary
lesson for future ones. It is a courageous work and one to be reckoned
with not only by Wells scholars but by all those concerned with the direction
of biography."
Globe and Mail (Canada)
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"Vigorous narrative ...Coren is the first to have thoroughly documented
convincing proof of Wells' animus, and caught a number of self-described
experts with their trousers down around their ankles, and the wails of
anguish from injured egos have been as audible as they are irrelevant."
Books In Canada
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"A wonderfully dramatic picture ... entertaining and vigorously written,
eminently readable."
Macleans
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"Delightful and well-chosen. Coren draws up an indictment of Wells
as an illiberal, hypocritical, anti-Semitic egoist; as both researcher
and writer he earns the boldness of his conclusion. Careful and well-argued.
Saturday Night
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"Coren chronicles Wells' life fairly with insight and panache ...
the result is a book without a dull page."
London Free Press
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Reviews
of "Gilbert: The Man Who Was G.K. Chesterton"
(To see full-size image of this book cover, click here)
"Of all the studies of GK I have read - a dozen or more - this is
the best, deepest and most nearly complete ... Coren will do nicely."
Bernard Levin, Sunday Times of London
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"Of the numerous 20th-century literary reputations deserving serious
re-evaluation none has been in more dire need than that of G.K. Chesterton.
Michael Coren's excellent biography more than corrects this sorry situation,
placing Chesterton securely in the literary pantheon and making it possible
for a new generation of readers to enjoy the wit, wisdom and erudition
of a most delightful mind ... the definitive work on Chesterton and one
of the finest literary biographies in years."
Paul William Roberts, The Toronto Star
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"The warmth and gratitude he feels towards Chesterton inform everything
he says about him, even when he is critical, and this suits the subject
so well the result is a most enjoyable biography."
P.J. Kavanagh, The Independent, London
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"Michael Coren has now produced a biography of Chesterton which is
in many respects in his own finest traditions ... the book is a delight
to read. A work of beauty ... as such it should delight any reader, even
if at the beginning Chesterton means nothing to them. He will mean much
by the end."
Owen Dudley Edwards, The Glasgow Herald
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"A lucid and sensitive treatment of a writer of no little complexity
... We need biographers like Michael Coren to provide a portrait of the
whole man, a portrait that is accessible, sympathetic, and generously
broad in scope. Coren delivers handsomely."
Michael Higgins, Catholic New Times, Canada
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"He has written a noble book, and has greatly raised the quality
of Chesterton biography, above all at its most intimate level. It is a
book which reveals the joy and grief, the hope and fear, the doubt and
faith, within the man who was G.K. Chesterton."
The Chesterton Review
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"Coren offers a judicious appraisal of this novelist and essayist
... impressive scholarship and an enjoyable biography."
Kirkus Reviews, USA
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"Gilbert is both an acute reading of the works and an honest and
stylish approach to the man ... Mr. Coren achieves a perceptive, entertaining
and instructive biography."
Kingston Whig-Standard
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"In Gilbert: The Man Who Was GK Chesterton, British journalist Michael
Coren exhibits the traits that one admires most in his subject's own biographies,
and helps restore Chesterton's reputation as a literary genius and defender
of orthodoxy."
National Review, USA
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"Coren is a young British journalist who shows remarkably mature
judgement about Chesterton's literary achievements and political views.
Unlike many aficionados, he does not find everything Chesterton wrote
of equal value; he briskly sifts the gold from the dross. But the greatest
strength of Coren's book is its portrait of the man, a portrait that captures
the spirit of Chesterton more fully, more colorfully, and more judiciously
than any previous biography."
Crisis, USA
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Reviews of "Setting
It Right"
(To see full-size image of this book cover, click here)
"A thing of beauty. This is an absolutely essential display of intellect
and common sense. His wit and opinion mark him the Concorde of columnists."
Toronto Sun
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"Coren's use of language is sophisticated and lucid ... skilful and
sensitively written. It will enrage his detractors and appeal to Coren's
many fans."
Ottawa Citizen
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"Coren is, quite simply, one of the most delightful prose stylists
in Canadian journalism today. He has emerged as such an artful master
of the rhetorical skewer that he merited a harumphing column from the
Globe and Mail's resident Dead White Guy, Robert Fulford. If there's justice
in the world, Fulford's toothless sniping will only increase sales of
Setting It Right, which belongs on the bookshelf of every thinking Canadian
regardless of political stripe."
Calgary Herald