This is the first work by Davies that I've read—I picked up several of his novels because he is reputed to be an excellent writer: thus far I would have to agree.
A stunningly terrific read that maintains its momentum until the end — difficult to put down and filled with unexpected twists and delights. I was impressed with how finely Gaiman drew his characters on the page: they came alive. This book earned a slew of awards and deservedly so.
Lush, passionate, and way over the top, as her books tend to be. Not as good as its predecessor. Too obviously set itself up for one or more sequels. A shame really, because it could have been better. I recall that each of the earlier books tended to focus on life as seen through the eyes of a single character — and I liked that because it made a person the center of each story. This novel, however, departs from that convention by switching perspective frequently, and instead made events the focus.
I'd read this one many years ago and figured it needed rereading because A Perfect Day for Bananafish actually has Seymour in it (as opposed to being talked about). The story I most fondly remembered, and definitely my favorite story in this collection is Teddy — it sends shivers down my spine.
I'd read Franny and Zooey years ago, and decided last night that I needed to read it again. But first I had these two novellas—published several years earlier and also about the Glass family—waiting to be read. I'd hoped they would shed some light on why the eldest brother, Seymour, opted for a "permanent retirement from the scene," but no such luck.
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters takes place on Seymour's wedding day, but neither Seymour nor his bride make a first person appearance—however there is a lot of gossip about the couple among the wedding guests. Technically competent, but it didn't delight me: I'd give it a 3.5 overall and warn potential readers, that in the end, it really wasn't so interesting.
Seymour: An Introduction, on the other hand, was delightfully witty and had me laughing on several occasions. Definitely a five star tale and worthy of a read! It is a recollection and reflection on Seymour, decades after his death, from the perspective of his younger brother Buddy.
Typical Card: if you like his writing, you'll like this. Not his best work, but enjoyable all the same. Takes place during the same period covered in Ender's Game, but is from another character's perspective. Since the backbone events are the same, there are no dramatic surprises.
An enjoyable tale, but nothing remarkable. What is more interesting than the story is why I believe the book was written: to serve as a model of how to have "healthy" relationships for abused and troubled young adults.
This is a long time favorite that I recently re-read with a Friend. It earns a 5 not because it is a masterpiece of wordplay weaving together multiple story-lines but rather for its warmth and humor, its sweetness and honesty. This is one of the books I'd bring with me to a desert island.
Brief and trenchant presentation of the fundamentals of Stoicism. I've read this many a time, and it was time to drink from it's well of wisdom once more.
I picked up this book because it is reputed to be as wise and wonderful a tale—for adults and children alike—as is one of my favorite books, de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince. Thus far only the introduction qualifies. After a couple months of trying to get through it and finding myself loathe to pick it up, I've concluded that I probably never will—even though only a fifth remains unread. Why? Because it is not a tale of childish wonder and optimism nor one of love and friendship. It is instead a tale of responsibility, considering consequences before one acts, and other lessons meant to teach children how to be "good" adults. Bleh!
It had been many years since I last read this book; I picked it up again because a kindred spirit to whom I had once presented a copy had finally gotten around to reading it and I figured there was a decent chance that the story-line would come up it conversation.
'Twixt the covers of this slender volume, one will find a deeply symbolic story, filled with the anguish and loneliness of walking a different path from that of the masses, the comforts and learning to be had amongst the like minded, and a quest for spiritual transcendence. It is not a happy story; but strength and purpose lie therein.
I'd been saving this one and once I began reading, took it slowly, so I could savor each delicious sentence. Alas, my reading was colored by something that Margaret Atwood, during an interview on Bill Moyer's recent PBS show on Faith & Reason, said that spoiled the ending. (Darn you, Margaret Atwood!) None the less, it still hit pretty darn hard.
I'd read Martel's Self about a year ago. I find his writing to be sensitive and haunting. He has a gift for making the most implausible situations seem entirely natural. His stories narrator becomes alive, and in reading, one experiences (almost first hand) their joys, wonderment, hurts, and despair. Extremely powerful and heady stuff.
The conceit is the weaving of two subjects that are usually treated separately: cognitive sciences and literature. Having once been a neural-and-biochemical sciences major and now teaching in a CS department, I'm pleased to say that Lodge didn't get any of the science wrong. I wasn't an English major, so I can't speak to the veracity of the "other side"—but I do consider my self an avid enough reader to say that it seems he's on the money there too. It was this interesting juxtaposition—dancing above an otherwise unremarkable tale of infidelities—that made the novel worth reading.
There are many who love this book and it has garnered rave reviews aplenty—alas, this shan't be one of them. I kept feeling as if I should love it, because it is filled with odd and esoteric bits that I was delighted to find assembled between a single pair of covers.
Though filled with wonders and littered with beautiful passages, as a story it meandered like the drunken sot Auberon becomes when his lover vanishes without a trace and, at times, was about as interesting as a drunk's babbling. Yes, it is perceptive. Yes, real life is an ambiguous tale punctuated with love and loss, birth and death. But to make that tale worth the time to hear its telling, there must be something more.
