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Subject:
From:
"Marcus W. Koechig" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 4 Feb 1997 16:15:00 -0500
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>Also, has anyone had any experience with the Mark Twain
>CD-Rom which was offered by the Reader's Subscription?  (There
>was also one on Dickens.)  I ordered it and it strikes me as
>worthless.  But maybe I'm missing something?

Worthless, I think, is a bit of an overstatement. The sheer volume of
material is pretty impressive, but there are some glaring errors.

The study questions for some of the works are suspect; or, at least the
answers are. For example, the question dealing with why Peter the cat went a
bit wild in Tom Sawyer is, according to Twain's World, Tom did not feed the
cat.

In "Die Meisterschaft," the phrase, "Wo is seine . . ." has the word "seine"
in boldface. Click on it and you find this German pronoun is either a net
for fishing or a large river in France.

I did a quick scan of the clickable words and came up with a rather long
list which I forwarded to the publisher. A very nice response came and I was
invited to be on the advisory board for the updated version. That was about
two years ago. I don't look for this to be updated as I have seen the CD's
in pockets in the backs of trade editions of Twain's works where these have
never before appeared.

At first, I used mine quite frequently, but like that really swell Christmas
present we all wish for, the wrapping came off, and playing was fun for a
while, but now the thing sits in a closet.

Marcus W. Koechig

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