Once Again to Zelda: The Stories Behind Literature's Most Intriguing Dedications Kindle Edition

Fascinating! What an interesting concept to investigate why individuals chose to dedicate a book to someone. It truly is a story behind a story. Filled with fascinating stories in regards to why some of the most famous books were dedicated to different individuals. Again I learned so much from this book. Did the author of Frankenstein really have a sexual relationship with her father? Like they were lovers more so than father daughter?

I love the concept behind this book, but the implementation is a bit shaky. Others on this page have documented some of the research problems with this book, including a reliance on wikipedia(!). I found another example a bit troubling: On the chapter about Number the Stars, starting on page 204, the author claims that the Nazis ordered that Jews in Denmark had to wear a yellow star, and "according to legend" King Christian wore a yellow star and then ordinary Danes started doing the same, frustrating the purpose of the Nazis. The author hedges, saying that "this story may be merely urban legend."That made me extremely curious. That's within living memory, so why is it unverifiable? The truth is, the hedging is completely unjustified; the event as described simply never happened: [...][University of Minnesota, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies]"The King of Denmark Did Not Wear a Yellow StarThere is a great mythology about King Christian X of Denmark wearing a Yellow Star after the occupation of Denmark. The king did ride his horse every day in public, but the Yellow Star was never introduced by the German occupiers in Denmark. The myth of this probably comes from the novel by Leon Uris, EXODUS.In the book QUEEN IN DENMARK (1989) Anne Wolden-Raethinge includes a quote by the Danish Queen Margrethe II about the mythical story: "It is a beautiful and symbolic story, but it is not true. The myth about the King wearing the star of David ... I can imagine that this could have originated from a typical remark by a Copenhagen errand boy on his bicycle: 'If they try to enforce the yellow star here, the King will be the first to wear it!' To me, the truth is an even greater honor for our country than the myth."The Museum of the Danish Restiance in Copenhagen has a full display entitled "The King of Denmark did not wear a Yellow Star," and tells the full story. The Museum does note the following: "The Germans never attenpted to introduce the yellow Star of David in Denmark, and it is a myth that such an attempt was frustrated by the Danish King, Christian X. Those Danish Jews who were deported to Theresienstadt were, however, forced to wear the star.""Uncovering this took little research, and I found no source indicating that it actually happened. This is akin to a George Washington biography relating the famous cherry tree story and then claiming it "may" be an urban legend; it's misleading to phrase it that way, because we know the story isn't true.

One of the great things about this book, if you are a busy person, is you can either read the book from cover to cover, or pick and choose the stories behind the dedications you want to read. You'll know all or almost all of the authors by name, but might not have read a couple of books. Even if you haven't read the books, the stories behind why an author dedicated a book to a certain person are so gripping, you'll want to read them all! You certainly get to know an author in a very different way by knowing why they dedicated their book to that person (sometimes an animal!). You get to learn about their love life for example...many times it was very racy and other times it was just a rumor.... Either way, it makes for a fascinating, can't-put-it-down read!

interesting, good read-several short individual stories-enjoyed it

San Diego writer Marlene Wagman-Geller has assembled the fascinating stories of 50 well-known authors. Using the dedications in their books, which are sometimes a puzzle, and sometimes seemingly self-explanatory, she gives details that are funny, sad, and downright shocking. Reading this is like finally being one of the grown-ups at a family reunion and getting to hear the juicy bits from the aunt with the good memory.

What an interesting book! I have often wondered about the dedications of books I've read. I had no idea, until I stumbled across this book, that someone so cleverly put together a compilation of background stories on these intriguing dedications!This is a great read when you only have snipets of time.

I like this author and the book is like reading 50 different books, loved it!!

I guess a more appropriate title would be " I Didn't Know This"..I enjoyed it all and learned a great deal..this book prompted me to read books written by the author to whom a book was dedicated..

I love the idea - an exploration of fifty famous book dedications, and the relationships behind them. And Wagman-Geller does have the knack of telling a story. It's lovely to read, easy to get through pages, and is a beautifully designed book.But honestly! Whenever she started on about an author I actually knew something about, I questioned her version of events. For example - she says that Queen Victoria demanded her piano legs be covered and told her daughters to lie back and think of England. I would argue both of these 'statements' are pretty tenuously grounded in fact, but I guess we could let them go. But then she claims that Middlemarch is a novel with a theme of common-law marriage (really?), that Dostoevsky was reprieved from the firing squad by an imperial messenger (I understood the plan was always to make the men go through a mock execution to break their spirits), and she persists on referring to the book by Thomas Wolfe as "Look Homeward Angel" with no comma after 'homeward'.It's tiny things like this which made me look at the references, where I was shocked to find that almost all of the research for the book had been done on the internet, a really large proportion on WIKIPEDIA. Now I love Wikipedia as much as the next person - I've written a few entries for it, even - but it's NOT suitable primary research material for a book!She is also, I have to add, totally fixated on great love affairs, and people who loved one another until they died. She invariably finishes a chapter by remarking on how much the couple still loved one another at the point of their deaths. I can't help feeling this says more about her than about the authors themselves. :-)So on balance, a very enjoyable read, but do I trust Wagman-Geller's stories about writers? Er....nope! But a fun read, all the same.

Good clean book