Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia 5e: Fifth Edition
First published in 1948, Benét’s  is one of those eminently useful and browsable reference sources that transcend the print-versus-electronic debate (at least for now). The fourth edition, published in 1996, “responded to the explosion of interest in other cultures.” The fifth edition continues down that road, with a goal “to do justice to all traditions.”   Biographies of world poets, playwrights, novelists, and essayists are joined by plot summaries for major works and entries on literary characters, myth and legend, national literatures, genres, movements, and more. In addition, there are entries from history, science, philosophy—anything that is “likely to be encountered by the general reader.” Among new entries are those for Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen, Roman Polanski, and Harry Potter. Also new are entries for “Asian writers outside the traditions of China, India, and Japan,” among them José Rizal (1861–1896), from the Philippines, and Lee Kok Liang (1927–1992), from Malaysia. Numerous entries have been revised, though some, such as Arab-Israeli conflict and Copyright, are out-of-date. Missing are entries for emerging forms, such as graphic novels. Also needed is an entry for the Man Booker Prize.   In his preface to the first edition (reprinted in the fifth), William Rose Benét referred to his encyclopedia as “a well-organized supplementary memory.” Though “supplementary memory” is one of many functions now performed by the Web, there are few libraries that wouldn’t want to have this classic on the ready-reference shelf. --Mary Ellen Quinn