The Untouchables
by Elliott Ness, Oscar Fraley
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Hardcover (01 December, 1993)
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Reviews (10)

"BEYOND BRIBERY OR BULLETS"-Oscar Fraley
"One thing was certain: someone had declared open season on Elliot Ness, and it was a damned uncomfortable feeling."-Elliot Ness

The sale or consumption of alcohol was not really the problem.The Sicilian mafia landed on American shores sometime around 1899.One of their most notorious progeny was "Scarface" Al Capone with whom Elliot Ness did battle from 1929-1931.Elliot Ness had nearly finished this true story before he died of a heart attack at age 54 in 1957.This book is not a biography of Ness's life, just an account of the two and one half years during which time he and his ten or so hand-picked federal men finally succeeded in stopping Capone in his murderous tracks.The story is mostly about raid after countless raid of breweries by Ness's "untouchables" in the Chicago area during Prohibition and the Depression years.While millions of Americans were starving, shoeless and jobless, Capone and Co. were living the high life and living it as if they were above the law itself.Or so they thought...

Ness chose his men carefully like Gideon in Judges 7; they had to be beyond reproach, content to live on a $2800/year salary and strong enough to resist the temptation of Capone's thugs constantly flaunting thousand dollar bills and diamond-studded fat, fleshy fingers under their noses.Money is powerful in its effects, yet more powerful were those like Ness and co. who, under the law were content to live by it, and who with the law put a lot of rotten, murderous apples behind federal bars.The chief problem with Capone was not just flat out lawlessness or the profligacy his rackets engendered, but corruption which had seeped into all areas of the judicial system, police force, federal agents, judges, lawyers, and other court officials; Capone had lots of money to throw around from the profits of his liquor selling illegal enterprise, and because he never somehow had to pay income taxes.That was the reason why Ness was so careful in selecting his men and also the main reason for their success in finally undoing Capone's vast network of criminals.Once, one of his men working undercover took money from one of Capone's gang, and admitted it to Ness.Ness told him to find the same man and give him back the exact dollar amount he had been given.

Elliot Ness was the coolest fed that ever lived (in my opinion).One had to be tough dealing with the mafia; they stopped at nothing to preserve their domineering hold in their cities.I think that just because Ness did not suffer physical harm from Capone and co. may lead some to think that Capone was not so bad, Ness's life was not so threatened.However, I think it just proves that he really had his wits about him and was sober to every aspect of the circumstances surrounding himself and his men; the threat and evidences of the mafia's revenge such as bullets in their enemies' heads and body parts mutilated is evidence enough to me that Elliot Ness and his "untouchables" were in a deadly battle dealing with the Mafia.Capone had hired Tony Napoli to kill him, read the book and you'll find out how Ness survived.

Exodus 23:8 And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the discerning and perverts the words of the righteous.

Don't Waste Your Time.....
So much credit and legitimacy has been lauded this tale over the years that it has tended to be taken as truth.....and no further from the truth could it be. It was written very close to the end of Eliot Ness's life when he was little more than a boozy has-been who would "weave" his tales for anyone who would listen. Usually this was done in some tavern where Ness would corner some sucker for the free drinks that went with his storytelling. A writer by the name of Oscar Fraley saw the chance of big bucks and sure success by putting some of this into print and there you have the reason for this rag to even exist. The TRUE story of Al Capone and the Chicago mob of the prohibition era is MUCH better reading than this tale form some drunk's bleary imagination. Do yourself a favor.....get ahold of and READ the Capone biography by John Kobler. You will get the TRUE story of Capone's rise and fall(which has much more to do with the IRS than with Elliot Ness)and none of the "bologna" that makes up this tall tale. The true story is plenty TALL itself.

The right man for the time
This book is one of the few accounts we have of the '20s gangster era.The book recounts Eliot Ness's experiences as the leader of a team of nine men who were assigned the job of cutting off Al Capone's main sourse of income-illgeal booze.Ness and his team were part of a two pronged attact to get Capone.While agent Frank Wilson gathered evidence to convict Capone of tax evaison, Ness and his team raided stills and breweries that provided Capone with income to bribe police and newsmen.The book recounts the selection of the team and their early failures and successes.When Ness made a raid he often informed the media to show that some lawmen were honest and as a result he has been called a glory hound.The book tells of their many raids and some insight on the Chicago mob. The book has been accused of exaggerating but much in the book has be varified and Ness WAS celebrated as a hero in the New York Times when Capone was convicted.Ness died before this book was published and is not responsible for the Eliot Ness legend.When we needed lawmen to set the example Ness did the job he was called to do, and moved on. ... Read more

Isbn: 1568491980
Sales Rank: 350819
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - General    3. General    4. Mystery & Detective - General   

The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Paperback (01 June, 1995)
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Editorial Review

In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings."Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--"Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.

It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem. ... Read more

Reviews (931)

Teenager's Review
Now, at the age of 15, I am reading this book, The Great Gatsby. I was not forced into reading this novel, but coaxed into reading it by my older sister. After the completion of the book it took a few days of pondering before I could make a clear knowledge of it's contents. I enjoyed reading it, staying up until three or four o' clock in the morning on schoolnights just to find out what happens. I am proud to say that this is one of my top ten favorite books which also includes:
THE SCARLET LETTER
THE ILIAD
BEOWULF
GRENDAL
THE ODDYSSY
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCK FINN
THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER
MACBETH
KING LEAR

Count your lucky stars
Gadzooks! This is one fine little book.No, it's not long, but the tale is tight and well told and quite unlike anything else in American literature.Only a few books come to mind with regards to the "knock me out" kind.McCrae's "Children's Corner" is one such book, as is Steinbeck's "East of Eden."Other than that, there aren't a great deal.But "Gatsby" is at the top of the heap and probably will be for the next hundred years.There have been two movies made of this book (that I know of), and both are excellent.Don't be put off if you HAD to read this in school.Try it out again as it really IS a classic.

A rich story
"The Great Gatsby" is one of the most exquisite books I have ever read to date that deals with most if not all aspects of love and the challenges of life. There is so much to learn especially for us in this modern world where so many people use the word "love" without really knowing what it truly means. The author is so descriptive that I sometimes felt as if I was in the story. He made it easy for readers to penetrate the souls of the characters and relate to their lives.

The character development is prodigious, while prose is outstanding. I felt as much for Gatsby as I have for any other character. He had always had high aspirations, but his dreams were taken away from him by the fact the he had to fight a war, and he could never be the same again. Gatsby's ambition is to have his former love, who is now married to an unfaithful husband, a quest that saw outstanding twist and turns in the story to make it the great read we have heard so much about. This book is truly inspirational for everyone irrespective of race, gender, age or occupation.Recommended stories are DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, THE USURPER AND OTHERS, THE SCARLET LETTER, WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, in the sense that they go to add to this rich theme. ... Read more

Isbn: 0684801523
Subjects:  1. Classics    2. Fiction    3. First loves    4. General    5. Literary    6. Literature - Classics / Criticism    7. Long Island (N.Y.)    8. Rich people    9. Traffic accidents    10. Fiction / General   

TENDER IS THE NIGHT
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Paperback (01 July, 1995)
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Editorial Review

In the wake of World War I, a community of expatriate American writers established itself in the salons and cafes of 1920s Paris. They congregated at Gertrude Stein's select soirees, drank too much, married none too wisely, and wrote volumes--about the war, about the Jazz Age, and often about each other. F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, were part of this gang of literary Young Turks, and it was while living in France that Fitzgerald began writing Tender Is the Night. Begun in 1925, the novel was not actually published until 1934. By then, Fitzgerald was back in the States and his marriage was on the rocks, destroyed by Zelda's mental illness and alcoholism. Despite the modernist mandate to keep authors and their creations strictly segregated, it's difficult not to look for parallels between Fitzgerald's private life and the lives of his characters,psychiatrist Dick Diver and his former patient turned wife, Nicole. Certainlythe hospital in Switzerland where Zelda was committed in 1929 provided theinspiration for the clinic where Diver meets, treats, and then marries thewealthy Nicole Warren. And Fitzgerald drew both the European locale and many ofthe characters from places and people he knew from abroad.

