There is undoubtedly some worthwhile reasons to read this book, especially the sections dealing with the earliest translators of the Quran, but overall I came away from it feeling like I read a collection of very short reviews of various translations and nothing more. Lawrence did address more theoretical issues involved with scriptural translation, as well as the very interesting – and high stakes – issue of political involvement in Quranic publishing, but only very briefly. Overall the book felt much more focused on cataloging reviews than contributing anything original or thought-provoking to the study of English translations of the Quran. One could argue that this is in keeping with the book's subtitle to produce a "biography" (as opposed to an analysis?) and I can accept that; but I can't go so far as to say that it scratched an intellectual itch, so to speak.

Two other points merit attention. The first is the overly exhaustive examination of Sandow Birk's "American Qur'an" and other Islamic-themed works of his. All told, I'd estimate that mentions of Birk constitute at least a quarter of the total content of the book. In fact, the focus on Birk is foreshadowed from the first moment one encounters Lawrence's book: the cover design prominently features artwork taken from Birk's "American Qur'an." I understand Lawrence's argument that Birk did something sui generis in the history of English translations of the Quran, and Lawrence clearly has a personal affection for Birk's ecumenicism, charming Americanness, and skepticism of the ugly sides of American foreign policy and society vis à vis Islam, but I remain unconvinced that Birk should have been given so prominent a place in this book. His work may end up being more ephemeral than trailblazing; the emphasis on Birk just felt unbalanced.

The second thing I'd like to mention was the at times borderline painfully detailed examination of Quran websites. One finds such passages as "[translations] can be downloaded one by one or examined in comparison verse by verse: placing the mouse over the Arabic verse, one then indicates which of the several translations one wants to see"; "translations [...] can only be compared by a set of consecutive clicks for each verse on the same page; they cannot be viewed on one page"; "Its translations in English, however, are limited to ten: Pickthall, Yusuf Ali, Arberry, and Asad, but also Martin Lings (partial), Muhammad Taqi Usmani, Muhammad Tahir al-Qadri, Sahih International, Laleh Bakhtiar, as well as its own Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute translation." This level of detailed documentation of website features (that will very likely be outdated and thus useless by the time most readers come to this book, given how quickly and often websites are edited) is the type of thing that should at best be put in this book's appendix, and at worst not included at all, relegated instead to magazine and blog reviews.

All of this and more made this book feel like a disappointing effort, especially since it is the product of many years of labor from a renowned scholar. ( )