Editorial Review

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Reviews

The classic version
This is the classic version of _Beauty and the Beast_, the one that Disney based the film on. The movie was a surprisingly close adaptation, and fans of the movie will recognize many elements here (such as Beauty's love of reading), though other elements are markedly different (here, Beauty's father is a merchant, not an inventor, though still unusually middle-class for a classic fairy tale; Gaston is nonexistent here, a Disney invention).

It is very short, at only 196 kindle locations, and the text is fairly clear of typos.

If you're a fan of this story, there are a host of other classic fairy tales that follow the same basic model, all of which should be available for free online. Beaumont's version was an adaptation of a longer original version by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve. If you're interested in reading other fairy tales with similar if slightly extended plotlines, try looking for "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" or "The Black Bull of Norroway." If you want to get really classical, look up the story of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius' "The Golden Ass."

Swept Away - If Only for A Moment!
This book brought a smile to my face. It is such a good, sweet story. I discovered how well the screenwrtiers followed the original story, yet along with the imagineers at Disne, introduced new characters that fit right in It made me want see the animated film again. It is short and would make a great bedtime story for your kids or for yourself. Definitely worth the read.

More Than a Romance
"Beauty and the Beast" is classic, I've always known that. But only recently have I read it and been able to take it for what it is. A beautifully simple story about the importances of being virtuous. It's such a sweet romance, but under that is the subtext of the time it was written in.

That traditional belief that good things come to those who wait is what drives the story forward. Beauty is a sincere soul, who loves her family and perseveres through tough times with them, even when she is offered the chance to marry out of her family's poverty. While her sisters are terrible creatures who only live in the hopes that they will be wealthy again someday.

Beast, himself, is an excellent metaphor for why judging a book by it's cover is a terrible practice. And that lesson resounds loud all these years later in today's society. You never know what you are passing up. It's a great children's story that teaches young and old to shelve their discriminating tendencies, and go into things with an open mind.

short and sweet
beauty and the beast was my fav movie as a child and i have heard many diffrent versions of the story. this one however is the least dark and being the 'o.g' story i was surprised it was so. considering the nature of most early fairytales.

Wonderful short story
Have always known about the Disney version, but never read the book. Was pleasantly surprised at how faithful the film was to the story. I would recommned the story if you love the film. I finished the story in half an hour. ... Read more

Editorial Review

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, ROOM is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another. ... Read more

Reviews

Best Book I've Read in Years - WOW

Highly Recommend!

A Room Is Just A Room--Unless It's The World

Reading this book will change the way you look at the world
I heard a piece on NPR about "Room" yesterday, so I used my magic Amazon Prime and received the book this morning. I just finished it. I am writing this review now because I am trying to capture how different I feel after having read this book. I feel like I am somewhere else, things look very different to me. Much like Jack when he returns to Room and it is no longer familiar to him. Using Jack's voice, Donoghue makes it not so hard to understand how something so horrific could become normal and safe to someone. Everything is about context. There are some mixed reviews on this book. Regardless of how you feel after you read this book, you will feel something. That is pretty spectacular in itself. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The hotly anticipated third novel of the Dublin murder squad from the New York Times bestselling author

Back in 1985, Frank Mackey was nineteen, growing up poor in Dublin's inner city, and living crammed into a small flat with his family on Faithful Place. But he had his sights set on a lot more. He and Rosie Daly were all ready to run away to London together, get married, get good jobs, break away from factory work and poverty and their old lives.

But on the winter night when they were supposed to leave, Rosie didn't show. Frank took it for granted that she'd dumped him-probably because of his alcoholic father, nutcase mother, and generally dysfunctional family. He never went home again.

Neither did Rosie. Everyone thought she had gone to England on her own and was over there living a shiny new life. Then, twenty-two years later, Rosie's suitcase shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place, and Frank is going home whether he likes it or not.

Getting sucked in is a lot easier than getting out again. Frank finds himself straight back in the dark tangle of relationships he left behind. The cops working the case want him out of the way, in case loyalty to his family and community makes him a liability. Faithful Place wants him out because he's a detective now, and the Place has never liked cops. Frank just wants to find out what happened to Rosie Daly-and he's willing to do whatever it takes, to himself or anyone else, to get the job done. ... Read more

Reviews

Tana French at Her Best!, July 13, 2010
The emotions in Tana French's new book Faithful Place: A Novel explode on the page and inside the reader. I felt tackled by this book. As soon as I started reading it, I was grabbed and held hostage. All my senses were caught up in the narrative. I had difficulty coming up for air even though I knew it was necessary once in a while. I lived this book 24/7 until I had finished it. That's Tana French for you.

The story begins with Frank Mackey, 19 years old, waiting for his true love, Rosie Daly, to meet him. They have plans to run away from their dysfunctional homes and neighborhood in Dublin to make a new life together in England. They are totally and fiercely in love as only first loves can be. Rosie never shows up. Frank waits until morning and then proceeds alone, never knowing what happened to Rosie but thinking, deep down, that she'd changed her mind and decided not to go with him. He doesn't make it as far as England but he does manage to start a new life for himself in Dublin.

Ever since that time, Frank keeps hoping that he'll hear from Rosie. No one in her family, nor any of her friends know where she is and no one has heard from her. Frank hears nary a word, ever.

Faithful Place, the neighborhood he's leaving, is close to Trinity College but is a world away. People in `The Place' "stank of stale nicotine and stale Guinness, with a saucy little top-note of gin". People held grudges and if they were not on the dole, they worked at the Guiness plant or at odd jobs. Those who worked regularly had nothing to show for it. You knew everyone and heard conversations and arguments going on from windows and in the streets. People grew up together and had decades of knowledge about each other.

Fast-forward twenty-two years. Frank is an undercover detective with the Irish police force. He has been estranged from his family for twenty-two years, except for one sister, Jackie. Jackie gives him a frantic call that a suitcase was found in a derelict apartment building near his family's home and it appears to have belonged to Rosie. Soon after the suitcase is found, so is Rosie's body. From that time onward, Frank decides that he must find out what happened to Rosie that night.

Tana French has a wonderful way of juxtaposing the present culture of Dublin with arts, culture, and events of other cities and times. She gives the reader credit for being smart and understanding who she is talking about whether it's Jim Morrissey, Tim Burton, Jeffrey Dahmer, Mario Lanza or Kojak. She'll interject wonderful sentences into her writing. For instance, "The dim orange glow coming from nowhere in particular gave the garden a spiky Tim Burton look". One of my favorites is, ` "Kojak's on the trail" Shay said, to the gold sky. "Who loves you baby?" `

The narrative goes back and forth in time and we're privy to the horrific family of origin that Frank came from. His `da' is a raging alcoholic and his `ma' gives Olivia Soprano a run for her money. His siblings would just as soon stab one another with an ice pick than share a civil word. The dialogue is crisp and anguished. There is no doubt or subtlety about what is happening in the Mackey family.

When Frank returns to their midst after his twenty-two year absence, things are twisted up a bit. His da realizes that Frank must have an agenda and tells Frank to get the hell out of Dodge. Most people wouldn't talk to their worst enemy the way that Frank's father talks to him. This is a family filled and fueled by hatred. Frank, however, is there to stay. He has things to do and information to find out.

The book falls together perfectly. There are no weak spots and the the two primary narratives - the mystery about Rosie's death and the story of Frank's family - meld together well. Tana French is a wonder. She has the Irish gift of the gab and I advise you not to start this book unless you're willing to be grabbed and held captive by its power.

A long-awaited new novel from Tana French doesn't disappoint, July 13, 2010
If you haven't read Tana French's In the Woods and The Likeness: A Novel, then now is definitely the time to start acquainting yourself with this great author. With every new novel (and this is her third one) Tana French is showing signs of a creative growth that are nothing short of remarkable. I have been eagerly awaiting the release of her Faithful Place: A Novel and I'm happy to report that this novel will not disappoint either French's fans or her new readers who are only now discovering her work.

Tana French's writing is beautiful. She has a way of describing modern-day Ireland that will leave you completely enamored of this fascinating country. In my opinion, nobody creates more powerful descriptions of today's Dublin than this writer. French's sentences are always beautifully constructed, the characters are incredibly well-crafted, and the plot lines are engrossing.

The best thing about Tana French for me is her capacity to create a very unique first-person perspective in every one of her novels. Each book is narrated in a voice that is very unique and absolutely unforgettable. Faithful Place: A Novel is very different in terms of its first-person narrator from French's previous two novels. Her fans are used to this author creating very endearing, complex characters whom you cannot fail to admire. In this new novel, however, we encounter a very different kind of character. Francis Mackey is not an extremely attractive character, to say the least. He is self-involved, selfish, and often very mean. He tortures his ex-wife to punish her for moving on after their divorce, he is mean to his aging mother, and he thinks nothing of hurting his little daughter's feelings just to run off and investigate an old girlfriend's disappearance. He has been obsessed with his former girlfriend Rosie for twenty years and has never been able to get over her apparent desertion. In short, Frank is a character one is hard pressed to like.

It's is a mark of a very good writer, however, to be able to make one's readers care about the main character who is as difficult to admire as Frank Mackey. Tana French achieves that and more. The book is an absolute pleasure to read. As much as you might want to get to the solution of the mystery of Rosie's disappearance and Frank's painful relationship with his family, you will still want to linger over each beautifully written sentence.

Not what I'd hoped, July 15, 2010
I was disappointed by this book. I so loved her first two, and The Likeness is still seared into my brain from last summer -- what I was doing (or not doing!) when I read it, where I was, how it felt to be inside that story. This one just didn't have the same effect on me. It was good, well-written, and I read it just as quickly as the first two, but I expected a whole lot more. To me it read more like a Jerry Springer-esque family drama than a crime novel, and whereas the first two kept you guessing up til the very end, this one I knew who the culprit was about half way through the book. Nowhere near as tightly plotted as the first two, and the Irish dialect really made me trip up a few times while trying to interpret what they were saying. I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did.

Better than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo!, July 26, 2010
Spoiler-free review:

With The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest and its two prequels at the top of Amazon's bestseller list, I can't help but compare "Faithful Place" and say that Tana French's newest book is so beautifully written that it makes The Millennium Trilogy read like hack fiction. To fellow Stieg Larsson fans, I say look at it this way: this means that after you've finished the Millennium Trilogy you can discover a new masterful author of suspense, one who operates at a less frenetic pace.

All three of Tana French's books, In the Woods, The Likeness: A Novel, and "Faithful Place" are as enjoyable as literature as much as they are about suspense. "Faithful Place" is French's most heartfelt work yet. Frank Mackey left his old Dublin neighborhood Faithful Place two decades ago, cutting ties with his family. We follow Mackey back to his Mammy's stoop to investigate an incident that will tear open his most sensitive wounds. I read the book in a few voracious days, and finished about a week ago, and "Faithful Place" is still haunting me. Even if some aspects of the mystery were potentially guessable, the whole of the story is greater than the sum of its parts. French does not just get us to see the killer's point of view by obliterating "good" and "bad" with cheap moral relativism; rather, she thoroughly illuminates the psyches (and blind spots) of all the characters in a way that makes you see how the whole puzzle fits together by making you ask, what is the cost of seeing the truth?

I don't want to say more than that because I don't want to ruin this brilliant story for anyone. Be aware that some customer reviews here that say they contain spoilers *really* contain spoilers, to an extent I think is unwarranted. No one should spell out whodunit for a mystery in such a public forum that doesn't have any layers of protection from spoilers.

