Fiction Literature Books

Set in posh New York during the Lost Generation of the roaring 20's, the Great Gatsby tells a story of trust, class, and wanting.

From it we learn that often the desire for something is better than actually having it and that one true friend is infinitely more important than a multitude of acquaintances.

There's always a copy of this in my library. It's an essential must-read from a highly gifted author.

It's difficult to give any even-handed critique F. Scott Fitzgerald's standard-setting Jazz Age novel since it was required reading for most of us in high school. However, if you come back to it as a full-fledged adult, you'll find that the story still resonates but more like a just-polished cameo piece from a forgotten time. At the core of the book is the elaborate infatuation Jay Gatsby has for Daisy Fay Buchanan, a love story portrayed with both a languid pall and a fatalistic urgency. But the broader context of the setting and the irreconcilable nature of the American dream in the 1920's is what give the novel its true gravitas.

Much of this is eloquently articulated by Nick Carraway, Gatsby's modest Long Island neighbor who becomes his most trusted confidante. Nick is responsible for reuniting the lovers who both have come to different points in their lives five years after their aborted romance. Now a solitary figure in his luxurious mansion, Gatsby is a newly wealthy man who accumulated his fortunes through dubious means. Daisy, on the other hand, has always led a life of privilege and could not let love stand in the way of her comfortable existence. She married Tom Buchanan for that sole purpose. With Gatsby's ambition spurred by his love for Daisy, he rekindles his romance with Daisy, as Tom carries on carelessly with an auto mechanic's grasping wife. Nick himself gets caught up in the jet set trappings and has a relationship with Jordan Baker, a young golf pro.

These characters are inevitably led on a collision course that exposes the hypocrisy of the rich, the falsity of a love undeserving and the transience of individuals on this earth. The strength of Fitzgerald's treatment comes from the lyrical prose he provides to illuminate these themes. Not a word is wasted, and the author's economical handling of such a potentially complex plot is a technique I wish were more frequently replicated today. Most of all, I simply enjoy the book because it does not portend a greater significance eighty years later. It is a classic tale that provides vibrancy and texture to a bygone era. It is well worth re-reading, especially at such a bargain price.

i missed this book in high school. twenty years later, i am so glad to discover this book. although it may be geared to young adults, everyone can relate to this family and francie, the young heroine. don't let this book get by you!

I only recently got around to reading Betty Smith's 1943 memoir-cum-novel A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, mainly because it had a reputation as an Oprah Winfrey sort of book, meaning I thought it must be one of those tomes filled with good intentions but short on literary merit. After all, the first mention of it I can recall was a snide comment in an old Bugs Bunny cartoon from the 1940s. Boy, do I love to be wrong about things like this. The novel is a total masterpiece. At almost 500 hundred pages there is not a thing I'd cut- not a chapter, paragraph, sentence, nor word. It is a work of fiction the equal of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, and some other great works like John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath, Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, Charles Johnson's Oxherding Tale, and the best of Kurt Vonnegut and William Kennedy. In fact, it might be the best of the bunch.

In fact, it's more than great literature. It personally resonates with me because its depth and narrative immersion in a bygone world rivals that of the best of memoirs, including my own True Life series. I include it, now, along with Walt Whitman's Leaves Of Grass, Alex Haley's The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Leonard Shlain's Art And Physics, Loren Eiseley's autobiography All The Strange Hours, and Terry Matheson's Alien Abductions, as the most personally influential and resonant books I have read. Aside from that it is a perfect example of what the publishing industry used to do right versus what it does wrong now.

