History Books

THE MOST INFORMATIVE, ENTERTAINING, FAST-READING NON-FICTION BOOK EVER. GREAT LESSON IN HISTORY, GREAT PICTURES.

English employs his journalistic skills in describing casino corruption in Cuba before Fidel. Sparring no details or names, this experienced writer does not to get bogged down in distractions. He writes swiftly with small cameos of various mobsters, Cuban political leaders and stars; all the time keeping focus on the gambling casinos, the machinations of the Mob, and the big time, long term aspirations of Lansky and Trafficante. Spicing his tale, his relish is large quantities of cash, a large dollop of sex and the arrival of Fidel and his motley crew. Garbage out, garbage in.

This was a good book and pretty interesting. I think English did a good job of researching for the book and documenting things well. However, I guess I envisioned the story being more spectacular and riveting.

It seemed like English may have made Meyer Lansky out to be a little too good but he did do a good job of showing what a fraud Che Guevara and Fidel Castro were.

For all of their talk of being for the people, they were no different than the dictator they over-through. I will need to read more about these characters. I had assumed that maybe they had started out the revolution for the right reasons and then slowly devolved into dictators but it appeared from this book that they always intended to be a dictator.

Overall, the book is worth reading but not worth buying. Check it out from your library or borrow it from a friend.

The book "Havana Nocturne" is a great book. It is well-written and well-documented and well worth the read.

Thoroughly enjoyable read - all the way. He weaves in and out of time, connecting the historical dots. Fascinating, for both newcomers and old-hands at this period of cuban life.

The book was true to description- Never used. It still had the CDs in it. The price was excellent ($10.00 for a book that cost $100+) and delivery was fast.

I am taking BSN courses and this text is required. The book includes a CD which I have not had the time to review.

The text is very good. It has a great flow from system to system. There are many color photos to explain the various findings. The book is through and I especially love the red text in the borders that explains the criticial thinking of the assessment coupled with the finding.

I own a Mosby's guide from my previous Nursing classes. I thought it was good until I purchased Bates. This is my new favorite examination text and one I will keep in my personal library for years to come.

Good book and a geat resource. This particular work places the patient History and exam in a logical and systematic approach with illustrations and study helps - a keeper.

I am a Physician Assistant Student and i have to admit that every semester we are required to buy books and at the end of every semester i sell my books buy. This was the only one i did not sell back. Its great for a person who is beginning the medical field and is great for someone who just wants to brush up on technique. The CD located in the back of the books is really not that helpful because it skips critical parts of the physical exam however its good to see how to do certain things. Most of the books chapters are well organized except for the HEENT chapter bc its all over the place. However i LOVE my Bates and i still use it on clinical rotations.

Great book on physical examination and history taking. Will recommend to other healthcare/medical providers.

page 14: I still do not understand why the author thinks that an educated person is supposed to guess better than a layman about the outcome of a war. In fact any person is as much expert in that endeavor as any other.

page 21: I still can not see the relationship between war and finance in the context.


for a philosopher examining problems in induction the boundary between true/false is not well drawn.

page 44: I wonder if he is naive. What does he expect in finance business, all reasonable people?. It is finances, it is almost expected that some people take unreasonable risks(with diabolical intentions sometimes) out of greed or out of wishful thinking. These factors are often excluded from his analysis.

I guess he also confuses the word "actuarial science" with "science". He frequently uses the word "science" for "finance" that has no roots in any of pure sciences, nor there are any independent mechanisms connecting the past and present.

From a person guarding against certainty it is ironical to see evolutionary psychology in use on page 53.

page 56: While talking about negative empiricism Taleb says "If I see someone kill I can be practically certain that he is a criminal". No, by no definition of "criminal/crime", killing necessarily implies crime (e.g. self-defense), all the while ignoring the gender bias. I do not want to be a killjoy here, but when accusing people of faulty logic in one paragraph, one can not afford to make an incorrect implication right in the next paragraph.

It is weird for a self-declared skeptical empiricist to resort to psychology while attacking mathematicians.

The references are not cited in the text, though listed in bibliography, which means its not clarified which piece is taken from which reference.

When the author generally ridiculed "fitting equations to something happened in the past" he swept all of cosmology into irrelevance with one stroke of pen.

page 87: We are social animals; hell is other people. // Nice quote

page 97: Got it wrong about hippo campus. This is where short term memory is translated into long term one.


He wants to attack actuarial mathematicians most of the time but ends up generalizing to all mathematicians. As a self-declared skeptical empiricist he is skeptical about truth in mathematics, what he does not understand is that even pure mathematics has engineering applications (e.g. control of hard drive motor). Nature does, to some extent, follow mathematics. This shows lack of depth in analysis.

page 107: Taleb criticizes "hardened by the gulag": The report is probably talking about psychological hardening which is supported by a neurobiological process described in "In search of Memory" by Eric Kandel. The author assumes it to be physiological hardening and refutes it with the rat example. In the next paragraph he calls himself philosopher.


page 129: In what Taleb describes "scientific mentality that is arrogantly called Enlightenment" agrees with Samuel Huntington's claims in The Clash of Civilizations that "the orthodox people do not share with the West the principles of Enlightenment".

page 129: He shouts "Life stands outside Platonic fold". No. pretty much all of engineering and many of pure sciences lie within and are verifiable and/or testable at the same time. These fields pretty much changed the society/culture for almost a century now.

page 154: Towards the end of the page - the author's question has geography in it and it is not surprising that the answers had that too, yet he complains about it.

page 182: He wanted to dispel Ludic fallacy and here is one instance he falls right into it. Talking about left and right handedness of people he brings Plato into picture, ridicules him and then says that the left and right handedness of molecules (stereo isomerism) matters considerably in this. There is no known evidence that stereo isomerism plays a role in this and he does not present any.


