Fiction Literature Books

This is Philippa Gregory's best novel yet! Not many writers would bother to go so deep into the lives of the women who changed the course of history. In a time when women were thought of as inferior and bothersome, Gregory opens the eyes of the reader and makes them realize that without Kathrine of Aragon, or Anne Boleyn, or Jane Seymour, or Anne of Cleves, or Katherine Howard, or Katherine Parr, Henry VIII would not be remembered as he is now. He would not be that infamous king who tore his own country apart for the lust of a woman. It was the women in his life that made him famous(and the same goes for many other men in history). That's what I like about Gregory, she makes these people real, she turns them back into flesh and blood before our eyes. She makes them laugh, love, and cry. She gives them humanity. This is not just another one of her fantastic triumphs as a writer, but full proof of her knowledge of the human nature.

Gregory provides a fresh angle to the "done to death" story of Henry VIII and his wives. Historically accurate, suspenseful, and insightful character development make this book a pleasure to read. I was lucky enough to listen to it on CD where three marvelous actresses read the parts of the two queens and Jane Boelyn. While sometimes it's wonderful to curl up with a book--the CD performances made the story come alive.

You know it's fiction but it's believable and could have happened. The author does a good job spinning this tale based on history. Some of the thoughts and belief seem a little modern but overall a good read. I would recommend it.

The Boleyn Inheritance is a perfect follow up to The Other Boleyn Girl. Philippa Gregory takes you back in history in such a rich and wonderful way that I have been recomending this book already to anyone I meet who loves either history or just reading a great author. Now I'm reading The Queen's Fool and again I'm messmerized. She is definantly an author whos work I plan to continue reading for a long time. I highly recomend this book and all her work.

This book definetly demonstrates the trials and tribulations that woman in medieval England had to face. This book basically picks up where The Other Boleyn Girl left off, with the exception of pretty much skipping Henry's marriage to Jane Seymour. My only complaint is that Philippa skipped that queen.. In beginning of this story, she has died in child birth. Anne of Cleves, I cannot say enough about her character and her silent charm. This queen struck a chord deep within myself. I felt for her and admired the way she overcame both a domineering brother and King Henry and his court. Katherine Howard, frivolous stupid child that meets a tragic ending for following her heart. This book goes back and forth between the viewpoints of these two queens and the one always observing it all, Jane the traitor. Some of you will remember her from The Other Boleyn Girl. I personally enjoyed the back and forth narration, my mother, however did not. Truly something to consider when contemplating the purchase of this book.

On a whim I picked this one up, knowing of it and recognizing the book title. I knew nothing of what the book was about, except what I could surmise from the cover.

I was a little put off initially with the way Hesse wrote, kind of flighty with nothing too concrete or definite. Is it a spiritual quest, a personal quest and so on. Then as Siddhartha grows older within the book we begin to see the natural progression from one mental/spiritual situation to the next. We see him go from spiritual, to rich, gambling, to being poor to a heightened spiritual state and so on.

All in all, after I worked my way into the flesh of Hesse's writing, I began to enjoy Siddhartha. You feel as though you are on the spiritual voyage with him and can understand where he is coming from. I am glad that there were only 150 pages and it was a fast read, because I most certainly would not want to read this style of writing for very long. I would recommend.

4 stars.

A journey through the life of a man with a single purpose: to find his own truth.

Knowing that the only way to discover life's greatest mysteries is to go through the heart of them alone, he finds himself living one extreme after another until he finally rests in the balance.

The ending will either leave you glowing or pondering, but either way you will not regret taking the time to read this remarkable tale.

Although I can understand the longing to separate oneself from the frustrations and hypocrisy of human life, it does seem like an abandonment rather than an accomplishment to me. Maybe because of this, and because I had been exposed to the tenets of both Buddhism and Hinduism prior to reading this novel, I didn't find it as life-altering and uplifting as many others find it. If you're new to eastern philosophy, this could be a good general introduction.

I have never been a huge fan of philosophy, but I can see why this little tome is considered a classic. It is a life's journey and a profound look into the soul. Siddhartha's journey and his desire to be spiritually fulfilled began as a Brahmin's son, then as an ascetic, then into a life of lust and material possessions, and finally into a peaceful life as a ferry driver. With all his outward searching, Siddhartha comes to realize that inner peace is not achieved through lessons from a teacher, or fasting, or worldliness. It is an inward reflection, a recognition of self. This book challenges the ideas of love and nature, among other things.

