The Fountainhead
by Ayn Rand
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Mass Market Paperback (01 August, 1996)
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Editorial Review

The Fountainhead has become an enduring piece of literature, more popular now than when published in 1943. On the surface, it is a story of one man, Howard Roark, and his struggles as an architect in the face of a successful rival, Peter Keating, and a newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey. But the book addresses a number of universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good and evil, the threat of fascism. The confrontation of those themes, along with the amazing stroke of Rand's writing, combine to give this book its enduring influence. ... Read more

Reviews (829)

girlie babble
dont get me wrong, Ayn Rand is "intelligent" but the pages of passage are over 700 pages long sometimes. not interested in the problem I want the source. It's just time to cut lose from the feminism these days guys..

Granite, Glass, & Steel Explode Through Earth's Crust
I see a compliment to the power of Ayn Rand's FOUNTAINHEAD, in this fact:

I was able to vote "Yes" on the first 20 reviews I read on this novel (haven't read beyond that yet, but I intend to), including the ones I disagreed with or which, from my perspective, misinterpreted some of the content of the book. What impressed me to click the positive vote was that each of the reviews showed interesting contemplation communicated well (including the ones with only one or two sentences), and intriguing ways of looking at the plot, characters, and thematic framework of this novel.

This book is so pregnant with cranium stimulations it's easy to forget it's foremost a novel; Prozac and the sideline collection of wannabe Seratonin Uptake Inhibitors would be put out of business if people read a chapter or so of this type of material daily.

I've read both FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED three times each, and will probably reread them periodically over the remaining course of my life. I've written my review of ATLAS; now I'd like to focus on what I valued most in reading FOUNTAINHEAD.

I loved the character, Howard Roark.

I identified with that character more than any other I've met in a work of fiction, more than any nonfiction person I've known about who has lived and been memorialized. I admired and was renewed by his repeated choices to be true to himself, his talent, his creativity, and his needs and desires on his life path. I enjoyed the way Rand wrote Roark's attraction to Dominique, and could understand the source of that attraction, even when she was pretending to be a spoiled, superficial, self-destructive fool. I knew he saw under the facade, and was uplifted to watch him gradually draw the beauty and honor out of her.

I loved Gail Wynand and the way he so easily saw Roark, and grew to love him.

I was fascinated with Ellsworth Toohey; he was a perfect personification of the frightening power of Evil, a power which (as Roark knew) is linked securely to the underlying impotence of Evil in the face of integrity.

I loved and hated each of the characters as Rand intended me to feel.

I loved the way Rand described objects she hates:

"The Cosmo-Slotnick Building rose ponderously over the street, like a huge, white bromide."

I loved the way Rand described objects she loves, as she began her lead in to the architectural conclusion at the end of FOUNTAINHEAD:

"On a spring day, eighteen months later, Dominique walked to the construction site of the Wynand building.

"She looked at the skyscrapers of the city. They rose from unexpected spots, out of the low roof lines. They had a kind of startling suddenness, as if they had sprung up the second before she saw them and she had caught the last thrust of the motion; as if, were she to turn away and look again fast enough, she would catch them in the act of springing."

Rand's grand composition of Dominique's perceptions of Roark's building continue from the above paragraphs. You won't want to miss them. You won't want to read them until you have read every word leading up to them.

I was wholly engaged in and intrigued by the mesmerizing, convoluted plot.

This novel is exquisite, powerful, and perfect.

With what do I agree or disagree in the volumes of interpretations of this novel, as story or as philosophy, by the hoards of people who've read it, or who spout off from just hearing talk of it?

I really don't care at this late day in my life what other people think about anything, though I am often interested to read or listen to something about which an individual has given seriously thought; an individual who can put a new, spicy twist on a tired subject; or an individual who takes time to draw his own conclusions about something (all of which has been done well in reviews here).

I crave intelligence communicated well, and if it can be communicated in a well-written, interesting novel, all the better. In my opinion, this is what Rand has done, at least twice.

I honor and admire Ayn Rand's FOUNTAINHEAD beyond my capacity to do so. I am saddened that our world and cultural limitations did not allow her to experience more fully in her own life the potential beauty in the universe which she captured for us in her fiction.

Thank you, Ayn Rand for the huge sacrifice of your life lived in such an immature world; yet in your world of definition, and thanks to your integrity, your life was in no way a sacrifice,

Linda G. Shelnutt

Introduction to Ayn Rand
I hadn't heard of Ayn Rand until I was in college. I met her through her writings as a "libertarian" and I didn't agree with those opinions. Although I was a philosophy student, I hadn't heard of objectivism, and given my previous exposure to her, I was quite wary of reading her novels.

I'm sorry I hadn't read her novels first. I know that there are few objectivists in the world, and I'm not a strong one as far as they go, but I immediately related with the main character. I found this a totally successful novel (unlike Atlas Shrugged) because I was immediately drawn into novel through the characters.

This also makes a compelling philosophical argument. After reading this it's hard to imagine that one shouldn't try to do the best work possible. ... Read more

Isbn: 0451191153
Subjects:  1. Classics    2. Fiction    3. Literature - Classics / Criticism   

We Were the Mulvaneys
by Joyce Carol Oates
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (September, 1996)
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Editorial Review

Oprah Book Club® Selection, January 2001: A happy family, the Mulvaneys. After decades of marriage, Mom and Dad are still in love--and the proud parents of a brood of youngsters that includes a star athlete, a class valedictorian, and a popular cheerleader. Home is an idyllic place called High Point Farm. And the bonds of attachment within this all-American clan do seem both deep and unconditional: "Mom paused again, drawing in her breath sharply, her eyes suffused with a special lustre, gazing upon her family one by one, with what crazy unbounded love she gazed upon us, and at such a moment my heart would contract as if this woman who was my mother had slipped her fingers inside my rib cage to contain it, as you might hold a wild, thrashing bird to comfort it."

But as we all know, Eden can't last forever. And in the hands of Joyce Carol Oates, who's chronicled just about every variety of familial dysfunction, you know the fall from grace is going to be a doozy. By the time all is said and done, a rape occurs, a daughter is exiled, much alcohol is consumed, and the farm is lost. Even to recount these events in retrospect is a trial for the Mulvaney offspring, one of whom declares: "When I say this is a hard reckoning I mean it's been like squeezing thick drops of blood from my veins." In the hands of a lesser writer, this could be the stuff of a bad television movie. But this is Oates's 26th novel, and by now she knows her material and her craft to perfection. We Were the Mulvaneys is populated with such richly observed and complex characters that we can't help but care about them, even as we wait for disaster to strike them down. --Anita Urquhart ... Read more

Reviews (438)

We were the Mulvaney's
A moving fictional story about a family tragedy that happened in the 1970's. It happened to the Mulvaney's, a close-knit, farm family in Mt. Ephraim, NY. On Valentine's Day, their bright and pretty daughter was raped at a high school dance. After the rape, the entire "perfect" family fell apart. The father was not supportive of his daughter and ordered her to live with other relatives. The daughter who had such a bright future ended up at a community college and lived in a commune. Many other things happened to each of the family members, but in the end they were able to reunite and restore healing to their broken lives.

Just plain bad
I found this book to be tedious to read, the story was depressing, the characters were unrealistic and had split personalities.

A mother who loves her children more than life banishes her only daughter?

A daughter who is raped and brutilized and avoids men, practically becomes a nun, and then ups and gets married and has children with no explanation of what changed.

A middle son who is brilliant and driven, but gets consumed with revenge to the point of abandoning his educational and career goals.

An oldest son who is a characature of the oldest son - star athelete, party-boy, goes into the Marines, marries, has an "orderly" life.He is like a prop in this book.

A youngest son, our narrator, who bears the brunt of the total distruction and dysfuntion of this family - yet, we know so little about him.His experiences are retold like a story in a newspaper - just the facts.Maybe because he becomes a newspaper writer?But, wouldn't it have been interesting to hear a little more about the fear and anger that this boy must have experienced.

The father who has a total meltdown - a personality transplant due to this unforgivable event.Oates hints that - no let me correct that - one could infer (in a vain attempt to make sense of this) that the father could see himself perpertrating the same crime that happened against his daughter, so that his destruction comes from self-hatred, but it's a stretch.It would have been nice if Oates could have spelled this out a bit more.Sure, he had a history of young, social drinking.That doesn't make you an alcholic on the edge.