What he fails to realize is that for people money is not the most important aspect of life. It is important but only after family and relationships, so even if his analysis is right(I think it is) his calls may go unheeded.

He also does not realize that people, whatever profession they are in are partly there due to financial security and not always to do their jobs perfectly. If the system is staying afloat with Guassian approach they would not need to change it. If they are shown tangible benefits with some results of the fractal analysis they may listen to the author. After all, at least some are after money.

chapter 18: He complains why philosophers are not questioning financial experts when they invest their money. A philosopher's job is not about figuring out details of finance, it is about figuring out details in philosophy which may or may not interfere with finance. A philosopher need not necessarily act upon his/her own arguments.


page 296: If what the author says about uncertainty is assumed to be truth about uncertainty(I do), even then in the authors own words towards the end of book, people may not necessarily heed his advice, especially as author says he put lots of things like culture, before truth, let alone acting on the truth.

As the author puts earlier, the Black Swan helps in getting rid of a big player and benefiting masses; so why fight (even negative) Black Swan in the first place, (for nationalists) as long the money stays within the country.

The author really does not make it clear early in the book the boundary between what he is attacking and what he is defending. Since the author mentions Richard Dawkins' book The Blind Watchmaker, he can take a cue from Dawkins' books about defining the boundary strictly and at the beginning so that the reader stays focused during the reading. Only after reading half the book was the boundary clear to me.

He claims himself to be humble at times but there are times where he delivers unreasonable and unfair criticism, sometimes just jumping to conclusions, like the on page 107.

By generalizing his attacks on Platonic ideas including mathematics, Taleb ignores much of physics. Mathematics still is useful in physics, the most rigorous science.

Let me put it this way: I enjoyed some chapters more than others. The first two thirds of the book is an excellent introduction into epistemology and the problem of induction. To the lay reader without experience in such matters, epistemological issues will be brought forward in a highly entertaining and relevant manner. Many questions and ideas that I (and I assume most readers) have sometimes pondered (though not as eloquently) are articulated by Taleb here. For instance, our modern day categories appear to be arbitrary: for instance, why is that most pro-choice people are also anti-strong military? These ideas seem to have nothing to do with one another yest there is a strong tendency for these and other beliefs to be held together. What this illustrates is our innate desire to reduce complexity - and that is our problem; that is why we persistently ignore, forget, or underestimate about Black Swan events.

Taleb frequently speaks in parables. The most prominent being his differentiation between Mediocristan (governed by Gaussian probability) and Extremistan (where Black Swans flourish).
Since I know nothing about business and economics, I was surprised to learn that much of the economic modeling and predicting is based on Gaussian probability which of course is ridiculous. Taleb chooses to constantly mock the financial 'experts' for this reason. The author comes down so hard on Gaussian statistics that the casual reader may think such methods are fundamentally flawed (or an 'intellectual fraud' to use the heavy handed languae of Taleb). However the domain in which Gaussian statistics is OK is still large and important to learn. Possibly this is not the case for finance though.

The weak part of the book I found to be at the end where Gray Swans are discussed - these are events that are near to Black Swans but we have some mathematics to get some understanding of them. I found the transition from talking about White and Blacks Swans to Gray Swans to be poor. He should have spent more time on Gray Swans.

I expected some discussion of Pascal wagering but was disappointed to see only a small paragraph or two on it in which Taleb appears to misunderstand Pascal's point.

Overall, a good book to read. This has sparked my interest in the subject.

Loved it. Great thinking, fantastic perspectives..like this gem referring to Umberto Eco's library "He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with "Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?" and the others -- a very small minority -- who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market will allow you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books."..

And that is just one example. See the wealth of other reviews here for more. If you even think you might be interested, don't hesitate!

Whether you risk manage for a living or just want to open your mind to all possibility this is a great read.

This book is good. Maybe I don't even understand how good it is. The way Taleb is writing gets to your ego; he feels so cocky. But, yes, man has a point. I started to laugh to myself and to my capabilities of "estimating" and even "thinking" while reading this book. Taleb has interesting view point to life; don't try to predict it, or forecast it, life will fool you anyway, sucker! Don't believe in your most valued economic forecasters, they don't know much, unfortunate... for them. Expose your self to "black swans", positive ones hopefully, try to make negative black swans to be gray swans for you, if it is grey one you have prepared yourself well for future. These swans are rare events in life, which take place even we would not like them to happen. Even one event can make a difference, and most likely a shocking difference.

I learnt more about reading and writing fiction from this little wonder than anything else. Its also an opinionated, amusing joy to read.
I leant it to a freind who loves it to, but I cant wait to get it back again.

