Review:I finally finished The Magic Mountain about our aimless young Hans Castorp, who visits his cousin at a tuberculosis sanitorium in the Swiss Alps and, in a Kafkaesque twist, ends up staying there for seven years because of a mild fever. Reading the book was like catching a mild fever (in a good way), and, in taking more than a year to finish it (I was reading many other books), I feel that I, too, absurdly overstayed the length of my visit.

I read the book once, independently, with no assi... Read more

Review:If you love literature, this is a fantastic work. I also read in during a trip to India. The trip gave context to the novel and the novel context to the locations I was visiting. That's honestly the best way to explore a new country. Read more

Review:Kafka is much more then the Metamorphosis and the Trial, and this collection demonstrates why. Kafka offered much while he delivered little, meaning that he opens up a universe of possibilities while confirming nothing. Nothing materializes, everything is fog. Stories that sound as if they're going to reveal the meaning of life end up only irritating you, and others, such as A Crossbreed, bore you until the final few sentences when you suddenly realize what you've been reading, and almost cry. H... Read more

Review:Jugs of red wine, the first ever poetry reading for Ginsberg's epic "Howl", Zen Buddhism and mountain climbing...
What more could ANY Dharma Bum EVER dream of?!
I first read this in my early teens and found it a much relaxed less stressed read juxtaposed to "On the road" which Kerouac wrote in a flourish of cracked vicks inhalers rolled up into little balls and tossed into coffee in three weeks.
Gary Snyder is also a "centered" character in the novel (Japhy Ryder). I have ALWAYS suggest... Read more

Review:I read the Everyman's Library Glenny Translation.

This is a mixture of the bizarre and the familiar. The writing itself is a bit of both, the story subject is a bit of both and the characters are a bit of both. I thoroughly enjoyed the 'flashbacks' and almost wish the whole story was just those events, but I also enjoyed the chaotic and seemingly random way the modern part of the story developed, not that I even fully understood it all, mayhaps a second read is in order. It is not a di... Read more

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Review:To quote a friend of mine who is a classics professor at a top 25 American university - Edith Hamilton is a hack! If you want to understand Greek philosophy and how it developed, do NOT buy this book. It gives a totally incorrect narrative and background. If you want to understand this era, I would recommend starting with Arthur Herman's "The Light and the Cave." While that book contains some error, it is extremely readable and, for the most part, accurate. For the historical bluff on Amer... Read more

Review:"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you." -- Matthew 7:1-2 (NKJV)

Daisy Miller is the essence of a well-written novella: deep characterizations developed through a variety of interactions, minimal prose to capture a point, carefully balanced action that rounds out a message, plenty of exhibition of internal thoughts and feelings, and stark contrasts in personal philosophies. Whi... Read more

Review:This book is about the Great Gold robbery of 1855. In 1854 a man named Edward Pierce who is a master thief hatches a plan to steal a shipment of gold being transported from London to the Crimean War front. Crichton takes you through Pierces thought process and the obstacles he faces on his way. I really enjoyed this book, i was afraid that i wouldn't when i first picked it up because i had read another one of his books before and i didnt really like it. But this one was so much better than the l... Read more

Review:"Alias Grace" is Margaret Atwood's finest novel after "Cat's Eye." Stylistically, through its elegant parodies, it is a love letter to classic nineteenth-century fiction. If you enjoy Dickens, Scott, Thackeray, Melville, or Twain, for example, you'll love this novel. If you never heard of, much less read, any of those other authors, you may still love this novel. Yet philosophically, "Alias Grace" is thoroughly post-modern. Experience, Atwood tells us, is compartmentalized, like the mind, l... Read more