This is the first book by Oates that I have read.It will probably be my last.

Why would anyone finish this book????
Even more importantly, why did someone make a tv movie off it? This family appears to be close-knit, loving, and rich in faith but a catastrophe - when the daughter is brutally raped - tears it all apart. The father becomes hateful, abusive, and cold, the mother wrings her hands and cries but stands by and lets her daughter be victimized yet again. How can any reader have sympathy for "parents" like this who are anything but loving? This "loving" family punishes the victim. I had no sympathy whatsoever for these characters and found myself hoping the dad would get offed and mom too for her spineless lack of mothering when her child needed it most. The author's purple prose detracts from the story as well. Can't recommend this one at all. ... Read more

Isbn: 0452282829
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - General    3. General    4. Literary    5. Sagas   

A Morning for Flamingos
by James L. Burke
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Paperback (01 August, 1991)
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Reviews (17)

There's not a finer crime/mystery author writing today.
Over the last 15 years, James Lee Burke's character of Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux has been established as one of the best and most intriguing in modern crime fiction. The intrigue continuesin the fourth book of the Robicheaux series, A MORNING FOR FLAMINGOS. This time we find Dave critically wounded and his partner killed after a prisoner transport goes awry. After his recovery, Dave is sent undercover by the DEA to try to bring down a drug dealer from his old stomping ground, New Orleans.

Dave's old homicide partner Clete Purcel is a big part of this novel, as well as the rest of the series, and is the no-holds-barred sometimes law-bending character that Robicheaux fans are used to. We also find another appearance from DEA agent Minos Dautrieve, who had a big role in the earlier Burke novel (and subsequent film starring Alec Baldwin) HEAVEN'S PRISONERS. These two, along with all the others surrounding the story, provide a great story for the reader.

The story is believable, the characters are believable, and at times the reader really starts to sympathize with people in the story that you are really not supposed to be cheering for! Nothing registers with a reader quite like a character with feelings, and these characters really come across that way.

I've read several of the Burke/Robicheaux novels and this is right up there at the top of the class.

Tough Time in New Orleans
This 4th book in the Dave Robicheaux series is a tense, gritty visit to the old quarter of New Orleans. Early on, Dave is shot in the chest by Jimmie Lee Boggs, a death row prisoner who was in the process of being transferred in preparation for his execution. After recovering, Dave is asked by the DEA to work undercover in New Orleans in a sting operation to put away Mafia don Tony Cardo. The added lure is the opportunity to catch Boggs and repay him for the bullet.

Once he gains the trust of Cardo, Dave finds himself developing a liking for the crime boss, regardless of the misery he is responsible for dealing out. The feeling of affection is mutual, with a deep respect developing between the two men. He finds that he has to struggle to keep focussed on the reason he's there and put his new friendship aside.

Dave Robicheaux is still a man in torment, particularly after the trauma of being shot had reawakened the nightmares he hoped to have put behind him. James Lee Burke's Louisiana is a grim and dangerous place at times, yet the mouth-watering cuisine seems to make all the danger worthwhile. This is another solid effort in a tremendous series.

Burke On Track
I had just about given up on James Lee Burke.After being stunned with the genius of"Neon Rain," I found most contemporary Dave Robicheaux novels rather gloomy and over-described affairs.Went back to "Black Cherry Blues" his Edgar-winning novel and was disappointed.Now, I feel I've read another gem.I am doubly pleased because from reading and seeing interviews, I think James Lee Burke is one of the most charming authors around.

"A Morning for Flamingos" begins with the death of Dave's partner while transporting two prisoners, Te Beau, a New Iberia boy to whom Dave has certain obligations, and the menacing Jamie Lee Boggs.Dave is left critically wounded and remembers little of the actual escape.The story leads to underworld figures, voodoo, and the sordid, steamy underside of New Orleans.

The pace and brooding menace never let up, and Burke allows no loose ends to annoy the reader.The characterizations are sharp, descriptive, and unforgettable.The solution is elegant and exciting.I liked Dave all over again. ... Read more

Isbn: 0380713608
Sales Rank: 70213
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - Mystery/ Detective    3. Mystery & Detective - Hard-Boiled    4. Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General   

The Thorn Birds
by Colleen McCullough
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 May, 1978)
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Reviews (131)

One of my all-time favorites!
I first read this book years ago, when it first came out.I loved it then and still do.It picks you up and carries you along through the years with Meg and you become one with her.Just wonderfully written.My mother-in-law just read it for the first time and she had the same magical experience I did years ago!Read it!

What a Great Book (and don't forget your handkerchief)!
Great romance -- a love story between a young woman and a priest.This book has got it all: strong character development, forbidden love, crying, laughing, etc.

This is one of the all time best romantic fiction novels.The author writes beautifully and I strongly recommend it.

Epic novel with great timing
I love this book! It is a beautiful story with full of right & wrong turn-outs from this passionate forbidding love between Maggie and Ralph. Even beyond all the tearful tragedies this wonderful novel is a real page-turner. Now I know that is my one of my favorite love story of my lifetime and that I'll never forget it.It's right up there with SOPHIE'S CHOICE and that fantastic book BARK OF THE DOGWOOD.All are great! ... Read more

Isbn: 0380018179
Sales Rank: 14805
Subjects:  1. Fiction - Historical    2. Historical - General    3. Movie/Tv Tie-Ins    4. Fiction / General   

Armadale (Penguin Classics)
by WilkieCollins, JohnSutherland
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 October, 1995)
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Reviews (9)

Better than The Moonstone
This book by Collins was an unexpected masterpiece.It was better than The Moonstone.I recommend that everyone who is interested in Collins or Victorian sensational novels this is a good read.

A great unsung character
Collins' efforts with his justly famed "The Moonstone" and "The Woman in White" have perhaps overshadowed his very fine work as seen in "Armadale."Lydia Gwilt (don't you love the last name?) is one of the great unsung characters in English (or any western) literature.Collins seems to delight in making her as full-bodied, as attractive to men, and as dangerous as he can without ever losing his grip and falling over the slippery precipice into satire.Given the tenor and social conventions of the time, her quest for revenge on the despicable Alan Armadale seems perfectly in keeping.Lydia Gwilt is like an early, English Scarlett O'Hara without the redeeming humor Scarlett was known to exhibit.All in all, an extraordinarily well-written and three-dimensional character study.

average Wilkie Collins = above average entertainment
Wilkie Collins, even in his less accomplished works, never fails to entertain.Armadale is a case in point.It doesn't have all the endless plot-twists of The Woman in White, nor does it have the 'herione is also a demon" intrigue of No Name.But it still has all of Collins's rich writing, and it does contain one very curious and incredibly evil woman: Miss Gwilt.For those Wilkie Collins fans who enjoy really nasty, scheming people (ala Count Fosco of The Woman in White) will adore Miss Gwilt.

Like most of Wilkie Collins's larger novels, it is hard to summarize the story of Armadale.It is a complex tale of confused identities, folks wanting to inherit fortunes, and gentlemen falling in love with "Ms. Wrong"s.The complicated story does take a while to get rolling (..it takes some two hundred pages before we are introduced to the chief protaganist Miss Gwilt), but it does collect momentum quickly to a satisfying conclusion.