I had tried starting it at least four times and found myself within a paragraph or five, setting it aside. When I finally got over the hump, by page seven I was charmed and chuckling. The chuckles were short lived, but I remained engaged. Somewhere in the middle I started getting bored and forced myself to continue. Then it picked up for a bit, but as the conclusion loomed, I found myself once again slogging to the end.
I read these stories in between Martin's novels and am extremely pleased with the collection's consistent quality. The book opens with an essay by the editor that, unlike many, actually proved to be interesting (it's a discourse on the state of SF publishing and the negative consequences of niche marketing). It's followed an eclectic mix of seventeen stories, with no unifying theme (though many have an “adult” orientation) save for being highly original and delightful. My three top favorites were The Matter of Seggri—Ursula K. Le Guin, I, Iscariot—Michael Bishop, and The Dark One: A Mythograph—A. A. Attanasio; there were several others that were close contenders. Not a dog in the bunch!
Yawn! I found myself constantly fidgeting while reading this one. It was not nearly as immersive as its predecessors. Aside from a handful of chapters that were actually engaging, this was a disappointment. I had the strong impression that Martin was spending nearly 700 pages to set the stage for a later (and hopefully much better) book.
Without going back and re-reading the other books, I can't say this for sure, but I'm thinking that Martin's roots as a horror writer were the most evident in this book. The Others are close enough as to be close cousins to (if not indistinguishable from) standard fantasy fixtures. But Biter and "Lady Stoneheart," on the other-hand, are lifted straight out of another genre. I don't think I like it.
For those of you who were driven crazy Robert Jordan's use of cut-and-paste (and paste and paste) descriptions in the Wheel of Time [Nynaeve tugging her freakin' braid, anyone?], I'm sorry to say, that Martin seems to have acquired the habit. If I have to read yet again about Grand Maester Pycelle's wattle and a remembrance of the lush beard that once cloaked it, I'm going to scream!
Minor spoiler alert: At the end, Martin reveals that unlike the other books in the series, he decided to use only half the the POVs (points of view) in this one, and that soon he'll release another volume that covers the same time frame from the remaining POVs. His gave two justifications: that the book would have been too long for the full set of POVs and that he didn't want to split the story in the middle with a "to be continued." I think that argument falls flat because the very nature of this series is "to be continued" and in particular this single volume certainly didn't have novel length theme introduced, expanded upon, and ultimately resolved. Rather, it's mostly a collection of petty, disinteresting events and almost everything that was interesting was left as a cliff-hanger. I fail to see how the readers could have been any more ill served by having all the contemporaneous POVs interleaved and splitting the result down the middle.
Enjoyable. Noticed at least three continuity errors — which is quite jarring.
A review in 3 words: Hodor. Hodor? Hodor!
Rhaegar lent this one to me—after I'd finished the first in the series—and I'm glad he did as it is quite a bit better than its predecessor. The story is engaging and filled with unexpected plot twists, the characters seem more life-like, and as an added bonus, Martin periodically uses 4 letter words and describes genitalia (actually, he did in the first book too)!
At first I thought the sexual references seemed a bit gratuitous — a cheap trick to make the books seem more "adult" (and/or sell better to teenaged boys)--strip them out and one is left with a tale certainly fit for kids. Now, I admit, the brother-sister relationship would be hard to remove... [Aside: it strikes me as most odd that in the last six months I've read works by three different authors that feature incest as a major plot element—no, I didn't know they did before I read them.] But at this point (I'm half way through book 3) I can say that I honestly believe the carnality adds to the tale.
My most serious gripe is that there are too damn many names and one doesn't know when a name is introduced whether it's a character who will actually play a part later (and thus one to remember), or just window dressing. But then this is supposed to be an epic story, so I won't complain too much.
A few years ago I traveled around Sicily and fell in love with the island and its people. I bought this book because it was reputed to give some insights into the Sicilian psyche. Penned by a Prince (who died a few months after completing it) and based on the life of his great-grandfather, its perspective is neither contemporary nor common. None the less, it is remarkably perspicacious: laced with wit and remarkable understanding of human nature. This novel was a joy to read.
Reading this on the recommendation of Garrett — who was kind enough to lend it to me. I'd put it down after the first page once before and almost did again last night, but this time I kept going. By the fourth page I was hooked.
By the time I'd finished I had mixed feelings. I found it both enjoying and annoying. Annoying because there was, for my tastes, far too much fore-shadowing and most of the characters seemed extremely two dimensional. In order for me to love a book, it must surprise and delight me, and the cast needs to be more than an assembly of shallow stereotypes. None the less, I probably will read the next book in the series.