'Nobody in This World Can Make You Crazy Like Your Family Can", July 17, 2010
The titular words are a quote from the novel. It begins with the recollections of Francis "Frank" Mackey about a pivotal event when he was nineteen. Late one December night he slipped out of his miserable Dublin home for a rendezvous with his lover, Rosie Daly. They planned to elope, leaving for London. But she never showed, and Frank never saw her again. He found a note from her which seemed to indicate that she was dumping him and leaving alone. Likely, she had crossed into England and never looked back, cutting off contact with her own unhappy family and her cold, tyrannical father.

Twenty-two years have passed; Frank has married and divorced. Now, he's an undercover detective for "the Guard," the Dublin police. The very suitcase surfaces that Rosie took with her that fateful December night, and it's fully packed. This leads Frank to hunt for Rosie. What follows is a most suspenseful crime story. It's also a brilliant study of family dynamics.

Frank has a large family with large problems. That's why he had been willing to run away to London. He hates his abusive father, and has very few warm feelings for his mother and older brother. It seems Frank is surrounded by hard-drinking people who get mean(er) when they're drunk. They are profane and violent. Crude and rude. And hanging over it all is a dreary culture of poverty.

Author Tana French is a master wordsmith. She has great insight into what makes humans tick, both on the dark and bright side. She looks at the Mackey family and the other key characters up close and personal. She has Frank tell the story himself, and Frank casts grave doubts on his own character. The reader wonders if Frank has indeed been driven insane by his own twisted family.

Most highly recommended.

Best book I've read by this author. She seems to have reached a whole new level, July 21, 2010
I'm a fan of this author. Even so, I was left in awe at how she exceeded my expectations - and they were already high. The plot is totally riveting. Imagine if you loved someone deeply, were planning to run away with that person (to escape a difficult family situation and simply escape). The person never shows up. You assume you've been left in the lurch.

Now jump ahead. You are a detective. Twenty years have gone by and suddenly you discover that a suitcase appears, one that was to be used during the escape with your beloved. Maybe things aren't what they seem. Maybe the person you love was abducted - or something else happened. Maybe that person loved you all along.

With a skilled writer like Tana French, someone who not only tells a great story but also helps readers see, feel and even imagine hearing the environment in Dublin...this book becomes one that is impossible to put down. She also doesn't talk down to her readers or feel inclined to explain every cultural reference.

This isn't a light read so be prepared to immerse yourself in this book and not come up for air until you know what has happened. I've kept this review short, not filling in too many details, because I'm hoping readers of this review know enough to realize that the plot is minor compared to how a strong writer creates a vivid sense of place, atmosphere, story, and characters. This same plot could be nothing in the hands of an amateur and the plot isn't all that original (two people love each other, one disappears, etc).

But the evolution of this tale is hypnotic as well as family dynamics that continue to play out.

It's the characters as well as the mystery, July 25, 2010
It's almost a travesty to summarize the plot of a Tana French novel because her characters, in all their facets, are so much a part of each plot, it is difficult to separate the story from the characters. Readers must be careful, too, with French, to remember she is a master at using the first person narrative to lure them into false impressions and dangerous assumptions. In French's "Faithful Place", family relationships, friendship, love, self-deception, rationalization, and the stong hold the past retains on its characters are as fascinating to read about as are the solutions to the crimes committed in the novel. All of these elements, even the most dramatic, ring true.

In French's "Faithful Place", the mesmerizing narrator is Francis "Frank" Mackey, an undercover policeman in Dublin. Divorced and trying to be a good father to his nine-year-old daughter, he is determined to keep her away from his parents and all but one of his siblings. But the discovery of the body of Rose Daly, his first true love, forces Frank to return to the neighborhood where his parents still live. He is inevitably ensnared by the family he has chosen to disown for 25 years, and he is inevitably drawn into a past that he never really escaped. Determined to find Rose's murderer, he travels along the unexpected, and sometimes unwelcome, paths that lead to the truth. Most readers will be compelled to accompany him on his journey.

One of the best mysteries I've read, July 13, 2010
This is the third mystery by Tana French, each one focusing on a different member of the murder and undercover teams near and in Dublin. I wasn't too excited when I heard the third book would be about Frank Mackey (undercover), but I thought I'd give it a try anyway. Wow! It is just great. Now I want 40 more books about Frank Mackey!

Over 20 years ago, the then 20 year old Frank is preparing to run away with his adored Rose. These two kids are from awful families and can only see a future for themselves if they run to England. Rose stands Frank up, and for 20 years, he believes she held his family in contempt and went without him.

But Frank gets a call from one of his sisters (except for her, he has been estranged from his family since that night 20 years ago). Rose's suitcase has been found. It appears she never left.

Frank returns to Faithful Place (their street's name), and must make peace with his feelings for Rose (and his long feelings of abandonment), his family, his place in the sceme of things.

As he tries to figure out what happened to Rose, we get much more than a mystery. We get one of the most beautifully written descriptions of a dysfunctional family I have ever run across. Frank's parents are so dreadful that they would be cartoonish in the hands of an author of lesser talent. As it is, we are just left aghast. We are debating in my family about the level of compassion they deserve (I feel sorry for them, actually) but, clearly, these are people without a lot of self insight and they spread misery and damage like nuclear fallout.

While I loved the solution in the end, I also loved each step of the journey towards it.

This will be one of the best books this year!

Faithful Place, August 9, 2010
Tana French has become one of my favorite writers in any genre. Her characters are generally flawed, but I always end up caring profoundly what happens to them. I like her dark humor also. It helps lifts this book out of the depression it could sink into, given the cold and darkness that is so prevalent, both in the Dublin setting and the subject matter. I have read all three of Tana French's books and they keep getting better. I am glad that she is young, so I can look forward to years of good mysteries and just plain good writing.

Another compelling read from Tana French, September 12, 2010
I was riveted by In the Woods and enjoyed The Likeness, so I thought I'd take another trip to Ireland with Tana French. Faithful Place is, like her two previous novels, a murder mystery that goes beyond the usual stuff in this genre. Her characters are deeper, plotting is less predictable, and the sense of place and culture she creates is wonderful. It's not just another book in a mystery series- it's a fully fleshed-out novel with unique characters. I am already looking forward to her next book!
... Read more

Editorial Review

Another unforgettable tale weaving history and mystery from the bestselling author of The House At Riverton and The Forgotten Garden. ... Read more

Reviews

The perfect book to read by the fire on a stormy night, October 30, 2010
A rundown castle, tightly held family secrets and a literary mystery lie at the center of this novel. Throw in a long lost letter, forbidden romance, family madness and ghostly whispers in the dark and you get a gothic style mystery which would be the perfect book to read by the fire on a stormy night.

The book kicks off in 1992 when a letter posted during the war arrives for Meredith Burchill. For the first time, her daughter Edie learns that her mother was evacuated from London for 18 months during World War 2. Meredith spent that time living in Milderhurst Castle in Kent, home to the famous writer Raymond Blythe and his three daughters. Blythe's claim to fame is that he penned a book which became a children's classic: The True History of the Mud Man. This also happens to be Edie's favorite book. Edie visits the castle and meets with the three daughters, now elderly ladies. She has an unnerving encounter with the youngest daughter, Juniper, which makes her realize that there are some dark family secrets which her mother may be a part of. Why have the sisters never left the castle? What had tormented Raymond Blythe in his final years? Is Juniper's madness purely because her fiance jilted her 40 years previously? Why was Raymond Blythe so secretive about the origins of his book?

The story then jumps back to 1941, and from there it moves between the past and the present day. Kate Morton does a skillful job of gradually peeling back layers of the onion, so that the true story is gradually pieced together over the course of the book. What this does mean however it that it takes quite a while to get going. The early chapters have a lot of background information which takes a while to become relevant. There are several mysteries to be revealed, and while I was able to guess at some of them, I was completely wrong about others. Morton also does a terrific job of bringing the forbidding castle to life. There are a few genuinely creepy moments, although for the most part it's intriguing rather than chilling.

I tossed up between 3 and 4 stars. At times I felt that the book was overlong, too contrived and reliant on coincidences. However the way it comes together is ultimately very satisfying. A good story, cleverly told.

Beautiful ! Kate Morton's Best!, November 9, 2010
Why is it that books that you love the most are the hardest to describe? I sat in front of my laptop for more than a hour , after I had finished reading the book and yet was unable to formulate a word other than "WOW!".

Kate Morton is one of my top 5 favorite authors. I loved her other 2 books and I devoured the 600 plus pages of this book in less than one day.I was incapable of sleeping - the story and the characters pulled me in so deep that sleep was really the last thought I had.

I had been awaiting this book more than any other book this year. The wait has been more than worth it.

There is such a haunting quality to this book which makes it one that you cannot forget easily.There were sentences and whole paragraphs that still resonate in my ears.Kate Morton's beautiful writing is one of the major reasons why I am such a big fan of hers.Her lyrical prose will stay with you. I can actually quote lines from this book (something I thought I was not capable of)- such was the writing.

The setting , a gothic castle, is a character in itself. Such is the author's writing that the castle seems as alive as its occupants.In its veins, runs the secrets from long ago.Kate Morton's breathtaking description of the castle will make you feel as if you are there.Her descriptions are so evocative, so beautiful that it leaves you wanting for more.

Entwined with the suspense element is a heart-wrenching story of three sisters that won't fail to move you.The sisters and their story will break your heart. I felt their pain, their fears . Imagine being a prisoner in your own home with no dreams or hope for a future. I could feel the castle walls binding them, suffocating them.

Throughout the book, I tried to prepare myself for the final shocking conclusion -as the secrets are revealed.Yet I was completely taken aback by the ending which was a disquieting one.

The story's movement between the past and the present is smooth and beautifully done.As each chapter unfolds, we get to know more about the past. Slowly, we are able to piece together the parts to form a complete picture. As secret after secret unravels, years of secrets,betrayal, heartbreaks, tragedies, will shock you. This dark and haunting story will unnerve you and yet won't fail to touch you.

There are certain chilling moments, I shuddered at some points. Its not something very in your face..its something lying just beneath the surface..something not visible.. that creeps you out.

Even after an astounding ending ,I still felt as if there were still things left to the reader to decipher and interpret - the castle had still not revealed all its secrets.

The castle, the sisters, their tragic story - they will linger with you , long after you have read the last page.

The Distant Hours is a perfect read for a rainy night. It has all the makings of a prefect gothic novel- family secrets, an old castle, mysterious deaths, a letter from long ago and madness running through a family .

Even though this is a huge book , I wanted more pages to miraculously appear. Its one of those books which made me want to read on and on.

I think I am a Kate Morton fanatic for life now. This masterpiece of a book has made me very sure that no matter how much I have to wait for her next book, it will be definitely worth it.Its beacause of books like these that I love reading.

Favorite Quote: There were so many , but if I have to choose one, it would be-
"The ancient walls sing the distant hours.."
Somehow this one sentence affected me a lot. It made me think of the past memories. It was so suited for this story. Every old house has its memories-painful and happy.Maybe when you are quiet, you can hear the voices of the people from the past-people who have lived and loved and died. This quote also made me think of something menacing lurking beneath the memories - I guess this was what the author wanted.When the author described the castle, I almost felt all the grief, the happiness, hidden in the castle walls and yet found it so hard to completely penetrate the secrets of the hours gone by.

Overall: Haunting, engrossing and shocking! I wish there was a stronger word to describe how much I love this book. After almost a year, this is a new addition to my list of favorite books.

Recommended? YES ! A thousand times yes! No matter what genre you read, do give Kate Morton's books a try. Though there are many talented young authors today, Kate Morton is still my favorite.