Siddhartha is a man on a spiritual journey. German writer, Herman Hesse, starts off strong about a man who is willing to give up everything in search of his self and to live without the needs and comforts of life. Siddhartha is searching for meaning which includes a spiritual journey without material possessions and even relationships. He has a love relationship with Kamalah who would provide him his son, something that she predicted. That is where the story, I think gets lost. Instead the book sort of lost it's way rearding Siddhartha's journey by his relationship with Kamalah and his search for religion and spiritualism is brushed aside by his relationships with one woman and his quest to continue to find himself. Hesse is an interesting writer in that he starts strongly trying to help us find our own spiritual center much like Siddhartha has in his life and he gets lost along the way or is detoured. Despite it's short length, it's quite a powerful book but it loses it's punch midway in the novel

Gilgamesh is a great epic poem, particularly for me as a "theology hobbyist" it is pretty interesting to understand how other semitic cultures lived in the days before and after Noah, befor Abraham. It's also thought provoking in respect to how much it relates to various biblical accounts. The author does discuss this briefly in the introduction. Essentially, it has expanded my horizons...

It will be obvious that plagerism is not a recent phenomenon. When you are aware of Gilgamesh, the supposed wise sages of books like the Torah, Bible, what ever the Arabs call their drivel, you will realize that you have been duped as the authors of those works merely ripped-off the Greeks, Egyptians and other cultures that pre-dated them. I, for one, have no wish to perpetuate the supposed divinity of Middle-Eastern religions. I never quite got the vengeful God only to later take anger management classes and become a loving God thing! There is definitely something more to the Universe than random chance, but Mankind does not yet have a handle on that knowledge, certainly not the rediculous, violent, crimes against Humanity, Middle East.

I had to read it for a summer reading book. It was horrible. I mean, who wants to read all about the Ancient Sumarians?

I was reading these thirty-some reviews of The Epic of Gilgamesh, starting the old Sanders one in prose, which isn't half bad. Almost none of translations and/or reditions (translation made from other translations, rather than from the original Akkadian in cuneiform alphabet)...none are really bad, but you certainly can get different slants on the story, and twisted episodes, and missed tone, and so on.
The scholarly translations by Assyriologists (A.George, Foster, Kovacs, Dalley, and so on) are usually too scholarly, and interrupt the read with all the problems that still abound. (Almost a third of the epic is still missing, for example.) The renditions, poets and wanna-be's like Jackson and Ferry, tend to wander off into their own thing; John Gardner (Grendel) included: he's sexy, but he ain't Sin-leqi-unnini (the supposed 'Homer' of the version found in an ancient library in 600 BC). Stephen Mitchell, a great Rilke translator, doesn't let on that he doesn't really read the Akkadian, so that's a rendition without your knowing whose versions he worked from. There's a lot of fudging going on in the Gilgamesh racket. It's a whole sub-story to the epic itself, and almost as much fun.

But if you wanted to get as close to the original text as possible, dig up the 1948 translation by Alexander Heidel (whose text seems sympathetically ancient: the book's typeface makes it look like a dissertation from that era, font by Underwood). But Heidel is closest to what the original sounds like: The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parellels: "A translation and interpretation of the Gilgamesh Epic and related Babylonian and Assyrian documents."
But really everyone named above, and maybe three times that many in print today, all take it beyond Heidel's crude (albeit with an ancient beauty, almost like an artifact) level, but I think they all err, in going too far, or not far enough, or getting too far from the original, or just keeping a good read going. The politics of getting to the original tablets, by the bye, and the technology of reading the ancient clay fragments covered in cuneiform script three to four thousand years old, is a worthwhile epic in itself. There are 'Gilgamesh wars' out there that you'll never hear about, having to do with careers, withheld translations, transcriptions, etc. And why not, the stakes aren't really that small: this is the very first of work of literature, predating Homer by a thousand years and much longer if you look at earlier versions, the Old Babylonian and the Sumerian mess. Why indeed not lock in the 'definitive translation'?

