July 22, 2009
BOOK NOTES: Do Errors in Nonfiction Books Destroy Their Credibility? The Case of 'The Big Rich'
By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
I enjoy reading Bryan Burrough's stories in Vanity Fair (I read them online; his account of Texas-born financier Allen Stanford is very well done) and found the movie version of his book "Public Enemies" enthralling and mostly accurate -- although I'm still more enamored of the 1973 John Milius-helmed film "Dillinger" starring Warren Oates, who looked much more like the real John Dillinger than Johnny Depp, who played the bank robber in "Public Enemies."
I've just finished reading his 480-page book about the Texas oil magnates, "The Big Rich" published this past January by Penguin Press and was dismayed to find so many factual errors in a book published by a major publisher and written by an outstanding reporter who's been at Vanity Fair since 1992. The book is written in a lively manner and traces the conservative strain of Texas politics as exemplified by such reactionaries as H.L. Hunt and his rabid anti-Semitism and hatred of Eastern capitalists like the Rockefellers.
Burrough is a Texan, growing up in Temple, TX, (he lives in New Jersey now) so I expected him to get Texas facts right. From the start I was dismayed to find that he placed the devastating Galveston Hurricane in 1901 (it struck the barrier island Sept. 8-9, 1900) and he repeatedly misspelled the town of Burkburnett, TX as Buckburnett. (page 41 -- Burkburnett is on the Red River that separates Texas and Oklahoma...it's just north of Wichita Falls, TX.)
Since I wasn't intending to review the book more than six months after it was published, I checked the 33 reader reviews on Amazon.com and found most of them favorable. However, many readers spotted the errors. Here's a sample:
"Well researched"? In the first 30 pages Burkburnett is misspelled half a dozen times, and the Galveston hurricane is misdated. I like the way he writes, but where was his editor? How can I trust any of the facts after these early errors?"
That last sentence is important...Can we trust anything in a book littered with such gaffes as spelling "collard" -- as in "collard greens" -- "collared." Maybe that was a Yankee copy editor at Penguin, ignorant of such Southern delicacies, who changed Burrough's spelling, but who knows?
Writing about Lyndon Johnson meeting Brown & Root co-founder George Brown at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, WV in the summer of 1940, Burrough misspells the name of the world-famous resort "Greenbriar."
Burrough says Sen. Estes Kefauver was from Kansas: He was, of course, a senator from Tennessee.
Another sharp-eyed reader found a howler on page 222 where Burrough "states that Senator Joseph McCarthy ascended to Congressman Martin Dies's old chairmanship of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Senators do not sit on House committees. McCarthy, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations used the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to investigate alleged communist activities." Martin Dies was a Texas congressman.
Did I enjoy the book about the Big Four oil dynasties of H.L. Hunt, Roy Cullen, Clint Murchison and Sid Richardson, along with an engrossing account of Glenn McCarthy, builder of the fabulous and much lamented Shamrock Hotel in Houston? Yes, I did. Was I concerned with the mistakes. Yes, I was. As a friend of mine -- a native Texan who has worked as a photographer and editor -- commented when I told him of the errors I found:
"When I come across a book with a huge number of errors I discount the whole book. How can you trust any of it if so much of it stinks? I rejected many many articles over the years from contributors from the standpoint one couldn't trust the author - and I never bought anything from them after the first major screw up."
I couldn't have said it better myself! Summing up: Serious publishers should have books read by editors who don't even trust their mothers when they're playing cards with them. Nitpickers rule!
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BOOK NOTES: Do Errors in Nonfiction Books Destroy Their Credibility? The Case of 'The Big Rich'
By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Book Critic
I enjoy reading Bryan Burrough's stories in Vanity Fair (I read them online; his account of Texas-born financier Allen Stanford is very well done) and found the movie version of his book "Public Enemies" enthralling and mostly accurate -- although I'm still more enamored of the 1973 John Milius-helmed film "Dillinger" starring Warren Oates, who looked much more like the real John Dillinger than Johnny Depp, who played the bank robber in "Public Enemies."
I've just finished reading his 480-page book about the Texas oil magnates, "The Big Rich" published this past January by Penguin Press and was dismayed to find so many factual errors in a book published by a major publisher and written by an outstanding reporter who's been at Vanity Fair since 1992. The book is written in a lively manner and traces the conservative strain of Texas politics as exemplified by such reactionaries as H.L. Hunt and his rabid anti-Semitism and hatred of Eastern capitalists like the Rockefellers.
Burrough is a Texan, growing up in Temple, TX, (he lives in New Jersey now) so I expected him to get Texas facts right. From the start I was dismayed to find that he placed the devastating Galveston Hurricane in 1901 (it struck the barrier island Sept. 8-9, 1900) and he repeatedly misspelled the town of Burkburnett, TX as Buckburnett. (page 41 -- Burkburnett is on the Red River that separates Texas and Oklahoma...it's just north of Wichita Falls, TX.)
Since I wasn't intending to review the book more than six months after it was published, I checked the 33 reader reviews on Amazon.com and found most of them favorable. However, many readers spotted the errors. Here's a sample:
"Well researched"? In the first 30 pages Burkburnett is misspelled half a dozen times, and the Galveston hurricane is misdated. I like the way he writes, but where was his editor? How can I trust any of the facts after these early errors?"
That last sentence is important...Can we trust anything in a book littered with such gaffes as spelling "collard" -- as in "collard greens" -- "collared." Maybe that was a Yankee copy editor at Penguin, ignorant of such Southern delicacies, who changed Burrough's spelling, but who knows?
Writing about Lyndon Johnson meeting Brown & Root co-founder George Brown at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, WV in the summer of 1940, Burrough misspells the name of the world-famous resort "Greenbriar."
Burrough says Sen. Estes Kefauver was from Kansas: He was, of course, a senator from Tennessee.
Another sharp-eyed reader found a howler on page 222 where Burrough "states that Senator Joseph McCarthy ascended to Congressman Martin Dies's old chairmanship of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Senators do not sit on House committees. McCarthy, as chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations used the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to investigate alleged communist activities." Martin Dies was a Texas congressman.
Did I enjoy the book about the Big Four oil dynasties of H.L. Hunt, Roy Cullen, Clint Murchison and Sid Richardson, along with an engrossing account of Glenn McCarthy, builder of the fabulous and much lamented Shamrock Hotel in Houston? Yes, I did. Was I concerned with the mistakes. Yes, I was. As a friend of mine -- a native Texan who has worked as a photographer and editor -- commented when I told him of the errors I found:
"When I come across a book with a huge number of errors I discount the whole book. How can you trust any of it if so much of it stinks? I rejected many many articles over the years from contributors from the standpoint one couldn't trust the author - and I never bought anything from them after the first major screw up."
I couldn't have said it better myself! Summing up: Serious publishers should have books read by editors who don't even trust their mothers when they're playing cards with them. Nitpickers rule!
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