Similar Books:
The House at Riverton-Kate Morton
The Forgotten Garden-Kate Morton
Arcadia Falls - Carol Goodman

It was a dark and stormy night..., November 10, 2010
Okay, that infamous line is never used, but it might as well have been. There WERE plenty of dark and stormy nights in this deliciously atmospheric novel of suspense. Like Ms. Morton's previous novels, this is a tale told in two times. The "contemporary" story is set in 1992, and events are set in motion by the delivery of a letter 51 years late. Protagonist Edie Burchill is visiting her parents when the letter arrives, and she witnesses her mother's unexpected and unexplained emotional response to the missive.

Questioning her mother, Meredith, Edie learns for the first time that her mother was evacuated from London during WWII. For over a year, she lived in the country with the sisters Blythe and their elderly father at gothic Castle Middlehurst. Meredith is inexplicably reticent to discuss her past. This is merely one more example of the distance that Edie has always felt with her mother. Edie finds the incident odd, but it fades quickly into the past--until months later, lost on a road trip, she stumbles upon Castle Middlehurst and her curiosity is fiercely awakened. On a whim, Edie arranges a tour of the castle and discovers, among other things, that all three sisters are alive and in residence. After several introductory chapters setting up the story, the book moves back and forth between Edie's answer-seeking in 1992, and chapters set during the actual events that occurred between 1939 and 1941, seen from the POV of several of the story's participants.

There is SO much more to the story told in this epic novel. The Blythes are a literary family, and patriarch Raymond is the author of the children's classic The True History of the Mud Man that inspired Edie's love of literature and eventual career in publishing. Ms. Morton is a brilliant story-teller and knows exactly how to torture her readers with questions. What was in the letter Meredith received half a century late? What was the true inspiration of the Mud Man? Why is the parlor door kept locked? What was in Raymond's will? What really happened that night in 1941?

So many questions. And Morton teases us along for hundreds of pages, stringing along answers like breadcrumbs for readers to follow. Kate Morton is very, very good at what she does. Though, after three novels, the similarities in the types of stories she tells and the themes therein have become quite evident. She's going to need to shake things up before she starts to recycle too much. But for now, The Distant Hours is hard to beat for good old-fashioned entertainment value. It literally brought chills and goose bumps to my skin time and time again. Savor it on a dark and stormy night!

Too Much Denouement Drags "Hours", December 5, 2010
Kate Morton does her best to write the updated Gothic novel plugging in the typical variables into a well-used and beloved formula that usually yields a great deal of entertainment and quality reading time for those of us who enjoy the genre. In this case, a moldering castle, a trio of spinster sisters and a secret help to create atmosphere while a letter written back in 1941 and finally delivered in 1997 jumpstarts a flailing mother/daughter relationship while uncovering some unsettling facts about the origins of a children's literary classic.

For the most part, "The Distant Hours," Morton's third foray into this type of romance, works as an entertainment, meaning that it succeeds in whiling away the time of its audience in a way that both engages and has them desiring more. However, Morton's labyrinthine style of telling stories within stories while changing point of view and time periods begins to get cumbersome after the reader figures out where the plot is actually going and that the overall effect on the main characters really isn't all that critical.

One of the main characters, Meredith, comes to the castle as a child evacuated during the bombing of London during WW2. Morton introduces us to her personal angst with regard to her view of her own self-worth and the role the castle-dwelling sisters play in helping her determine her future. But for the most part, inasmuch as Meredith only serves as a technical vessel to change the novel's venue to the castle, none of this has any great dramatic relevance that later on will cause the reader to ooh and ahh when the climatic scenes are reached and the mystery is no longer shrouded in secret.

Likewise, Edie, Meredith's daughter, the primary narrator of the tale, and the person whose actions somewhat drive the plot, really gains nothing from the whole experience recanted in over 500 pages. She begins as a storyteller and ends as pretty much the same personality with perhaps a better understanding of her mother as a person with desires of her own. As charming as all this bonding sounds, Morton's effort comes across as forced. She has all the components for a modern story told on fairytale turf--the woods, the castle, two Red Riding Hoods and three undernourished grandmothers. Unfortunately, her wolf is tired and dentures facilitate his bite. Present throughout the story as a legend, he seems to be added to the mix a tad too late at the point where the reader has already decided where and how the story should have ended and doesn't really care about the meandering back story told by way too many voices.

In the same respect, Morton's hunter remains non-existent: the hero of "the Distant Hours" is suggested as an afterthought rather than crafted through the thunder and lightning of human chemistry and moonlit nights. Where is the romance? The suggestion of sensual pleasure breaking through the barrier of the classic Gothic heroine's intellectual sensibilities is sadly never explored and this very necessary flare of hope and light in the midst of all the gloom never illumed. In attempting to recreate a neo-Gothic drama, Morton needs to look to past experts: the first person voices of Victoria Holt's heroines--who acted for me as initial welcomers to the suspense/romance/Gothic world and now presently, the women crafted by Susanna Kearlsey whose modern day narratives brings the heroine into her own, unencumbered by convention and class distinctions. Morton's damsel, who cannot be qualified as even "in distress" remains a voyeur like Bronte's Lockwood in Wuthering Heights. She watches and reports; the reader can only guess at her emotional station as the narration comes to an end. We may feel her pleasure that the book has come to a conclusion and all is well with the world, but as the wolf has no teeth, the maybe lovers, living happily ever after, have no heat.

For Morton, a theme revolving around a piece of literature and the backstory of its creation is already explored in her "The Forgotten Garden: A Novel." That story works better as the characters of TFG are all personally invested in the mystery's solution--lives are dramatically changed, bitterness abandoned and burgeoning love blossoms sweetly like lilies of the valley in Springtime. "The Distant Hours" goes out with not so much name-dropped T.S. Eliot's whimper, but a drama-less fizzle--Morton makes a sloppy attempt to make all things right with her fictional world--she provides the outlines, brings her audience to a premature denouement and then attempts to fully flesh out her sketch afterwards when I, for one, no longer cared.

Bottom line? "The Distant Hours" does provide the Gothic romance reader a glorious amount of time whiled away back in the day where crumbling castles and those of the manor born ruled their roasts and controlled each other and their annexed village. Alas, with no Byronic hero and little in terms of romance, "The Distant Hours" flounders a little, meandering down a path strewn with too many spinsters and would-be governesses that dead ends into the depressing debilitating corner of crushed dreams. All in all, it is recommended because of its ability to create a thoroughly chilling atmosphere and for the fact that it attempts to further along the neo-Gothic genre that since the retirement of Victoria Holt, Dorothy Eden and Mary Stewart has floundered for a new voice. Check out the novels of Susanna Kearlsey if you enjoy a modern heroine in a not-so-modern environment.
Diana Faillace Von Behren
"reneofc"

Grey Gardens crossed with We Have Always Lived at the Castle, November 9, 2010
If I only read one book this fall, I decided months ago, it would have to be The Distant Hours by Kate Morton. Kate Morton's debut novel, The House of Riverton, held me so spellbound that as soon as I finished it, I read it again. Despite the fact that The House of Riverton left me emotionally drained, I eagerly pre-ordered her next novel, The Forgotten Garden, and devoured it in one sitting, heedless of the late hour and lack of sleep, when it finally came. I'm glad to report that her third effort, The Distant Hours, was just as compulsively readable and captivating as the first two.

Everything I loved in The House at Riverton and The Forgotten Garden, and have come to expect from Kate Morton, is in The Distant Hours.

First, there's always a mystery that unfolds in lush, gothic detail, usually in a bygone era. Here, a letter sent during World War II arrives 50 years later. Like a siren call from the past, Edie is compelled to find Milderhurst Castle and discover the fate of the Sisters Blythe, Juniper, Persephone, and Seraphina. Aristocratic beauties in their day, what has happened to the Sisters Blythe over the years and what precipitated their tragic decay reminds me a bit of Grey Gardens mixed with We Have Always Lived at the Castle. So lovely and promising in their youth, they are now old women who never escaped the mouldy castle of their forebears, their dreams strangled by a mysterious tragedy 50 years before.

"Have you ever wondered what the stretch of time smells like? I can't say I had, not before I set foot inside Milderhurst Castle, but I certainly know now. Mould and ammonia, a pinch of lavender and a fair whack of dust, the mass disintergration of very old sheets of paper. And there's something else too, something underlying it all, something verging on rotten or stewed but not. It took me a while to work out what that smell was, but I think I know now. It's the past. Thoughts and dreams, hopes and hurts, all brewed together, shifting in the stagnant air, unable to dissipate completely."

The long shadows cast by their controlling father, a celebrated novelist, and his most famous work, The True History of the Mud Man, over their lives has something to do with why the Sisters Blythe have never left the castle. Morton, as usual, is adept at weaving subtle strands and hints so that even as the reader uncovers more and more of the mystery, the final reveal is devastating and unexpected. Hint - within the short, haunting excerpt from the Mud Man tale in the beginning of the book are symbolic clues as to the dark history and future of the Sisters Blythe.

Love affairs cut tragically short; age-old secrets waiting to be discovered; suspenseful, atmospheric setting; and writing that left me breathless - The Distant Hours enthralled me to the very end.

Where did the real Kate Morton go???, November 29, 2010
I was enthralled by The Forgotten Garden and liked a lot The House at Riverton but this one is a complete mystery to me as to why she got so off the track. I think maybe a little too many morose classics in her repertoire. In all honesty I haven't finished the book but I don't know if I can stay awake long enough to finish it. She goes on for paragraphs about a dress or the messiness of a room when I just want her to get on with the relevant tale. In The Forgotten Garden I couldn't wait to pick it up again and ignored my duties just to secret away with it. With this one I'm about to give up. Will update this review if I ever get through it. I have been waiting with bated breath for months for this book. What a boring disappointment.
Update: Well I finished the book and after the first third being horrible the real Kate Morton reappeared and authored as she had in the past. The story finally took off moving well and providing sufficient mystery. I really enjoyed the second half. I'm still only upgrading this book to three stars because of the awful beginning (I agree too that The Mud Man is not a story children would really enjoy and opening with it immediately disinterested me). I wonder about the people she asks to read this before publication. Didn't anyone encourage her to tighten up the script? Well, hopefully people pick up her other books before this one.

Great Story, November 21, 2010
A great story but....slow to start and too wordy!! Loved her first 2 books and I did like this story, I just got bogged down by too much information!

A Great Literary Mystery, November 9, 2010
I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher.

I loved Kate Morton's book THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN so I was very excited when I got a galley of her newest book, THE DISTANT HOURS. When a letter from 1941 finally arrives at its destination fifty years later, it has powerful repercussions for Edie Burchill, a young publisher in London. Edie's mother opens the much-belated letter and is powerfully affected by it. She reveals to Edie that she had been evacuated to a castle called Milderhurst in the countryside during the war. Edie is very surprised to learn of this previously hidden episode in her mother's life. She is even more surprised to learn that Milderhurst was the residence of the author of Raymond Blythe, the author of one her favorite books, THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE MUD MAN. This book is a national treasure and no one has ever cracked the mystery of the true inspiration behind the story. When Edie is brought to Milderhurst by chance, she can't resist learning more about the place her mother had been exiled to and, in so doing, becomes drawn into the lives of the three elderly Blythe sisters that reside there still and the mysteries surrounding them.

This is a very difficult book to describe. There is so much going on! It is a bit of a chunkster at 670 pages but the story flew by as I could not put it down. The story moves back and forth between the present of 1992 to the war years. We see the events unfolding through multiple perspectives as we try to learn the truth about the hidden secrets of the Blythe sisters and the origins of the famous MUD MAN story. There is also the side story of Edie trying to understand her mother, Meredith, by delving into her past. The book reveals a great deal about the often complicated relationships between parents and children and also between siblings. The book offers a literary mystery and reminded me a great deal of AS Byatt's POSSESSION and Diane Setterfield's THE THIRTEENTH TALE. All of the characters are interesting and the secrets and mysteries keep you guessing until the end.