But enough of human ambition; one final suggestion: if you want to read a version that stays quite close to the original, whatever that is/was, but brings the sensory dimension up to modern taste, and teases out a good deal of the humor that's arguably in the original but which most translations miss, then I'm pleased to inform you that there is yet one more Gilgamesh cropping up in of all places, at Lulu dot com, as a graphic novel. The cartoonist has added his own humor--it feels like/looks like it's for 14 year olds some of the time--but he's also brought out the intrinsic humor of the original, has certainly rendered the scenes vividly, keeps his own contribution distinct from 'the original', and the text for the pure epic reads as well as the best ones above and keeps the reader forefront, not the scholarship. Check it out at Lulu.

Qualifier: It's not finished, but two out of three installments are there, through about Tablet IX (a total of 12), where Enkidu falls sick and then Gilgamesh sets out bereft and alone on his quest for immortality, learning lots of secrets as he goes, including that of the story of the Flood. This is Noah's arc, but written down some one to two millenium before Genesis. When one George Smith first cracked the code, in the 1872, there were riots. It was Darwin all over again, to the literalists of faith, of which there were then as now, many.
A neat new book (2006) on all that is out, listed here in amazon: David Damrosch's The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh.

Back to the graphic version:
A comic book reviewer, former editor at DC Comics, one 'Occasional Superheroine,' begins a pretty favorable revew with something like: Ancient Sumeria meets Krum... This is about right: the epic bleeds through in all its strength and Sumerian-Babylonian wonder and feeling, and the cartoons provide a tongue-in-cheek commentary that's much more sophisticated than it at first appears, with its Ally-Oop hero and his hirsute side-kick. The Bull of Heaven, the giant monster Humbaba, Shamhat and Enkidu out there on the steppes unchaperoned, spoiled little vindictive Ishtar... it's really worth a gander.
Curious note: the artist and writer seem to be brothers, or a father-son team. And in the interest of Full Disclosure, one of them's me!
Occasional Superheroine recommends it; so do I.
~"Sam"

This version is a very popular adaptation of the Gilgamesh story because it contains N. K. Sandars' crucial introduction which is just as important as the translation itself because it includes information about the discovery of the tablets in Assyria dating back to the third millennium BC and then goes on to explain the difficulties that scholars have had in rediscovering the story from these artifacts and how during this long laborious translation process found themselves actively engaged in evolving the story, and thus the mythology, which had developed from other sources and had certainly influenced ancient hero epics that proceeded it. There is no one version of Gilgamesh. There are very many. Having a good introduction like this makes reading the story even better because we understand its significance beyond being just a very old fable.

The story of the translation of the epic of Gilgamesh is every bit as important as the epic itself and maybe more so because of its relevance to modern questions about the authenticity of the accounts held by popular traditional sacred texts. It is impossible to ignore the resemblance the epic of Gilgamesh has to Greek mythology as well as to the Judeo-Christian Islamic religions. Elements of the story such as Gilgamesh being part god part man, the flood story which is vertically identical to the one in Genesis and the underlying quest for immortality will peak interest and is probably the main reason why most people want to read the epic of Gilgamesh. The discovery of the tablets only increased popular scholarly opinions that religions have their roots in mythology and here is yet more evidence to back that position. Thus the epic of Gilgamesh and the story behind it is an essential classical text for ancient storytelling and how they evolve with time through the civilizations that come in contact with them. The Epic is not just Gilgamesh but the gradual progression of important themes in life that humans deal with by developing these legends and fables.

Sandar's work also contains an important treatment of the story and an explanation of the role of the gods which are essentials to understanding what the story is about. Gilgamesh is hard to read without these initiations because the era and the setting in which the story was written must be dealt with or else the plot which contains abundant and rapid interactions between the gods, their attributes and the consequences, will not make any sense to the reader. The ancient ways, and we are talking ancient going back some 5000 years at least, are not our ways. Here gods are superabundant and are responsible for every aspect of life and with an outcome, such as the setting of the sun by scorpions, there is also a god who is bringing the fiery ball down into the underworld where two more gods are there to catch it and who influence our lives somehow.