So Armadale is best read after first enjoying The Woman in White or No Name.It is a worthy member to everyone's Wilkie Collins collection. ... Read more

Isbn: 0140434119
Sales Rank: 227902
Subjects:  1. Classics    2. Literature - Classics / Criticism    3. Literature: Classics    4. 19th century fiction    5. Classic fiction    6. Fiction / General   

Indian Killer
by Sherman Alexie
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 January, 1998)
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Editorial Review

Native American Sherman Alexie's new novel is a departure in tone from his lyrical and funny earlier work, which include The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Reservation Blues. The main character is an Indian serial killer who incites racial tension by murdering whites in retribution for his people's history. The killer leaves clear signs of his motives by scalping his victims, and leaving feathers as gestures of Indian defiance. The killer is a conflicted creation--raised by loving white parents, but twisted by loss of his identity as an Indian. Alexie layers the story with complications and ancillary characters, from a rabid talk show host, to vengeance seeking whites, to liberals who find their patronizing espousal of Indian causes no longer so easy. ... Read more

Reviews (77)

Indian Killer-Cultural Killer
On a surface, a great who dunnit centered in Seattle with a Indigenous twist. Complex characters. You have John who is adopted by white people and wants to know of his culture but cannot. You have Marie, theIndian activist college student who challenges her white professor at every turn. The white professor Dr. Mather who through his education thinks that he knows more of Indian culture than Indians that grew up on the reservation. Reggie is Marie's half Indian cousin that hates white people. Truck is a sensationlist radio broadcaster that is terrorizing the city of Seattle with his constant updates on the "Indian Killer" The novelist Jack Wilson, the wannabe Indian that claimed the little bit of Native blood that he had and held on so tightly. The common thread I saw in each character was that at some level each had the Indian killed out of them or they were killing the culture by their ignorance and upbringing.I Think Sherman Alexie's message is profound and is a statement of what is taking place in Indian country today! You will be assismalated....I think not!

sharp, devastating and engagingly written.....
I think it is more than fair to say the Sherman Alexie has succeeded in writing one of the greatest contemporary Urban Aboriginal mystery/murder novels on the bookshelves today.Mr. Alexie has a great talent for challenging all the lies we have accepted as reality in the "Indigenous experience" and knocks us over with his own vision of the hardships and pain of contemporary Native life with a twist of Stephen King thrown into the mix.

John Smith is a young aboriginal man who was raised by White adoptive parents and has no knowledge of his tribe or any other specifics tied to his heritage.John is in the depths of a traumatic identity crisis that spirals into mental illness and psychotic, murderous episodes.His goal is to avenge the death and misery of every Indigenous person by systematically stalking and then murdering affluent Caucasian men.This series of killings becomes the hot topic of Seattle as more and more race-related fights take place between White and Native residents.

This is such an important novel and I am so glad that Sherman Alexie wrote it.I felt as though we, as the readers, were taking a glimpse inside the many facets of his writer's mind and all of the depths of his personality as a storyteller.It is a cautionary tale of what happens when someone is so far removed from themselves (example being John Smith) that they are driven to the depths of despair, due to their isolation and lack of confidence.I once took a course with Sherman Alexie at the University of Washington where he stated that living on the Rez (where many indigenous people still reside in North America) is like living in an Edith Warton novel. Authenticity is measured to the most minute degree.Everything from your behavior to the pigment of your skin is considered a potential flaw. from which you can fall from grace at any given moment.Imagine growing up a young indigenous man, surrounded by loving, adoptive parents who know nothing of your specific tribe, but are greatly divided from you by their race and their ignorance.Instead of being taught about your specific tribal practices, you are bombarded with information about every tribe (as if that would make up for your lack of self awareness).

Though this is definitely a murder mystery novel, Sherman Alexie manages to balance horror scenes with humorous bits, as well as intellectual criticism on the state of contemporary race relations and really forces us to examine our own stereotypes and prejudices.Great book and definitely a fast read!

This one's a dud...
Sherman Alexie's thriller "Indian Killer" has many glaring weaknesses, and only a few strengths. Firstly, many characters are unrepentingly racist. A ex-football player and a Rush wannabe represent the white racists, while Marie, a Native American activist represents the Indian racist. Marie is so racist, she makes an argument that goes like this: only Indians should teach Indian studies, only african-americans should teach African studies. of course, if you finish that foul thought to its logical conclusion, then only white people should teach western civilization. So, this is Alexie's biggest flaw: Aaron and Marie are two sides of the same coin, and he doesn't seem to realize this. Secondly, there are no heroic characters to root for, everyone is either victim or victimizer. You pity Mather, John Smith, and Wilson, all for different reasons, and you find yourself loathing Reggie, Marie, Truck and Aaron. The book's sole strength is its realistic portrayal of alienation with John as the Indian without a tribe, and with his worsening schizophrenia. Note, schizophrenics are most harmful to themselves, and to those who try to help them the most. As for the killer, it's not John, as some reviewers have said. I don't think Alexie would stoop to having an archtypical killer(that's a cheap copout, and would merit only 1 star if he really pulled that stunt). Personally, I feel Reggie is the killer. ... Read more

Isbn: 0446673706
Subjects:  1. Detective and mystery stories    2. Fiction    3. Fiction - Psychological Suspense    4. General    5. Indians of North America    6. Literary    7. Mystery/Suspense    8. Psychological    9. Race relations    10. Seattle (Wash.)    11. Suspense    12. Fiction / General   

White Oleander : A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)
by Janet Fitch
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 May, 2000)
list price: $13.95 -- our price: $11.16
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Editorial Review

Oprah Book Club® Selection, May 1999: Astrid Magnussen, the teenage narrator of Janet Fitch's engrossing first novel, White Oleander, has a mother who is as sharp as a new knife. An uncompromising poet, Ingrid despises weakness and self-pity, telling her daughter that they are descendants of Vikings, savages who fought fiercely to survive. And when one of Ingrid's boyfriends abandons her, she illustrates her point, killing the man with the poison of oleander flowers. This leads to a life sentence in prison, leaving Astrid to teach herself the art of survival in a string of Los Angeles foster homes.

As Astrid bumps from trailer park to tract house to Hollywood bungalow, White Oleander uncoils her existential anxieties. "Who was I, really?" she asks. "I was the sole occupant of my mother's totalitarian state, my own personal history rewritten to fit the story she was telling that day. There were so many missing pieces." Fitch adroitly leads Astrid down a path of sorting out her past and identity. In the process, this girl develops a wire-tight inner strength, gains her mother's white-blonde beauty, and achieves some measure of control over their relationship. Even from prison, Ingrid tries to mold her daughter. Foiling her, Astrid learns about tenderness from one foster mother and how to stand up for herself from another. Like the weather in Los Angeles--the winds of the Santa Anas, the scorching heat--Astrid's teenage life is intense. Fitch's novel deftly displays that, and also makes Astrid's life meaningful. --Katherine Anderson ... Read more

Reviews (933)

A Bumby Road Worth Taking
Hidden behind an unstable life and a jailed mother, is a girl. This girl moves from foster family to foster family. In each household she experiences the diversity of man kind, from street selling sisters to a perfect mother driven to suicide. Yet, through it all, this teenager still stays connected to her mother. A mother who poisoned her ex-boyfriend because of the jealousy she felt for his new girlfriend. Nothing can break the relationship between the mother and her daughter. Even as the girl grows up and moves on, her mother still remains in her everyday thoughts.
White Oleander takes you through a journey. This journey is a bumpy road, yet it is one road you will never forget. Whether you can relate to the relationships or experiences in this book, it does not matter. The intense relationship between the mother and the daughter will impact you. Read White Oleander and be prepared to cry, laugh, and appreciate your mother a little bit more.

Love it and Hate it and Therefore It's a Three Star From Me
If you're into heavy drama, you might like this book. I find myself having this love-hate feeling for it. I love the book because I love the strong character of Astrid. The author successfully exerted an impression of a child that had to grow a little too fast and had to learn a little too soon the true meaning of life. It moved me as the story depicted the difficulty of children in foster homes to have to move to different homes with different social demographics, different personalities, and different problems in order for them to get on with their lives. I kind of hate the book because the emotions were expressed in such a way that I found myself exhausted in trying to relate to the characters feelings and thoughts. A few times that I had to put down the book a little while and then reread the sentences again so that I could relate better to the characters and the situations they were in. The book is a so-so to me simply because I think it's just too dramatic for me to comprehend.

A fifteen year old's Review...
Well, I've read books since I was old enough to stand. Over the years I have devoured every kid's book and now every classic novel or popular teen lit i can get my hands on. So when I say this is one of the best books I have EVER read... well, its saying something. cuz unlike many kids my age, i've read enough literature to form a pretty good opinion. I've read everything from Harry Potter and the Gossip Girl series to more intellectual books such as The Virgin Suicides and To Kill a Mockingbird (Btw, all those books I just named are AWESOME). Im not a huge Harvard graduate lit-snob but I know whats good literature when i read it. and this is it.

