Review:Too many implausibilities in this book. Interesting characters are dropped and never returned to including Jane's mother and grandmother and even her daughter. Backtracks to the "blog" which we read enough about already. Had potential but missed the mark. Read more

Review:I thoroughly enjoyed this book. At times, I read for hours because I couldn't put it down. Okra for takes us to strange new worlds, modeled after very old worlds, but explains them so beautifully that you can't help but get sucked into the story. Read more

Review:This was a very disjointed book -- no discernible thread. It was hard to keep track do the chronology, because there really wasn't one. I only kept reading in the hopes it would improve, but it didn't. I'll never read another book by this author. Cleave probably thought he was being clever having an Alheizmer patient as, I guess, his protagonist but I considered this insulting to the people who suffer with this disease. Read more

Review:Roth plays with post modern concepts in such novels as Operation Shylock, blurring the line between fiction and reality, between character and identity, and in The Plot Against America, he takes yet another post modern bugaboo, and runs with it. This time it is the alternate history, where he re-imagines a facist American in the late 30's and early 40's. Roth seems intent on recapitulating much of 20th century literature. His Zukerman novel's are Marlowesque frame tales, very in keeping with H... Read more

Review:*Everyman* is on the shortlist of the most depressing books I've ever read. It's also one of the most beautiful. Unflinchingly, brutally honest. Courageous. It took a lot of fortitude to write this book--it takes just as much to read it.

The novel opens at a funeral. From the first sentence you understand: the "hero" of the book is dead. The remainder of the novel is the story of his life. It's a life of no great consequence or distinction, a life such as so many others have lived and wil... Read more

Review:There are works of fiction that change the way you look at life, and then there is the work of Jorge Luis Borges, which just might alter the way you look at everything, including yourself. The best way to explain Jorge Luis Borges is to compare him to painters - if you combined Picasso, Dali and Escher's imaginations into a writer, you would have Borges. His visions of doppelgangers, puzzles, labyrinths, infinite libraries and Argentine Gauchos are on a level of reality different from any other ... Read more

Review:At 245 pages, the novel Submission by Nichel Houlellbecq offers acute social critique, especially of the Western world’s (Europe and the United States) liberal individualism, which offers no certainty, no family strength, no soothing traditions and rituals, and no birthrate. In contrast, Islam offers strong family values and the assurance of a vision, which affords its believers certainty. More importantly, Islam is a political movement and it wants world domination, both through polite politic ... Read more

Review:DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY!!! DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME!!!!!! This story just goes on and on and on.........backwards three steps, forwards one step. Could not even complete 75% of this nonsense - I really tried!!!! Read more

Review:It's a decadent history, as the title suggests, that not only speaks of the decline of the family but the people who make it, from every point of view, through four generations are outlined. It was the first work of the author who just received a Nobel Prize for this work was a bestseller and has been made into a film. The most interesting part of the work would be the clear description of his characters. It is part of the culture of the twentieth century even though it is set in the nineteenth ... Read more

Review:A lot of veiled homoerotic imagery, much of which today would be considered borderline pedophilia. Bogged down by repetitive illusions to the Greek ideals of beauty. Not on narrative par with Buddenbrooks or The Magic Mountain. Best suited for those who wish to say they've read all of Thomas Mann's work. Read more