In many ways ATGIB is a very similar story to 1996's Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt. The later book follows a poor Irish American boy who will grow up to be a writer for his first nineteen or so years, while this book chronicles a poor Irish-German American girl who will grow up to be a writer for her first sixteen or so years. AA is set three decades later and the family goes from America to Ireland, and then Frankie goes back to America, while Francie Nolan remains in Brooklyn, until heading off for college at novel's end. Both books feature strong mothers who endure alcoholic husbands, and both books have colorful families to sketch, as well as great poverty, but ATGIB is a far superior book to AA. Primarily this has to do with editing. AA is a 450 page book that could have been 300 pages, and included far more. But, in it, McCourt tends to ramble on far too much, and recount far too similar stories, with the effect of boring you. His book revels in suffering for suffering's sake. ATGIB, was submitted as a memoir, but the editor urged Smith to make it a novel, which helped her flesh out the characters and smooth over rough spots. It worked, for ATGIB is a compelling, poetic, and multifarious work, where AA is a spotty work of unrealized potential. I submit these two books as Exhibits A and B in the case of poor editing for most current books' being so poorly written, rather than just bad writers.
The book ends with Katie Nolan accepting a marriage proposal from a retired police sergeant and widower who has long been enamored with her. He offers to adopt Francie's youngest sister Annie Laurie and to send Neeley and Francie to college. Francie readies to move to Ann Arbor, Michigan to attend the University of Michigan. As she stops past her old apartment building she sees the cut down but still growing Tree Of Heaven resprouting in the tenement yard. She sees a small girl named Florrie Wendy, for whom the tree will also come to represent something, just as it must have represented something to her older neighbor girl Flossie Gaddis before her. That all three girls have names that start with F is not coincidental. That the tree that is chosen as the titular tree is a nondescript tree is all the more apt. It is, along with Melville's white whale, one of the greatest metaphors in fiction. Yet, even as the book ends the reader wants to know more of what will happen in Francie's life, even though none doubts she will perdure.

I am eager to read other of Smith's novels, to see if this was merely part of a continuum, or some great work that rose far beyond any other in her oeuvre. The scenes she so deftly set in A Tree Grows In Brooklyn are indelible, and even if her other works are not on par, this book alone is one of those near-miraculous things that justifies the 99.9% of bad arts being out there. Now, back to the crap!

I ordered this book as it was my book club selection, very sure I would not find it terribly interesting. What a surprise it turned out to be! This is a very readable, colorful story of an immigrant family in early 1900's Brooklyn. With every page, Betty Smith carried me away to these neighborhoods and ethnic communities. I loved the trip.

As a senior citizen and former New Yorker, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book after all these years
Although it takes place in the 1910-1920 era, there were many things that came to my memory ( or what's left of it! )
I did a lot of reminiscing.
I highly recomend it.
especially if your an old timer and a New Yorker

Of all Brooklyn literature, "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", has probably the most charm and magnetism for everyone, who reached for it at least once.

The story of the Nolan family from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, comes to life in the book - and the novel is really heartfelt, very much because of simple, but poetic, suggestive and emotionally engaging language. Betty Smith managed to write a timeless piece, not only because of what she wrote about, but largely due to the lack of mannerisms and phrases fashionable in the 1940's, when she wrote "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn".

Francie Nolan, a gifted girl who loves books and decides to be a writer (an alter ego of the author), who is 11 years old at the beginning of the book, is a daughter of Katie, a strong, pragmatic, honest, down-to-earth woman of Austrian descent, who supports her family being a cleaning lady, and Johnny, an Irish, heavy drinking romantic, earning some money now and then as a singing waiter. Francie has a year younger brother, Neely, and although the children are often hungry and cold, and try to earn money, selling scrap metal, they have the love of their parents, their own good nature, and a happy childhood as a result.

The plot follows Francie from 11 to 16, when she goes to college, but also goes back in retrospective as far as the childhood and family lives of Katie and Johnny. Francie is at the center of the story, growing from a dreamy, shy child into a bright, imaginative woman. The lives of the Nolan nuclear family and numerous relatives and neighbors are described in a series of anecdotic pieces, which could make very good short stories, like snapshots of everyday life of the poor neighborhood, where people are resourceful and full of character. These stories, however, are masterfully tied together into this brilliant novel, which made me laugh and cry, moving me to the core, and teaching important lessons of the essence of humanity and American spirit.

Betty Smith wrote a wonderful novel which will inspire generations to come, and immortalized the atmosphere of Brooklyn at the beginning of twentieth century. Thinking of this book simply as of "coming of age" novel does not do it justice - it is much more than that.

If you are like myself a high school senior reading this book for English class, GOOD LUCK! It is by far the least interesting novel I have ever read. Skip it and just look up the sparknotes.

I thought this book would be kinda cool to read since I'm a big fan of Beowulf and have read it several times. Man was I wrong. The writing is terrible. Grendel isn't a monster, he's a cry baby. A story from the "other perspective" has so much potential, but this author didn't use any of it. After reading this book, I wondered if John Gardner read Beowulf at all.