I should say up front that James Wood is living my dream. A staff writer for the New Yorker, chief literary critic for The Guardian, professor of the practice of criticism at Harvard University, and a respected novelist to boot (and he's only five years older than I am!), Wood might be the closest thing we have to a successor to Edmund Wilson. So any criticisms that follow can probably be chalked up to little more than jealousy--the literary equivalent of suggesting that Wood has fat ankles.

How Fiction Works is a compact, even squat little hardcover, the very materiality of which seems bent on recalling an era and ethos of reading "before theory," as it were. Somehow the 4.5" x 7" format--coupled with wide margins, classic font, and running page heads that indicate the content of each page--manage to evoke the sorts of predecessors that Wood himself invokes: Ruskin's Elements of Drawing and E.M. Forster's Aspects of the Novel. The materiality of the book primes a certain approach, a certain horizon of expectation for the reader and seems to effect a first shift in readerly stance that Woods' criticism would encourage: attention to the craft.

If the title sounds like a dreary, mechanical textbook for Creative Writing classes the world over, in fact the book is as much for readers as writers. This is a work of criticism, not a Writers-Workshop-in-a-box. Nor is this a book which sets out to demystify the novel as if Wod were a member of the guild willing to share with us the secrets of the illusionist. While it is attentive to concrete realities of mechanics, How Fiction Works is not a disenchantment of the novel, disclosing to us the code or formula that makes fiction work. In fact, any reader will thank Wood for breaking open fiction in new ways in the opening chapter on narration alone. Like all good criticism, Wood names and articulates our intuitions and gut reactions. For instance, he names exactly the discomfort I have long felt about straight-up, confident, magisterial third person narration one finds in someone like Jane Austen (or Joyce Carol Oates, for that matter?). On this point he cites W.G. Sebald:

Given that you have a world where the rules are clear and where one knows where trespassing begins, then I think it is legitimate, within that context, to be a narrator who knows what the rules are and who knows the answers to certain questions. But I think these certainties have been taken from us by the course of history.


Wood goes on to provide a breezy but profound analysis of different kinds of narration which almost turns into a reverie on free indirect style. In this context he provides a stinging critique of Updike's failures in this respect in his 2006 novel, Terrorist, where the narrator's language refuses to bend "toward its characters and their habits of speech." Of course, some novels are exercises and experiments bent on seeing the extent to which this is possible. Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury comes to mind, but more recently, something like Kieron Smith, Boy in which James Kelman tries to be the ventriloquist of a boy from working class Glasgow. But such a project is always beset by a bit of a ruse. After all, how likely is it that a tough young Glaswegian is going to take the time to pen a 432 page memoir, even if it is in the dialect that Kelman seeks to reproduce?

Wood is out to explain how fiction works, not in order to provide a template for would-be writers to go enact a formula, but more for readers who appreciate good criticism as a portal into the further enchanting mysteries of fiction (as when we ask ourselves sometimes, "Now, just how does this paper-and-ink artifact manage to do this to me?"). While Wood tips his hat to Barthes, this is not a "theory-driven" account of literature. Indeed, there is something kind of "lunch box"--or rather, "tool box"--about it in its meat-and-potatoes attention to the basic elements of narration, detail, character, language, register, and dialogue (ending with a short theoretical riff on one of Wood's enduring interests: the question of realism).

The range of Woods' interlocutors is almost dizzying (from Homer to Cormac McCarthy), but a couple of heroes keep asserting themselves: Flaubert and Henry James, even thought both were prone to what Wood sees as the persistent temptation of the modern novel--an aestheticist wallowing in detail (see Updike). But Flaubert and James are simply the leading voices of a rich choir that Wood orchestrates, with parts for Cervantes and Defoe as well as Pynchon and Delillo.

It's on this point that I would register one criticism. In what is, without question, a landmark book that I have already profited from quite immeasurably, I do find Wood sometimes wears his learning a little heavily. To be more precise, there are times when he slides from being precocious to being just rather obnoxious. Take, for instance, an opening "Note on Footnotes and Dates" in which Wood feels it necessary to point out that "I have used only the books that I actually own--the books at hand in my study--to produce this little volume." Why tell us that? Perhaps to deflect critics who will decry books that have been ignored--though, in that case, the criticism would still hold, wouldn't it? For instance, one can imagine politically correct assistant professors of English lamenting the "Eurocentric" nature of Wood's book ("Where is the Indonesian, post-colonial fiction?!") and thus Wood trying to head them off at the pass by saying, "Look, I was just working with what I had to hand." But then the criticism would be: "Not only is this 'little book' Eurocentrist and still-colonial, but James Wood is! He doesn't have any Indonesian, post-colonial fiction in his personal library!"

Instead, what is intended as a mark of humble constraints (in producing "this little volume") comes off as backhanded pomposity. This is augmented by the function of several of the scant footnotes in the text which seem like little more than Wood showing off. These includes little asides which catalogue instances of self-plagiarism in Tolstoy, Dickens, James and McCarthy (p. 65); or the convention of allegorical names in Tolstoy, Thackeray, Wordsworth, and Evelyn Waugh (p. 115); or the cast of minor characters with writers' names in Proust, Bernanos, Updike, Jones, Tolstoy (again!), and others (p. 162). Methinks Wood doth indulge a bit. (Read: fat ankles!)