I could not put this book down. I loved it even more than THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN. It has many of the elements of my favorite books--mystery, books, family drama and secrets, madness, passion, castles, romance and even some wartime drama. Although I think the ending was successful, it felt a little abrupt to me. I wish Morton hadn't hurried things up so much. However, it was a thoroughly entertaining read overall.

BOTTOM LINE: HIGHLY recommended. One of my favorites this year. Fans of AS Byatt and Diane Setterfield and even Charlotte Bronte will find much to enjoy here. This makes a great winter read.

It Took Forever To Get There, November 30, 2010
As a huge fan of Kate Morton's previous novels, "The House at Riverton" and "The Forgotten Garden", I pre-ordered this book months ago and couldn't wait until I got my hands on her latest. What a huge disappointment.

Her character's never really came to life, the book is overwritten and it wasn't until I got to page 200 or there about, that the story finally took off. And even when I thought, she's finally getting there, the story would bog down again. By the time I finished it, I just didn't care anymore.

It would normally take me two or three days to read a book of this size, unfortunately, this one took me almost 2 weeks to get through. Maybe a better editor?

Sadly, I'm not sure I could recommend this one and I'm really bummed out that I had to write a negative review on what I had hoped would be a trifecta for Kate Morton.

"Evil on itself shall back recall (Milton).", October 30, 2010

Moving between 1941 and the early 1990s, Morton connects mother, daughter and mystery in the long unraveling of a family tragedy. Much of the critical action takes place at Milderhurst Castle during World War II, where three sisters live with a father made famous by his terrifying novel, The True History of the Mud Man. A truly gothic tale, Raymond Blythe's seminal work has earned him popular cache, even as the years pass and he retires to a reclusive life in the tower of his castle. The family history has been marred by premature, violent death, bodies falling from the tower or burned beyond recognition as the family library is engulfed in flames. The Blythe sisters, Persephone, Seraphina and Juniper, carry on the legacy bequeathed them, bound together by Juniper's lost lover, an event that alters her life.

During the years of the blitz in London, many mothers opt to send their children to the country to be temporarily sheltered by volunteer families. Thus does an impressionable Meredith arrive in the village, carried home to Milderhurst Castle by the exotic Juniper. Meredith flourishes in her new environment, exposed to art and literature, her world expanded by the sisters in their darkly romantic castle, Juniper in particular. Fifty years later, Edie Burchill, Meredith's daughter, returns to the castle, hoping to uncover a past her mother has never talked about. Soon past and present collide as Edie tenaciously investigates the wartime events, unearthing as well a vault of family secrets. Now elderly and frail, the sisters inhabit a crumbling castle, Percy and Saffy attending a more fragile Juniper.

Morton makes use of letters, diaries and Raymond Blythe's novel to draw her readers into a labyrinthine world of long-buried sins, the voices of the dead longing for release: "Evil on itself shall back recall (Milton)." The gothic tale of Blythe's Mud Man yields an atmosphere both moody and moldy, a filled-in moat, a little girl starring from the tower room on a stormy night. On a lighter note, Edie's exertions are on her mother's behalf, the daughter seeking to restore the bond that seems to have disappeared. Even with the fresh perspective of youth, Edie is seduced by the time-worn Milderhurst Castle and the Blythe sisters as Meredith was fifty years before. Although some rigorous editing would not be remiss, gradually everyone's stories are exposed to the light of day, long-hidden secrets revealed, a family held captive by a tale of horror, their darkest fears based on an awful truth. Luan Gaines/2010.



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Editorial Review

"My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky." Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams."

Every few decades a book is published that changes the lives of its readers forever. The Alchemist is such a book. With over a million and a half copies sold around the world, The Alchemist has already established itself as a modern classic, universally admired. Paulo Coelho's charming fable, now available in English for the first time, will enchant and inspire an even wider audience of readers for generations to come.

The Alchemist is the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found. From his home in Spain he journeys to the markets of Tangiers and across the Egyptian desert to a fateful encounter with the alchemist.

The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches us, as only a few stories have done, about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, above all, following our dreams.

Reviews

Flawed But Ultimately Thought-Provoking and Worthwhile, March 1, 2003
Yes, much of what negative reviewers of this book have to say is true: the writing is blunt and simple, the characters lack depth and complexity, it is quite male-focused in its subject matter and language, it has a bunch of quasi-religious mumbo-jumbo, and so on. This book should not be put on the list of great literature for the ages. There are doubtless many novels that cover subject matter from this book far more artfully. As I read the book, I was aware of its hokeyness and lack of redeeming literary qualities. I am, in fact, usually the first person to criticize books that read like this.

And yet, I have to say - and I feel a bit sheepish about this - that I found it meaningful, even profound at times. How can I say this, given my criticisms? First of all, unlike many reviewers, I did not approach this book with great expectations. No one told me that this was Shakespeare or Tolstoy; I had never even heard of it until it was recommended to me recently. And by the end of page 2, I had adjusted my expectations further. This clearly was not going to be winning the Booker prize.

But I found the book moving in its simple way. The characters deliver their statements without subtlety, but subtlety is more a literary virtue than a philosophical one. In fact, I essentially came to view this work as a life philosophy expressed as a fable, so I didn't particularly mind that its messages were not buried far beneath the surface.

Are those messages novel? No, but what of it? Novelists have been recycling themes for centuries, becuase many themes are of enduring interest and relevance. The point is, the messages are worthwhile and deserving of consideration. They are simple, but I think that simplicity is itself one of the central themes of the book: that life is not that complicated when one follows one's dreams honestly and passionately, or as the book says, "with love and purpose." And yet the book reminds us that it is very easy to give up dreams and abandon one's passion.

I have to disagree with one often-mentioned criticism of the book, namely, that it advocates pure materialism. That is, in my opinion, a serious misinterpretation. The book is written in the style of a fable, and therefore the goals people strive for are the typical gold-and-buried-treasure stuff. But I think one would have to misread the book quite severely to think that it is advocating material gain. The book is not at all about the specific goals that the protagonist pursues. It is about the importance of wanting something urgently and how the wanting seems to reorient the universe in harmony with that goal (just as a magnetic field can reorder the particles around it), how genuine passion and enthusiasm are rewarded with success, how those who love us encourage us to pursue our goals, and how the act of reaching for goals - whatever they are, and whether or not ultimately reached - plunges us into a strong current that carries us to places that we can never expect or know when we embark. There is something here in common with the beliefs of the Romantics, in that much of the value of the goal is in the journey that it leads us on -- the experiences gained and the lessons learned.

It's not a fair criticism of the book, I think, to say that it doesn't tell us what happens when people's goals conflict with one another, or disclose that circumstances outside of our control often render us unable to reach our goals however sincerely we may pursue them. We don't need a book to tell us that. Anyone who has made it out of childhood knows that, and I have to believe that the author is well aware of this as well. I suspect that through his simple tale, he is trying to provide some kind of argument against the kind of cynicism or fear that the world can sometimes instill in us, and encourage us to keep diving into that "strong current" to see where it takes us.

A Powerful Parable, June 21, 2006
More parable than novel, "The Alchemist" uses the story of young shepherd Santiago's search for his Personal Legend as an allegory for everyman's struggle to break from the comfortable confines of conformity and pursue his life dreams. Along the way, of course, our young everyman is beset by all manner of setbacks, testing his resolve and forcing him to become attuned to the Soul of the World in order to survive. By paying attention to the details in the world around him, which serve as omens guiding him towards his goal, young Santiago becomes an alchemist in his own right, spinning unfavorable circumstances into riches.

Aside from the ubiquitous theme about the power of perseverance, my favorite part of the book was its glorification of simplicity. Like the pared-down manner in which the story is presented, Santiago's rare ability to get in touch with the Soul of the World comes not from the procedures described in arcane tomes pursued by traditional alchemists, but rather from a simple honesty and observance of the workings of the world. While the lack of character or plot complexity precludes this minimalist work from being considered a great novel, it will be a satisfying read for those seeking inspiration of the purest sort.

-Kevin Joseph, author of "The Champion Maker"

Quasi-religious, psuedo-inspirational seriously inane drivel, June 5, 2005
Contrived. Pretentious. Juvenile. That's just the introduction, in which the author discusses his amazement at the popularity this book has gained. It is equally astonishing for any reader who is able to endure more than five pages of: "The Soul of the World spoke to the Heart of the Boy as he prayed to the God of the Dessert who commanded the Spirit of the Wind..." I found myself praying to the God of Literature that the boy's beloved sheep would stampeded and trample him to death, sparing me from the Demons of Boredom. If you liked the Celestine Prophecy you'll love The Alchemist. You can read it while you're waiting for the mothership to return. Otherwise, take a pass and read something more intellectually engaging, like the tax code.

The Beauty is in the Simplicity, January 22, 2002
When I thought about reviewing this book, I had many things to say...but after reading some of the other reviews which pick apart and criticize it, I can see the meaning of the book even more clearly.
The writing is simple and clear- not juvenile. It's entertaining and brings a message which does not need to be complicated, except for those who are not ready to see the truth. They are the ones who like their truth heavily veiled and masked, as their self-gratification is in the pursuit. The reality is, the only place you need to look for the truth is in yourself. There is no search required- just your own personal journey.
Life does not need to be complicated, and the folks who have made negative comments about those who enjoy this book have obviously missed the point of it entirely- and they bring to mind the phrase "Casting Pearls before Swine."
You are not going to get anything valuable from this book unless you are READY for the spiritual knowledge which it contains. And that is one of the main points of the book anyway.
Personally, I received deep spiritual messages and peace from reading The Alchemist- and I have been on my own spiritual path for over two decades. This book presents information that only those who have actually paid attention to their journey would understand and appreciate.
If you read it and don't like it, I suggest you forget about it for at least 5 years and pick it up again. You might be surprised.
Update, 10/2003:Oh. My. Gosh. I can't believe how many people just "don't get" this book!!! Look: the point is not about anyone's "Personal Legend"!!!
THE POINT, is that what you search for is usually RIGHT THERE all along, and that the journey you take to find it is about learning lessons and growing as a person. Get it yet? LIFE IS IN THE JOURNEY, NOT THE DESTINATION!!
Santiago set off to find his "pot of gold," and after a long journey during which he grew mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, he finally discovers the location of the treasure. He follows the directions and find it RIGHT WHERE HE STARTED!
GET IT?!!!
You have what you need inside of you all of the time. You don't need to search outside yourself- you need to look within. THAT is the point.
Sheesh.

Julia Roberts can have it, January 6, 2005
The Alchemist: a conflicting mixture of Christianity, just enough hints at mysticism to make it attractive to New Agers, the most simplistic of self-help guruism, and a random sampling of anything else leaning vaguely toward shallow spirituality.

Add to this Coelho's shameless self-promotion in the Foreword ("I saw [noted literary figure] Julia Roberts reading The Alchemist on a beach the other day"), the helpful "Topics for Discussion" at the end of the book (hoping to pass the book off as something deeply philosophical, I'm guessing), and what is meant to be an attention-grabbing "quote" on the back cover, which sort of gives you the entire Point Of The Book without actually quoting the book, because quoting the actual line would cause even more people than usual to snort derisively and to chuck the book back into the 3-for-2 pile at the local bookstore(for the record, the quote on the back of the book says, "One's only obligation in life is to pursue one's desiny," which is twee enough as it is...but nowhere does the book actually say this; instead, the actual quote is "One's only obligation in life is to pursue one's Personal Legend"), it's almost enough to make me wish I had lost my sight temporarily for a day rather than spending it reading this book. Yes, that's right--despite the fact that I have a wife and two children who leave me with nary a free moment even on my holidays, I managed to put this book away in exactly twenty-four hours.