In the novel, Dick is eventually ruined--professionally, emotionally, and spiritually--by his union with Nicole. Fitzgerald's fate was not quite so novelistically neat: after Zelda was diagnosed as a schizophrenic and committed, Fitzgerald went to work as a Hollywood screenwriter in 1937 to pay her hospital bills. He died three years later--not melodramatically, like poor Jay Gatsby in his swimming pool, but prosaically, while eating a chocolate bar and reading a newspaper. Of all his novels, Tender Is the Night is arguably the one closest to his heart. As he himself wrote, "Gatsby was a tour de force, but this is a confession offaith." ... Read more

Reviews (103)

An American Classic
Sometimes a writer doesn't just capture a place in time, but manages to capture that place for all times. F. Scott Fitzgerald is THE quintessential chronicler of the roaring twenties. Like 'The Great Gatsby', 'Tender is the Night' is about tragedy at the heart of the American dream. The novel delves into his rocky marriage, both of their affairs, the ongoing mental illness of his wife along with his own alcoholism. This semi-autobiographical novel is an intimate portrait of the peak of both of their lives together and what comes after it. His style of writing is so complex yet easy to follow and conveys feelings and emotions with a truly subtle perfection. Some author's voices continue to endure and this book is more proof positive as to why Fitzgerald's does....

matters of opinion and personal taste
If you are considering reading a number of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novels I would highly recommend the chronological approach, so that you can see his style develop from his graduation from Princeton to his untimely death.
Scott published little that is not deserving of 5 stars...such titles as This Side of Paradise, A Diamond as Big as the Ritz, Winter Dreams, The Great Gatsby, etc, etc, etc, and of course Tender is the Night...what a fine piece of work!Whether you prefer one of Fitz's novels, novellas, or short stories to others, I think, is a matter of time and place... For each person who truly makes the effortless effort to enjoy the man's writing, you will find a love of letters and a brooding look at lives of the young from a time not unlike this one.
Tender is great stuff! Read it!I personally have never been exstatic about Gatsby, it is unfortunately over analyzed in high school classes thus cheapening it...those less often raped by stupid teachers such as TITN are more interesting to read and think about.

pretty disjointed
Notwithstanding the outstanding quality of Fitzgerald's other novels, this one is definitely not a must read. The plot drags along wearily at places, settings and places are not always well captured (Fitzgerald's sketch of the Riviera life does not really convince me), characters are weakly drawn, undecisive, some caricatures. The life of the main protagonists of the story does not offer enough interest in order to keep the reader interested in them for such a long novel. Except maybe you are specifically interested in psychiatrist maladies. It is neither a tragedy nor a humorous book nor just a tantalizing story, but an unsuccessful mixture of all three. Read The Great Gatsby to get the best of Fitzgerald. The book spent three years on my shelf after being bought and having read the first 30 something pages, and justly so. ... Read more

Isbn: 068480154X
Subjects:  1. Classics    2. Fiction    3. Literary    4. Literature - Classics / Criticism    5. Moral and ethical aspects    6. Psychiatrists    7. Riviera (France)    8. Wealth    9. Fiction / General   

Fahrenheit 451
by Ray Bradbury
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Paperback (12 August, 1987)
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In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."

Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television "family," imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbor Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.

Bradbury--the author of more than 500 short stories, novels, plays, and poems, including The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man--is the winner of many awards, including the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. Readers ages 13 to 93 will be swept up in the harrowing suspense of Fahrenheit 451, and no doubt will join the hordes of Bradbury fans worldwide. --Neil Roseman ... Read more

Reviews (1062)

My Favorite Amazon.com Pick this year!
This book is extremely entertaining, I couldn't put it down. It basically starts with a man in a dystopian society where the firemen don't put out fires, they start them. They are ordered to do this by a tyrannical ruler who does not want the masses to read, so he may control the country without anybody starting a revolt against him. This fireman is happy with his job, he loves to watch the flames burn the books, he knows nothing better. His life is fine until one day he meets the young woman and she makes him understand what life is all about. The adventure starts when he goes against mainstream society and instead of burning the books he reads them. I will not ruin the rest of the book for you but will only say that he faces many difficulties as a result of his choice to challenge the established order. READ THIS BOOK!

Also recommended: The Losers' Club by Richard Perez (Complete Restored Edition)

Fahrenheit 451
Ages 14 and up. Fahrenheit 451 is a novel that takes you to a strange world were books are bad, and having them will result in a lose off your house. fireman in the future don't go out and put out fires, they go out and start them, there target, books. Character Montag becomes fond of books, and eventually starts taking book. As he continues his journey he meets many new characters that help him on his way. this book is an exciting look at a diffent fantacy future, it makes you wounder what the future might actually look like some day.This is one of the best novels that you should have for your collection at home.

Fiction is now fact...
Imagine this:

The world no longer reads. Instead, they sit around for hours and watch giant screens at home, viewing mind-numbing programming with no real intellectual value. Then, they get in the car and drive 90+ mph, not even for a second thinking about the danger that they put themselves in. People no longer care about anything really. They no longer think for themselves. They have no ideas that make them unique individuals.

Sound familiar? It can be honestly said that today, the TV has replaced reading as the number one mode of aquiring information for the majority of people in our nation. They have their minds filled overflowing with ideas that the program presents. And this is how people shape their worldview today. After all, all "normal" women look like Cindy Crawford or Halle Berry, right? All kids have sex before marriage, right? Everyone has to look like they do on TV, and be like the "normal" families portrayed on TV...right?

In the year 2004, the vast majority of what is seen on TV is absolute garbage. No? Well, OK. To each his own. If you think that watching a fashion model having needles pierced up and down her arm in order to win a challenge is perfectly fine to watch, then OK. If you think gay men running around an island butt naked is considered normal during the "family" hour, or having kids in a game show soaked with green slime, or someone having plastic surgery and cosmetic dentistry in order to win a beauty contest, or...

Thankfully, we don't have to worry about losing our First Amendment rights; there are enough watchdog groups around to ensure that our rights don't disappear. May God help us all if we ever did. The Bill of Rights ensures that in the corner of the world in which we live, we have the freedom to ignore the "idiot box" and read a good book, or newspaper, or magazine, or whatever we want to read without fear of arrest or intimidation.