Finally, let me take up one particular piece of criticism in which Wood, contrary to his otherwise exemplary practice, seems to miss the point precisely because he fails to appreciate a theological point in literature. (In The Broken Estate: Essays on Literature and Belief, Wood has shown his superiority to a critic like Christopher Hitchens precisely in his ability to appreciate theological nuance.) The context is his marvelous discussion of free indirect style. Not surprisingly, he holds up Henry James' What Maisie Knew as a model. Though told from the third person, Wood notes how James' manages to make the narrative bend to the voice and world of young Maisie Farange, who is bounced between her divorced parents and attaches herself to one of her governesses, Mrs. Wix. Mrs. Wix had a daughter, Clara Matilda, who died tragically just when she was about Maisie's age, and Maisie often accompanies Mrs. Wix to Clara's grave in the cemetary at Kensal Green. Wood wants us to focus on James' ability to write from the third person in a way that invites us to inhabit young Maisie's confusion, torn between her mother (who speaks poorly of the lowly Mrs. Wix) and the governess, but also confused by the absence of Clara Matilda. He hones in on this passage:

Mrs. Wix was as safe as Clara Matilda, who was in heaven and yet, embarrasingly, also in Kensal Green, where they had been together to see her little huddled grave.

Wood suggests that "James's genius gathers in one word: 'embarrasingly.'" Whose word is "embarrasingly," he asks? "It is Maisie's: it is embarrassing for a child to witness adult grief, and we know that Mrs. Wix has taken to referring to Clara Matilda as Maisie's 'little dead sister.'" Wood is exactly right that "embarrasingly" is Maisie's language, and thus rightly notes James' ability to bend the narrative--even in the third person--to Maisie's world so that we hear Maisie and not (just) James. But Wood seems to completely misinterpret just what is "embarrassing" for Maisie. It is not witnessing Mrs. Wix's grief. It is, rather, the theological tension that even young Maisie experiences: how can Clara Matilda be in heaven and in Kensal Green? Wood seems to completely miss the also in the passage. It is the conjunction that is the cause of embarrassment.

These minor criticisms aside, How Fiction Works leaves one eager to read anew.

This book works for me on many levels.

It was great fun to read the many thoughtful reviews and comments here on Amazon. I found the Reviews of Charlus, Stanley H. Nemeth and madman particularly thoughtful and insightful; I found the Comments of Doug - Haydn Fan', especially Doug - Haydn Fan, The Ghost of M, Thomas Plotkin, and Stanley Nemeth first rate. Literary fireworks of the first order, all engendered by Wood's little volume, and I enjoyed the show very much.

A similar collection of reactions -- less erudite in general -- appeared in "The New York Times Book Review" for August 31. It's fascinating that a major critic can engender so much passion and so much learning, all at the same time.

Wood helps me deepen my understanding, appreciation and pleasure in reading great fiction. Five years ago Edith Grossman released a wonderful translation of Don Quixote. After reading Wood's review in "The New Yorker", I re-read Cervantes's great work with deeper pleasure. "[I]t is worth reminding ourselves of the gross, the worldly, the violent, and, above all, the comic in "Don Quixote"--worth reminding ourselves that we are permitted the odd secular guffaw while reading it. If all of modern fiction comes out of the Knight's cape, one reason might be that Cervantes's novel contains the major comic tropes, from the farcical to the delicately ironic." Comment 1, fn 1.

Wood infuriates me, and teaches me. He analyzes an essay by Orwell in which a condemned man avoids a puddle on the way to his execution. "There was no logical reason for the condemned man to avoid the puddle. It was pure remembered habit."

But wait a minute: could the condemned man have been saving his shoes for another inmate? Perhaps he was a Buddist avoiding killing a living thing hidden in the puddle; the Life of Pi teaches us that practicing religion at the end of our lives may help us avoid missing "a better story". Perhaps the prisoner hoped for a pardon? Was his avoidance similar to Commander Scobee's last recorded act pressing the communication button on Challenger? Pincher Martin: The Two Deaths of Christopher Martin describes two deaths in moments. Johnson, according to Boswell, thought hanging "concentrates [one's] mind wonderfully." Was that prisoner's act truly "a margin of surplus".

The previous paragraph is my pale imitation of one of Wood's often repeated effects; as Kirn describes it in the "Times" review: "He drops his quotations and references as copiously, easily and freely as a man on a bench in Central Park scattering cups of birdseed." [Footnote 2.]

Wood's references compliment me when I am reminded of remembered reading. They challenge me when I know most, but not all of the references, and inspire me to search out the gaps in my learning. They irritate and intimidate me when I don't know any of the references at all.

Wood's book provides a good index and a very useful chronology of his major references. His book would have been greatly improved for me if he had provided a glossary of terms -- I'm not sure exactly what he means by Modern and Post-Modern fiction, and not at all sure what fiction preceded Modern fiction. What exactly is "lifeness" -- and how can "fiction" be imbued with "lifeness"? -- at one level they seem to be contradictory ideas. Is "lifeness" different from "the real, which is at the bottom of my inquiry."