White Oleander is simply AMAZING. I only wish I had Janet Fitch's writing talent. The whole book is like a poem... but yet its dishy and engrossing. you dont get exhausted by big snobbish words or long complicated and detailed paragraphs. its... well, its one of the first books I've seen that manages to be elegant and ethereal and yet talk about things like drugs and oral sex. Her writing makes ANYTHING she talks about poetic and beautiful. not trashy and dirty. Astrid's life is harsh, ugly, and downright dirty, but being raised by a free-spirited poet, she has a way of describing her situations that makes you fall in love with everyday things. she looks at what we would call trash and sees something interesting. THe book is dramatic and never boring. ABSOLUTELY amazing. my ultra-hip cousin had this one on her bookshelf and when i was sleeping over for a sex and the city marathon one night, i stumbled upon this. i got so into it, i took it home and finished it in two days. If you try this book and absolutely love it, you should also try:Summer Sisters, Virgin Suicides, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the Lovely Bones. and there is so much more. But this stands out. Cuz it is simply beautiful. Astrid is Like someone from ancient greece or rome, thrown into the bizzarre culture of modern day slum-California, but still is a sheer enchantress.

Warning: if you dislike tons of profanity... this book has too many f-bombs to count. but its realistic. cuz Astrid's foster homes are not exactly family-friendy environments and I think the language makes her story believable. how many criminals and white trash people speak like choirkids? ... Read more

Isbn: 0316284955
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - General    3. General    4. Fiction / General    5. Reading Group Guide   

No Name (Oxford World's Classics)
by Wilkie Collins, Virginia Blain
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 April, 1998)
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Reviews (11)

"Mr. Vanstone's daughters are Nobody's Children"
4 1/2 stars, but I rounded up.

No Name is the story and portrait of Magdalen Vanstone... or as Wilkie introduces his novel in the preface, "Here is one more book that depicts the struggle of a human creature, under those opposing influences of Good and Evil, which we have all felt, which we have all known." It's a fairly accurate description as throughout the course of the story, we see the evolution of the character of our heroine; we see her heading down a shady path, but yet somehow from a 21st century perspective, Magdalen manages to make it seem not so immoral. Often times I see her trying to act as morally as she can in the unmoral situations she chooses to involve herself in. Part of No Name's strength, arises from the deftness in which Collins creates Magdalen. She posseses such an enormous range in character and emotion that if No Name were ever to be made into a movie, actresses would vie to have her role.

When Magdalen and her sister's inheritance are taken away due to unexpected familial circumstances, Magdalen resolutely follows a reckless path of revenge. While not exactly your Victorian equivalent of your "Kill Bill," the novel seems closer in spirit to Alexander Dumas's novel: The Count of Monte Cristo. Of course it doesn't have the swashbuckling quality of Dumas's novel as there are no fight scenes to the death. Collins's novel is set in a domestic scene with a female protagonist and the action is far tamer. It is equally gripping though because it's the chase of the revenge that's the fun part; the deceit and swindling involved, the careful measuring of your enemy's abilities that is part of charm. Collins was genius to embroil a female in a revenge type of plot and I'm just amazed at how much free agency Collins bestows upon Magdalen - a female living in Victorian times. He completely cuts her off from the ties of society and gives her free reign.

While I was reading, I felt that the novel could be loosely separated into 3 quite different parts - each with it's own distinct pacing and mood. It goes quite well with the divisions of the triple-decker novel they had long ago. I'm not spoiling much because the novel covers such massive ground, but the first part covers the idyllic times of the Vanstone family and we come to see how the inheritance is stripped from the Vanstone daughters. The second part (the best and my favorite) follows Magdalen as she pursues her revenge with the superior help of the rogue Captain Wragge, a self-proclaimed, "moral agriculturist" (I'll leave you to discover what he means by it). Wragge is one of Collins' best creations (he even beats out Count Fosco in my mind). A short, brown eyed, green eyed creature with enormous talents and verbal abilities, he is very resourceful, calculates very well, and is able to adapt quickly to whatever is needed in each situation. One of the highlights of No Name resides in Wragge's chronicle describing Magdalen's progress. The other crowning achievement is the cat and mouse game played between Captain Wragge and Madame Lecount (the housekeeper and keeper of the interest of Magdalen's victim). Both are directors of people and there is a large amount of plotting and counter-plotting that goes on that keeps the pages turning. It is here that No Name rivals that of The Woman in White, and if Collins had continued to write in this vein, No Name could have been on an equal footing to Woman in White.

However it is in the third part -dealing with the fallout of the revenge- that No Name becomes more flawed. I would say especially so in the ending. Quite a lot of Victorians found the ending distasteful, but the modern reader might find it a little dissatisfying for a completely different reason.

As No Name was delivered right after Collins's magnum opus, The Woman in White, there was a possibility of being in its shadow. However, Collins more than safely overcomes such a hurdle. He's crafted an entirely different story. Although in a way, I almost see No Name as an inverse of Woman in White. Think of a story looking and rooting from the side of Sir Percieval and Count Fosco--the nefarious plotting to take away an inheritance--and in a way, it is the story of Madgalen and Captain Wragge. Of course our sympathies are on completely different sides and this is due to the strength of Collins's characterizations. But that said, the books feel almost nothing alike.

In the end, although not as tightly plotted as The Woman in White and a bit more flawed, No Name is more ambitious, covers more ground, more character development, a lot more stories, introduces way more secondary characters, and is pretty amazing as a whole. It's a massive novel in which Collins fleshes out so many people (and for Collins that usually means, so many people to like) and Collins is able to accomplish a measurable change and growth in the character of Magdalen. The more I reflect on the novel, the better it gets for me, and the more amazed I am at all that Wilkie attempted and accomplished.

I recommend reading the Oxford World's Classics edition for its excellent introduction by Virginia Blain. It hits spot-on about everything that is good and bad about the novel as well as going into the themes of acting and of plotting (both human plotting and writer plotting).

Great Ninteenth Century Chessmatch - One of Wilkie's Best
Wilkie Collins, best know for "The Moonstone" (which I have read and loved) and "The Woman in White" (which I have not read yet) is at his best in "No Name".I do not compare it to the "Moonstone" for the "Moonstone" is a great mystery for which the reader must wait to the end for it to be revealed. "No Name" is not a mystery but one great chessmatch, that oddly enough is not played by Magdalen and Noel Vanstone. It is played by the wonderful character of Captain Wragge and Mrs. Lecount.Reading and seeing the game as it is played out is one great ride.

Although many, at the time the book was published, were shocked at the ending. I found it to be very good. It was shocking to those at the time that Wilkie would allow a woman who had done the things Magdalen had done to find happiness. As a reader, I was very much glad that she did find it (one litte bit of the ending revealed) for she deserved it (in my opinion).

In the beginning of the book, I came to very much like Magdalen and wished her success in her quest to regain her rightful inheritance - although I knew what she was doing was wrong.I also found that I very much liked Captain Wragge, for all of his "moral agriculturalism", he had a soft spot for Magdalen which came through in the story.For her part, Magdalen, trying her best to be unemotional and strong, kept her soft side when it came to Mrs. Wragge (even though she was her downfall).

All in all, this was a very good book that kept my interest through the 700 pages. For those of you that liked the "Moonstone" and the "Woman in White", "No Name" will no disappoint and I recommend it to anyone that enjoys Wilkie's style of writing.

P.S. I did not write too much about the story line for I did not want to give too much of it away.

tons of fun
This is the best-plotted book I have ever read. The intricacies of the ingenious cat-and-mouse game kept me unable to put the book down (despite its length, and my general impatience as a slow reader). Unlike other books I've read by Collins, this one is also extremely funny, largely because of one character who is an incredible rascal and scoundrel. This is really one of the most enjoyable novels I've ever found. ... Read more

Isbn: 019283388X
Sales Rank: 116150
Subjects:  1. Classics    2. Collins, Wilkie, 1824-1889    3. Disinheritance    4. Fiction    5. Illegitimacy    6. Literary    7. Literature - Classics / Criticism    8. Literature: Classics    9. Orphans    10. Young women    11. 19th century fiction   

Beloved
by ToniMorrison
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 October, 1998)
list price: $12.95
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Editorial Review

In the troubled years following the Civil War, the spirit of a murdered child haunts the Ohio home of a former slave. This angry, destructive ghost breaks mirrors, leaves its fingerprints in cake icing, and generally makes life difficult for Sethe and her family; nevertheless, the woman finds the haunting oddly comforting for the spirit is that of her own dead baby, never named, thought of only as Beloved.