I have no recollection of how I came to own this novel (having never heard of it or the author) but I am thankful to have found it in my library. The surface tale is engaging and entertaining. The prose is lyric -- without reading the confirmation on the dustjacket biography, one would know Wolf for a poet after reading just a few pages. This is a work by a master story teller; it artfully weaves brilliantly hued threads to create a richly textured tapestry whose symbology I am still struggling to understand. It is the equal of the Nobel prize winning literature I've enjoyed.
I was set to really like this tale, which told from the perspective of a very witty serial killer. We meet Dexter as he is stalking his next victim. It's chilling. He's a monster. But... to know Dexter is to, at the very least, like Dexter. And as events unfold, we do just that. Alas, the plot's resolution lost it at least half a rating point. I plan on reading the sequel none the less.
I started out enjoying this trilogy. By the end of the second book I was feeling the story was far too contrived (the lake quest in particular). I'm glad I went ahead and finished it. The third volume redeemed many of the sins of the second. I didn't enjoy this as much as her Wraeththu books.
Heart breaking tales of people scratching out a living in a hostile land. This is not a genre I normally read, but Proulx's prose (and narrative talents) made it worth my while.
It's a dream: a series of scenes, logically linked by a dream's illogic and a narrative imperative. A nightmare? No -- not in a contemporary horror sense. It's an adventure: a man on an accidental mission, surrounded by suspected enemies, dodging danger at every turn.
The Man Who Was Thursday : A Nightmare is widely admired (many regard it as one of the — if not the — best book of the last 100 years). Yes, it's fun and funny and engagingly odd. It's simply loaded with symbolism. Perhaps its because toward the end my willingness to suspend disbelief was shattered: it simply felt too contrived.
There is no reason to seek out this particular edition as Gardner's annotations added little, if anything, to my enjoyment of the book -- and may have served as a spoiler.
Interesting enough that I read it all the way through, but nothing about it struck me as making it worthy of a recommendation.
This book makes me question my rating system. It was vastly entertaining and a definite page turner. For that, it deserves 5 stars. But, frankly, the writing wasn't anything special (maybe 2 stars). Certainly neither lyric or literary. But it got the job done as far as telling the story. Perhaps I need three categories (over all recommendation, quality of the story, & quality of the prose)? I'm glad I got the illustrated edition -- the pictures were an excellent addition. [Incidentally, I was familiar with much of the material he built the story around and think he reached a couple conclusions that definitely are revisionist and unsupported by the historical evidence.]
I recall a boss I had many years ago raving over this book, so when I saw it a couple months ago, I decided to add it to the "books to be read" collection. It got off to a great start and sustained the momentum to the very end -- something, alas, which many novels are unable to do. Quite well written with a unique premise.
Amateurish. It's mercifully short.
Before I read it, I knew it was Crowley's third novel and reputed to be the first of his really good ones. The story was interesting, imaginative, well plotted and paced, and convincingly told. I am deeply impressed!
Very well written, but an unpleasant read—I felt trapped in the desert with the odious Musa. There is a thought provoking plot twist involving Jesus, who is otherwise a peripheral character.
Entertaining, but uneven. Some good insights into human nature, and a lot of very contrived events. Lacks the brilliance of his later work, Prince Ombra.
Beautifully written. Sweet, imaginative, funny. But laced with brutality, trauma and pain.
Crowley's second novel. Entertaining tale with some interesting insights into human (and animal) nature. Much easier to read than The Deep. Great vocabulary builder too—you may need to keep a dictionary handy.
Crowley's first novel. Some interesting story elements, but very difficult to read: the prose is often awkward and one must constantly wrestle with all the forward references to the fictional culture.
Beautifully told short tales from a master storyteller.
An outstanding story, expertly crafted, eminently entertaining, imaginative and ever so witty. As one reviewer asked, "What kind of magic can make a nearly 800-page novel seem too short?" Another described it as "Harry Potter for adults."
This was the first Stephenson novel I've read—now I understand what all the fuss is about. Imaginative and filled with silliness; the story is utterly improbable, but it's just so much fun one is willing to suspend disbelief and be swept along on a wild ride.
If you've read any of Rice's other books from The Vampire Chronicles, then you know what to expect. This is more of the same: lush prose, exotic locales, etc.
A great, inspirational story. Follow your dreams...
Two clever and entertaining novellas.
An amazing novel—shocking, hilarious, and insightful. Set in the court of Pope Leo X. Warning: raw descriptions of sexual activity.
Another incarnation of Elric. Good enough that I purchased the sequel (but haven't read it yet).
More than a decade after writing the original Wraeththu trilogy (see previous entry), Constantine has revisited the Wraeththu world. Her writing style has only gotten better.
Incredibly imaginative, intricate tales. Reread them in preparation for the new book.
Another intricately plotted novel from this expert story teller. Much more fun (and therefore enjoyable) than his previous work, The Island of the Day Before.
Interesting vision of the future. As always, her prose is lyric and poetic. She is one of my favorite authors and this book did not disappoint.