I would also have liked a glossary because his terms collapse into each other: "when I talk about free indirect style, I am really talking about point of view, and when I am talking about point of view I am really talking about the perception of detail, and when I am talking about detail I am really talking about character and when I am talking about character I am really talking about the real ...." I'm not sure I understand the margins of the these words and phrases and others he uses throughout his book.

The search function here on Amazon helps a bit -- I don't footnote Wood's words in this Review because one can search for his words there -- but this is one book where Kindle would come in very handy with book in hand. To really understand Wood, I need to re-read Madame Bovary (the Wall translation), and Wood has inspired me to read A House for Mr. Biswas for the first time. A Kindle at my side with Wood on board would enhance both journeys.

At the end of the day, though, I wonder if I'm really the "common reader" Wood is speaking to; should a "common reader" need these aids when Wood has "tried to reduce what Joyce calls 'the true scholastic stink' to bearable levels." In a discussion of dislikeable characters, Wood writes: "A glance at the thousands of foolish 'reader reviews' on Amazon.com, with their complaints about 'dislikeable charcters,' confirms a contagion of moralizing niceness."

Wood took a similar whack at Amazon reviewers and also at reading groups in an article in "The Guardian" earlier this year:

'But a great deal of nonsense is written about characters in fiction - from those who believe too much in character and from those who believe too little. Those who believe too much have an iron set of prejudices about what characters are: we should get to "know" them; they should not be "stereotypes", they should "grow" and "develop"; and they should be nice. So they should be pretty much like us. A glance at the thousands of foolish "reader reviews" on Amazon, with their complaints about "dislikeable characters", confirms a contagion of moralising niceness. Again and again, in book clubs up and down the country, novels are denounced because some feeble reader "couldn't find any characters to identify with", or "didn't think that any of the characters 'grow'"."

As a Reviewer here on Amazon and as a member of a couple of book clubs, I may not be Wood's "common reader". I might be better off reading some of interesting alternative texts suggested by Wood and the Amazon folks in the reviews and comments here: Viktor Shklovsky, Roland Barthes, Percey Lubbock's The Craft of Fiction, Edmund Wilson's Axel's Castle: A Study of the Imaginative Literature of 1870-1930, "discussing the symbolists", C.S. Lewis for "telling and exact readings of writing and especially the art of storytelling", Nabokov "especially on Gogol" and his memoir, Speak, Memory, Flannery O'Connor in Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, and even the "Glenn Gould Reader" on why Gould didn't like Mozart as much he liked Bach: "it was aesthetics and not mere taste."

Despite my doubts and some excellent alternatives, I'll undoubtedly continue to follow Wood's work as well, with pleasure and perhaps with a Kindle at hand. I'm sure I'll deepen my enjoyment of fiction.

Robert C. Ross 2008


Addendum: I wonder if Wood's attack on "silly" Amazon reviews and book clubs might have been in response to attacks on The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud, Wood's wife. The most negative review at the moment is by D. West "Bones", who writes: "In my opinion, none of the main characters are anywhere near as adorable as the author keeps insisting they are. Their most notable characteristic is a non-stop (and rather interchangeable) flow of campy repartee that might convey intellect, success, pretension, heartbreak, or whatever to someone steeped in their milieu but which kept me at a considerable emotional distance." D. West offers her copy of the book free to the reader, as does a the writer of a Comment, who offers up the eight copies from her book club. B.

Beautiful writing and sharp insights throughout. The Wood Channel could do for literature what ESPN did for sports if Wood would sacrifice a bit his devotion to The Canon. This turns out to be the conceit of selecting books only from his library. Its admission standards start to feel claustrophobic after a while. Flaubert and H. James admirers will find endless refreshment from these pages. If you hated Madame Bovary and couldn't lift up Dostoevsky long enough to get from Raskolnikov's crime to his punishment, you will find yourself searching in vain for a wider selection of stories, authors, and techniques. Wood turns messy received literary tradition into fresh, exciting, and understandable language. He's the Constance Garnett for the rest of us. But his inattention to more unorthodox fictional workings might leave some literary X Games enthusiasts hungry for more.

Several comments leave an impression to at least one not academically qualified to have wandered into a symposium for MBA/PhD credentialed professionals.

Give classicists their due in literary art forms, this common reader also enjoys contemporaries, such as David Guterson's introspective The Other,
circa 2008.

I don't care How Fiction Works, as long as a story works for me, written then or now.

With Marjane Satrapi's animated film playing in theatres and available on disc, I almost jumped at the chance to read her book, the part-comic/part-memoir of Satrapi's childhood in Tehran, Iran.

To avoid confusion with more current events, `Marji' (as she was called as a child) recalls her upbringing in a Marxist family, the fall of the last Shah regime, the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and Iran's war against Iraq in the 80's. While Satrapi's words are powerful enough to get in your head and stay there, her simple black-and-white drawing style captures the laughter, the tears, and the raw emotion felt throughout the story. Though only an individual account, the story itself is quite vivid in describing how Iran had left a world of tyranny and chaos--only to wind up in another. Though controversial in its own right, "Persepolis" is still a riveting book for those seeking intelligent reading.

This comic is unrated: Violence, Adult Language, Adult Situations.

