Review:i read this when i was in my teens and was transported to england and the moors in my mind...wondered if i would feel the same about the book once i was middle aged and had visited the real jamaica inn. no change whatsoever, once i opened the book, back to piracy and freezing storms and women in peril i went. i am a great du maurier fan and have never considered her novels bodice-rippers even though, i suppose, in a way they are romance novels. there is so much else going on that i never rea... Read more

Review:....captured my interest from the first few words, as Du Maurier most always does. "My Cousin Rachel" is a bit dark and brooding .. wonderful insight into character's personalities which drives the suspensful story...one of my favorites, right up there with "Rebecca." Read more

Review:There is not one author who can write like Mervyn Peake. This man had such a command of the english language that when he writes, he creates vivid images and pictures in your mind that no other author can do.
People told me Anne Rice and Tolkien would compete, but by far and away Mervyn Peake is just a master at story telling and imagery. Titus Groan is just one heck of a read - it's thoroughly enjoyable and definately worth the time to read.
When reading, read slow and take it all in. It'... Read more

Review:I've read the book "The wonderful story of Henry Sugar and six more". It's a book containing seven short stories. The longest one is the story about a wonderful person called Henry Sugar, an egoist who whants to change his life and become more like Robin Hood. But in my opinion, the best one is, "The Swan", a great story about a kid who whants to survie from two big persons of the same age. You just can't stop reading it. The whole book was ok, but some stories were very boring, others were supr... Read more

Review:Shirley Jackson's last novel (written three years before her untimely death at the age of forty-eight) is not what I expected. Yet, I loved it. Still I can see why many readers were left scratching their heads. Isn't Jackson supposed to write scary stories? But....wow....This is certainly unsettling. And there really ARE a lot of similarities to her other works, and her life. Jackson herself was a very private person, fought several internal demons (varying addictions, agoraphobia, psychosomatic... Read more

Review:I am sure there are many reviews of Henry James' short novel out there, so let me start by praising this particular edition, published only a month ago. Needing to reread the book for a book club, I hesitated over the free text I downloaded on my iPad, then looked in a bricks-and-mortar store. There were several much cheaper options, in which WASHINGTON SQUARE was bound together with one or other of James' shorter works, but this one leaped off the shelf into the hand, lightweight yet firm, beau... Read more

Review:What Sedaris does so well is to show his audience pictures. He doesn't just tell you about his family and the way he views them, he describes them so well that I found myself added to the story. I'm not actually in the book, but I felt ghostly close to the events that took place. I watched from the basement as he tells the other boys "It's against my religion to play poker." I find myself in the backseat of the car as his mother asked "Do you want me to give you a ride back to your little s... Read more

Review:I disclose up front that I am a huge Sedaris fan. "Me Talk Pretty One Day" was one of the most acidly funny books I ever read, and his short story "The Santaland Diaries" is nothing less than a masterpiece. And, I do not expect Sedaris to be "funny." Much of his most elegant prose, especially about his family, is not. But I admit to being very disappointed in "When You Are Engulfed in Flames."

I cannot explain exactly why I was disappointed. It's not that the writing, overall, was ba... Read more

Review:People will think your crazy as you laugh out loud to the book of short stories by Sedaris . I read the book on vacation at the jersey shore and I couldn't put the book down, whether I was by the pool or at the beach; I had to have it with me at all times.
This book would be worth it if it only had 2 stories in it, those being C.O.G and Naked. though funny as hell, this book isn't easy on Sedaris's family or for himself for that matter. he lays all on the line in a book no one should pass up. Read more

Review:Some amusing anecdotes but overall not that funny and lots of time spent on mundane activities.

Can't really relate to some of his generalizations about how horrible some groups of people are either. Read more