I'm disturbed by the amount of people bashing _Grendel_. It's simply an amazing novel. Perhaps those offering sour reviews simply misunderstand the novel--Gardner, from my reading, isn't really attempting a retelling of the _Beowulf_ story. Instead, he's attempting to cast a philosophical statement *against* a philosophical school of thought that was, and still is, gaining ground when Gardner wrote _Grendel_: existentialism and nihilism, which is embraced by the dragon. Gardner just uses the Beowulf story to frame this social commentary. Consider Gardner's philosophical statement: in a time in history when so many were and are embracing the pointlessness of life, Gardner tells us that there is meaning and real in the world around us. Beowulf smashes Grendel into the wall when they finally meet and forces him to sing walls to prove to Grendel that there is meaning and that reality does exist. And what does Grendel do? He sings walls and sees a different kind of dragon. Grendel, throughout that whole novel, searches for something real, something that carries meaning, and Beowulf becomes that. People read this novel and think it's depressing--it's not. In the end there's hope. Yeah, we know Beowulf is going to die, but before he does, he's going to accomplish great things, and there will be other great rulers after him.

If you're looking for an action story, stick with _Beowulf_. But if you're looking for a philosophical novel to controvert the overwhelming onslaught of postmodernism and beliefs that we're in the world all by ourselves and should find gold and "sit on it" as the dragon tells Grendel, _Grendel_ is one of the finest craftings written to date.

Perhaps those who would denigrate _Grendel_ simply do not understand its intent; it's intent isn't to entertain you; it's intent is to teach you and force you to question. And on those grounds, it's really hard to argue that it's not a fantastic book.

As a fan of the epic _Beowulf_, Gardner's _Grendel_ was recommended to me by a colleague. The genre - re-writing a well-known story from the persepctive of another character is not new (see _Wicked_, for example), so I had a good idea of what I was getting into. Nonetheless, I was disappointed.

That Grendel is not the nasty brute portrayed in the epic poem was expected. The writing, however, was difficult for me get into. At times Gardner wrote in a first-person narrative, but inexplicably he would later change to a third person ("Time-Space cross section: Wealtheow. Cut A: It was the second year ...") It felt totally out of place and character for the story as it was being told. Gardner was also terribly repetitive. I get that he was, to some extent, imitating the style and form of the original - but he did so without the panache of the original, instead merely sounding ridiculous.

The action and interaction between Grendel and the thanes was laborious and frankly uninteresting; again, the original epic was able to keep and maintain my attention - Gardner, much less so. To his credit, Garnder paints a sympathetic Grendel and one in which readers get a clearer understanding of his actions and behaviours. Still, it is not a book I would recommend.

This is not the simple tale of what moves the monster to attack the mead hall. Yes, this is the classic Beowulf tale told from Grendel's perspective, but it's no easy narrative of me-against-him. There is an awful lot more going on here.

Grendel is the basic human, the proto-human animal stripped of all aspects of civilization, what the human is before civilization has had the chance to poison him. He wholly self-centered, a world unto himself. He is pure action and the rawest of emotion, no patience for thought and contemplation. He's capricious, with no moral sense, no real logic. Action is the only thing he knows, and it is what it is, consistent or not. But evil? Not in the least.

As civilization rises, Grendel observes, as only a monster can observe a human, that everything we touch we corrupt and ruin. Trees fall, water is fouled and the game leaves the forest. Ultimately, humanity is pointless and futile; we invent all of our problems. We create envy, ambition, manipulation, subjugation, hierarchy, religion, hope, confidence, arrogance, pride, rationalization and ultimately hubris, and they intertwine to ruin us, as individuals and as tribes. The joy is all around us, as Grendel describes, the bounty and its beauty, life and nature, but we instead choose competition, struggle, corruption, loss, violence and unnatural death.

As civilization coalesces about him, Grendel draws closer to death, and he learns from the humans the value of the vulgar, what it means to be deceitful, what evil really is. He learns agonizingly what solitude is, and wants so desperately to fit in, but cannot. He cannot adapt, and is doomed, and somewhere down deep inside, he knows it. He wants to be included, but he cannot be and never will be. His time is ending, and he must as well. As reason and logic and knowledge come to crowd men's thoughts, his power is ever weaker, until the time comes that he meets his match.

Grendel's story is the sorrow of existence, solitary in birth, life and in death. His mother is an absolute alien, unknowable. She can never truly be his friend, never be his companion or his contemporary. She is the constant reminder of age and the specter of isolation, loneliness and death. She is the ever-present reminder of the future, and is estranged by her very offspring because of it. As a woman she is unknowable, a representation of something to which Grendel mysteriously is drawn but at the same time he is repulsed; he has no concept of how to relate to or respond to his lust, and it escapes him once again in violence.