I feel I learned more about the history of Iran through the eyes of a little girl who was practically forced to become an adult by the age of 14 than most textbooks. Marjane Satrapi, or "Marji" captured my attention, thanks to the successful marriage of her "crudely-drawn" panels and approachable narrative. While I have yet to read the sequel, I feel I know this individual on a personal level as the book fills us in on her deepest fears and hopes and conflicts.

Although this book is written like a comic book, don't take it lightly. The story is a deep and meaningful one. It is a pretty fast read but not as fast as you'd think...I highly recommend it!

This book was a very easy read. Unfortunately, the plot was a little too easy to follow, and certain parts have nothing to do with the rest of the book. The illustrations, however, have a quirky charm, and the story telling is sweet and entertaining.

Our local community college is using this book as a common book experience for all incoming freshmen. It's a good choice for three reasons: 1) the subject matter (a young girl's experiences in revolutionary Iran) is timely and meaningful for coming-of-age college freshmen trying "to find themselves" 2) the graphic novel format is immediately engaging and easy to digest, and 3) the protagonist's story lends itself to myriad thematic explorations. In all, I was interested in and satisfied with this book. In fact, I couldn't put it down--I read it in an hour and a half. Apparently, there's a movie, too. That's next on my list.

This book would have been a good article in a magazine but not a book. Mostly it is about SEAL training and the background of the author( heavily ghost written). Not to take anything away from the accounts of the men, but this just isn't substance for a book.

This is a great book that's destined to become a classic. Marcus Luttrell's first person account of his experience in Afghanistan is riveting and thrilling. You won't be able to put it down. A real bonus is his willingness to explain the impact of liberal hand-wringing and incessant criticism of military personnel serving their country in dangerous places. It's not at all surprising to see reviews by liberals posing as military personnel just to attack Marcus Luttrell's experiences and viewpoints. Posing is, I suppose, what they do best. Buy the book, you will NOT be disappointed.

This was a great book. I could hardly put it down. I hope more people will read this book and know what our solders are up against in this war on terrorism. Marcus and his men are real heroes.

Reading the negative reviews and then reading the book I have to wonder if these negative reviewers and I read the same book. I think the guy is allowed his opinions after what he went through. Not to mention his opinions are just common sense. Also I love the reviews that say no spec ops soldier would ever kill an innocent civilian. I remember that during the first Gulf war a Green Beret team was sent to check out a MSR and they had the same choice to make. They also didn't kill the goat herders and almost died. So in the future if it comes between our boys coming home or the goat herder, unsheath your steel and go to work. Real Americans want to see our brave warriors come home alive.

This is the most worthwhile book. A story that every person should be familiar with. So don't let the liberals who hate the military and their country turn you off too a fine read.

This book should be required reading for ALL politicans and reporters.
I had to read this in complete privacy and solitude.
I read each word at least 5 times to make sure I honored the hero's the author is telling about, including himself.
I knew I could never become a SEAL so I chose another path, but I was fortunate to have served with a number of them.outside their community and this author is actually quite modest in his appraisal of them and their deeds.
For any military personnel or former military personnel I can only say one thing, BUY AND READ IT , you will cry and swell with pride all at the same time.
Thank You Sir for your service and writing this book.

Couldn't put the book down once I started reading it. Loved the characters, loved the building of the Cathedral and I particularly liked how Follet brought the rediscovery of ancient Greek texts such as Euclid into the story. So many things I liked about the book. Sure there was plenty of sex and violence, the story was set in the 12th century after all. Plus I assume we're all adults here so I think we should be able to deal with it. For those who don't like violence and sex in their fiction I would keep clear of this book, that will save me having to read the ridiculous negative reviews.

Some of Oprah's book club books are good and some are bad, but this was wonderful. It was really long but not once did I ever look ahead to see how many pages were left so I could go on to my next book. I am amazed that someone can write like this. There is so much detail and character development. You can picture yourself in various towns. You can see everything in your mind as it is portrayed in the book. There is a lot of despair and sorrow in this story. I would recommend it to anyone who has the patience and time to read such a long book.

Pillars is a long book but very good. Not your usual Ken Follett, had I not known better would have thought he had a ghost writer here. I love his works but this is so different. It has to be a good read to keep me going over 900 pages. I think you will like it.

I really like this book, even though I would agree it is certainly not Proust. Where the character development fails, there is a compelling storyline that kept me interested beyond the last pages.

An excellent read. I found it difficult to put down. Even through its many pages I found it impelling and not at all too long. However, because of its weight I had to prop the book on my lap on top of a pillow. I consider it a must read.

I got this audio book after hearing a gushing review on NPR's Fresh Air. I was enthralled with the notion of a fantasy novel that would contrast time periods offering insight and reflection on the pre-war avant garde of Europe and its relevance to our time. Sadly, the book bogs down in the telling of the tale, mostly, a love story, too often told in the baroque language of a romance novel. The main characters are mostly sensationalized, and comic-book like heros whose behavior demonstrates very little depth of thought. I had just enough interest throughout the book to keep returning to the story to find out what happens next, but I remained ambivalent throughout. I think any other distraction occuring in my life in the last week could have dislodged me from the book, never to return.
2 stars for evoking fin de siecle Vienna as a backdrop for an otherwise C-minus story.
Jeff Woodman is a very talented narrator - I look forward to listening to other books he reads.