A dead child, a runaway slave, a terrible secret--these are the central concerns of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved. Morrison, a Nobel laureate, has written many fine novels, including Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, and Paradise--butBeloved is arguably her best. To modern readers, antebellum slavery is a subject so familiar that it is almost impossible to render its horrors in a way that seems neitherclichéd nor melodramatic. Rapes, beatings, murders, and mutilations are recounted here, but they belong to characters so precisely drawn that the tragedy remains individual, terrifying to us because it is terrifying to the sufferer. And Morrison is master of the telling detail: in the bit, for example, a punishing piece of headgear used to discipline recalcitrant slaves, she manages to encapsulate all of slavery's many cruelties into one apt symbol--a device that deprives its wearer of speech. "Days after it was taken out, goose fat was rubbed on the corners of the mouth but nothing to soothe the tongue or take the wildness out of the eye." Most importantly, the language here, while often lyrical, is never overheated. Even as she recalls the cruelties visited upon her while a slave, Sethe is evocative without being overemotional: "Add my husband to it, watching, above me in the loft--hiding close by--the one place he thought no one would look for him, looking down on what I couldn't look at at all. And not stopping them--looking and letting it happen.... And if he was that broken then, then he is also and certainly dead now." Even the supernatural is treated as an ordinary fact of life: "Not a house in the country ain't packed to its rafters with some dead Negro's grief. We lucky this ghost is a baby," comments Sethe's mother-in-law.

Beloved is a dense, complex novel that yields up its secrets one by one. As Morrison takes us deeper into Sethe's history and her memories, the horrifying circumstances of her baby's death start to make terrible sense. And as past meets present in the shape of a mysterious young woman about the same age as Sethe's daughter would have been, the narrative builds inexorably to its powerful, painful conclusion.Beloved may well be the defining novel of slavery in America, the one that all others will be measured by. --Alix Wilber ... Read more

Reviews (557)

Best Audio in my Library
i "read" the audio version of Beloved, performed by Lynn Whitfield. Having a long history with audio books, i can honestly say this was one of my favorite performances. It's so frustrating to take the time to choose an audio book and pay almost $40 dollars for it, only to get in the car and find that you're stuck with the world's most obnoxious or unintelligible reader. And when your 12 hour drive is largely dependant on that book, it's downright maddening.
But thank goodness for Lynn Whitfield! Her reading is spot on without being either bland or overdramatic. i found myself stopping the tape to write down portions of the text (yes, while driving!), which is something i rarely if ever do while reading to myself. If you want to listen to a great book made better by a flawless reading, look no further.

Beloved: a thrilling novel with building up suspense
"Beloved" is full of unexpected, eccentric events that revolve around the black community and 124, a house haunted by the spirit of a spiteful baby. Throughout the novel, haunting memories of slavery's inhumanity torment the four main characters, Sethe, Paul D., Denver, and Beloved. The aftermath of slavery, as this suspenseful novel reveals, is extremely brutal and destructive to each character's life. As the story transit from past to present in an unordered pattern, the true desires and values of the characters are slowly unmasked.

This novel requires deep understanding and reflection upon each ideas and events. An excessive amount of symbolic and metaphoric images are included within this novel, causing the reader to think beyond the surface of logical meaning. The supernatural aspects of the story, such as Beloved being a reincarnation of the dead baby's spirit, push the limit of readers' ordinary understanding. Morrison's use of poetic, vivid, and intense words help to create the tone of fear, anguish, and admiration.

Love, slavery, and motherhood are joined in "Beloved" to create emotional inspiration. Set in the years following Civil War in rural Ohio, the destruction of relationships, motherly love, and self-identity is clarified to be caused by the brutality of slavery. Sethe, escaping from slavery, struggles to break free from the cruel memories of her past as an owned property. Despite her freedom, she has difficulties leaving behind her past including the child whom she had killed, physical and mental scars that she finds impossible to heal, and the stories of Paul D. and Sweet Home.

I believe that through this novel, Toni Morrison attempts to prevent the extreme sufferings of the slaves from being forgotten due to forced silence. I strongly recommend this passionate and deep novel to everyone, especially for those interested in mystery and suspense.

Pullitzer?Not quite...
This book certainly doesn't live up to expectations.I read this as a junior in high school, after already reading Morrison's The Bluest Eye.The Bluest Eye turned me off because of excessive sexual content that seemed gratuitous at times, and because it did not make a very powerful point.Beloved seems to follow a similar trend.The sexual content is again excessive and unnecessary at times.Very soon we get the point that slavery was dehumanizing and included a large amount of sexual abuse.Yet, Morrison feels the need to drive the point further, mentioning sex over and over again and going out of her way to make a sexual connection with almost every event.It's just not necessary!Furthermore, the entire concept of Beloved does not make a very valuable point.She returns as a memory of the infant Sethe killed to save from slavery.But as a memory, all she does is gnaw away at Sethe's consciousness, slowly siphoning off her resources, independence, and desire to live.Then, she disappears.She really doesn't accomplish anything or evoke any change in the characters.So what is the point?To let us know that slavery was horrendous?Clearly that doesn't warrant a 200 page novel chock full of symbolism and attempts at deep hidden meaning.Morrison's words are smooth-flowing, and her story is interesting, but in the end it's just a little too graphic and sexually explicit, and not enough substance. ... Read more

Isbn: 0452280621
Subjects:  1. African American women    2. Fiction    3. Fiction - Historical    4. Historical - General    5. Infanticide    6. Literary    7. Movie/Tv Tie-Ins    8. Ohio    9. Women slaves    10. Fiction / General   

Lonesome Dove : A Novel
by Larry McMurtry
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (17 October, 2000)
list price: $16.00 -- our price: $10.88
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Editorial Review

Larry McMurtry, in books like The Last Picture Show, has depicted the modern degeneration of the myth of the American West. The subject of Lonesome Dove, cowboys herding cattle on a great trail-drive, seems like the very stuff of that cliched myth, but McMurtry bravely tackles the task of creating meaningful literature out of it. At first the novel seems the kind of anti-mythic, anti-heroic story one might expect: the main protagonists are a drunken and inarticulate pair of former Texas Rangers turned horse rustlers. Yet when the trail begins, the story picks up an energy and a drive that makes heroes of these men. Their mission may be historically insignificant, or pointless--McMurtry is smart enough to address both possibilities--but there is an undoubted valor in their lives. The result is a historically aware, intelligent, romantic novel of the mythic west that won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. ... Read more

Reviews (293)

Yes, this book is as big as three books....
...But it's better than the last three books you've read.

This story feels 'full' not 'fat'.

Some stories are written with quick, bold brush strokes, rushing to a finale.

This story is painted across the full canvas of the american west, with a rich palette of characters and places. It's the difference between a glancing at a sketch and lingering at a painting at an art museum.

Larry McMurtry lays out a rich cast of characters and sub-plots, but they don't burden the plot, they strengthen it. I find myself wondering what each character will say in each new situation, and laughing as the response is so 'true' to their character.

Larry McMurtry has done a superb job of telling a story that feels like history. Powerful scenes stay in my mind.

Do yourself a favor... Take the time... read this book! Your grand kids will!!

Not Your Everyday Cattle Drive!!!
This book is set in the Old Wild West as many of the author's are. The reader is introduced to Captain Woodrow Call and his friend Gus Mc Crae who are both former Texas Rangers. The two of them leave the one horse town of Lonesome Dove and begin a cattle drive to Canada. Along the way they encounter various characters who are all very memorable particularly an educated Rancher by the name of Wilbarger who likes to read such Classics as Milton.There are over 300 characters in this book and Mr. McMurtry makes every one of them believable. It came as no great surprise to me that he won the Pulitzer Prize for this novel back in 1986. This book is a wondrous Epic of times past and Mr. McMurtry invokes the Spirit Of The Old West with a skilled hand. Thisbook is compulsive reading.

