karen should win this giveaway! She loves Byron more than anyone.

The final book in Markovits' Byron-related trilogy departs from the others in not being historical fiction. Instead it concerns the efforts of a certain "Benjamin Markovits", who apparently inherited the first two books among a dead friend's papers and published them as editor, to find out more about the life of their author. In particular, about the nature of his relationships with under-age boys. It's interspersed with extracts from what's supposed to be an unfinished third book by the deceased writer, written from Byron's point of view. This book is more readable, and more humane, than that sounds, and keeps on the right side of the line of obnxiousness. But it does involve such tiresome conceits as the narrator, "Benjamin Markovits", analysing the literary influences on a book supposedly written by his dead friend, but actually written by the same Benjamin Markovits who is now writing "Benjamin Markovits". I read the first two novels earlier and feel that to his list of Austen, Henry James, Disraeli, Poe, Melville, etc, I would have tentatively added Georgette Heyer: but of course neither Benjamin Markovits nor "Benjamin Markovits" would ever have read Georgette Heyer. In short, just not very British, in fact almost unbearably East-Coast intellectual. ( )

Childish Loves is really two completely different works. Half the book focuses on the fictional Ben Markovits, who inherits several unpublished manuscripts from a recently deceased colleague. After having the manuscripts published and seeing them gain more fame and attention than his own work, Mr. Markovits sets off on a journey to find out more about his deceased colleague.

It seemed to me that his goal was not just to find out more about the man, but to find out how much a reader can really learn about a writer through his work. I found this part of the book to be engaging, extremely well written and thought provoking.

The other portion of the book was excerpts from the unpublished manuscripts of his dead colleague, which consisted of the fictional diary entries of Lord Byron. It was hard for me to focus on these chapters. I didn't really understand how they were tying in with the rest of the book, or if they were, and I just kept wondering when we'd get back to the storyline that was actually interesting.

Overall, the sections of the book focusing on the fictional journey of Mr. Markovits' were excellent and I'd give them 5 stars. The Lord Byron fan fic sections really didn't work for me and as a complete work, the book felt disjointed. ( )