I recommend readers tackle the original Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (Bilingual Edition) before coming to this revisionist approach. But remember this is not simply a retelling from another point of view. This book is a winner, poetic and lyrical, turning the ancient story of the man versus the monster from one of epic battle and victory to a cautionary tale of what it means to exist in the world of Man.

'All Quiet on the Western Front' is Remarque's timeless tale of war during WWI. It is trite to refer to it as an 'anti-war' story. It is all of that and much more. It's a story of youth, patriotism, naivete and brutal death in the mud of German trenches. It's a tale of bloody assaults, destructive retreats and the story of brave men facing impenetrable walls of bullets and steel. It is told from the German pespective but the story could have been told, with equal impact, from the British, French or British perspective. Their experiences, despite differences in nationalities, was almost exactly the same--filth, fear, desperation, wounds and death.

To what end? Remarque's answer is simple--none. It's all for nothing. All the heroism, cowardice, greed and sacrifice are, ultimately, for exactly nothing. Boys don't come home to their parents or women. They are built into the walls of trenches or their bloated corpses float in the watery mud of shell craters. In the end, they all--German and Allies--smell the same and the maggots are the only ones to benefit.

Of all the poignant scenes, the one I like best is when the young German soldier, seeking shelter during an enemy counterattack, dives into an open crypt. A French soldier dives in after him with his bayonet. There is a struggle and the Frenchman is killed. Now the young German must live face to face with his guilt. He goes through his victim's wallet and finds pictures of his wife and children and loving letters from his wife, praying that he will return to her safe. The German grieves over the horror of his act.

There is a day of quiet. The war seems far away. A butterfly lights on a flower growing in the muck. The young soldier's hand reaches out to touch it. The sniper takes careful aim...

Not to remarkably, Hitler on coming to power, exiled Remarque. Hitler gloried in the winnowing process of war, regarding the culling the 'unfit' in favor of the most fit as Darwinian progress.


Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico

I received All Quiet In The Western Front but found that the
CD was not recorded in English.

"All Quiet on the Western Front" is a well-known work throughout the western world. "Bloom's Guides: All Quiet on the Western Front" is a complete and comprehensive book on the book. Exploring Remarque's work, looking at the roots and meanings scattered throughout that may not be obvious to a simple reader, it is also enhanced with a collection of critical essays discussing the work's impact on the world of literature and the world in general. This Bloom's Guide to a literary classic is a must for any student or non-specialist general reader wanting better understand the nuances, historical references, character insights, and writing style that created "All Quiet on the Western Front."

Thank you for your timely shipping. This book was for a reading assignment, and it was a great book. I did not really want to read it, but it was an exciting and very informative book. I enjoyed it so much I got an A+ on my report!!!

The book came wrapped in cardboard and tape, but nothing was damaged. Great buy! Awesome book, very intense and graphic. I had to read it for an AP European History class.

For a few years now, I've heard "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" was a magnificent book of surreal mysteries that stood as one of the best of the 20th century. I guess in a way, both of these arguments are true. However, the book fails to connect in the end and leads the reader on a long and winding journey through high expectations and, ultimately, dead ends.

The book is undoubtedly an epic. I usually don't commit to 600 page books or more unless I expect a punch and some sort of intellectual awakening. When starting this one, I surely did. After the first 300 pages, I was enthralled, intrigued, entertained, and hopeful. I was telling people what an excellent book this was, ready to mark it down as a confirmed favorite. Murakami filled it with, not only a series of mundane, yet oddly disturbing and cerebral events, but with history lessons, and intricate character studies. But when I reached the 500th page, I was deeply worried the book would end with a van ride off a cliff. I was right about that aspect of the novel.

Murakimi is a talented writer. The ideas are there. The concepts flow. But in the end, "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" feels like an extreme insomnia binge more than well throughout novel of the surreal. It would probably make a great David Lynch movie but not a book you have to invest time and brainpower in. The women are oversexed nothings. The main character is shiftlessly interesting at first, then unbelievable and emotionless til the end.

The book makes me want to read more Murakmi to discover the bright spots in his career. However, avoid this book unless you want to impress the 20 somethings at your local cafe.