Overstays its welcome by about 200 pages
You won't find a better relationship in any book than Gus and Call, and it's these characters that carry the book through it's lulls and oddly placed Hollywood moments. I've seen this book described as 'magnificent' and for the most part it is, I just didn't enjoy any of the romance. Granted it doesn't get much more romantic than the idealistic cross-country cattle drive, and of course a love story belongs in an epic tale such as this, but I just found myself drifting off when the women began taking center stage. This book is at it's best when the testosterone kicks up and the men become men and the women become collateral. ... Read more

Isbn: 0684857529
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - Western    3. General    4. Literary    5. Westerns - General    6. Fiction / General   

The Blind Assassin : A Novel
by MARGARET ATWOOD
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (28 August, 2001)
list price: $14.95 -- our price: $10.17
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Editorial Review

The Blind Assassin is a tale of two sisters, one of whom diesunder ambiguous circumstances in the opening pages. The survivor, Iris Chase Griffen, initially seems a little cold-blooded about this death in the family. But as Margaret Atwood's most ambitious work unfolds--a tricky process, in fact, with several nested narratives and even an entire novel-within-a-novel--we're reminded of just how complicated the familial game of hide-and-seek can be:

What had she been thinking of as the car sailed off the bridge, then hung suspended in the afternoon sunlight, glinting like a dragonfly, for that one instant of held breath before the plummet? Of Alex, of Richard, of bad faith, of our father and his wreckage; of God, perhaps, and her fatal, triangular bargain.

Meanwhile, Atwood immediately launches into an excerpt from Laura Chase's novel, The Blind Assassin, posthumously published in 1947. In this double-decker concoction, a wealthy woman dabbles in blue-collar passion, even as her lover regales her with a series of science-fictional parables. Complicated? You bet. But the author puts all this variegation to good use, taking expert measure of our capacity for self-delusion and complicity, not to mention desolation. Almost everybody in her sprawling narrative manages to--or prefers to--overlook what's in plain sight. And memory isn't much of a salve either, as Iris points out: "Nothing is more difficult than to understand the dead, I've found; but nothing is more dangerous than to ignore them." Yet Atwood never succumbs to postmodern cynicism, or modish contempt for her characters. On the contrary, she's capable of great tenderness, and as we immerse ourselves in Iris's spliced-in memoir, it's clear that this buttoned-up socialite has been anything but blind to the chaos surrounding her. --Darya Silver ... Read more

Reviews (309)

A story of secrets and betrayals.
One thing I absolutely love about Margaret Atwood's novels are the elements of surprise in them. Just when you think you have the story figured out, another plot twist comes along and changes everything you thought you knew.

The Blind Assassin is no different. It's the story of two sisters, Iris and Laura, who are each other's best friends. After their Mother's death and Father's neglect, they take comfort in each other. Both feel responsible and bound to the other one. Just like most sisters, they have secrets they share with each other...and secrets they keep from each other. One secret will have devastating effects on both their lives. An excellent book, and one that will have you reading well into the night to see how things turn out.

Her Best!
The Blind Assassin was the first M. Atwood book I read.I liked the book so much I ran out and bought two of her earlier books (Alias Grace and The Robber Bride), neither of which I liked at all.Read this book if you want to read a great story with terrific writing.Not to be missed.

The Blind Assassin
The Blind Assassin opens with death, the young Laura Chase plunging off a bridge to her doom, which is ruled as an accident, but possibly a suicide. Her sister Iris discovers a collection of notebooks in her possession, notebooks that Laura had left specifically for her to find. Inside these notebooks is, among other things, a novel. Posthumously published, it creates a strong reputation for the deceased woman, critics considering it a tragedy of letters that Chase died so young.

From here, we wander through several chapters of Laura's novel, interspersed with excerpts from newspapers cataloguing other family member's deaths. Laura's novel concerns two young lovers, doing what young lovers do, but between that, the man - nameless for a very long time, an author of pulpy science fiction, and a clear, obvious story-link 'enigma' hook - tells the woman - also nameless - a story about the people of Zycron, a fictional planet. He outlines the customs, beliefs, habits, inserting the details she wants - zombified women, for one - and embellishing upon his own ideas. The story is much, much more interesting than the relationship between the two people, which is hardly understandable. It deals with a blind assassin and a mute young girl, the assassin sent to kill the girl, the girl sentenced to death in a grisly annual ritual to appease the many Gods of Zycron. This fantasy/science fiction blend is quite interesting, and is told through the voice of the male lover, which works to great effect. Rather than slogging through pointless side-story exposition, he and the woman banter, joke, discuss the particulars of the story, enjoying the creating as much as the creation.

Most of the novel is Iris' autobiography, and at the time of narration, she is an old woman. 'The temptation is to stay inside; to subside into the kind of recluse whom neighbourhood children regard with derision and a little awe; to let the hedges and the weeds grow up, to allow the doors to rust shut, to lie on my bed in some gown-shaped garment and let my hair lengthen and spread out over the pillow and my fingernails to sprout into claws, while candle wax drips onto the carpet.' She feels helpless, tired and useless, or thoughtful and curious and, in many ways, jealous of her dead sister whose memory taints everything in her life. Far from being Iris, she is Laura's sister, a title which chaffs, even at eighty years old. She is a bitter old woman, bitter and alone, which can sometimes be annoying to read - twenty pages of anger directed at the world is quite tiresome to read - but for the most part is enjoyable, the language 'historical' in a sense, and sad.

Unfortunately, the next 80 pages or so are wasted on a history of Iris's family, from her grandfather
down. This is an interesting section, it is true, but after the intriguing opening, it feels like a robbery. Why would I care about such things when my appetite for the fictional story of Laura has been growing? Perhaps if this section was placed later, or earlier, it would have been more warmly received, but as it is, the insertion seems a mistake.

We are then taken through the particulars of Iris' life, and the reason for the preceding history becomes clear. Clear, but still not appreciated. It is a shame that, with such an interesting opening, we are then forced to ignore and forget about it while a hundred, two hundred pages of family history go by. Happily, this sensation leaves us two hundred or so pages in, as the 'Blind Assassin' chapters come back with great regularity. If this had been kept up for the entirety of the novel, perhaps the problem of the Chase family history would not have existed.

The novel is filled with trite little one-liners to keep us reading, keep us guessing. A shame, because Atwood's writing and plotting is perfectly functional without this. Why do I need to read lines like, 'Aimee's death was not my fault', or 'Compared to where he might be, it's a palace'. The answer is: I don't. And yet there they are, right in the text. It's unfortunate that she felt it was necessary to insert these meaningless foreshadows. As a literary technique, foreshadowing is fantastic, and she uses it often in subtle and clever ways. But keep-me-guessing lines such as these are simply not good enough, and were probably the biggest disappointment of the novel.

But the writing is, for the most part, simply enjoyable to read. Who could not appreciate this: 'We pass a few more franchises - smiling chickens offering platters of their own fried body parts, a grinning Mexican wielding tacos.', or . But then there are less pleasant lines such as: Did I snore? ...I couldn't bring myself to ask. In case you're wondering, vanity never ends.' I hadn't asked; I don't care. But then a passage like this comes along: 'Why is a honeymoon called that? Lune de miel, moon of honey - as if the moon itself is not a cold and airless and barren sphere of pockmarked rock, but soft, golden, luscious - a luminous candied plum, the yellow kind, melting in the mouth and sticky as desire, so achingly sweet it makes your teeth hurt.', and Atwood is well and truly forgiven.

The novels moves along, chronicling Iris' life. It is unfortunate that the young Iris is presented as so vapid, so unaware so - stupid. Thankfully, the older Iris realises this, it is something for which she is quite apologetic and sad. She never fully understood the implications other people had on her life, or the lives of her sister and father. By the time she did, it was far too late. The older Iris is bitter and sad, but she never really descends into angst or insincere emotion - there are times when she chides herself for being melodramatic. This is an interesting way of presenting the story, because frankly, I had no sympathy for the young Iris - whatever happened to her was her own fault, and as the pampered, never-worked-a-day-in-her-life lazy wife of a rich man, the reasons for being 'on her side' are few - but the older Iris is very sympathetic, a sad, sorry woman who demands - and deserves - respect and caring. ... Read more

Isbn: 0385720955
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - General    3. Literary    4. Fiction / Literary    5. Reading Group Guide   

Song for the Blue Ocean: Encounters Along the World's Coasts and Beneath the Seas
by Carl Safina
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 July, 1999)
list price: $17.00 -- our price: $11.90
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Editorial Review

The oceans of the world rank foremost among humankind's last great frontiers, and their climatological and ecological workings remain mysterious to all but specialists. In this lively, well-written survey, marine scientist Carl Safina encourages readers to take a wider interest in the oceans, especially because so much of that great blue expanse is now threatened by human progress. Safina notes, for example, that the North Atlantic's tuna population has fallen by more than 90 percent in just the last few decades. It has gone the way of cod and herring and pilot whales thanks to a combination of changing global temperatures, overfishing, pollution, inland watershed and delta destruction, and other causes--many of them attributable to human activities. Even now, he notes, many Pacific fishing fleets use cyanide to catch fish, a process that destroys sensitive marine ecosystems. Safina's tour of the world's waters may inspire readers to press for changes in the way that fish is brought to their tables, and to take a more careful look at the natural processes that govern this watery planet. ... Read more

Reviews (29)

Absolute poetry
I'm only about halfway through this book, but it's so moving that I decided I needed to rave now.Carl Safina uses an amazing grasp of language to paint mental pictures of what he writes about.I work in the scientific community and have spent a lot of time on that water, and his writings are not only objective and scientifically sound, he constructs them in such a way that they are beautiful.You will have a thirst for each topic and region of which he writes.I borrowed this book from the library and had vowed to buy it before I'd finished the first chapter.It has only improved as I've proceeded.