In the "Fahrenheit 451" world, books are illegal. Since everyone got their dose of enlightenment from the big screen and didn't care about reading anymore, the government said, "Since no one reads anymore, why do we need books?" and promptly banned all of them. Those fortunate ones who manage to hang on to a few tomes for their enjoyment are paid a visit by the fire department.

The "firemen" in this story, unlike their real-world counterparts, start fires, instead of extinguish them. Kerosene shoots out of their hoses instead of water. The FD (with the number "451" on their uniforms, indicating the temperature in which paper burns) is dispatched to the "criminal's" home, and not only sets the books ablaze, but also the home in which they are hidden. After all, they have to set an example to the rest of the community that books are bad and if you are caught with them, your books and your home are toast...literally.

The central character in the book, named Montag, is one of these firemen. For years, he has done his job setting fires, and he does it well. But after a run-in with a girl who's a free thinker, and a professor who remembers the days when books were taken for granted, he begins to question why the firemen have to burn the books at all.

Though written over half a century ago, "Fahrenheit 451" is no longer considered science fiction. It is a glimpse of the future to come, and a warning of what the future could hold for us. ... Read more

Isbn: 0345342968
Subjects:  1. Books and reading    2. Classics    3. Fiction    4. Literature - Classics / Criticism    5. Science Fiction    6. Science Fiction - General    7. Short stories    8. Book burning    9. Censorship    10. Fiction / Science Fiction / General    11. Science fiction, American   

Sun Also Rises
by Ernest Hemingway
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 March, 1995)
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Editorial Review

The Sun Also Rises first appeared in 1926, and yet it's as fresh and clean and fine as it ever was, maybe finer. Hemingway's famously plain declarative sentences linger in the mind like poetry: "Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy's. She started all that." His cast of thirtysomething dissolute expatriates--Brett and her drunken fiancé, Mike Campbell, the unhappy Princeton Jewish boxer Robert Cohn, the sardonic novelist Bill Gorton--are as familiar as the "cool crowd" we all once knew. No wonder this quintessential lost-generation novel has inspired several generations of imitators, in style as well as lifestyle.

Jake Barnes, Hemingway's narrator with a mysterious war wound that has left him sexually incapable, is the heart and soul of the book. Brett, the beautiful, doomed English woman he adores, provides the glamour of natural chic and sexual unattainability. Alcohol and post-World War I anomie fuel the plot: weary of drinking and dancing in Paris cafés, the expatriate gang decamps for the Spanish town of Pamplona for the "wonderful nightmare" of a week-long fiesta. Brett, with fiancé and ex-lover Cohn in tow, breaks hearts all around until she falls, briefly, for the handsome teenage bullfighter Pedro Romero. "My God! he's a lovely boy," she tells Jake. "And how I would love to see him get into those clothes. He must use a shoe-horn."Whereupon the party disbands.

But what's most shocking about the book is its lean, adjective-free style. The Sun Also Rises is Hemingway's masterpiece--one of them, anyway--and no matter how many times you've read it or how you feel about the manners and morals of the characters, you won't be able to resist its spell. This is a classic that really does live up to its reputation. --David Laskin ... Read more

Reviews (386)

Not To Be Missed! - Experience It For Yourself!
The Sun Also Rises takes place after the cease of the First World War, where numerous survivors, combatants and non-combatants alike, battle their own demons each day to search for a meaning to their lives that has been shattered by the global conflict. The novel, being borne out of Hemingway's own personal experience, focuses on a group of expatriate individuals living in luxury and elegance in the city of Paris, where the first half of the novel takes place. Paris was a popular place for literary figures during the time, and as mentioned, several of the key characters in this novel are writers that are yet to be granted with global fame. The characters in this novel searches for their lost ideals, living in alcoholism and grandeur that the city of Paris has to offer, and while the Hemingway portrays his characters to do so, he uses the bullfight as a symbol of that moral struggle. The ability to confront your fears, to stand in the way of danger and NOT BREAK, is in direct contrast with the way he paints the lifestyles of his characters. Hemingway uses the perspective of Jake Barnes, the main protagonist, to present the action as it takes place first in the city of Paris, then in some quiet countryside where the novel takes a more "tranquil" turn, then in the city of Pamplona where the fiesta takes place, and lastly in Barcelona, where the novel ends.

Jake, who supports himself as a journalist, is madly in love with a promiscuous woman, Lady Brett Ashley, who is in turn engaged to Michael Campbell, one of Jake's companions during the fiesta. Unfortunately, Jake had been injured during the war that left him sexually incapacitated, which served as his scar that shall forever separate him from the woman he loves. Then there is Robert Cohn, who is also in love with Lady Ashley but somehow portrays himself as a guy who sort of "just won't get the message" that he is actually unwanted and that creates tension among the individuals even before the fiesta ever started. (Note: I don't know but somehow I get the feeling that Robert Cohn is actually a physical manifestation of Jake, who is in turn himself is still unable to get over himself and his feeling. But on the other hand, Jake reacts very much differently to Cohn and that somehow Lady Ashley still leans on Jake on some issues regarding her sorrows which she is not able to confess to any other person). And lastly, of the expatriate group, there is Bill Gorton who, a writer just like Cohn, is also Jake's best-friend and much preferred companion than anyone else. And there is also Pedro Romero, the young matador who appears much later in the book, who shall soon participate in a love affair with Lady Ashley and is also a person of great respectability, who faces his fears and struggles "without falsity", which plays an important aspect in his career in the bullfight as well as in the lives of the expatriate personalities, such as Jake and Lady Ashley.

Just like the way he wrote his more accomplished novels like A Farewell To Arms or For Whom The Bell Tolls, Hemingway's gift of writing has already been established right from the start. The Sun Also Rises being his first published novel, Hemingway wrote in laconic, yet crisp prose and his dialogue never ceases to generate tension and anxiety between his characters, making this short-length novel a fully pledged work of art.

One of the most significant aspects of this novel is maybe the part which is mostly overlooked, which is the part where Jake and Bill goes fishing before they proceed to Pamplona, where the Fiesta de San Fermin is to take place. That part, where Jake goes fishing, somewhat signifies the contentment that Jake has long been yearning for, which shall serve as the catalyst that soon make Jake a different person altogether after the fiesta. With the feeling he experienced during that brief period of time in the midst of a fast-paced novel, he shall soon grow to accept that "he shall never possess the woman he loves" and that universal acceptance is the way where he shall finally be able to attain peace and contentment. By the end of the novel, Lady Ashley learns that too, when she "made him [Pedro] go" and decided not to ruin the young man's life. She said she shall go back to Michael Campbell, to whom she says her "sort of thing", and Jake learns to deal with it. And although he once again tried to lean on alcoholism, Lady Ashley prevented him from doing so and soon in the final scene, they were able to overcome their struggles and live a more normal life.

Even though the book focuses merely on the expatriate community in Paris, its moral convictions could adapt to the lives of numerous people, even "normal" people like us. By way of accepting the truth and trying to move on, we are able to break free of the past and in turn be able to adapt to the present world. The Sun Also Rises tells us that everything has a beginning and so is an end, but the earth shall stay forever across generations and that we are but "actors on stages" in this great pattern, and that life is but an unalterable destiny that we should learn to live with. This is a deceptively simple, yet terrific book. Pick up a copy of this classic book! Another novel I need to recommend -- completely unrelated to Hemingway, but very much on my mind since I purchased a "used" copy off Amazon is "The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition" by Richard Perez, an odd, funny, highly entertaining little novel I can't stop thinking about -- about another "lost generation," this time set in the East Village, pre-9/11 New York City.