I think what I like about Murakami is his tendency to avoid standard resolution (whether this is intentional or not), especially with this novel in particular. Previous reviewers had asked, 'Well, what happened to so and so, what's the significance of this or that and where does it all tie together?'. I don't really care, to be honest, because the shifts in mood throughout the book- strange, funny, scary, disturbing, hopeful- is what really did it for me, no doubt ameliorated by the authors prose.

As strange and implausible as some of the book is, it rings true to life in one regard - things don't always tie together and not everything nor everyone finds a resolute. And in our everyday lives, although we may not develop strange healing marks on our cheeks or enter different dimensions through outdoor wells, there are plenty of things we just cannot explain or fathom, just look at moments of nostalgia or unexplained deja vu. This is what fascinated me by this novel. Earlier in the book I often wondered how the characters and situations would tie together but by the end I was so caught up in the feeling of the book that I knew it didn't matter if it was all significant or not. My perspective on the story changed in the same way that Toru's perspective on life changes - how? where? why? when? - It doesn't always matter because you can't explain everything, but it doesn't mean it's any less amazing a story (real life or a novel). This is the semi-genius that is Murakami, to make the mundane or the insignificant seem significant, then take that feeling away. This is something we do everyday.

I just finished reading The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, I stayed up too late several nights in a row because I couldn't put it down. Sometimes scary and haunting but altogether very beautifully written and very true to the human situation.

Toru Okada, the protagonist, loses his job, his cat, and his wife and goes looking for all three. His search introduces him to a bizarre collection of characters. Strange occurances abound. In the end, this book has too many loose ends (perhaps because the English translation is abridged) and wanders into the weird too often. I do, however, continue to think about the book after finishing it.

there's not much of the book left.

We have telephone sex; adulterous sex; occultish-astral sex; sex with prostitutes and ex-prostitutes; vaguely-titled "fitted" sex for exclusive clients; sex with a device (vibrator?), wet-dreams, rape fantasies...

Just about everything except sex between a man and a woman bonded by love and committed to one another in anything as outlandish as marriage.

If sex sells, that might just explain why most reviewers found it hard to put the book down...

An oddity amongst all of the prurience is the fact that most of it is related second-handedly (to the main character, Toru). The actual, 1st person sexual encounters are comparatively few, and related rather discreetly. Whether this is intentional or not is hard to determine, for one is wary to credit the author with anything resembling an old fashioned literary device when the post-modernist attachment to ambiguity is so evident. Non-sequiturs merely reflect reality, don't you know?

Second-handed accounts and hearsay abound in the novel. (It ties in with Murakami's penchant for name-dropping western musicians, and their music at every possible turn. It is an effective, charming ploy used to good effect in setting the tone, but the problem is that it is used extensively in all Murakami's work I've read up to date. It eventually raises the suspicion of an unconscious, provincial fixation with Western culture. But, of course it could be justified by a fan of his writing as a deliberate ploy to reflect globalization )

In the same vein, every-one Toru meets in the novel seems to be hell-bent on revealing the most intimate and esoteric details of their lives to him. In another time this would have been noted as an unrealistic flaw, but such is the license granted to writers of the ilk that the line dividing a stroke of genius and careless extravagance has been all but obliterated, effectively pre-empting any such criticism, it would seem.

That said, Murakami writes so that one wants to read. And to keep on reading. Even when he doesn't write about sex. It is an original, florid imagination which claims such a large audience with such off-beat narratives. As has been remarked in other reviews, it may ultimately prove to be an unrewarding experience, but his writing makes for compelling reading nonetheless.

He obviously enjoys writing, and it comes across. He is never laboured. There is something in his writing which redeems the obvious flaws. It has the slickness of an advert you want to watch over and over again. Which seems to be an indispensable skill for the art of prose, competing with all else that demands our attention. In that Murakami achieves what many other serious novelists dream of: to hold the flighty, fickle modern audience spellbound, as the majority of the reviews here attest.

Eventually, though, the proof is in the eating, not the puff, of the pudding. Whether hype can transform itself into a product tat endures remains to be seen. Only time will tell. I, for one, have left the table with the suspicion that once the sugar-rush wears off, the want for substance will start to nag.

Caution is therefore advised, Murakami may prove to be addictive.

This is a great book that everyone should read. One thing I especially loved about this book is that it's addicting and a very easy read. The chapters are very short, but it works nicely, and this makes it a fast and easy read that makes you want to go on to the next chapter.