Gilgamesh is another world, almost alien, giving us a glimpse into how our ancestor's explained themselves and the world they found themselves in. It goes to show how far our modern understanding of why we are the way we are and why things are the way they are, has gone.

Considering the fact that 911 was portrayed fallaciously to the American public as a "terrorist attack" in order so that the most primal of human sentiments; paranoia, patriotism, and mass shock; would be instilled within citizens, thus allotting the Bush administration permission to wage war on a virtually non-existent enemy, I was highly disappointed with the fact that Jonathan Saffron Foer did nothing less than stir up the same sentimentalism as did Bush and his oil hungry cronies, in order to sell this novel that is being penned as an "American Classic". I mean, come on now! This book is told through the eyes of an American, when it should have been told through the eyes of the external terrorist threat that the U.S Government provoked into bombing us. If anyone wants a thorough, non American centered view on what really happened during 911, I would recommend reading "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein, or watching Michael Moore's documentary "Faranheit 911". I don't know about you all, but I am sick and tired of hearing stories of people wallowing in sorrow about 911. The last thing we need is ANOTHER American viewpoint to enhance the imperialistic, ego-centric American lens through which a majority of this country has been forced to view world events for centuries now.

Though this book is very different from Foer's first one, I loved it just as much! Truly should be experienced by everyone!

I didn't think I would ever find a book better than "Everything is Illuminated."
Apparently, the only person who can write better than Jonathan Safran Foer is Jonathan Safran Foer.

Buy this book. Then buy nine extra copies. Give them to your friends and family. They'll thank you for it. I loved this book. It's smart and funny and touching without being sappy.

One of the best books I've read in a very, very long time. I picked it up because the cover looked interesting, and I'm so glad I did. It's heartbreaking, uplifting, encouraging and devestating all in one, sometimes in the same sentence even.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has recently lost a loved one, and/or is searching for a way to grieve. It's unspeakably amazing and wonderful, with enough heart to put a broken one back together.

Great translation by Robert Fagles, I'd recommend the matching Penguin Deluxe Edition of the Odyssey also translated by Fagles.

I used the W. H. D. Rouse translation.

One of our first war novels: the Achains and their allies send a great multitude of ships laden with armored warriors carrying bows, spears, and swords; divisions of horse drawn chariots rumble there way into the ranks of the Trojans and their allies laying siege to Troy. The Trojans counter-attack with a push all the way to the ships. And as we read, these gains and losses continue throughout the story. There is a short truce to mourn the dead and recoup, then the battle rages on only in our minds.

It flows like a song. Lucid, with wonderful imagery and symbolism's. Homer, with Rouses' help, bring out the details of battle and personalize each warrior: we learn he has a wife, a family, and a life elsewhere, after he has been cut in two and stripped of his armor. Men are slaughtered with an indifference, as if they were mere cattle. I found it hard to follow the extensive list of characters. I believe some of the realism was lost to modernization. I also found the knowledge Homer had of the human anatomy surprising. The footnotes were helpful. Better than Odyssey.

It is interesting to note: the gods control man, and man controls the gods. The two interact with each other; the gods send down their wrath and protections upon their favored nation. The gods are no different than the humans they try to control, except for their immortality. Hades is where all mortals go unto death. The parallels to the Bible are evident, with connotations of God. It can be hard to grasp.......a story that is 2,700 years old.

Wish you well
Scott

Great introduction by Bernard Knox. Very few introductions add anything important to what comes afterward, but this one is even delicious to read, the great subject matters of the Iliad are here explained in terms that reach any person who can read.

I hadn't read the Iliad since a lot younger, and I was happily surprised to see so many different aspects that I hadn't noticed before. The war-film impressions of a kid were gone, and now only the sadness of death, the rage of Achilles, no mercy to the enemies... Hector stood as my hero this time, clearly defined as the last man to stand up for true human, civilized values. The embodiment of civilization, the last bastion of a soon to die culture of life.