Different
Reading one of Hemmingway's first acclaimed novels, I felt the Sun Also Rises truly transported me to a different time and place.The simple narration was colourful and great, and the descriptions of the American and English friends frolicking through the cafes and restaurants left me stunk of wine, and merriment.Reading this book made my drunk just by all the booze they were consuming.

Nevertheless, I didn't feel this novel take off until they arrived in Spain.Brett is a character that is for sure, but everyone else seems relegated to supporting parts.I kind of was hoping the story would tell a litte bit more about them.

I did enjoy the book but only in places, and I also feel that the book seems a bit dated.But it's a good read no doubt. Yes I liked it.

Incredibly Overrated
I will never understand Ernest Hemingway's appeal.His labored attempts at understating everything, his affected grittiness, his belief in himself as adventurer and someone who truly experiences life all make me want to throw up.This book is the perfect example of how terrible he is. I'll give you some examples from within the book so you can think about it a little more.

Number one is Brett.The "heroine" of the book, she is a heartless 34-year old nymphomaniac who is self-absorbed and callous, not to mention elitist and stupid.The "hero" of the book, manly man Jake, "loves" her.What a great love story.Jake is too "injured" to make love to her, so she sleeps with a number of other people during the book. Number two is Cohn.This character, created out of the author's anti-semitic imagination, is a simpering bookish fool who, the narrator lets us know, is too cowardly to enjoy things like bullfights.Only a manly man would enjoy the spectacle of a matador being gored by a tortured animal, of course.

Cohn is apparently equally contemptable because he wants to hang out with gentiles (How DARE he?!), but Jake is magnanimous enough to let him.Brett is magnanimous enough to sleep with him, but looks down on him for being a Jew.(Lovely people, aren't they?).Hemingway wants us to revile Cohn because he took the affair with Brett too seriously and actually got jealous when she slept with someone else.We're supposed to laugh at Cohn's emotionality and inability to be a wasp.

I can't tell you how pointless this book is.What's the moral?Is there one?I don't think there is.If a book isn't engrossing, or exciting, or beautifully written (therefore art for art's sake) it has to have a message.This book fails on all counts. ... Read more

Isbn: 0684800713
Subjects:  1. Alfonso XIII, 1886-1931    2. Ashley, Brett (Fictitious char    3. Ashley, Brett (Fictitious character)    4. Classics    5. Expatriation    6. Fiction    7. History    8. Literary    9. Literature - Classics / Criticism    10. Literature: Classics    11. Spain    12. Fiction / Literary   

The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel
by Barbara Kingsolver
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 October, 1999)
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Editorial Review

Oprah Book Club® Selection, June 2000: As any reader of The Mosquito Coast knows, men who drag their families to far-off climes in pursuit of an Idea seldom come to any good, while those familiar with At Play in the Fields of the Lord or Kalimantaan understand that the minute a missionary sets foot on the fictional stage, all hell is about to break loose. So when Barbara Kingsolver sends missionary Nathan Price along with his wife and four daughters off to Africa in The Poisonwood Bible, you can be sure that salvation is the one thing they're not likely to find. The year is 1959 and the place is the Belgian Congo. Nathan, a Baptist preacher, has come to spread the Word in a remote village reachable only by airplane. To say that he and his family are woefully unprepared would be an understatement: "We came from Bethlehem, Georgia, bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle," says Leah, one of Nathan's daughters. But of course it isn't long before they discover that the tremendous humidity has rendered the mixes unusable, their clothes are unsuitable, and they'vearrived in the middle of political upheaval as the Congolese seek to wrest independence from Belgium. In addition to poisonous snakes, dangerous animals, and the hostility of the villagers to Nathan's fiery take-no-prisoners brand of Christianity, there are also rebels in the jungle and the threat of war in the air. Could things get any worse?

In fact they can and they do. The first part of The Poisonwood Bible revolves around Nathan's intransigent, bullying personality and his effect on both his family and the village they have come to. As political instability grows in the Congo, so does the local witch doctor's animus toward the Prices, and both seem to converge with tragic consequences about halfway through the novel. From that point on, the family is dispersed and the novel follows each member's fortune across a span of more than 30 years.

The Poisonwood Bible is arguably Barbara Kingsolver's most ambitious work, and it reveals both her great strengths and her weaknesses. As Nathan Price's wife and daughters tell their stories in alternating chapters, Kingsolver does a good job of differentiating the voices. But at times they can grate--teenage Rachel's tendency towards precious malapropisms is particularly annoying (students practice their "French congregations"; Nathan's refusal to take his family home is a "tapestry of justice"). More problematic is Kingsolver's tendency to wear her politics on her sleeve; this is particularly evident in the second half of the novel, in which she uses her characters as mouthpieces to explicate the complicated and tragic history of the Belgian Congo.

Despite these weaknesses, Kingsolver's fully realized, three-dimensional characters make The Poisonwood Bible compelling, especially in the first half, when Nathan Price is still at the center of the action. And in her treatment of Africa and the Africans she is at her best, exhibiting the acute perception, moral engagement, and lyrical prose that have made her previous novels so successful. --Alix Wilber ... Read more

Reviews (1279)

A healing look atlife's scars
This is a book about how life can be unfair, how people can be horribly biased in their views, how religion can be hokey (on many counts), and explores the reactions of those subjected to trauma in five very distinct voices.I admired Kingsolver's ability to lend a unique voice to each of the story's narrators: the wife and daughters of a self-righteous, horrid minister.The blights and scars the Congo imposes upon this family are healed in very individual ways, much like the Congo itself grows over with vines and heals itself after an injury.This book explores the effects of values on a world society, and highlights how superficial many Americans (and Europeans) can be, and the imposition of the American government on other nations' leaders and governmental organization.It even touches on the nature of God, if such exists, and the presence of the supernatural in the natural.At the very least, even if the concepts explored are antithetical to your own views, this book prompts deep thought and discussion.Highly recommended.

Poisonwood Bible review
I have chosen to write my book report on the novel Posionwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. The book is set in the Congo, just as the fight for freedom from Belguim peaks. A white missionary family has just arrived and is caught in the political battle. They face many times of trouble during their stay.
At the head of the family is a strong, fervent Southern Baptist Man who is determined to spread God's word to every poverty stricken child. Nathan Price will let nothing stand in his way and certainly has no time to deal with his wife, Orlenna, and their four daughters. With his "It's the Lord's way!" and indifferent attitude towards his family, many of the local villagers dislike him.
Following in his wake is Orlenna and the daughters, Ruth May, Leah, Adah, and Rachel. The eldest is Rachel whose beauty and pale, fine hair amazes the locals, is very vain and lazy. The twins Leah and Adah are complete opposites. Leah wants to be just like her father and tries to please him. But Adah is less than perfect with her crippled left side. She looks at the world with a whole different viewpoint. Adah rarely speaks, and reads & writes backwards. The youngest, Ruth May, has a completely child like view of the world. Her entertaining descriptions of the Congo keep you laughing throughout the book.
Another thing that gives the book an extra twist is the fact that every other chapter is told by a different person. Mainly by the daughters, but Orlenna gives you kind of flashbacks at the beginning of the chapters.
So if you like political power struggles, crazy Catholic birds, and the tribes of Ham you should definitely read this book.