The cat's cradle is an extraordinary tale about the extent of human limitations when incompatibilities exist between the goals of science and humanity. Vonnegut created another masterpiece that describes the dangers of human science when mixed with their desires and lewdness.

John, the narrator, is writing a book about the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and in the process of his research discovers the life of Felix Hoenikker, the Nobel prize-winning physicist and one of the creators of the atomic bomb.

Similar to walking through a hilarious human maze, we are taken to San Lorenzo; a town were Hoenikker's two sons and daughter live and ignorantly use their father's last invention causing another world wide human disaster.
Vonnegut brilliantly shows human limitations and foolishness with his description of an imaginary religion called Bokononism, which originated and blossomed in San Lorenzo.

Vonnegut, who survived the cruelty of war and faced life's emptiness, is one of the few writers who can laugh at the human inability to reconcile the inherent conflict of science's power and capabilities with the needs and limitations of humanity.

I love Vonnegut, he's one of my favorite authors, but I had never read this book. I could NOT put it down. I don't have a lot of time to read, but I managed to finish this in 3 days. Definitely one of my new favorite books...

The 60's paranoia doesn't get more sharp, more funny and more smart than Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle". But, unfortunately, this portray is still somehow up to date than ever. Published early in that decade, this novel concerns on the fear of a chemical war and the end of the world. One of the characters is a scientist who fathered the Atomic Bomb and also developed something called `ice-nice' that is able to freeze all the water in the world. When the novel was published the world was living the edge of Cold War - hence the interesting metaphor. This is also a cautionary (and very funny) tale about too much power and too much desire of ending the workd. Vonnegut's tone transits between the regular science- fiction and black humor that add more layers to the book. If for one side the characters are plain, on the other, what remains, the fear of a nuclear war or something like it, is very relevant and contemporary.

Enough zaniness and dark humor permeate Cat's Cradle to keep a reader entertained, but there's still a point to Vonnegut's odd comedy--the destruction and danger of nuclear-type weapons, the criticism of society and their motives, and the general stupidity of mankind. To say Vonnegut takes a pessimistic viewpoint might be an understatement, but at least he can have fun doing it. In many respects, I actually found Cat's Cradle to be a little more enjoyable than Slaughter House Five, which seemed to be a little darker in nature.

The story begins with Jonah studying and researching the late Felix Hoenikker, a renown scientist responsible for producing the atom bomb and a dangerous liquid substance called ice-nine. To do this, he interviews various people and colleagues of the late doctor, finding out, while Hoenikker had innocent intentions, he was careless with both his family and his inventions. In his quest, Jonah comes to identify Dr. Hoenikker's three children--Newt, Angela and Frank--a very odd group of kids. Angela is very tall and lanky and has to play the role of parent because of her father's neglect. Newt is a midget, who comes to find love with a midget Russian performer. And Frank leaves the family, disappears, and later emerges in San Lorenzo, being the supposed architect of San Lorenzo's "master plan." Eventually Jonah and a group (including Angela and Newt) embark on a trip to San Lorenzo to see the island of San Lorenzo, it's population "all fiercely dedicated to the ideals of the Free World" (Jonah learns from the pamphlet on the plane). The irony of much of what is discovered on this island is that the people's religion--Bokonon--is mostly based on lies (as it says in its introduction). From here, Jonah becomes adjusted to the people and their customs, meets the island's dictator, "Papa", hears more rumors about the mysterious Bokonon, falls in love with a goddess-like woman Mona, and becomes president of San Lorenzo (he learns from Frank that this is his ultimate destiny, or his "zah-mah-ki-bo"). Eventually, there is a major event that Jonah must deal with, and this happens at the book's conclusion. Wacky as it is, the plot seems to be just a vehicle to get across much of Vonnegut's satirical points about human existence.

Much of the fun of this book is the exceptional comic voice by Vonnegut. He can seemingly take the most serious issues, like religion, politics, nuclear threats, and turn them upside down. One bizarre part is when Julian Castle looks at Newt's "Cat's Cradle" painting (which Newt professes should hold a message for everyone), regards it as "garbage" and throws it out into the waterfall. A moment prior to this Jonah had been musing over the painting's meaning, and this act by Castle seems to fit right into the nonsensical mentality of the island. There is also the "last rites" scene with "Papa" and Jonah, where "Papa" leans over and whispers to Jonah to tell Bokonon that he is sorry he didn't kill him and his philosophy of lies.