It really sounded to me as a warning to cultivated societies of today that peace, freedom, happiness, wealth, art, are not free. And if this is not realized the shorter lived they will be. Not necessarily to be interpreted as a call to arms, but rather as food for thought, in the sense that trying to bribe the enemy is not the solution in the long run. Every time a Trojan got caught his family, or himself, would try ransoming him at the same time revealing the wealth, treasures they had collected, and arousing the greed and resentment of the "bad guys". "Remember, my child, that it was my sweat and labor that put you through college", we could use that expression to describe it. But it's like calling on deaf ears, since no pampered kid will feel obliged to such parental cares, on the contrary, rebellion is the outcome. The child becomes arrogant, even perverted, reluctant to admit his debt to his illiterate parents. No more digressing.

The translation is wonderful, very readable. A book never to become old. Also readable the essay on The Iliad by Simone Weil focusing on 'might'. Who are today yesterday's Argives and Troyans?

I just finished an extension course on The Iliad, and had the luxury of picking whatever translation I desired. I tried many, including Fagles, and a bit of the Greek original, and came to this conclusion:

Don't be misled by poetic or quasi-poetic translations. These can never do justice to a language incompatible with English, and miss the concision and power of Homer. If you want poetry, read Christopher Logue's reimagining of the epic in his several books.

Instead, get the best literal translation. For me right now, that's Hammond. Fagles tries to combine both worlds, and is unsatisfactory in either. I must admit, the packaging is handsome, but Fagles takes too many liberties with the text. For instance, when the text is repeated in Greek, it should be repeated in English, but Fagles doesn't do this.

At least Fagles is readable, unlike Lattimore, whose English does not trip happily on the tongue much of the time.

I don't normally write reviews for "the classics": what can I say that hasn't already been said more elegantly and succinctly by hundreds and thousands already? So, regarding the book itself I will say simply that this story clearly has earned the title of "classic" and will surprise newcomers (or readers like myself who have gained a newfound appreciation for works like this upon adulthood!) with its passion, nobility, and universality even now--thousands of years after it was first crafted. Also, as others have noted, this version is graced with an extensive introduction, maps, notes, and other supplementary materials which aid the ease of reading and fully appreciating the text.

Instead, I will focus on the translation itself, which I believe has been the target of well-meant but generally unearned criticism. I will preface this by saying that I am not versed in ancient Greek, and while I have perused several translations of the Iliad, Fagles' is the only one I have read in its entirety. However, as someone who has done translations in the past, I can sympathize with the task of Fagles and others like him as they attempt to craft a translation that is both faithful to the original yet maximizes clarity and readability for an audience that is thousands of years and many layers of language and culture removed from Homer's Greeks.

I would like to praise Fagles for his ability to satisfy both demands without needing to make very many sacrifices or compromises. Critics of Fagels' translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey like to point to Fagels' treatment of epithets as an example of why it is not "accurate", "literal", or "scholarly". That is, in Homer's original, it was common to repeat the same epithet as a matter of convention. A reviewer of the Odyssey notes that the phrase "resourceful Odysseus" is repeated 68 times in the tale, and notes that Fagles has rendered this phrase in "48 different translations, only 12 of which have the form Adjective+Odysseus". This comment was intended as a criticism, but to me it shows the genius of Fagles' translation: he has managed to take a convention that would be conspicuous, awkward, and repetitive in English and carefully re-crafted it in a way that retains the idea and information of the original Greek. Ultimately, which translation style one prefers is a matter of individual preference ... but it does not speak to the quality of the translation itself.

In the end, the success of every translation is measured in reader response, and I believe the generally positive reaction speaks to its lyricism, accuracy, and overall ability to engage a modern audience. For the person fluent in ancient Greek, perhaps this is not the translation for you (although, if you're fluent in ancient Greek, why bother with translations?). For those of us who are more interested in the Iliad as a classic in world literature, I believe this translation is the version for you. You are not being cheated out of the "real deal" just because Fagles was as interested in translating the Iliad as a story of cohesive ideas as in translating it as a text of individual words. Don't believe those who will tell you that somehow this is a watered down "Iliad Lite" for the illiterate masses: ultimately the differences of opinion being expressed here are more of style than of substance.

The Federalist Papers need no review. They are classics in American History and were the basis for convincing the Colonials that the Constitution was a sound structure for the new Government.

Must read for those who wish to understand the US Constitution in it basic understanding from the writers of the USC

You will not know American History without reading these papers. I am a history major and forget or never realized the importance of these papers. I know I never read them in college.

