Review:Anita Shreve is one of my favorite authors - she certainly did not let me down with this well-written novel. It was especially interesting to me since I knew nothing about the great fire on the Maine Coast in 1947! Read more

Review:Any translation of The Aeneid is an epic undertaking, so our response to it, given the tradeoffs inherent in converting Virgil's high Latin into another language, ought to be at least respectful, and moreover measured by appropriate sensitivity to the translator's purpose. And here, Robert Fagles has set out to convey the material to a modern, English-speaking audience, and he succeeds with a highly readable combination of fidelity and verve.

That's the good news. The bad news is that Fa... Read more

Review:The recording offered here by Blackstone Audiobooks is an astonishing bargain. Frederick Davidson's unabridged (13-hour 11-CD) rendition of Jackson-Knight's classic prose translation of the Aeneid is well done and at a price that beggers belief. The only reason I hesitated before giving it a well-deserved five stars is that I personally found Davidson's delivery to be rather camp to my English ear, which did mean I had to listen for a while to tune into the words. Then it was wonderful. Read more

Review:Lovers of history and interesting words will adore this book, and even the most casual reader will find it easy to read. I read The Meaning of Everything over the course of three days while on vacation, and although it isn't what I would call "beach reading" it was light and fun.

Winchester seems to have a good sense of when to move on to a new idea, which is part of what makes this so painless to read. There's no belaboring any points.

Also, there's an abundance of interesting sid... Read more

Review:The story is quite melodramatic in the spirit of the time in which it was written. The prose is verbose and sometimes convoluted. Nevertheless, I was engaged and eager for the conclusion to be revealed. Read more

Review:Absolutely amazing book, giving the reader an in-depth view into Snape's mind and true motives. The author goes into detail about Snape in each book as well as his background and character with evidence from the books. I would highly recommend it to any Snape fan or fan of the Harry Potter series. Read more

Review:"Mama" held my interest. I love Terry McMillian's storytelling skills. She's creative and wrote an unpredictable novel. The novel was realistic and I could relate to the story about some of the things that happened in my childhood. I was cheering for the family and was glad that they were turning their life around until the story ended abruptly. "Mama" gets 4 stars because of the abrupt ending. It needed a least a few more chapters or epilogue to bring the novel to full circle.

Overall ra... Read more

Review:Everyone knows this book and most love it. When I read it 40 years ago I was too young to appreciate it. Now I appreciate it, but I also recognize some flaws in the writing and especially in the character development. Yes it's bold to criticize Somerset Maugham, but he's dead and I don't think he'll complain. Let's face it, he's a great writer, but even he had some flaws. The poor character, Phillip, wanders from life stage to life stage without learning anything from his mistakes. He's conti... Read more

Review:As a British colony, Trinidad became the home of many Indian immigrants, and "A House for Mr. Biswas" tells the story of a man who is born into and grows up in this society searching for a place he can call his own. In this novel, V.S. Naipaul vividly and picturesquely describes Trinidad as a thriving but generally poor island populated by a strong Hindu community with a waning observance of the caste system and where, even well into the twentieth century, the most common mode of transportation... Read more

Review:Being a philosophy minor in college, I think that I understood about half of this book. Here are some things to know before taking the leap.

1.Nietzsche discusses writers that were around hundred years ago or more that most people today are not familiar with.
2.A few passages in the book are clearly misogynistic.
3.Nietzsche's writing can be long-winded and convoluted at times, though it shows that his work was inspired from deep within him, and is not a bland logical conclusion de... Read more