Annoyingly good
I read The Poisonwood Bible knowing that it was a hippie touchstone, the staple of hairy-armpitted Fair Trade obsessives who eschew deodourant and will admit, if pushed, that they think Marx will eventually be proved right. As such, I was well prepared to hate the book. Sadly, I couldn't.

It's beautifully written, evocative and painful. Whether one respects the underlying politics or not, it's very difficult not to invest emotional capital with the characters, and to be moved. The pacing of the story is unusual: it departs from normal narrative rhythm and keeps the reader off-balance. The use of language is calculated and effective, funny and clever.

I think this is an excellent novel, damn it. ... Read more

Isbn: 0060930535
Subjects:  1. 1960-1997    2. Congo (Democratic Republic)    3. Fiction    4. Fiction - General    5. History    6. Literary    7. Fiction / Literary    8. Reading Group Guide    9. Missionaries   

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: The Final Conflict : Yet More of the Best (? from the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest)
by Scott Rice, Bulwer-Lytton Contest
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 April, 1992)
list price: $8.95
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Reviews (2)

One of the funniest books I've ever read.
The Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest is an annual contest run by Scott Rice of San Jose State University. in which he challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels; the inspiration for the contest (and the title of it) is Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who wrote the much-spoofed "Paul Clifford" in 1830, the novel that begins with the phrase, "It was a dark and stormy night...". This book is the fourth of, so far as I know, five collections of the best (most stunningly bad?) entries to that contest.

ROTFLMAO!
As Mark Twain first proved with his reprinting of an abysmally inept Portuguese guidebook to the English language, bad writing can be funny. Read about the Bulwer-Lytton contest and see how intentionally bad writingcan tickle your funny-bone, and be instructive to boot. ... Read more

Isbn: 0140157913
Sales Rank: 498828
Subjects:  1. American Satire And Humor    2. Authorship    3. Fiction    4. General    5. Humor    6. Style, Literary    7. Technique   

A Moveable Feast
by Ernest Hemingway
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (29 May, 1996)
list price: $12.95 -- our price: $10.36
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Editorial Review

In the preface to A Moveable Feast, Hemingway remarks casually that "if the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction"--and, indeed, fact or fiction, it doesn't matter, for his slim memoir of Paris in the 1920s is as enchanting as anything made up and has become the stuff of legend. Paris in the '20s! Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley, lived happily on $5 a day and still had money for drinks at the Closerie des Lilas, skiing in the Alps, and fishing trips to Spain. On every corner and at every café table, there were the most extraordinary people living wonderful lives and telling fantastic stories.Gertrude Stein invited Hemingway to come every afternoon and sip "fragrant, colorless alcohols" and chat admid her great pictures. He taughtEzra Pound how to box, gossiped withJames Joyce, caroused with the fatally insecureScott Fitzgerald (the acid portraits of him and his wife,Zelda, are notorious). Meanwhile, Hemingway invented a new way of writing based on this simple premise: "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know."

Hemingway beautifully captures the fragile magic of a special time and place, and he manages to be nostalgic without hitting any false notes of sentimentality. "This is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy," he concludes. Originally published in 1964, three years after his suicide, A Moveable Feast was the first of his posthumous books and remains the best. --David Laskin ... Read more

Reviews (107)

A Moveable Feast, A Removable Life
Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast (1964), an enjoyable reminiscence of his early life in the Paris of the Twenties, can only be understood when considered against the fact that the memoir was begun in 1957, completed in 1960, and only published posthumously, after the author's death from a self-inflicted shotgun blast to the head in 1961. Though it is widely known that Virginia Woolf experienced periods of 'madness' and eventually committed suicide when she felt another such period approaching, few people outside academia seem to be aware that Hemingway, with actor John Wayne the definitive "man's man" of the 20th century, killed himself; and those that are have tended to downplay the fact to an extraordinary degree. Doubtlessly, this is because his suicide appears to fly in the face of every quality Hemingway stood for: strength of character, courage, adventurousness, robust health, stoicism, poise, and manliness.

Thus, with A Moveable Feast, Hemingway, who suffered from both depression and alcoholism, was reflecting on a happier, simpler time in his existence, which explains the book's fanciful, slightly unreal tone, which often reads like a hybrid between a light hearted comedy of manners and a European fairy tale, though no outright cracks in its facade of 'realism' appear.

However, it is significant that Hemingway wrote in his preface that "if the reader prefers, this book may be regarded as fiction." Though World War I is fresh in the young writer's mind and evidence of it is everywhere on the streets of Paris, Hemingway writes as if life were a lovely, sensuous, and fulfilling parade in which aggression, fear, deprivation, oppression, frustration, and betrayal play no part whatsoever.

For example, though the young Hemingway is chronically short of money and thus goes hungry on occasion, his hunger is always couched in quaintly romantic terms that border on the narcissistic: he avoids acknowledging his inability to purchase food to friends and acquaintances because such an act would represent a breach of his excellent good manners, though both he and Shakespeare and Company co-owner Sylvia Beach clearly believe that three meals a day are a necessity. Few readers will find it believable that Hemingway ever genuinely knew what real hunger was: A Moveable Feast treats the subject as merely another fashionable prerequisite for struggling young writers. Though some critics have applauded the book for its unsentimental character, it is in fact nothing but a sentimental reverie, though never overtly one; on the other side of that reverie, a loaded shotgun was waiting.

In keeping with its title, A Moveable Feast also describes how Hemingway and wife Hadley routinely spend a fair portion of whatever incoming money they receive on the most sumptuous Parisian food and wine available, though the author is shrewd enough to include episodes in which he equally appreciates common café fair and fish caught in the Seine. Hemingway's descriptions of eating and drinking color the book, but become increasingly extended to the point that they begin to resemble campy self-parody, and his obvious sophistication about the nuances of Parisian culinary habits eventually sound cloying.

Written in the elegant high WASP style for which he was famous, Hemingway seems unaware that, for many people of all races and ethnicities, such style often seems thin, transparent, and obvious, and one that doesn't disguise the writer's ambitions, pretensions, false humility, and underlying smugness nearly as well as they believe. The high WASP style always includes a distancing effect which presents itself as objectivity wrapped in impossibly good manners, but which unfortunately nonetheless stands on unequal footing above its audience. With the F. Scott Fitzgerald of The Great Gatsby (1925), Hemingway was its greatest practitioner.Hemingway mastered the art of literally selling his own sense of subduedly expressed superiority to readers everywhere, and thus making them pay for the opportunity to revere and admire him.

A Moveable Feast also includes a number of charming and funny vignettes about famous writers, most notably Americans Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. But the book, as a potential fiction, cannot be read as an accurate account of events as they occurred, and thus Hemingway's dreamy memoir of a better time and a better life has to be accepted as highly suspect, especially in its details.

Days of poverty and happiness
In the 1920s when writer Ernest Hemingway lived in Paris with his wife and child they were so poor that he had no money to join the of Shakespeare & Co's rental library. Nevertheless, the bookstore owner Sylvia Beach let him join and told he could pay whenever he was able to afford it. In his memoirs posthumously published "A Moveable Feast", the great writer says she had no reason to thrust him. His first choices were Russian writers -- Turgenev, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky -- and D. H. Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers". These were the first of many.