Beauty beyond compare
This is one of the most beautiful, powerful books I have ever read.Safina's journey encompasses the entire world and all points of view.His words have inspired me to pursue my dreams and opened up new worlds of knowledge.Now, every time I hear of politicians doing something stupid to the oceans or rivers, I just shake my head and say "'Song' should be required reading for them before they can draft a piece of legislation dealing with the oceans."

McPhee on Red Bull
This book would be twice as good if it were half as long. Evidently the only editors were fawning friends of the author, who must have felt that every observation, no matter how offhand or trivial, needed to be included in the bloated text. This is too bad, because he is a decent writer, knows and cares about fish and fisheries, and the story is compelling. Imagine John McPhee full of Red Bull and vodka and you get the idea.
Also, a book that uses the silly word "waitron" without irony, and "heregia" twice in a hundred pages can be a little precious. ... Read more

Isbn: 0805061223
Subjects:  1. Environmental Studies    2. Essays    3. Fishery conservation    4. General    5. Marine ecology    6. Marine resources conservation    7. Nature    8. Nature/Ecology    9. Oceans & Seas    10. Wildlife   

Close to Shore: A True Story of Terror in an Age of Innocence
by Michael Capuzzo
Average Customer Review:
Hardcover (08 May, 2001)
list price: $24.95
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Editorial Review

Michael Capuzzo tells the harrowing story of the real-life Jaws that helped inspire Peter Benchley's classic novel (and movie). Modern science now tells us that shark attacks are exceedingly rare and limited to just a fewspecies. Yet they do occur, and one of the most terrifying episodes of fatal attacks occurred near the New Jersey shore in 1916, when a renegade greatwhite shark went on a man-eating spree that left three adults and one boydead. Capuzzo likens the shark's abnormal behavior to that of a person "who goes off the deep end and starts shooting." Whatever its motives, the shark captivated the public's imagination along the Eastern seaboard, devastated the resort economy, and even drew the attention of President Woodrow Wilson.

Close to Shore is a bit slow to get going and could have been a much shorter book. There is a fair amount of stage setting, and the first shark attack doesn't occur until about one-third of the way through the narrative. ButCapuzzo does much with limited source material and includeslots of interesting asides on everything from the lore of sea monsters to the bathing-suit fashions of the day to nearly everything scienceknows about great whites, which, it turns out, is surprisingly little.

Alternating from the victims' perspectives to the shark's, Capuzzo's descriptions of the attacks are a blend of horrors and thrills: "Charles Bruder felt a slight vacuum tug in the motion of the sea, noted it as a passing current, the pull of a wave, the tickle of undertow. He could not have heard the faint, sucking rush of water not far beneath him. He couldn't have seen or heard what was hurtling from the murk at astonishing speed, jaws unhinging, widening, for the enormous first bite. It was the classic attack that no other creature in nature could make--a bomb from the depths."If this book were on any other subject, it would make for good beach reading. --John J. Miller ... Read more

Reviews (104)

Fun story - slice of life and shark biology
Close to Shore is an entertaining story of the New Jersey shark attacks in July of 1916.I really didn't know what to expect out of this book, but I was pleasantly surprised.Capuzzo gives us a nice slice of life - what people were doing and thinking about in 1916.He also gives us quite a few details on sharks - specifically the great White Shark.I didn't realize I was so ignorant about sharks until I learned so much about them.I will be much better prepared the next time I meet a shark. :)The only complaint I have about the book is that Capuzzo is a little wordy - too many adjectives can slow a book down.I appreciated the descriptions, but sometimes enough is enough.Overall though, I would recommend for anyone looking for a good book.

Review of Audiocassette
The audiocassette version of Close to Shore is a moody diversion that build in intensity.The shark attacks of 1916 could be descirbied as an anomaly, but they terrified the entire East Coast.Capuzzo was able to capture that fear by providing an excellent glimpse into life in America before its involvement in World War I.The audiocassette conveys the turmoil of how people's perceptions of safety and dominance were shattered by a rogue shark.Why the shark did what it did is still a mystery, but Capuzzo does provide some excellent background on marine life to put the shark in its proper context.

Starts slow; builds interest
This is a book that starts very slowly. The subject is a series of shark attacks of the coast of New Jersey that killed four men and injured several others, which *might* have been committed by the same, rogue shark. The author seems to believe this, and recounts the book as if it's so. The principle problem is that there's little evidence of what happened, beyond the immediacy of the attacks themselves, and the author spends considerable time with the backstory, working in everything from the function of a Victorian drawing room to women's roles in the household in the era, bathing costumes that were perhaps to racy to be beach-legal, and the mythology surrounding sea monsters. This fills the first third of the book, until someone gets eaten by a shark, and then the action picks up and the book gains some momentum.

The interest that the book holds is in the idea that a shark could become the killer that the people at the time thought it was. If the author's theory is true (and it does seem plausible) the same shark attacked several people, and then, driven by hunger, swam up a creek in New Jersey and killed a pair of people17 miles from seawater. This behavior is really unusual for sharks, but the author says that shark experts he talked to think it plausible, and it makes for a good story. The book does sort of taper off at the end, because (as you might expect) the shark's fate is something of a mystery.

I enjoyed this book pretty well, though as I said, it took some time to get going. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the subject, and those who read slice-of-life books recounting eras of the past. ... Read more

Isbn: 0767904133
Subjects:  1. Animal attacks    2. Biography & Autobiography    3. Biography/Autobiography    4. History    5. History - General History    6. Literary    7. Marine Life    8. New Jersey    9. Shark attacks    10. Sharks    11. United States - State & Local - General    12. Nature / General   

Cat's Eye
by Margaret Atwood
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (20 January, 1998)
list price: $13.95 -- our price: $10.46
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Reviews (99)

Life Drawing
Margaret Atwood's "Cat's Eye" is a fascinating and immensely detailed work that deals with the interaction between adulthood and childhood, as well as the relationship between art, artists, and interpretation. The symbolic connections within the book are staggering, and unless it is read within a fairly short period, the reader is likely to forget some of the important symbols and miss key insights into Elaine's relationship with her childhood foil Cordelia.

That said, this book is not without flaws. Like Ondaatje, Atwood suffers from a serious case of smug narrator syndrome. At times, I felt the urge to groan aloud at the sheer corniness of Elaine's musings, especially in the frame narrative of 1980s Toronto. However, Atwood's rendering of the protagonist's childhood traumas are captivating, and wonderfully excruciating to read. Nine-year-old girls have never seemed so insanely cruel, and the effect of this treatment on Elaine's adult life, as well as her art, is perfectly captured. Navigating art, feminism, psychology, aging, and memory, Atwood creates a kind of fractured bildungsroman in which lessons are forgotten and memories suppressed, only to resurface in the ambiguous medium of Elaine's painting.

In terms of criticisms, I would agree with other reviewers that after Elaine's childhood, the narrative loses some steam. While the events of her later life are important to an understanding of Elaine's situation in the frame narrative, there is a sense that the events that allow us to fully understand Elaine as a character occur about mid-book. After that, things begin to drag a bit. Furthermore, the clichéd narrative voice often gets in the way of connecting and identifying with the protagonist. However, it is interesting to see how the events and symbols of the narrator's childhood resurface in a complex web connecting the past and present.