Truthfully, I am only 1/2 way through this excellent novel. I decided to write a review now, because I don't know if I'll finish the book... I just do not want it to end.

Selden Edwards shows his commitment and talent, taking decades to write his first novel. The characters, the nonlinear time line, the familiar style of his prose; all are worthy of great praise. For the avid reader, this book will feel familiar as it winds its way across continents and centuries. For others who happen upon this book it is an even better introduction to what a Great America novel should be: captivating, stimulating, entertaining and witty.

Cheers to Mr. Edwards! Please don't wait another 30 years to write another.

Dilly Burden was a legend and a hero. He excelled at his Boston boys' school and at Harvard, was a star baseball player and gave his life in World War II when he was tortured and killed by the Gestapo in France. His only son, Wheeler, has no memory of his Dad but has spent his life living up to the legend.

Where Dilly was an icon, Wheeler is more eccentric. He followed in his father's footsteps to the Boston boys' school and despite guidance from a much beloved teacher, the Haze, (who had also taught his father), he was an average student. He did show talent in baseball but his real love was music. He found great success in his life and was quite a music star in the late 1980s but never stuck to anything, or anyone, for any great length of time. He was always looking for something he couldn't put his finger on.

But that's not where the story begins...

Suddenly one day Wheeler is walking along and begins to realize that he is somewhere he does not recognize. He soon discovers that he is in 1897 Vienna, in his modern clothes and with all of his memories intact. He doesn't know how he got there or how long this visit will last. But as one day stretches to two, he realizes that he is going to need some help. Thanks to the Haze, Wheeler speaks German well and knows a bit about this part of European history. After much consideration he approaches Sigmund Freud, a little known figure at the time, for help. Their discussions and the journal Wheeler starts to keep help him to begin to understand this amazing thing that has happened to him.

During his stay in Vienna, Wheeler discovers his past in a way that is entirely surprising and leaves you hoping that Selden Edwards has somehow really figured out the way the universe works.

There are many well developed characters that appear in the story. The reader gets to know them all and will realize that this book isn't just about Wheeler or even most importantly about Wheeler but about his loved ones and the patterns that life weaves.

This is an absolutely wonderful book. It has layers of meaning and an interconnectedness that make it a breath-taking read. It's a history lesson and a love story, a mystery and a psychology lesson. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Most of the plot twists in this book have been done before: someone who goes back in time and meets people he has read about or who he knew before the time travel episode. But having said that, Edwards manages to introduce some new convolutions to the story. The writing is very good, the sense of Vienna in 1897 is well-done, and with flashbacks--or perhaps flash-forwards to the period between 1897 and 1988 when the time travel occurred, you're drawn into an intriguing labyrinth. I was prepared to find the story a little hokey and superficial, and in places this is indeed true, but I still found myself thoroughly enjoying the tale.

There are elements that were annoying: I didn't see any real need for the hero Wheeler Burden to be a truly gifted athlete, rock star, and writer, and for his father to have similar gifts. This plot device has been overdone. In Vienna, Burden interacts with lots of people who will become famous, Freud in particular. He meets a young American woman who calls herself Emily James. Fin de siecle Vienna was a consuming interest for Burden--and so the problem for the reader (and the author), a problem frequently encountered with time travel stories, is the possible influence upon history and perhaps altering the future. You can't say much here, though, without giving away plot elements.

The whole tale twists in on itself like a Klein bottle (see Wikipedia) in which the inside is also the outside. I began to think of that classic science-fiction story "All You Zombies" by Robert Heinlein (if you want what might or might not be a spoiler, see Wikipedia), and from that point, part of the fascination was to see whether we were indeed going to see perhaps a similar denouement. The ending is unpredictable, but certainly satisfying, perhaps especially so since at that point it was hard to see where things might be going. So while there are some flaws, they are only a rather minor annoyance, and do not detract measurably from a fine read.

This being Selden Edwards first book there isn't much to fall back on, but don't let that sway your decision to read this instant literary classic. I wouldn't say that about just any book and The Little Book is certainly a strange tale for that title, but a truly Wonkaesque story it is. Strange and unbelievable were the first words that came to mind. The protagonist is Frank Standish Burden III (Wheeler), a self-proclaimed every's man who manages to travel back in time using a Delor....I mean....(a little joke)....and meets some very interesting people who are not yet at the pinnacle of their careers.

Starting with the still relatively unknown Sigmund Freud who dismisses Wheeler's time-traveling tale as a delusional episode. But that isn't the only celebrated historian to come across the path of this rock legend. We meet Winston Churchill, a young Hitler, Mark Twain, and Egon Wickstein a philosopher reminiscent of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Curiosity strikes this wonder man as to how he slipped through the streams of time.

But the tale gets even stranger when Wheeler bumps into his deceased father, Dilly. Reality is getting stranger and stranger as the tale moves forward. Wheeler isn't sure how he got here and isn't sure how long he'll stay. The book shares characteristics with Forrest Gump (the cultural miss mashing) and The Twilight Zone, but manages to be completely original. If I was going to knock the book, it could only be that the format doesn't move you like Forrest Gump did. Or shock and awe you the way Twilight Zone did, but that is minor and I had to stretch to find those flaws. This is going to become an instant literary classic and one you don't want to miss.