There are some books one ploughs through breathlessly, excitedly, because one can not put them down until one runs out of pages to read. There are others that one disposes of quickly because there is nothing resembling content to hold one up. The Alchemist falls into the latter category.

Some may claim that people are missing the "hidden story" in this book. As Paulo Coelho continually beats readers over the head with the simplistic feel-good "hidden story," I would have to argue that most people with a basic grasp of literacy will catch on.

I recommend that you leave this one to Julia Roberts on the beach.

Superficial simplicity, July 14, 2000
Last spring I read "Illusions," by Richard Bach. When I read the reviews online, one guy mentioned he thought "The Alchemist" was superior to the story of "Illusions." I finally got around to "Alchemist" and I must say I was quite disappointed.

First off, yes I realize it's considered a fable, but the writing style is far too simplistic. I don't know if it's the translation, but it reads like a book an elementary schooler would read for a report. Annoying points: there are page after page of adolescent terms like "Master Work" and "Personal Legend" and "Language of the Universe", repetitious redundancies of quotes, just in case you haven't been paying attention, and very little masking of points. Coelho must not trust the reader to pick things up because he screams them at you.

But, that's just the writing style. As for the writing, there is a clear spiritual basis to the story, which is welcome, but the incessant talk of fate was a complete turn-off. I also felt there was an air of superiority to it. Santiago would pass people who seemed happy in their lives, and he would feel sorry for them because they weren't on a trek. In the case of the crystal shop owner, yes, he was pathetic for not pursuing his dream of going to Mecca. But to look at another shop owner and judge he has not pursued his dream, when perhaps his dream was to settle with his family, was distracting.

On to love....um, he meets a woman midway through the story and falls in love before they speak? Oooookay. And this woman he supposedly loves, and with whom he could settle with and be rich, he leaves to discover a treasure. Why is his dream that of a material/monetary nature? I had a tiny problemo with that one.

So, before this becomes a lecture. I give it 3 stars for some of the dialogue Santiago has with the alchemist, and for its basic idea: pursue your dream, as it will haunt you if you don't. However, this is hardly a fantastic book....it just speaks to the masses, where others may require one to think more.

Trite and Fatalistic, July 19, 2001
The Alchemist though highly recommended by a friend did nothing but disappoint. A healty attitude towards life is rigourosly drug threw a mire of close-minded fatalistic views. Yes I completely agree with following ones dream but Coelho creates a scenario that leads one to believe that someone has set up the pins and all we are to do is knock them down.

Cliched, sexist fiddle-faddle, April 30, 2004
I read this book to find out what all the fuss was about. What followed was sour disappointment.

Storyline: No more sophisticated than those shortened bible stories for five-year olds.
Style: I have read microwave oven instructions with more literary flair.
Characterization: Flat, lifeless "characters", distinguishable only through phrases like "the boy", "the girl", or "the Englishman".
Tone: Preachy and patronizing to the point of being irritating.
Message: "Follow your dreams". How deep, and original.
Further Peeve: Coelho encourages men to follow their dreams, while a woman's destiny is to await her man ("She never asked you to stay because a woman of the desert knows that she must await her man" - p. 126). This is not taken out of context. Throughout the book, the whole "follow your dreams" motto is limited to male protagonists.

Don't be duped by the 'warm fuzzy feeling' Coelho tries to leave you with. This book is as deep as a puddle.(...)

New Age Blather, December 21, 2000
The most mysterious part of this book is its popularity. I understand that it's a simple fable and I'll even grant the "follow your heart" message may be a virtuous pursuit. But the manner in which this message is delivered is tortuous. The characters are passive and hollow and the plot is so contrived as to render the story ridiculous. Instead of having to resolve significant conflicts himself, Santiago floats through the story guided by a sequence of serendipitously fortuitous events. Coelho attributes this to the "universe conspiring" to help him attain his Personal Legend. I attribute this to weak writing.

The underlying message of this book is also troubling. Rather than finding happiness in the journey itself, it suggests that salvation lies in attaining one's Personal Legend--in this case material wealth. The implicit flip-side of this lesson is that if you don't reach your goals, you're either not trying hard enough or not following your "true calling" -- when in reality one's failure is more often attributed to a bunch of external factors over which one has no control.

Those who find this book inspirational probably also find wisdom in fortune cookies and horoscopes.

very shallow... in comparison, November 17, 2001
Reviewer: A reader from Germany
This is a very shallow tale disguised as a deeply spiritual fable. Sorry. I know that it has helped many people to start on a spiritual journey (that's why it gets two stars not one) but that doesn't change things at all. Anyone with a gift for words could have created this story just by skimming through the world's mystical literature. If you want depth, go to the truly mystical works such as "The Book of Mirdad" (sadly out of print!) or any of the genuine msytics in any of the world religions - for example Ramana Maharshi, St Francis, the Sufi mystics, Zen masters. Or even the Bible, read with a an open mind. All have much more depth than the Alchemist. And of course the ending of this book was ridiculous. A material treasure is tinsel in comparison to the real spiritual treasure - why then should this be shown to be the ultimate goal and fulfillment? It's a very dangerous premise put forward that spiritual wisdom will lead to material wealth - even if the material wealth is only a by-product. ... Read more

Editorial Review

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The enthralling international bestseller.

We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building’s tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence.

Then thereÂ’s Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter.

Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma’s trust and to see through Renée’s timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.

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Editorial Review

From the internationally bestselling author of The House at Riverton, an unforgettable new novel that transports the reader from the back alleys of poverty of pre-World War I London to the shores of colonial Australia where so many made a fresh start, and back to the windswept coast of Cornwall, England, past and present

A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives completely alone with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a single book -- a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the dockmaster and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-first birthday they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and with very little to go on, "Nell" sets out on a journey to England to try to trace her story, to fi nd her real identity. Her quest leads her to Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Mountrachet family. But it is not until her granddaughter, Cassandra, takes up the search after Nell's death that all the pieces of the puzzle are assembled. At Cliff Cottage, on the grounds of Blackhurst Manor, Cassandra discovers the forgotten garden of the book's title and is able to unlock the secrets of the beautiful book of fairy tales.

This is a novel of outer and inner journeys and an homage to the power of storytelling. The Forgotten Garden is fi lled with unforgettable characters who weave their way through its spellbinding plot to astounding effect.

Morton's novels are #1 bestsellers in England and Australia and are published in more than twenty languages. Her fi rst novel, The House at Riverton, was a New York Times bestseller. ... Read more

Reviews

The Forgotten Garden: Another Blockbuster for Kate Morton, July 26, 2008
A four-year-old girl waits alone on a dock in Australia for parents who never come. Her only possession? A tiny white suitcase containing no information about who she is or how she came to be abandoned.

Nell is a foundling, and what a rare foundling she is. A stow-away on an ocean liner, she refuses to tell even so much as her name. Until in her 60s, over-protected by a loving foster father, she has no clue how she came to be alone on that dock. Hers is the mystery that unfolds in this long novel spanning more than a century, five generations, and two distant continents.

Enthusiastic fans of Kate Morton's first novel, "The House at Riverton," will thrill to her second, "The Forgotten Garden." Like her first, this is a novel whose female characters are finely and fully drawn, and whose males are wispy and insubstantial. How its women interact, how they love and hate one another, how their interplay moves through tragedy and redemption will provide hours of pleasure for her fans.

Morton's excellent pacing creates a page-turner that is hard to put down, although its length might give pause to those who suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome. Morton tells her story not only through the actions of her characters but also through fairy tales that work on several levels and provide clues to the mystery's final solution. Many readers will have guessed the solution long before the end of the book. Nevertheless, Morton maintains reader interest throughout.

Overall, this is a highly satisfying read. It's fun to watch the author weave the lives of women into a rich tapestry of life and love, anger and betrayal. However, the novel is not without its weaknesses. First, as mentioned above, Morton's male characters are weak and insipid and never come to life. Second, the love interest at the end of the book does not mesh with the rest of the work. It is almost as though an editor said, "You'd better add a little love story here," so Morton did.

The book's flaws, while mildly unsettling, are not serious enough to spoil a great read. If you enjoy long stories about generations of women, you will love "The Forgotten Garden."

A fairy tale gone wrong, October 5, 2008
I was a bit hesitant in picking up "The Forgotten Garden" by Kate Morton. After my disappointment with "The House at Riverton," I wasn't sure if I was willing to invest more time. Pleased to say that the story hooked me from the get-go, and though the book is longer than I thought necessary, it was altogether an entertaining read.

At the heart of this big, fat tale (645 pages) is a mystery. In 1913, a dock master, Hugh, discovers a four-year-old girl who's been left alone on a wharf in Queensland, Australia after all passengers had disembarked from a boat that sailed from England. Taking pity on her, Hugh takes her home to his wife, Lil. In spite of Hugh's and Lil's efforts to find the girl's family, time passes and no one claims the tyke. Having hit her head while onboard the boat, the little girl couldn't even remember her own name and all she could recall was a woman she calls the Authoress who was supposed to sail with her. Hugh and Lil decide to keep her as their own and name her Nell.

In the present day, Nell's granddaughter, Cassandra, is grieving Nell's passing. As she goes through Nell's notebooks, she realizes that her grandmother had never stopped searching for her true parents. Cassie takes over the search, which leads her to England and to a small Cornish village, and finally, to a decrepit cottage and its walled garden...a garden that swallowed the secrets of the 1900s and buried within its grounds the fascinating and tragic story of the Mountrachets and the woman a child had called the Authoress.

A challenge to the reader will be the constant switching of perspective from past to present and in between, primarily the years of 1913, 1975 and 2005. It's a bit off-putting in the first few chapters but after awhile, it's no longer an encumbrance. Though the main story is Nell's parentage, the novel is dense with stories of the characters whose lives intersect and create the environment upon which Nell's birth and subsequent abandonment hinges. There are also many incidental details that don't necessarily impact the story but are included nevertheless to bring alive the era being depicted and add realism to the backstories. Included, too, are fairy tales by the Authoress that serve as allegories of the truths secreted by the doomed Mountrachet family, a family that "wanted things they shouldn't or couldn't have" and destroyed lives with their avarice, entitlements and perversions.

It can be a grueling read at close to 700 pages but the mystery itself kept me reading and speculating. Clues are parceled out in small doses and it takes a very long time, almost the end, before one can put together a clear picture of Nell's history. That's a good decision on the author's part as otherwise, a reader's interest would likely wane quickly. As Cassie puts it, "the closer we get, the more tangled the web becomes."

The characters are, for the most part, very interesting, though a bit on the melodramatic side, but it's the kind of melodrama that befits the Victorian era and the early 1900s. Of particular note is the emerging technology of x-ray in the mid-1890s, the careless use of which put into motion a series of tragic events that would reverberate for over 100 years.

It's an enthralling read and, with patience from a reader, delivers very satisfactory answers. Stories about foundlings, secrets and Victorian women have been done hundreds of times in various iterations and can get tiresome fast if the core story is weak. Glad to say that no such error is committed in "The Forgotten Garden." The first few chapters pulled me in very quickly and I found myself compulsively on the same quest for the truth. The mystery has sturdy legs that don't weaken for the novel's entire duration.

Sweet, But Far Too Long and Confusing, April 8, 2009

This Forgotten Garden needs a little editorial weeding, July 6, 2009
The Forgotten Garden reads more like a 552 page first draft than a finished novel. To be brief, the story is convoluted and the characters are one dimensional at best. Morton does a better job describing places and things than she does describing the inner workings of the human mind and human motivation. Ultimately, I'm glad that I finished this book--there were small portions that I really enjoyed. Kate has a lovely (if not long winded) way with words. I hope for her next book, the publisher hires someone to help make the story a little more cohesive.