The details have already been well covered so let me just add another five star vote for must read(or for many of us reread). Whatever your political views you simply cannot understand the basis of our countries principles without working through the Federalist Papers. Step away from the bloggers and bar stool pundits(same thing really-just different delivery) and do your own homework on the founding of this great country. I am not a flag waving, rah, rah patriot type but it is hard to come away from a reading of the Federalist papers without a profound respect, admiration and in my case awe of the principles which form our government.

Lastly, this is a review of the Signet series which is very good but frankly I suggest not spending too much time worrying about which edition, publisher etc. The main point is to get a copy and start studying.

The Federalist Papers provide an outstanding basis for comprehending the foundation in the principles of creating and maintaining the U.S. government. It is very interesting. If you are studying American politics you can not continue without reading this book. It will also give you a better understanding of how the older laws of the U.S.A. were developed.

enjoying c.s. lewis is a recent pasttime. i find these writings to be enlightening and full of life.

The book took a while to get here, and when it did, it was in rough shape for supposedly being brand new. I also discovered I could have bought it for $5 cheaper from another online retailer. Not too impressed with this purchase.

C.S. Lewis was certainly 1 of, if not the most, thought provoking theologist of the last century. As a former atheist/current agnostic, I will say, his is the only sensible argument for Christianity I've ever come across. Of course his prose is as always thoughtful, intelligent, & often humorous.

This is a beautiful book, and from my experience, you will not find it in stores for less than $60. It was delivered on time, in perfect condition, and cost a lot less (including shipping), than it was in stores. This makes a beautiful gift or addition to a personal collection.

To have in one place the works of one of the greatest minds of the Twentieth Century is to have a treasure in ones hands. The logic of Mere Christianity is so close that it leave little wiggle room for the deepest of intellects. The satire of Screwtape Letters is hilarious but pointed and so true to life. Miracles is another apologetic as well as the Great Divorce. One needs this volume at hand and needs to read its content from cover to cover to even start to say that they are an educated person. For me Lewis is one of the greatest writers of all time, and a theologian without all the trappings of obscurantism. Enjoy the exercise of mind and heart in reading these classics.

In my opinion Junot Diaz is a good writer. I found the book to be a good read, but NOT a great read. I was expecting so much more. I feel that so many main parts were left out, like how did they finally get to the states? It jumped back and forth too much. However, there were a lot of funny and interesting parts in the book. My favorite chapter was Drown.

This is the first book by the 2008 Pulitzer-winning author of "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." It's a collection of short stories that are set between the 1970's and 1990's in the Dominican Republic, the Bronx and in a variety of Northern NJ towns.

In "Ysrael," two brothers walk to another town in the DR to see a boy who wore a mask (because his face had been eaten off by a pig when he was a baby).

"Fiesta, 1980" is about a party in the Bronx that Yunior, the narrator in several stories in this book and the primary narrator in Oscar Wao, and his family attend. In describing his aunt's place, Yunior says that it had "been furnished in Contemporary Dominican Tacky" (pg. 32).

In "Aurora," a small-time drug dealer tells the story of his relationship with a female heroin addict. "We all do s*#@ like this, stuff that's no good for you," he says (pg. 50).

"Edison, New Jersey" is a story about two pool-table deliverymen. Wayne is in his late 30's or early 40's. His partner describes him as "a big goofy guy - I don't understand why the girls dig his s*#@. One of those mysteries of the universe" (pg. 125). They deliver the tables and work in the showroom as the narrator relates the story of his recent break-up: "We stopped playing only when it started to go wrong for us, when I'd wake up and listen to the traffic outside without waking her, when everything was a fight" (pg. 132).

"Negocios" is the story of Ramon, who moves to America in the 1960's, leaving his wife and children behind him with the promise that he'll bring them over when he makes enough money. It's narrated by his youngest son, Yunior, who describes his father as "real good at planning and real bad at doing" (pg. 196). Ramon's story is one of hard work and occasional bad luck. Eventually, he marries a citizen in order to become a citizen himself, and he struggles with the guilt about his family that is still in the DR. The story ends with Yunior having a conversation many years later with Ramon's second wife.