The episode involving Sylvia Beach and her famous bookstore/library is just one small drop in the ocean of torrential memories narrated by Hemingway of his young days in Paris. More than a recount of a period of the writer's life, "A Moveable Feast" is a portray of a time, a place and a generation. The "Génération Perdeu", as writer Gertrude Stein, named Hemingway and some other expatriated writers in Paris.

Readers shouldn't approach it expecting a report. It is a book of memoirs, an autobiography, therefore the facts and people are seeing through Hemingway's filter. It a juicy account of what he saw through his eyes. Was F. Scott Fitzgerald as problematic and negligent as he is described? It depends on who is describing him. In "A Moveable Feast" he is a tormented person, who is able to forget a trip with a friend. Was it a pattern in the behavior creator of Gatsby? It doesn't matter. Here what counts were the moments. And those days were wild.

Hemingway writes non-fiction with same assurance he produced fiction. Real people -- Beach, Stein, Fitzgerald, Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Ezra Pound among others -- emerge so detailed and colorful that one may wonders if they were so interesting as described. It is very likely so, but the authors words are so powerful that readers may forget this fact -- not fiction.

Contemporary readers could never visit that old Paris, a place where veteran writers gave aspirant ones advices in a café. We are lucky that we will always have Hemingway's Paris. One can never more go there and meet those people and places, but any reader can go back to this amazing book and meet those brilliant minds as many time as he/she wants. Like Hemingway says at some point, in those days they didn't trust any one who hadn't been in war, but actually they didn't completely trust anyone. This should be the same behavior expected of reader. Do not trust anyone, only those who were in loco. And not only was Hemingway in loco, he lived and experienced Paris in those days when he were poor but (or should we say `and'?) happy.

A Moveable Life
Whether his stories were fact or fiction, reliable or unreliable, Hemingway had always presented excellent reading material. This small book is a classic piece of literature representing his experiences as a young, starving writer in Paris during the 1920s.

The direction of his writing and personal life was determined from his interrelationships during that time in Paris. His insightful and exuberant moods of that time created an unquenchable enthusiasm within him for the rest of his life no matter where he was or what he did. Long live Ernest Hemingway...who by the way was an acquaintance of mine; while living in Florida I had once wrestled him in a bar over a beer. ... Read more

Isbn: 068482499X
Subjects:  1. 1899-1961    2. 20th century    3. American authors    4. Authors, American    5. Biography    6. Biography/Autobiography    7. Classics    8. France    9. General    10. Hemingway, Ernest,    11. Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961    12. Homes and haunts    13. Literature - Classics / Criticism    14. Paris    15. Fiction / General   

Stay Tuned:Television's Unforgettable Moments
by Joe Garner
Average Customer Review:
Hardcover (02 October, 2002)
list price: $49.95 -- our price: $49.95
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Reviews (22)

Glosses over some matters of importance
The DVD accompanying this book is a treasure, I use it in my video production class.The book is passable, but not as insightful as others.Buy this for the DVD

neat
This a great DVD/cd set to own, for anyone that watches tv.it has funny moments, amazing moments, and sad moments, but it's a great way to see some of the biggest stories from tv.

Book was good, DVD stunk!
Garner does a good job WRITING about television,but when it comes to SHOWING television history on the DVD, he failed miserably.Too much blabbing and not enough actual footage.The worst was the segment on "Cheers"--they only showed STILLS, nothing of the shows!Please--if you couldn't get the rights from NBC, you should have just skipped it!And then there was John What-his-name (Cliff) saying that Sam and Diane were like "Tracy and Bacall."Hello??Perhaps "Tracy and Hepburn" or "Bogart and Bacall," but "Tracy and Bacall"??This DVD misses the mark, just like ol' Cliffie. ... Read more

Isbn: 0740726935
Sales Rank: 83659
Subjects:  1. Audio Adult: Other    2. Entertainment & Performing Arts - General    3. Film & Video - General    4. General    5. History    6. Performing Arts    7. Pop Arts / Pop Culture    8. Television - General    9. Television broadcasting of new    10. Television broadcasting of news    11. Television programs    12. United States    13. Biography & Autobiography / Entertainment & Performing Arts   

Tepper Isn't Going Out : A Novel
by Calvin Trillin
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (14 January, 2003)
list price: $12.95 -- our price: $10.36
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Editorial Review

New York City and America's car culture smash together in Calvin Trillin's Tepper Isn't Going Out, a humorous tale of the urban quest for an open parking space. When a mailing-list broker, Murray Tepper, decides to spend his days plugging meters so he can sit in his car reading newspapers and waive off suitors hopeful of gaining his spot, little does he know that his odd behavior (even by New York standards) will set off a media buzz, provide him with cult-hero status, and incur reproach from the paranoid, dour Mayor Frank Ducavelli, who focuses on curtailing Tepper's "abuse" of the parking meter system.

Granted, the plot of this novel is quite thin, but, while not leaving you in stitches, Trillin provokes many smirks and smiles with his wit. For instance, he writes of magazines titled Beautiful Spot: A Magazine of Parking and the potential of Spin: The Magazine of Salad Drying. When Tepper suggests that his friend Jack leave his car's flashers on while parked illegally, Jack responds:

And draw attention to myself? Not a chance. I always park in front of hydrants. The secret is to park smack in front of them rather than just too near them. You have to go all the way. If you're smack in front of them, the cop rolling down the street can't see that there's a hydrant there at all. You have to be brazen. That's my motto, in parking and in life: be brazen.

Trillin's book should appeal to commuters and city dwellers everywhere, and anyone else looking for a chuckle. --Michael Ferch ... Read more

Reviews (43)

Wonderful
My family complained as I read this book, because I couldn't help but laugh outloud.It was so funny and so full of those poignant little truisms about human nature.The basic story:Tepper likes to sit in his car and read the paper with time on the meter in New York City.Of course, people want him to move it so they can have the space.Does he just like to read?Or does he recall the days of his youth when his skill at finding a good parking place was a great pleasure for him (before he caved and bought a place in a parking garage)?Folks begin to line up to sit in his car for a few minutes with him and get his advice on problems.All of this infuriates a fascist mayor.This is a very nice book (readers will catch the reference to whitefish!).

Take a chance on Tepper
TEPPER ISN'T GOING OUT is a swift little novel that actually ends up saying quite a lot -- about the city of New York, about the modern idea of celebrity, about the seemingly random connections that give order to a chaotic universe. But mostly it's about parking. Tepper, the main character, is a hobbyist parker. He finds a legal spot and squats there, because he actually isn't going out. His strange habit eventually finds its way into the newspapers, turning Tepper into a kind of modern-day guru on the mountaintop. New Yorkers make the quest to his current parking spot to ask his advice on any number of subjects. Eventually, Tepper's parking gets him entangled with the mayor of New York, who is obsessed with keeping order in the city, and who is not-so-subtly modeled on pre-9/11 Rudy Giuliani. So the story gets rolling, culminating in street riots, demonstrations and a trial, but all conducted in a very quiet, very orderly manner, of course. It's a sweetly humorous book that will make anyone want to go parking, but not go out.