A favorite!, March 19, 2009
The Forgotten Garden, the follow-up to The House at Riverton: A Novel (but by no means a sequel), is a muti-layered novel with complicated characters and a highly intriguing storyline. The story jumps back and forth in time, but rarely is the reader confused as to what's going on. I loved The House at Riverton, so as soon as I finished it, I went roight over and bought The Forgotten Garden from Amazon UK. Let me just say that I wasn't disappointed.

The book opens in 1913, when a young girl with no name is found on a quayside in Australia. She doesn't remember anything about herself, and all she carries with her is a white suitcase containing, among other personal items, a book of fairytales penned by a woman the girl calls the Authoress.

In 1975, the girl, now a woman called Nell, goes back to England, where she attempts to find answers to questions about her identity. Her travels lead her to Blackhurst Manor, delving deep into the Mountrachet family's secrets and purchasing a cottage on the Blackhurst property. But before she can solve the mystery of her past, Nell's flaky daughter Lesley shows up, dumping her granddaughter Cassandra on her doorstep--permanently.

In 2005, after Nell's death, Cassandra inherits the cottage and tries to answer the questions her grandmother raised. The stories of these two women are complemented by that of Eliza Makepeace, who grew up in the slums of London around the turn of the nineteenth century, and her cousin, the genteel Rose Mountrachet.

This is clearly a novel written by a woman, for women, about women; the male characters take a backseat to the female ones, sometimes becoming unlikeable. In fact, Linus Mountrachet is downright creepy, and Nathaniel West is a bit of a cad. The novel is punctuated here and there with some of Eliza's short stories, which provide wonderful little interludes, kind of like AS Byatt's Possession, in a way. Possession, mixed with a little bit of The Secret Garden. We're even introduced to Frances Hodgeson Burnett, suggesting that she might have received inspiration for The Secret Garden from Eliza and Rose's garden.

What I loved about this atmospheric, fairytale-like novel was that Morton tells the story of these different, but connected, women, but she doesn't give everything up right away. I tried to guess at the mystery many times, but ultimately my guesses were never correct. The characters are well developed, and although it takes a little while to get into the story, this is an excellent novel, filled with old houses and hidden gardens with secrets and surprises. It's also a novel about foreshadowing; even Cassandra's name suggests someone who can foretell the future. Aside from some too-fortuitous chances (for example, Eliza is rescued from poverty at the exact moment that she's about to be sent off to the workhouse), I found it really, really difficult to put this novel down, and only finished it reluctantly.

A novel you will never forget., April 24, 2009
Part of The Forgotten Garden is reminiscent of Frances Hodgson Burnett's, The Secret Garden published in 1911. An unwanted cousin finds herself at her uncle's manor house, where she develops a bond with a sickly and lonely cousin. The similarity between the two novels ends there.

Like Morton's, The House at Riverton, The Forgotten Garden shifts back and forth through time and attempts to solve a mystery that occured over a hundred years ago. The House at Riverton's mystery was the death of poet, Robbie Hunter. The mystery in this novel is why Ivory Walker, a four year old year old girl from a wealthy and aristocratic family, was abandoned and placed on a ship to Australia.

Ivory Walker grows up to be Nell. On her eighteenth birthday, her father revealed a secret which ended her life as she knew it - not only was Nell not his real daughter, neither he or his wife knew Nell's real identity. She was found on the docks when she was four years old. The only link to her past is a little white suitcase the child carried on her when she was found.

Cassandra, Nell's granddaughter, inherits the mystery surrounding her grandmother's lost identity. After the elderly Nell dies, Cassandra embarks on an adventure in the Cornish countryside in an attempt to put together the pieces of Nell's past. Crucial to the mystery is a childrens book author by the name of Eliza Makepeace, who Nell not only vaguely remembers was the last person she saw before she boarded the ship, but her little suitcase also contained a book written by the mysterious authoress.

I loved the way the author scattered subtle clues throughout the book. I guessed the big mystery long before it was revealed, but it didn't make the novel any less compelling. Ms Morton knows how to write a mystery that will grab you from the start.

The only gripe I have with The Forgotten Garden was the way the author jumped back and forth across generations. The story didn't transition as smoothly as in her previous book. In fact, the decade jumping was downright confusing at times. Still, I cannot bring myself to give this book any less than five stars. Ms Morton has proved herself a master storyteller. I will gladly pre-order any future books this author publishes.

A chore to read, August 18, 2009
I found the book cumbersome and difficult to follow. Really good prose doesn't confuse readers, it draws them into the story and keeps one's attention focused. There's not enough depth to the characters and the writing too disjointed for this reader. Time is too precious to have to try and figure out where and who the characters are in time. Read "Time and Again" if you want to see how to take readers back and forth through time. Really polished prose is a joy to read. Unfortunately, I didn't find it here.

Only okay, June 9, 2009
I won't waste time giving anyone the low down on the book since there are already so many of those. I will tell you that I am disappointed with the author's inability to ever make me care for any of the characters. I found their responses to most situations to be lacking real human responses. So many people are introduced that no one ever shines or is completely developed. The story ends up being okay, fairly predictable and not something that I would spend any time thinking about after having read it. I bought the book and will now be donating it to the library since I would not recommend it enough to pass it on to a friend.

Storytelling at its best, October 21, 2009
The Forgotten Garden is that best and rarest type of book: a story skillfully written and clean. By clean, I mean none of the foul language, graphic sex scenes or sordidness that is all too common in today's books. Kate Morton tells her story in a way that is lyrical and gentle -- almost like one of the fairy tales that are a recurring theme in the book. Although she includes some truly warped characters in her book - namely Adeline, Linus and Mrs. Swindell -- she conveys their demented-ness in a way that draws a very clear picture for the reader without being disturbing. She had plenty of opportunities to descend into the sordid -- Eliza's childhood in London and Linus' obsession with his sister and later his niece offered opportunities that most of today's writers would have taken full advantage of. And yet, Morton never did. And her novel is so much the better for it.

What appealed to me about this book was the connection and empathy I immediately felt for each of the main characters: Nell, Cassandra, Eliza and even Ruby (who wasn't a main character). Each of them suffered loss, isolation and loneliness in a way that I could identify with. And the very best line in all of the book was that uttered by Ruby to Cassandra: "You make a life out of what you have, not what you're missing." Wow.

What is best about Morton's story is the creative way in which she tells it. She weaves back and forth between 2005, 1975 and 1900, between Australia, London and Cornwall, and gradually reveals the story, peeling back the layers as it were to reveal the truth a little at a time. It is like a journey through the garden maze that is another central theme of the book. I will be careful here, so as not to spoil it for those who haven't yet read the book, but as she gradually reveals bits of the truth your mind will race ahead and leap to conclusions, then as the end draws near you will be disappointed that it wasn't as you thought but was only the obvious, then at the very end you will discover that you actually were right all along. Only Morton adds a little twist of her own to surprise you.

What is worst about Morton's story is the insipidness of all the male characters. They never emerge much from the shadowy background, and are controlled by the women. Nathaniel seemed particularly weak -- I wanted to slap him. Although I think the book would have been even better with stronger male characters, still Morton's crafting of the story is successful -- because this is a book about women written for women, after all.

Seldom do I venture outside of books by Christian authors and Christian publishers. In this case, I'm glad I did. This is wonderful writing. The book is over 500 pages long but is fast reading, especially as I picked it up at every opportunity. If only there were more books like this! I look forward to reading more works by Kate Morton.

A far better book than The House at Riverton, December 13, 2008
Kate Morton's second novel is a beautiful tale about three generations of women, all seeking to find themselves in some way. However, the main story is the search for Nell's parentage. The chapters alternate between different characters and times, however each is clearly marked at the start of the chapter and the same part of the storyline generally continues, just told by a different person.

Unlike The House at Riverton, I found that the writing style was very engaging and I wanted to keep reading right though until the end - it was a real page turner for me. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The humans have no magic and are hunted for sport, but that is about to change. War is coming...

The Sun Dragon spawned nine lesser dragons which devoured their parent for the power the elder possessed. These young dragons fought for choice bits of the Sun Dragon, but each only managed to eat a portion, thus giving them specific powers. Over time, these foul dragons were hunted down and slain by heroes of old. When each body rotted away, nothing was left save for a Jewel—the lens of each dragon’s left eye. These Nine Eyes, or Jewels, form the basis for all magic in the world.

The Haven series is the story of the nine Jewels of power, each representing a different form of magic. The Red Jewel, Sang, gives the wielder power over Blood Magic. The Blue, Lavatis, can call the Rainbow and rules the Sky.

Amber Magic is a short introductory book in this epic series of fantasy novels by B. V. Larson, an award winning author. The book is 200 pages in print form.
... Read more

Reviews

Great, Weird, Fantasy, June 23, 2010
Now this is something different. GOOD and different, a nice combo.

At first, when you are reading this book, you start thinking it is all rather namby-pamby. The characters are so very likeable and the mysterious bad guys you see hanging around at a distance are traditional, Tolkien-type bad guys. But after a while, especially at the end and as you read the sample for the next one... things get kind of creepy. The world is full of baddies that are nightmarish, alien, strange... inhuman. They become really cool. They don't even understand how humans think, they are so weird and carelessly evil. They might dance with you, or kill you, or give you something, all with a smile. And what they do makes sense from their strange point of view. In fact, this series is part horror I would say. Not gory, but disturbing. I guess if there really were elves and dwarves and other races they would be alien and scary, not just short humans who talk like scotsmen or something. I especially liked the Wee Folk, who are funny, strange, sneaky little bastards.

My main complaint was that wished it was longer. There were too many short chapters, too. The later books in the series are longer, but this cheap one was the shortest. I'm used to big fat fantasy books, like Jordan books. I would complain more, but it was so cheap. It's a great fantasy for a buck, and it is different, so I can't complain. I mean seriously, this book cost me less than a bottle of water.

Good Indie Fantasy Series Start, November 13, 2010
I just completed Amber Magic and had to write a review. I had been in a paranormal romance phase for a year or so (besides my book club Best Seller Fiction books) and decided I was ready to go back to the Fantasy genre. What a find in this book.

Like most fantasy books, it has the magical creatures/races (fairies, elves, goblins, changelings, warrior/fighter type) and many other types I have never seen. This first book does well on developing the characters and giving you the background story. It was a little confusing for the first chapter or so, but when the Tale Spinner, Grudin shows up to give some much needed background, the plot and story just falls into place. I could not stop reading and have just now downloaded the next 3 in the series. It's not a really deep or detailed story, but quite entertaining and an easy read.

I won't give away too much: The River Folk have had a pact with the "magical" factions of fairies, elves,"Dark Ones" etc.. that they would supply 1/7th of their harvest once a year to be kept free of the tricks and devilment of the fairies and other magical beings. This pact is brokered by Myrrdin (a wizard type), but Myrrdin who performs the yearly ceremony is missing. This book is based on the lead up to whether the pact will remain intact and the fate of the humans in Riverton and the surrounding area. It's a "fantasy series", so you know what happens next. It's not the IF of the story, it's how the story is told kept me turning the pages.

Most fantasies have the good guys and the bad guys or some type of rift war between a couple of races. At the end of this book you begin learning what happens when that pact is broken. It is like all the magical beings are let loose and they "ALL" have declared open season on the human "River Folk." I think what really got me going is that the pace, adventure and thrill of what was happening completely engrosses you. When I got to the end of the book, it had chapters of the subsequent book that just seem to be awesome. The book ends with the beginnings of the quest to find Myrrdin who has kept this factions at peace for centuries and the chaos that ensues when the Pact is broken.