If you can take all of the author's jabs in a light way then this will be an enjoyable read; if not, then you might want to pass, or at least sample the book before purchasing. I wished I would have read this one before reading Slaughter House Five (as Cat's Cradle works better for an introduction to the author).

This is the funniest book I have ever read. I suspect that "The Simpsons"'s Comic Book Guy is based upon Ignatius.

Having been smitten by this book in my twenties, I figured it was time to re-visit it in my forties. Big mistake. While still a ridiculous tragi-comedy, it must have been a slow year in 1981 for Pulitzer Prize contenders. Maybe I just know too many people with Ignatius Reilly tendencies now. Perhaps the book's editors couldn't bring themselves to tighten up the work of a dead author. Anyway I cut it, I found it tiresome on second reading (though I will admit to laughing out loud repeatedly).

Too strange to be good, with a feeling that the oddity is draped consciously over the whole thing in an attempt to be seen as odd. A first and last novel, as the author committed suicide!

I checked www.imdb.com to see if a movie version had been attempted of the story, and breathed a sigh of relief that it had not. Supposedly the book is a formative influence in Jimmy Buffet's songs, although I'm not sure I see how.

Someone compared this disaster to the Seinfeld tv series, and I suppose I would agree. I never had much appreciation for Seinfeld and its desperate grasps at comedy; just so, Confederacy of Dunces relies largely on slapstick, nerve grating characters, and meandering plot. The book drags on and on--the climax, that should indicate an easy, swift road to the conclusion, is so backward that the last 20 pages will be even harder to read through than some of the middle 20 pages.

In all fairness, there was some effective comedic elements; the voices of the characters were unique, and the language was elegant. Its hard to say exactly why this greatly lauded, Pulitzer Prize winning novel failed to live up to my expectations, what literary mechanics failed Toole, but I would approach the reading of this book with a grain of salt or two. Not something I would ever read twice.

This book was suggested to me by a friend who absolutely raved about its comic genius. Well, I couldn't wait to read it! Afterall, we have fairly similar taste in books.
After forcing myself to get through the first 100 pages, hoping it would get better, I just had to stop. This book was hands-down, the LEAST funny book I have ever read in my entire life. Eventually, trying to actually read it and not skim became completely impossible.
The story jumps from location to location so much that I wondered what was even going on and why the author chose to throw in the "bar" location. The main character is horrendously annoying and not even in a funny way, in a grotesque, childish manner. And God help you during the breaks in which Ignatius writes page after page of intensely boring "stories". This book was much too over-the-top for me and I agree with another reviewer that unless you're into "farts and burps" and finger licking this book is not for you.

Yes, we have been checking out a lot of books about elections and voting since we are right in the middle of a presidential election year, and I have alot of opinions about the quality of books that are out there for children. I really liked "Grace for President" (I reviewed that one as well). I felt that Doreen Cronin's book, "Duck for President" was written more to poke fun at the process than explain it to kids so that they can understand how things are really supposed to work. But this book, I LOVE!

This book takes a very complex subject about our election process (which itself is confusing, even to adults) in the United States and breaks it down in to easily understood concepts that run from the beginning stages of announcing your candidacy through actually winning the election and being sworn in to office. Kids learn about the two party system (yes, the Libertarians are left out), the electoral college, primaries, campaigning, and campaign promises. I loved that the author chose not to dumb down the information, but instead used words that kids understand to explain how elections work. It is an excellent factual book, and the story is engaging enough for children that it will keep their attention while they learn about serious, important subject matter. It is an excellent primer that should be a requirement to be used by teachers who are doing an introduction to our country's election system. Maybe the author could send a copy to Hilary Clinton so that she too, can underand it doesn't matter what the poular vote says, it is the electoral college that counts! Just kidding to all you Hilary fans out there--no need to comment! FIVE BIG STARS to Catherine Stier for tackling a complex, complicated subject and making it enjoyable for children to learn.

I was in awe when I opened this amazing pop-up book. It is a three-dimensional look at the alphabet that stands alone in excellence. The cover is holographic. You are intrigued right away as your eyes feast upon a shiny red cover that changes its letter upon movement, but the real pleasure awaits you inside the pages of this work.

Within you will find the alphabet set before you with the most imaginative use of paper that I have ever seen. With the flick of your hand or the movement of a page one letter will turn into another, one spins around, the letter B slides out to greet you. Every page is an exciting surprise, an adventure for your mind and a morsel of delight for your eyes. Children learning their alphabet will be encouraged to look at this book over and over again. It has a drawing power like none other that I have seen. Adults as well will not be able to resist the urge to study each letter and be in awe at the imagination of this author.