Just OK
I would have rated this novel much higher if Trillin were able to write dialogue between his characters more successfully. The interior voice of Tepper is actually quite good--funny, well-written--and I think New Yorkers will love some of his observations about their town. However, when the characters start speaking to each other the language gets very stilted and I have the feeling of being in a play--specifically a really bad Arthur Miller play. Especially the words coming out of Linda's mouth--awful! Who talks like that? As the novel gets going there is more and more dialogue. If the story sounds interesting to you please pick this book up from your local library and read just the first chapter (before he starts talking to anyone). ... Read more

Isbn: 0375758518
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - General    3. General    4. Literary    5. Fiction / General   

Let's All Kill Constance : A Novel
by Ray Bradbury
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Hardcover (24 December, 2002)
list price: $23.95
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Reviews (15)

Old Hollywood Mystery Intrigues and Delights
Ray Bradbury, celebrated author of modern classics such as "Fahrenheit 451" and "The Martian Chronicles," brings us "Let's All Kill Constance," a mystery running in 1960 set amidst the backdrop of a bygone Hollywood when Eric Von Stroheim held sway.

An unnamed writer, the narrator of the novel, begins the suspense with the cliché, "It was a dark and stormy night." Constance Rattigan, an aging former starlet, hastily gives the unnamed writer two books - a 1900 Los Angeles phone book and her old address book - both containing red-circled entries with crosses that suggest who will die next; Rattigan is one of the names circled.

Some of the names circled begin to die suddenly under suspect circumstances while Rattigan concurrently becomes difficult to find.Is she the next victim or the murderer?The unnamed writer becomes obsessed with procuring answers.Entertaining sidekicks like Crumley, a lovable grouch, and Henry, a blind man that invariably sees more than everyone, accompany the unnamed writer's search within fast-paced engaging dialog.

Brief chapters - many five pages or less - and simple word usage are effective throughout the novel.The climax is unclear as many twists abound, a given in a Bradbury production - remember the fireman Guy Montag from "Fahrenheit 451" who starts fires? Bradbury dazzles and boggles the mind till the final pages.

Bohdan Kot

Not typical Bradbury
After reading (or rereading) several other Bradbury stories, I was looking forward to this one to see how his style has changed. I must say I am disappointed. I couldn't bring myself to care about any of the characters; they were all too busy with their "witty" repartee to be sympathetic (or even interesting). The main character, obviously based on Bradbury himself, would cry at the deaths of other characters, but I felt nothing because Bradbury didn't paint them realistically or sympathetically. To top it off, the main character was really just a jerk, but I got the impression that the reader is supposed to like him. Characters with major character flaws can be interesting. This one was not; he was just a jerk, and for no apparent reason. The only part I liked was the description of how LA used to be, since I grew up in southern California.

I am surprised by the number of reviewers who described this as "typical Bradbury." Not in my experience. If this were typical of his other work, I couldn't recommend any of it. Luckily that's not the case. You would be better served by rereading some classic Bradbury than by spending any time on this.

A labrinyth of mystery
The novel is very much a Bradbury one-surreal, inventive and always esoteric, full of trivia and various Hollywood references. In fact, esoteric is the keyword. You either enjoy Bradbury's quirky, offbeat style of plot (and I should add that this one if particularly quirky, quite unlike most plots) or you don't. At it's best, this novel is rather good-there are some wonderfully memorable moments, including a trip to "a labrinyth of newsprint" that is reminescent of the library parts of 'Something Wicked This Way Comes". It's not Bradbury's best, but it is certainly not his worst, and is above average. ... Read more

Isbn: 0060515848
Sales Rank: 501909
Subjects:  1. Bradbury, Ray - Prose & Criticism    2. California    3. Fiction    4. Fiction - Mystery/ Detective    5. Los Angeles    6. Motion picture actors and actr    7. Motion picture actors and actresses    8. Mystery & Detective - General    9. Mystery/Suspense    10. Older women    11. Private investigators    12. Fiction / General   

1984
by George Orwell
Average Customer Review:
Mass Market Paperback (01 May, 1990)
list price: $7.95 -- our price: $7.15
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Editorial Review

"Outside, even through the shut window pane, the world looked cold.Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere."

The year is 1984; the scene is London, largest population center of Airstrip One.

Airstrip One is part of the vast political entity Oceania, which is eternally at war with one of two other vast entities, Eurasia and Eastasia. At any moment, depending upon current alignments, all existing records show either that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia, or that it has always been at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia. Winston Smith knows this, because his work at the Ministry of Truth involves the constant "correction" of such records. "'Whocontrols the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"

In a grim city and a terrifying country, where Big Brother is always Watching You and the Thought Police can practically read your mind, Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. He knows the Party's official image of the world is a fluid fiction. He knows the Party controls the people by feeding them lies and narrowing their imaginations through a process of bewilderment and brutalization that alienates each individual from his fellows and deprives him of every liberating human pursuit from reasoned inquiry to sexual passion. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.

Newspeak, doublethink, thoughtcrime--in 1984, George Orwell created a whole vocabulary of words concerning totalitarian control that have since passed into our common vocabulary. More importantly, he has portrayed a chillingly credible dystopia. In our deeply anxious world, the seeds of unthinking conformity are everywhere in evidence; and Big Brother is always looking for his chance. --DanielHintzsche ... Read more

Reviews (1156)

Big Brother Is Here Now.
Read NO PLACE TO HIDE by Robert O'Harrow
Check it out on www.muckraker.org

Hey, folks, Big Brother has arrived Big Time!

It Will Haunt You!
In "1984", George Orwell proved his brilliance with this short novel. It portrays the life of a simple man, Winston Smith, in a totalitarian society. In Oceania, where Winston lives, the Party controls every aspect of every person's life and has the ability to erase the past and "vaporize" any member of the society who betrays the Party.

Winston Smith,or better known to the Party as "6079 Smith W.", is a seemingly average worker of the Ministry of Truth who begins to let his mind wander, an act punishable by death. He purchases a journal where he begins to express his true feeling towards the Party and Big Brother, the ultimate source of power. Even more dangerous that keeping a diary, Winston forms an on-going love affair which he cleverly hides well. All of these act, if caught, could potentially put him in Room 101, the most terrible punishment ever created.

As the plot thickens the reader feel a part of Winston's life. Although dense, this suspenseful page-turner keeps you on your toes. The three slogans that run Oceania, "WAR IS PEACE/ FREEDOM IS SLAVERY/ IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH" artistically portray the twisted and intense rules of the Party. Orwell warns his readers of the possibilities of the future government. 1984 subtly hints the government's power over the brotherhood and our society today.

George Orwell's "1984" is a thought provoking novel that will make you stop and reflect about your own life and the government's ultimate control over you. Once the ideas of "1984" get into your mind, they inevitably will always linger as life goes on. Honestly, this book will haunt you. Pick up a copy! Another book I need to recommend -- completely unrelated to Orwell, but very much on my mind since I purchased a "used" copy off Amazon is "The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition" by Richard Perez, an exceptional, lonesome (but also funny) little novel I can't stop thinking about.