Editor of the highly recommended novel: Fates by Georgiou, Tino Fates (2nd Edition)

In spite of the author's outstanding achievements and great evidentiary credibility, I am afraid the "Walking Dead" will stay dead.

I think more people should read this book to realize how we, the people of the US were taken for a ride. The book also addresses the extent of the failure by our media to investigate and challenge the administration. The last section of the book presents a sobering view of the decline of the US.

This is the SINGLE BEST BOOK I have read in the last 10 years (the other contender is "Was The 2004 Election Stolen?" by Professor Steve Freeman and Joel Bleifuss), and every thinking, caring American owes it to themselves to read it. Vincent Bugliosi is a patriot of the highest order, and this book is a first-rate work of logic, reason, and integrity. Pay no attention to those reviewers who are panning this book--it's interesting to note that they never take on any of Bugliosi's arguments head-on (because they can't), but rather resort to name-calling and slander. Please do not miss reading this masterpiece.

I enjoyed this book so very much because it gave me hope that George W. Bush will pay for what he has done to our great country. Mr. Bugliosi's brilliant legal mind has made it easy for an Attorney General or District Attorney somewhere in America to prosecute George W. Bush for murder. The book is written extremely well for non-legal minds to enjoy and to understand and best of all, to hope.

This book is a must-read for American citizens. President Bush and Vice President did not have faulty intelligence in the run up to the War in Iraq. They manipulated the intelligence to fit their plans to invade Iraq and deserve to be brought up on charges of murder.

Totally loved this book! I love to read about things that really happened and with such accuracy and attention to details. He makes history interesting! Now I just can't wait to go back to Chicago to see all the sites mentioned in the book.

Enjoyable book about a criminal who until this book has generally just merited a "mention" in books about serial killers.
Very interesting back/side story about the men who planned, designed and built the Chicago's World's Fair.
My only criticism of this book would be the development of the tie-in between the fair builders and the criminal. It wasn't wasn't well developed - it was difficult to discern what the author's point was using this style of writing and joining the two stories.
Overall, however, I would highly recommend this book. Fortunately, both stories are interesting in and of their own.

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. It's a good example of truth being better than fiction. The accomplishments, connections, events, and action are almost too much to believe. It's a page turner with an easy format and readable style. The author deserves much praise for research, organization, and presentation of an event and era that I feel most of us know nothing about. I especially found the brief descriptions of Hunt, Olmstead, and others helpful as "behind the scenes" shapers of America. As a summer read, I just happened to be visiting both the Vanderbilt mansion and Chicago while vacationing. To be in the museum district of Chicago and recall the White City was terrific. I am on my way to buy his other book.

I must admit. I don't get it. Two books with grotesque murders related in gory detail against backgrounds of world historical events the intersections of which have little to do with each other. There is a bit of a problem with partially fictionalized history. It becomes a little like infomercials. How much info and how much mercial? And does the fiction begin to stand for the real history rather than admitting when it comes to history there is a lot we don't know and may never know as much as we would like our understanding of the past to read like a novel? It does not and maybe never can. I know a superb writer/historian/anthropologist who has filled an excellent book with words his hero might have said, and the hero in his old age came to believe that the fictionalized account was indeed what he had done. That is a touching confirmation but nonetheless a distortion. Holmes, the villain of this book may have gotten sexual gratification while listening to his victims being gassed to death and I guess that titillates the reader, but the author has no real idea of Holmes' state of mind. Also the Chicago World's Fair had little to with Holmes' murders and the reverse. Then as an extra the author throws in the murderer of Chicago's mayor by an unbalanced newspaper distributor. Yes there were nuts, as there have always been--- John Hinckley, Jr. shot Reagan because of a crush on Jodie Foster---and girls have always disappeared. Both Chicago's painted ladies and the Fair's commotion were not unique. So it is all a literary artifice. I am not sure readers would have been interested in the social history of the Fair without the murders.

As to that social history, it is interesting. Larsen has done a formidable amount or research and presents it in an interesting manner. But Larsen often lapses into purple prose. The biggest, greatest, etc. It gets a bit tiresome and is not true of history. That Westinghouse beat Edison with alternating current I don't think can be attributed to the Fair. And so it goes. Were it not for books on tape, grinding California traffic, and too many hours in a car, I would not have made it through the book. Fast forwarding helps. I must admit that I skipped a lot of detail such as Olmstead's various ailments and even his theory of color but found myself going back to the murder. Yet I could have done without some of the gory stuff. I don't quite understand how Holmes got away with it. But then I guess Larsen does a good job of conveying his charm even if that might have been somewhat fictionalized. With the murderer, he is so unimportant to history that it doesn't really matter. Lots of people who read fiction will like this book a lot more than I did and maybe they will thereby learn some history. I am all for that.

Charlie Fisher, author of Dismantling Discontent: Buddha's Way Through Darwin's World

not many books transport you to a time of great changes like this one does. for the too brief of period I have lived in the book I have lived the rise of a nation and the dawn of great evil and vision. wonderfull depictions, great people and amzing time.