This is also one that incorporates folk-like tales and myths and has a kind of "old-style" vibe to it. Quite enjoyable and easily okay for all ages. I would definitely recommend this author and look forward to the next book in the series.

Wow!, November 8, 2010
I was a little leery when the first reference was to the wee folk, but that turned out to be a very short introduction and the book took off and built slowly and steadily into a wondrous adventure! I loved it! I am going to start on the next of the Haven Series right now! My kindle is fairly new and I stumbled onto this author and his ebooks by chance and because I wanted good entertainment at low prices! Well, I got it. This fantasy is one more talent this person has developed. I've enjoyed every one of the books I've read by this author so far. There has been a romance and a mystery and science fiction and a teen story and a wonderful anthology of short stories, and I can't wait to read the latest addition of a vampire story. I love vampire stories! I look every day to see what else new this author has put up.

Good Read, Integration of Folklore/Fantasy, December 20, 2010
I almost enjoyed the book more for it's integration of different folklore than the story at first. Things like the Mari Lwyd (which I have only seen referenced in Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series before), Hern the Hunter (Herla), Old Hob, Oberon, etc... really cool to see those references worked in, although a bit disconcerting at first as I tried to reconcile the world he was creating with those types of references. It probably took a good two thirds of the book before I started to really get caught up.

A previous post somehow made the connection to Jordan's WOT series which really could not be further from the truth- in a superficial way, I suppose you could try to make the leap that the setup is similar to TEOTW, but really, trying to make that connection is sort of ridiculous at best. The series really stands on it's own from my perspective.

Once I got going, I thought it was a great piece of Indie fiction- I'm on to the next in the series and and looking forward to the completion of the series.

Hook, Line, and Sinker, December 4, 2010
This book has something that is sadly lacking in a lot of indie fantasy books out there - an engaging narrative voice. The writing style reminded me of the opening chapters of The Eye of the World (sans prologue). The world clearly holds many supernatural dangers, and only a meticulously maintained truce with the Faerie prevents humanity from being swallowed up. Not that the Faerie are any less alien or any less eager to hunt humans for sport than all the other creatures of the world, but they are good for their word. As long as humans uphold their end of the deal, the Faerie will abide by theirs, even as they secretly hope humanity will eventually break their word and so set the Faerie loose on humanity. I'm sure you can see where this is going...

Amber Magic has several tropes that have been done so often in fantasy that they strike me (perhaps unfairly) as red flags - faeries, young heroes, an obvious romantic interest, and a mysterious dark rider who stalks the hero. That being said, I couldn't help myself. The story is not new, but Larson tells it in an interesting way. It held my attention.

As other reviewers have noted, Amber Magic is not a standalone story. It establishes the "normal world" and ends shortly after everything goes very wrong. It's not a cliffhanger, per se, but it's a bit like if The Fellowship of the Ring had ended after Frodo announced his decision to carry the One Ring to Mount Doom. If you want to know how the story ends, you're going to have to read the sequels. So far, the taste of the bait has been well worth the pain of the hook.

A Good Start, October 27, 2010
B. V. Larson has me hooked so far. Amber Magic is well worth a read, especially if you like fantasy that draws on the old stories that have entertained generations. The author has incorporated traditional elements, such as fairy rings, changelings, and the wee folk, and then woven them into a modern fantasy quest structure. If I could fault the technique it is that by mining so many sources there is a veritable menagerie of different magical and not so magical races to wade through.

Although the book starts in a light fashion, it soon becomes clear that the themes are essentially dark. Fairies are not nice!

You should be warned that the story is very short by book standards, I would almost classify it as a novella rather than a full length novel, but it is priced at a point that still makes this great value for money. This kind of combination would never make it in the traditional printed book world, but electronic publishing is opening up new possibilities, one way to look at these books is as the written equivalent of a TV mini-series!

The writing is hardly high literature, so it will be accessible to most ages, but some of the themes are somewhat mature. I would say this is for teens and above.

I have already purchased the next in the series (which again is quite short) and am enjoying that as well.

Its ok for $1, November 30, 2010
This book is ok for $1. But not really my style, so i only got about 40% of the way through. It is very short, so I am surprised that more didn't happen by the time i stopped reading. The book has "wee folk" and "faeries" etc, so the way I categorise it is that it is fantasy based on real folk stories, and I personally don't like that style. But I also felt it was really slow. By 40% of the way into the book, nothing of much interest had happened. It was also a little far fetched how the characters draw conclusions that lead them on the most appropriate path to take, where an ordinary person in that position would never be able to reach that conclusion.

The Wheel of Amber Turns, December 7, 2010
Wow. Good sturdy folk from a river region. One son, who lost all but one other member of his family, is going to market and sees a dark figure. Soon, he's visited by a mysterious woman who can do magic and her strong warrior companion. His girlfriend, he learns, also has a talent for magic. the big town festival is coming, who knows what will come next? Readers of the Wheel of Time?

I think they read the first book in the Wheel of Time series and just shamelessly stole the setup. It's not the the stories are necessarily the same, but anyone outlining one will instantly recognize the other. It's so much, it's really overwhelming.

A clever tale with threads of true faery sparkling all through it., August 2, 2010
An entertaining read. I am saving my pennies to buy the rest of the series because thats all I have to do. Larson gives you full price book-shelf bang for a bargain-shelf price. I'm not sure why he does it, but rejoice that you can be entertained like this for less than the price of the soda you are drinking. Grab a glass of water next time and treat yourself to one of the best dollars you may ever spend. When your done, get a change jar, and within days you'll have enough to continue deeper into Larson's entertaining fantasy world. ... Read more

Editorial Review

While the meek and mild flying monkey Bufkin is trapped in Fabletown's collapsed business office with the evil witch Baba Yaga, Frau Totenkinder and the witches at the Farm upstate prepare to deal with Mister Dark down in what's left of Fabletown. ... Read more

Reviews

Pure awesomeness., December 8, 2010
Since I usually catch up with the adventures of our beloved Fables when the individual issues are collected into volumes, when I got this in the mail today (literally about an hour prior to writing this review) I immediately sat down to read it. After all, important stuff happens in this volume.

Where to begin? First we've got the problem of Mister Dark, the embodiment of everything you are & should be afraid of. He's preparing himself for something sinister, something that will undoubtedly effect not only the fables but mankind in general. If that's not bad enough, the tensions on the Farm are rising. Totenkinder has run the witches of the 13th floor for years, but now she's got competition for her leadership in the form of Ozma. Things aren't going all that well for Bufkin either- he's trapped in the remnants of Fabletown's office with a whole host of newly released monsters- including a powerful djinn & a very, VERY mad Baba Yaga. Meanwhile in Flycatcher's kingdom there's trouble as well. A drunk goblin has eaten one of the other citizens of the kingdom. The other goblins are threatening to revolt if the offender is put to death, but pardoning the gob's crimes might be just as bad.

This volume is awesome. Not only does it have the reappearance of several people and items mentioned in past volumes, but the artwork is as stunning as is par for the course in this series. Oh, and you get to see how Bufkin reacts in an emergency situation. It doesn't get much better than that. (Until the next volume, anyway.) Also cool is that this volume draws upon the whole Rose Red situation, emphasizing the showdown between good & evil that's undoubtedly coming in the next volume.

If you've been collecting the series so far, you absolutely cannot miss out on this volume. I have to admit, I was a little suspicious about what would happen after the fall of the Empire, but this current story is awesome & is a nice change after the previous Jack-centric volume.

The Beginning of a New Era for the Fables, December 21, 2010
Reason for Reading: Next in the series.

This was a fantastic volume! We are at the beginning of something new for the Fables and this volume just barely starts to put things in motion but it's main focus is to introduce us to some new main players, namely "the bad guys" out there and the Witches, the former residents of floor 13 whom so far we've heard mention but only met their leader Frau Totenkinder. We start off with a two-issue story that takes us back into the Dark Man's history, who he is, and how he was caught in the first place. So now we know just what a formidable foe the Fables are up against.

Then we are off for the five title chapters which deal with the Witches of Fable. The residents of the 13th floor, some of whom we get to meet for the very first time. Frau Totenkinder is off on a secret mission and two Witches are vying for her place as new leader after her sudden disappearance. Here we meet up again with other familiar magical creatures such as Bufkin, Baba Yaga and Geppetto all regaining major roles, whom we haven't seen for some time now. There are also new magic wielders introduced. This is an exciting set-up for the new storyline which isn't fully unveiled yet but we have an inkling of the direction and certainly know who will be taking on major roles. I'm very excited about the direction of this new major story arc. Of course, everybody's minor storylines are all briefly visited upon during this time as well, keeping the general flow going. Finally the book ends with 2-issues back in the Homelands with a visit and a crisis in the Kingdom of Haven and its King, Flycatcher. This story doesn't seem to have anything to do with the rest of the volume but it does advance both Flycatcher and Riding Hood's characters and story arcs.

All and all, a very enjoyable issue for me that felt fresh and exciting as we go forward into a new era for the Fables

Witches drew me back in, December 13, 2010
I had been waiting for months to get my hands on Fables 14: Witches, and when it came, the only disappointment I felt was that the volume had to end at some point. In contrast to Fables 13 which was boring and nonsensical, Witches has all the classic components that makes the series so incredibly addictive. If you think of 13 as a departure, then 14 brings you safely within the realm of the Fables we've come to know and love.

Much is the same as when we left off: the colorful characters (who you both love and hate), the looming darkness that threatens the Fable community externally, and the schisms that divide the Fables internally. The volume also makes a nod or two to "Peter and Max" (worth a gander, like Fables with more words and fewer graphics) and several side-stories that filled out the Fables volumes preceding (barleycorn girls, and what Totenkinder is always so diligently knitting). However, some of the bedrocks are shaken. Some fables die, some are (in a sense) reborn to man, and some are becoming more fanatical with each passing day. A witch grows young again in order to do battle (and you are both excited and worried for her), another grows into a newly vacant leadership position through a very different (and showy) leadership style, and yet another is vying to bend the Fables to his will in order to mold them into "good citizens" once more. You meet new characters while discovering that the Mundy world is not completely mundane and even has some magic in its roots. Characters are coming and going, but all the while there is a cohesiveness to the story that 13 lacked entirely. Pieces are set in motion and at the end of this engrossing volume, things feel like they are getting out of hand... but only in the best possible way.

And if you've been reading Fables all this time, and you have given up on the series due to vol. 13, please, come back and give 14 a try. You won't regret it.

my damaged copy, December 27, 2010
dear sirs,
i received a copy of fourteen in the fables saga and it was bent on oboth corners and had a crease down the middle. is there any way i can exchange thisitem?
mattcashel
922 canyon dr
nosho,mo
64850 ... Read more

Editorial Review

The wound inflicted only a few minutes before was nearly healed.A small cut was the only sign that anything had occurred.I watched in disbelief as it finished closing and eventually disappeared.
“What are you?�
* * *
Gods, demons, vampires, eighteen year old Alina Taylor doesn’t believe in any of them, until she meets Samuel Grant and Duncan Michaels, and discovers a world that could destroy everything she loves.
... Read more

Reviews

Immortal, September 16, 2010
My first thought when I started reading Immortal was wow it resembled Twilight way to much for my liking except different state! Basically, had same situations happen that happened in Twilight. Beautiful male with disheveled hair, clumsy girl, who can't put two sentences together when in the company of beautiful male! It just was ok for me in the beginning.

It was not till the end of this book that it really showed the writers potential and started to get good but then the book was over and to be continued in the next series called Forever!