Diaz's stories are filled with hard realization that the American dream for most immigrants is really an American myth - many more stumble along than succeed. NJ is a bleak place for these characters and their generational stories.

Junot Diaz is a good writer. Reading these stories is better than watching some dumb TV show depicting growing up the hard way. But for those of us who did grow up poor or with single mothers or with a bunch of deliquent friends, I just don't see this book as something to celebrate. Could it be that 'literary readers' are all from the middle class and find depiction of street life revelatory? I had the same experiences growing up on the streets of Brooklyn and didn't find the expression or situations in these stories much different than what one of my friends and I might talk about during our formative years--to whit xyz jumped off the roof last night, or zyx overdosed on heroin. I don't see the fascination about a world where these events are routine. For those who read this book to get an insight into how the 'other half' lives, I suggest going out and living that life for a while. This book might be good ethnography, but it's not great literature. I wonder if the people who run M.F.A. programs go scouring for writers who have experiences like the author's since it's such a departure from their own world. This way of idealizing this sort of material reminds me of the appeal of the photography of Diane Arbus. Her images are fascinating for the 'normal' middle class experience, but if you grew up with the people whom she depicts--like I did--you probably know uneducated, marginal, struggling people are not all that fascinating. BTW, it's odd how the English version of these stories, Drown, was translated into Spanish by someone other than the author, an named 'Negocios'--from a different short story title in the collection. That Junot Diaz doesn't translate his own work that was originally written in English is kind of odd.

Although I greatly enjoyed The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I was never able to get excited about Drown. It may be due to the fact that the main characters were so unsympathetic - in several instances their actions made we want to shout at them in anger and frustration. The book is well written, but somehow failed to draw me in as a reader.

This book came highly recommended by an avid reader and author whom I greatly respect. We share the same passion for Tim O'Brien, Kurt Vonnegut, Chuck Palahniuk, Jack Kerouac, etc etc...

This is the worst thing I've ever read in my life. This "honest" "boldness" comes off cheesy and repetitive. This reads like Carlos Mencia re-writing John Leguizamo's first HBO special. This is infuriatingly bad.

I can't believe this drivel has such great reviews! I also don't see how sprinkling Spanish words among 5 sentences is anything creative or honest. There is no intelligence behind these words - just a regular story.

I get it - he had a tough life. Wow. Refreshing.

I can see him sitting down one night "Ay esse... I had a tough layhf, lemme write about eeeeeet"

Shut up.

I'm not quite sure how she pulled it off, but with The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand managed to forge a literary masterpiece out of reheated libertarianism, stone age sexual politics, and dialogue that's so full of grandiose monologuing it would make William Shakespeare blush. I'm not being tongue-in-cheek here; I really do love this novel. I really do think that it's a jaw-dropping monument to the might of the individual, a symphonic ode to mankind's potential. Its seven-hundred pages see Rand laying waste to conventional standards, inverting all of society's most cherished values, and dropping more than a few subtle hints about the potential dangers of good intentions. Critics of Rand's work seem to miss out on the difference between quality and agreeability; they attack The Fountainhead for its philosophical underpinnings, calling it a piece of trash for no other reason than that they don't see things in quite the same way as Ayn Rand. They don't seem to care about its literary merit. Either that, or they just can't see the novel for what it is. They're completely oblivious to its ecstatic drama, angular poetry, remorseless tension, and epic scope. When they call Rand humorless, I have a hard time believing that they're missing out on the smirking satire and bruising irony that lurk beneath The Fountainhead's surface. When they call Rand inhuman, I wonder what they make of the dizzying panoply of characters that populate her work. Are they aware of the care she takes in evoking sympathy, even for her antagonists? Are they aware that she goes out of her way to remind us that Peter Keating, Alvah Scarret, and the Dean really are human beings? Even when she's depicting pure evil, Ayn Rand understands the importance of complexity, vision, and dimension; indeed, the novel's arch villain is every bit as masterful a creation as Shakespeare's Iago. Critics don't seem to appreciate the protagonist, either. I mean, do they really need to be told that Howard Roark is the very opposite of a soulless automaton, that he's the personification of struggle, of ambition, of hope, of everything that is pure and honest and noble about humanity? No, I don't sympathize with Rand's atheism (or with Roark's). I don't think that selfishness is as clear-cut a virtue as it's made out to be in her work. I am, for the most part (and I say this somewhat grudgingly), a liberal. I'm certainly not an objectivist, and I only have libertarian sympathies if you squint hard enough and ignore my views on our healthcare system. But that's beside the point; I'm not a Christian and I still like the Bible. I'm not an objectivist, and I absolutely adore The Fountainhead.