I am impressed and am proud to give this book a hearty recommendation. New invocative work that every household would benefit from having, definitely an investment that will continue to bring pleasure and learning for years to come.

This is an elegant art book. It is not a children's book. The book is printed using only black, white and red with no pictures at all. The pop-ups are beautiful and very clever.

This is a really cool Alphabet pop-up book! The cover is one of those optical plates (sort of holographic), where what you see changes depending on what your angle of approach is.

Kids of all ages love this type of stuff, but to test it out I not only gave "ABC3D" to my own two children -- currently 6 and 8 years old -- but I loaned it to my son's kindergarten teacher from last year. The response was overwhelmingly positive. (The teacher wanted to know where she could get her own copy, and my kids kept clamoring to get the book back, so they could play with it some more.)

One of the reasons for the book's popularity is that the pop-ups are clever. While generally speaking each letter sits between it's own two pages, there are some clever variations that keep kids guessing. "C" becomes "D" , for example, when the C flops over and a previously hidden vertical bar becomes the upright part of the "D". Similarly, pulling the page taunt, turns E into an F. And O and P have a special transparency page with two slanty-bars that remake them into Q and R. But if you have time, look at the video and see for yourself.

As with all pop-up books, I would suggest that "ABC3D" be used with parental help. Toddlers and Preschoolers and even Kindergartners can be really rough on paper.

An interesting book that you could view with a child, but supervise them - the pop-ups are on the delicate side, and could be damaged easily by a child. There are only three colors - black (and shades of gray), red, and white. Some of the pop-ups, like the letter "U" are really fun. At first I thought my copy was missing the letters "Q" and "R," but I was mistaken - this is a clever book, even for those of us who know the alphabet!

This book shows you that thinking outside the "box" can truly be illustrated so inventively here that not only will any age enjoy it,
but it makes you reflect. This small book is a great coffee table book, great for a small group show n tell and great just to
relax with from time to time. What I enjoyed about the book is that seeing the transformation of the letters in various formats makes one think about life's options. When you look at something, letters or anything else , how many different ways can it be reinvented- repurposed, effectively and creatively. I enjoyed how the letters are morphed so that they have a fluidity and a beauty to them. I think this book is great for the elementary teacher who is teaching penmanship to add a little whimsy to learning. Great for the art teacher or fashion instructor whose trying to get the students to look at other creative options. If your are creative I think it could even be used as the back drop for a good bed time story for parents to use with kids to show them creativity as well. If your not into being creative visually, the book definitely will show you that if you put your mind to it, you've got so many more options than the old standards. Look around in your world and see it differently.

My son was showing a lot of anger, and didn't want to talk about it. This book was a great way to approach the subject during a non-angry time. It's very helpful to get a third party involved so remotely. The book was written well for his age - some humor, comic book type pictures, and some ideas that my 8 year old found to be helpful.

This would probably be a useful book for children under 12. Changing behaviors is always best done at an early age.

Dawn Huebner has once again tackled a difficult problem and broke it down into reasonable parts. She gives kids and their parents strategies to deal with angry feelings without letting them get out of control. This is a great book for children, their parents, teachers, and counselors.

A good and well written cognitive behavioral plan to help children and adolescents control their anger and behavior. May be hard to use by children without the guide and motivation of an adult.Excellent material to be used by a psychotherapist. Adults may easily apply these same principles to enhance their own self control.

The Mom's Choice Awards® honors excellence in family-friendly media, products and services. An esteemed panel of judges includes education, media and other experts as well as parents, children, librarians, performing artists, producers, medical and business professionals, authors, scientists and others. A sampling of the panel members includes: Dr. Twila C. Liggett, Ten-time Emmy-winner, professor and founder of Reading Rainbow; Julie Aigner-Clark, Creator of Baby Einstein and The Safe Side Project; Jodee Blanco, New York Times Best-Selling Author; LeAnn Thieman, Motivational speaker and coauthor of seven Chicken Soup For The Soul books; Tara Paterson, Certified Parent Coach, and founder of The Just For Mom Foundation(tm) and the Mom's Choice Awards®. Parents and educators look for the Mom's Choice Awards® seal in selecting quality materials and products for children and families. This book has been honored by this distinguished award.