Overall, I would recommend this book, but with a warning to those who already have a bias against Atwood's style. If you give it a chance, I'm sure you'll enjoy it. But, if you already dislike Atwood, this book will not change your mind.

so true...
I am a seventeen year old girl and this book really struck a chord within me. The things that the girls did to Elaine sent a chill down my spine but they didn't shock me. At all. I had friends much like Elaine's and I wouldn't be surprised if I had once been a friend like that.
The novel was well written and the first half of it had me entranced but as the novel continued on, I felt as though Atwood had grown bored with the plot. I forced myself to finish the book just because I had read two of her other novels (The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake) and loved them.

Masterful writing, as usual!
Cat's Eye deals with the unconfortable subjet of childhood bullying, and the psychological wounds that it inflicts on later stages of life. The novel's main character Elaine, is a conflicted and insecure painter whose friendship with Cordelia has marked her through childhood, adolescense and adulthood. Atwood explores complex childhood issues like the difference between boys' and girls' play and the effects of having a brother, and of course, the bullying itself. This part of the novel is extremely interesting, and the writing of course, sublime. Later on we see how Elaine grows, and we see how underneath the sharp-witted girl there is the childhood angst, still there.

What can I say about the writing? Beautiful, poetic, sharp, Atwood proves once again she is the master of imagery. Another gem is the description of Elaine's paintings, with great symbolism. Highly recommended! ... Read more

Isbn: 0385491026
Sales Rank: 29578
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - General    3. General    4. Fiction / General    5. Reading Group Guide   

Riven Rock
by T. Coraghessan Boyle, T.C. Boyle
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 January, 1999)
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Editorial Review

In 1905, Stanley McCormick, heir to East Coast millions, is most definitelymad. Heredity and an early, horrifying glimpse of his naked sister have rendered himschizophrenic, incapable of being around women--right down to his wife, Katherine,"a newlywed who might as well have been a widow." Not even the dawn ofmodern psychiatry can save him. Instead, he's barred and carefully cosseted in RivenRock, the California estate he helped design for his sister, the first of the McCormicks tocrack. Will the 31-year-old patient be cured? His wife, the first female graduate of MIT,believes that he will. So, too, does his loyal head nurse, Eddie O'Kane, a preternaturallyarticulate, handsome Boston Irishman. Indeed, Eddie thinks himself blessed with goodluck. Going to Montecito to care for Mr. McCormick will, he is convinced, enable him totake center stage in the drama of his own life.

Over the next 20 years, Stanley will go from catatonia to a semblance of normality (solong as there's no woman in sight and no sharp cutlery on the table). Eddie, however, willnever play the leading role he'd envisioned, instead taking refuge in alcohol andrecollections of the one woman he thinks he has let get away, the plainspoken, explosiveGiovannella Dimucci. When Eddie first describes his patient's violent response towomen, "he wondered if he'd gone too far, if he'd shocked her, but the maskdissolved and she leaned in close, her hand on his elbow. 'Sounds like the average man tome.'" As for Katherine McCormick, she will still visit every Christmas, hoping to atleast see her husband if she can't see him get better.

Based on a true story, Riven Rock is unclassifiable, a discomforting and oftenhilarious mix of tragedy and comedy. (Only Orson Welles could do thebook justice on film.) T. C. Boyle writes in a controlled frenzy of rich description anddialogue, pulling us up sharply each time we begin to wonder if his patient isn't a helplessvictim. Eddie recalls one nurse before Stanley "got to her": "She was ashadow in a back corner of his mind, a cat you pick up to stroke and then put down againwhen it stops purring.... Now she was back in Rhode Island, with her mother, but the lookof her that day, the way her eyes had melted away to nothing and the color had gone outof her so you could see every lash and hair on her head like brushstrokes in oil, came tohim in infinite sadness."

Boyle has great empathy, but there is no avoiding his novel's comic energy. Stanley's firstpsychiatrist-jailer, Dr. Hamilton, is obsessed with primate sexuality and will go to RivenRock only if Katherine funds a large living laboratory. He spends all of his time watchingthe imprisoned creatures copulate, a pathetic counterpoint to his patient's plight. The sightof the disheveled doctor following one animal encounter amuses even the suspiciousKatherine. "To his credit, the doctor laughed too. And O'Kane, the bruiser, who'dgone absolutely pale at the tiny hominoids that couldn't have weighed a twentieth of whathe did, joined in, albeit belatedly and with a laugh that trailed off into a whinny."Alas, all goes awry when Hamilton takes the joke too far and declares his chimps"the very devils--they're even worse than my patients." Riven Rock isa maximum-velocity study of love, primal energy, and what is sacrosanct in society:control. It is also about loyalty, absurdity, domesticity, and depravity, all of which, Boyleknows, coexist within the best of souls. ... Read more

Reviews (39)

absolutely worth a read.
My favorite part is the theme of being thwarted. Incrementally, and not perpetually, and frequently from within -- within yourself, your marriage, your family. Hope and frustration grappling back and forth, neither giving way for long.

It was a fascinating read and I devoured the book. I liked the descriptions, I liked the intermeshed characters, and I really, really liked the narrative structure that passes back and forth between past and present very skillfully. That said, while reading it was deeply satisfying, thinking back, there's something I just can't put my thumb on, something inside the book that feels... well, thwarted.

Skillful writing, but somewhat overdone
T.C. Boyle is one of our most talented modern day writers, and that ability is clearly demonstrated in "Riven Rock," a story, loosely based on true events which occurred in the beginning of the 20th century (and spans roughly 30 years), about Stanley McCormick, the son of the immensely rich inventor of the reaper, and his confinement due to mental illness to a house located in California, named "Riven Rock" by a younger saner Stanley.Stanley, who also has an insane sister, marries the beautiful brilliant Katherine Dexter, who maintains her loyalty and (perhaps) fidelity to the bitter end.During Stanley's confinement, his "treatment" is administered by various nationally renowned psychiatrists, who employ various techniques, usually influenced by Freud and other psychoanalysts, all with disappointing results.From the point of view of modern medicine, it is easy to see that Stanley is really well beyond any help that these doctors can provide, and may not have been significantly improved even by modern-day psychotropic drugs, for the main and simple reason that Stanley is nuts, really really nuts.

Interestingly, the character that receives more of Boyle's attention than any other is O'Kane, Stanley's chief nurse, who is a womanizer, adulterer, and functioning alcoholic.Largely through O'Kane's eyes, the reader sees the different doctors come and go, and the progress (or lack of it) that Stanley makes under their respective care.Additionally, in alternating chapters, Boyle covers the period of Stanley's courtship of Katherine, the period of their engagement, and their honeymoon and early marriage.While at first, one thinks of Katherine as admirable in her dedication towards her huband's mental well-being, I for one, eventually came to the conclusion that her sticking with Stanley, in an obviously hopeless situation, revealed an obsessive-compulsive disorder on her part.You feel like shaking her and telling her to wake up and smell the coffee.

There is no doubt that T.C. Boyle is an extraordinarily talented writer.His abilities to use metaphor, turn a phrase, and integrate rare words never seen anywhere else, are truly unique and remarkable.I just think "Riven Rock" is too long, and Boyle, sometimes, is simply just showing off his skills.We understand, this guy is totally off his rocker -- so why do we need example after example of his bizarre behavior?In any event, I do recommend "Riven Rock," but wish Boyle (or his editor) had tightened it up a bit.

Well, WE loved it
RIVEN ROCK is not like anything you've ever read, but I'll attempt to relate it to something for the purposes of getting the point across. This book was a strange one. I couldn't help but think of Katherine Dunn as I was making my way through it. Although Boyle's theatrical restraint is much more developed than Ms. Dunn's. Its story of Stanley McCormick slowly going bananas isn't really all there is to it. He contrasts the themes of loyalty and infidelity, both taken to the extreme. I waited for a resolution or for a didactic ending, but it never came. I enjoyed this book. Great writing, great themes, and great execution, just like the writing of Jackson McCrae. Also would highly recommend McCrae's CHILDREN'S CORNER or the new collection by Munro titled RUNAWAY. ... Read more

Isbn: 014027166X
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - Historical    3. Historical - General    4. General & Literary Fiction    5. Reading Group Guide