The fountaun head is a great piece of Ayn Rand's work.
However I had trouble with 2 of the 6 discs I listened too. Returned the full set to Amazon.
Amazon got me a replacement set in nothing flat. Excellent service there. The replacement New set has 4 bad out of the 12 I have listened too. Its going back as well.
The manufaturer of these Audio books needs some new equipment of Quality control.

This is an excellent story that will keep you entertained the whole way through! The reader does a great job of doing different voices for characters which is also amusing to listen to. It will not disappoint!

this book is not on the same level of entertainment as atlas shrugged, but i did still very much enjoy it. i find myself aggreeing with what ayn rand writes and find her philosophy very interesting and compelling

At first sight, i never thought I would like this book or read it like i'm in that world; but, i did. I was in and did not want to come out, for reasons i, myself, can't explain. it's a great book of mysterious power to suck the readers into the vacuum of its world.

I would have given this anthology 5 stars were it not for one small problem. It is paperback and it is extremely large. This is quite literally enough material to have split up into two separate volumes. It is available hardbound and, had I been offered that option at checkout, I would have preferred it.

There seems to be nothing wrong or displeasing about this book aside from its overall dimensions. The stories are assembled well. There is even a nice history about the authors in some instances. Like I said previous, its one gigantic book. I think it would have been perfect to maybe cut it in half, labling them "volume 1a" and "volume 1b". Oh well, its still a pretty good book.

Purchased as a set with Volume 2 (great idea by the way to package them for one low price). Came just in time, great study tool for class, as I'm an English major.

This was a required textbook for a college course. Once again I saved $$$$ by buying my textbooks, new and used, at Amazon and another major on-line auction house. Why anyone would line up like lemmings to get slaughter by the high prices and poor service at college bookstores is beyond my meager comprehension. While everyone else was spending hours in line holding 20 pounds of books, I was one clicking and having my books in a couple days.

If you're a book lover, how can you not love a book like this? It was my required reading for a literature class, and I was all too happy to have an excuse to buy it. Satisfyingly fat at 3000 pages, it exudes that delicious book smell when you flip through it, and its matte-sheen cover feels good in your hands and protects its sizable contents quite well.

For me, this was worth getting just for Seamus Heaney's wonderful translation of Beowulf. You can smell the ocean and hear the armor clank as this readable version places you right there in the sixth century. Along with the usual excerpts from such works as the Canterbury Tales, you get complete versions of King Lear, Twelfth Night, Utopia, and Paradise Lost. After looking over the excerpts from Gulliver's Travels, it appears that sections 1,2, and 4 are presented complete, with only some material edited from section 3, so you get almost all of that, too. The footnotes for this, and all the other works, are enormously useful.

I have a few gripes about the book, however these don't merit the subtraction of a star in the rating. First - this book is SO heavy. Obviously there was no way around this in publishing, because to put this many pages on good-quality paper the laws of physics are working against you. But I have literally suffered backache from bringing it around with me in my book bag, and have had to sorrowfully leave it at home at times because of this. Second, I wish it included a clear list of which major works are presented complete, for those of us who want to make sure to read the whole thing. My final beef is with the editorial introduction to The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale from the Canterbury Tales. Reading this rant about "antifeminist writings" was like stepping from the high halls of classic academia into the junior-college classroom of some washed-up 1970s holdover. I HATE agenda in my education, and in my opinion, applying 20th century (yes, 20th) sentiments to 14th century literature is anachronistic and inappropriate. But such is the state of education these days, and here is your evidence in a volume that should have known better. However, that has been the only thing I have come upon that irritated me.

Buying this book is a great way to get a bunch of classics all at once, and there is so much to it that you can enjoy a long read or a short read anytime you want, once you find a way to work around its mass. I look forward to the years of reading pleasure I'll get from my copy.