Fantastic Book. Predicts the future which is today.
This is very prophetic and very touching. Greatly change your perspective of everything and everyone around you! Read it, you'll enjoy it to the last word. I know, i've read it 4 times and feel like reading it again! ... Read more

Isbn: 0451524934
Subjects:  1. Classics    2. Fiction    3. Literature - Classics / Criticism    4. Literature: Classics    5. Science Fiction - General   

The Bean Trees
by Barbara Kingsolver
Average Customer Review:
Mass Market Paperback (01 October, 1998)
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Reviews (343)

Uplifting Read
The Bean Trees is an uplifting novel showing the incredible power of love and friendship. To avoid becoming "barefoot and pregnant," Taylor Greer sets out from her native Kentucky not knowing where to go or where she would end up. After a stranger gives Taylor a two year old little girl named Turtle, Taylor gets stuck in the exact situation she left Kentucky to avoid. After her car breaks down in Tucson, Arizona, it seems almost to be fate when Taylor rents a room belonging to Lou Ann, another single mom born and raised in Kentucky. Unlike the fiery Taylor, Lou Ann depends on her recently departed husband, Angel, ands seems unsure of herself. The two form an immediate friendship, one that helps both women come to find themselves. Lou Ann discovers confidence in herself and accepts and cherishes her life as a single mom, with Taylor at her side. And Taylor finds that her friendship with Lou Ann and her love for Turtle is enough for her to call Tucson home. Home is where the heart is, and Taylor realizes how true this is.

Bean Trees sucks
Bean Tress sucks. Turtles a dumb ass. She's mentally retarted. Taylor should have given Turtle to Child Services. She also should have given the illegals up to INS. Terrible book. WASTE OF YOUR MONEY>

Starts great- but grows dismal and ends flat.
The first half of the book was a great read; I just loved Kingsolver's quirky writing and believable characters-
However, once a social worker enters the scene, it was game over for me. That's when the author gets on a soap box, with underlying societal commentary- and the story quickly loses its magic... ... Read more

Isbn: 0061097314
Sales Rank: 1142
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - General    3. General    4. Literary    5. Reading Group Guide   

Armageddon: The Cosmic Battle of the Ages (Left Behind #11)
by Tim F. LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, Tim LaHaye
Average Customer Review:
Hardcover (08 April, 2003)
list price: $24.99 -- our price: $16.49
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Reviews (215)

Don't Get Left Behind in this Series
To understand what is going on in Armageddon by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, you must read the first ten in the series. The series begins with Left Behind. It starts when all the devote Christians vanish. Rayford Steele, the main character, lost his wife, Irene, and his son, Raymie. He only has his daughter Chloe left.
When everybody disappeared, Ray was a pilot on a plane. Hattie Durham, a flight attendant on the plane, was the person Ray was going to cheat on his wife with. Cameron "Buck" Williams, the second main character, is a senior writer for a New York magazine. Eventually, Ray, Buck, Chloe, and Bruce meet. Bruce is the new pastor at a church because the old one vanished. They all become Christians and form the Tribulation Force. More and more people join the Tribulation Forces while Nicholae Carpathia takes over the globe, without any disputes, as the devil. Some Christians die, while others become Christians. Just in the book Armageddon, two original members die, one other member dies, and another original member gets seriously injured. A lot happens in this series. Three couples get married and one couple has a child
I pretty much liked everything in this series. The only part I don't like is when the characters are waiting for some reason and the way they switch milieus all the time. On one page you could be reading about Ray flying a plane, then it goes to Bruce preaching a sermon. It all makes perfect sense, though. I don't think this book is similar to anything I have previously read. I really, really suggest this book to everyone.

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound...
doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths." 2 Timothy 4:3-4

This verse was written by Paul almost 2000 years ago to warn the Christians to guard their hearts from false teachings that will arise from among the Church. - "and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking preserve things, to draw away their disciples after them." - Acts 20:30-31

As a servant of the Lord, I feel strongly compelled by His Spirit to warn my fellow Christians of the false doctrine being taught by Tim LaHaye. This man and his partner are being used by Satan himself to decieve millions of Christians across the nation concerning the truth and the end times of this earth, and this is making me sick. Tell me why Tim LaHaye, who has never studied theological doctrine or mastered the Bible's teachings, has sold millions upon millions of books regarding prophecy. Prophecy, a subject which has been revered and studied intentisively by theological scholars and Christians alike since the time of Christ. The verse that I started with clearly tells us why. If Tim LaHaye really loves God, than he would respect His Holy Word including God's sacred prophecies. But instead of writing a book strictly on the Holy prophecies of God to bring Him the glory, Tim chooses to envelop God's sacred prophecies with his fictitious novels known as the Left Behind Series. Now what were his motives for doing this? To interpret the scriptures correctly, or to sell millions of novels and receive the wealth and fame for himself? For those of you who read his novels, did you desire to truly know what the Bible says concerning prophecies or did you enjoy having your ears "tickled" by his fanciful writing. "but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires."

In the past year, a man completed devoted to God, has taken up the monumental task of writing a new book to help clear the confusion behind the modern view of Biblical prophecies. The book is called End Time Delusions by Steve Wohlberg, and unfortunaley, it is directed at refuting many of the false teachings endorsed by the Left Behind novels. Mr. Wohlberg has been earnestly studying Biblical prophecies for the past 25 years. Everything he comments on is strongly supported by the scriptures and he encourages every reader to evaluate the Bible before establishing an opinion. The book is concise (220 pages), uses simple language, and is jam-packed with years upon years of extensive research.For the person that leads a busy lifestyle, and doesn't have the time to tackle an 800 page theological book, this book is for you.

May the Lord be with you as you continue to search the scriptures for the truth. "For the truth will set you free!"

Christian propaganda? Yeah Right!
Mark Moore has it wrong. These books may be Chrstian, but they are not propaganda. They tell about something that I (and many others) believe will happen.
Mark says that it is "ludicrous" to believe that the world will go into chaos if all the Christians disappeared. Give me a break! Let's see millions around the world disappear at the same time and without warning and not have chaos!
I think that Mark's accusations are what's ludicrous. "An evil religion perpetuated by zealous idiots"?!? Yeah right! Christians are as normal as anyone else.
In the Bible the book of Revelation takes about "20 pages" because it gives only enough information to understand what will happen. These books take much longer because they put the happenings into real life situations.
Mark also says that there are no records of Jesus written by non-Christians. Wrong. There is a record written by a non-Christian from around the same period as when Jesus lived. All that I can remember about his name is that it is similar to joseph (not to be confused with Jesus' father, Joseph).

As for the quality of the book? I found all of the Left Behind adult series to be a very good bunch of reads. They are all the kind of books that you start reading and then don't want to put down. They have good action, even though it could be a bit more realistic.
On the other hand, I personally think that the authors lost some of their good writing style by continuing the series so long. The last few books show a loss of quality and enjoyment. With all that said, I would definitely recommend these books for anyone but young children. This book especially might not be very good for children. ... Read more

Isbn: 0842332340
Sales Rank: 9284
Subjects:  1. Armageddon    2. Fiction    3. Fiction - Religious    4. Petra (Extinct city)    5. Rapture (Christian eschatology    6. Rapture (Christian eschatology)    7. Religious - Apocalyptic    8. Religious - General    9. Steele, Rayford (Fictitious ch    10. Steele, Rayford (Fictitious character)