Just from how it picked up in the end, I will get the next book in this series just to give her a chance because like I said she has potential with the story and the way its heading now. It really picked up there in the end and lost that Twilight feeling. So I am looking forward to the next one just to see if she keeps going with where Immortal ended.

If you liked Twilight, you will enjoy this book. Just beware that there are lots of similarities. If you can hold off till towards the end then the similarities start getting fewer until you finally see where the authors potential is going, and you start to enjoy the book.

Shari

Vampire love or deceit, September 19, 2010
Alina's day is just getting worse. First there is getting home from her dad's place in California. Flying is unnatural and Alina is absolutely terrified when in the air, so to keep herself distracted she tries reading but can not keep her mind on the book. As she hears a commotion at the front of the plane she spots one of the most entrancing guys she has ever seen. His eyes are a deep ocean blue and he is well built. He ends up sitting just opposite of her on the plane. She finds herself constantly looking at him, as if!. If that was not bad enough, when her mom picks her up at the airport and takes her home, she finds everything that belongs to her packed up in boxes and ready to be gone. Knowing she would be moving out for college was one thing; the coldness of the actual event is another.

On her first day of class, the guy from the plane sits next to her. He attracts attention like a flame attracts a moth. She studiously looks away but sees all the other girls watching. There is something about him... something different. It is during class introductions that she learns his name is Samuel. Just being next to him in class keeps her heart racing, making it impossible to concentrate on the assignments.

In her second class as she is waiting for the professor to show, she hears a wonderful, deep purring voice, asking if the seat next to her is free. She finds herself sinking into a pair of incredible green eyes, belonging to an exceptionally attractive guy. He too seems to have that certain charisma, which has every eye turning his way. But he appears to have eyes just for her. He introduces himself as Duncan as he takes the seat next to her. She can feel him staring at her through out the class and she is not sure how to handle the attention.

Each day is a new struggle for her, as Duncan is steady in his pursuit, while she can tell that Samuel likes her as well, he is more standoffish. For some reason she is more drawn to Samuel, although both of them are extremely handsome and charismatic. Duncan chooses to get close to her through her best friend Tabby, but in Alina's world that makes Duncan off limits.

As Duncan sees her interest shift directly to Samuel he takes a risk and reveals his true nature to her. He then gives her the background on both himself and Samuel, thereby also revealing Samuel's secret. His goal is to direct her feeling back to him by revealing Samuel's dark past. Little do they know that this knowledge has put her in imminent danger.

As I began reading Lauren Burd's Immortal, I was initially disappointed that it seemed to be following in the path of the Twilight series. We have these handsome guys, they have that certain something, a charisma that attracts, and Alina, our young heroine is a pale, brooding girl who somehow seems to be extremely attractive to them, more so then any other.

What sent me in a different direction, was that Alina actually has some very close female friends that will do anything for her. In return she is also very protective of them. As the narrative continues, Alina finds out that the guys are both vampires, and that they have a story from their pasts that puts them at odds with each other.

Lauren Burd has developed a group of very likeable characters. Alina really cares about her friends and puts their feelings ahead of her own. While she moves too quickly into decisions, this also makes her very much like most girls her age. She is brave and a bit foolhardy. Tabby, her best friend, makes herself available for Alina at every juncture. We should all have a friend like her. Samuel, while very aloof is also quite tender and fierce, while Duncan reminds me of the many jocks I knew growing up, he thinks he is wonderful and that everyone should fall at his feet, but at the same time he seems to really care about Alina, so it is hard not to like him.

Immortal was enjoyable for a light read with some fun and danger thrown in. The characters were good but seemed to grow as the book took a turn and developed a unique storyline of its own. Anyone who loved the Twilight saga is sure to enjoy this book.

While it begins much like that series I think you will find as you read further it changes gear and goes in a whole different direction

This book was received a a free copy from the Author. All opinions are my own based off my reading and understanding of the material.

Completely hooked, October 17, 2010
A frind of mine recommended this book, because she loves the Twilight series. Eventhough it has some similarities to Twilight, what I liked the most of the book is what sets it apart. I truly believe that this series will stand on its own merit, and it will only get better.
I totally enjoyed it, and at the end, I was hooked. I loved the plot twists the author created. Honestly, I can wait for the second book to come out. (The teaser of the second book was complete torture)

Had me hooked, December 17, 2010
Not very much like twilight at all despite what many have said. I thought it more closely resembled The vampire diaries if anything, but its still different enough to stand on its own. I enjoyed this book even though the typos and repeated phrases almost drove me nuts at times. i also was annoyed at the lack of details and description at parts. Overall though the story was solid and interesting and had me hooked from the beginning. An editor would be nice for the second book which i hope comes out quickly!

Good Read for a Great Price, December 17, 2010
I really enjoyed this book and looking forward to the sequel. New to Kindle and was leery of a book costing .99, well worth the money. Books like this is why I am enjoying my Kindle so much.

Light YA Paranormal Romance, November 8, 2010
Congratulations to Ms. Burd on the publication of her debut novel. It takes determination to complete a novel and even more moxie to get it published whether Indie or mainstream.

Although I am a diehard fan of Urban Fantasy I am not in the age group this book is directed. I passed YA many moons ago, but that does not keep me from enjoying a good read. I often find YA paranormal reads are far more interesting than their adult counterparts.

The first half of this YA paranormal romance suffered from jerky pacing, repetition and spelling errors, but not enough to stop me completing the book. The second half of the storyline is more original, with the major characters becoming further developed and geniunely interesting. I am glad I completed the book and the teaser chapter of the sequel. The author makes it just good enough for me to take a second look at her work. So onto the sequel "Forever". Hopefully, it will be more polished and edited.

Fans of light YA/Adult paranormal romance may want to note of this book and watch the author's talent grow with this series.

Enjoy the read!

great book, October 21, 2010
This is one of my favorite books of the year. I could not put this books down from the minute that I started to read it. It reminded me alot of Twilight with the love triangle, but I love Twilight so that did not bother me. With equal parts of action, adventure and romance what more could you ask for.

Alina is a 18 year old college student who is having an hard time making up her mind in the guy department. But she has a big choice to make towards the end of the book. I don't like going inot details because I don't like spoilers.

Alina has to choose between Samueal who is sweet and quite and only cares that Alina is kept safe. Did I metion the Samuel is also a two hundred year old Immortal. And he is having to compete aginst his enemy Duncan for the love of Alina.

Duncan only really cares about himself and causing as much harm to Samuel as he possible can. He is arrogant and a real player.

I can't wait for the sequel of this book to come out. I hope to hear more from this author in the near future. The author has real potiential.

Familiar but with a twist, October 1, 2010
This book is a quick read that I easily got into. The main plot is similar to other paranormal romance books that I've read, but there is enough that is different to keep my interest to find out what is going to happen between the characters as well as to find out exactly what Duncan and Samuel are.

Of course, the scenario of having two brutally attractive men vying for one's affections is one that I never tire of reading, either. Of the two guys, I like Samuel best. I have a thing for blue eyes and guys that are sweet and dedicated, if a bit moody. Duncan is also a hottie with his flashy green eyes and devil-may-care demeanor.

While I enjoyed this read, I wished that there could have been a little more character development - that the reader could know more about these characters that seem to be briefly introduced. I think everything is an interesting concept, but I just need to know more to feel completely satisfied.

I would recommend this to those who like paranormal fiction, particularly in the young adult realm. It is interesting and clean while still maintaining romantic tension.

Book provided by the author for a fair review.

Bright new author, December 1, 2010
I just read your book last week and can't wait for the next one to come out. Congratulations on your excellent news of finding a publisher! That is truly great. Hope the new publisher doesn't make us wait a year for the sequel to come out like most publishers. I can't wait that long!
Alina starts collage, moves in with her best friend. Everything is normal for her until she meets two guys, Samuel and Duncan. Duncan makes his interest in her obvious while Samuel runs hot and cold on her a lot. When the situation heats up between the three, they find themselves in a situation where they must work together to stop others from taking Alina for their own benefit. When Alina makes her choice in men, betrayal comes in to tear everything away.

Immortal Review, December 28, 2010
Okay, for some of you this may be a spoiler but i just want to say it's a really good book but mirrors Twilight a lot, and i mean literally word for word. So there is a cute klutzy girl named Alina (aka Li-Li) goes to college and meets two really hot mysterious guys. Sam and Duncan. Duncan is very forward and pretty much tells her he loves her. Sam is all mysterious and distant so Alina automatically wants him more than Duncan and tells him. Duncan is all jealous and says they're both vampires and that she should like him because of some past conflict between Sam and him. Obviously, she still chooses Sam, much to Duncan's dismay.
Just like in Twilight, she is threatened because she knows the secret and the leader vamps want her turned or dead. She is kidnapped and held captive and later turned. After she turned into a vamp she has a slight case of amnesia and doesn't remember Sam or Duncan. Duncan makes her believe that she loves him and not Sam and that Sam turned her into a vampire against her will. then endings kinda loose because she seems to escape and fall in love with Sam again but it's not very clear.

all in all it's a very good book and should be read. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Reviews

Ranked #3 in Time Magazine's Top 10 Novels of 2010 (published December 2010), April 27, 2010
This book (longlisted for the Booker Prize, shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year and Costa Novel of the Year, and to be adapted for the big screen by Neil Jordan) grabbed hold of me on the very dramatic opening pages and tossed me out the other end (page 672!) only 3 days later. What a page turner. Hailing as I do from the same side of the Liffey where this story is based, it was like being transported back in time to my schooldays, though how times have changed with the onslaught of modern technologies.

Skippy Dies is based primarily in Seabrook College, home to day and boarding pupils alike. It fixes in on both the young teenage students and their teachers alike, and their lives away from school. What really struck me was how today's teenagers have no concept of what having a private life means. Camera phones and social networking sites are the norm and any indiscretions can be made widely known in seconds.

The book deals beautifully with the story behind each of the main characters, exploring their past, their family life, what brought them to the here and now and their current emotional state. When you add the girls school next door into the mix the story really takes off.

The title is self explanatory, but all is not what it seems, so my advice is to let Murray take you on this wonderfully touching journey of discovery.

I don't want to give away too much other than to say all the characters are wonderfully portrayed in such fantastic detail. Murray's style of writing is both hilarious and poignant.

This is not one to miss. I read the full, one book edition. It also comes in a really nice 3-volume box set if you fancy breaking it up.

Thought-provoking with some elements of greatness, September 8, 2010
This book is exhausting, both emotionally and for your eyeballs. Although the story largely takes place within the narrow confines of a boys' Catholic school in Dublin, the breadth of the issues discussed is as wide as (and includes) the universe. The writing is insightful and the subject matter is interesting. However, the book was so densely packed with musings ranging from the origins of the universe to the nature of pop music that it just frayed around the edges a bit. A few of the threads in the book could have probably been trimmed to make it a tighter, more interesting read.

The centerpiece of the story is Skippy, a teenaged boy attending the Catholic school, and I won't be spoiling anything when I mention that Skippy Dies. The bulk of the book describes the events leading up to his death, with a large cast of characters who seem to corner each possible Catholic schoolboy (nerd, ladies' man, rich kid) and faculty (boring old priest, returning alumnus, hot chick, possible molester) stereotype. This is not to say that these characters are not interesting, and, in some cases, provide some much-needed humor in the midst of what is unquestionably a grim tale. The biggest problem with the story is that at times, the plot gets crushed by its own weight. There is a lot going on, and it does not necessarily all tie together in the end.

I finished this book a few days ago and wanted to let it marinate a bit before writing a review, because I could not decide if this was a modern classic and my initial impression of it being a bit over-done was just from reader fatigue. Ultimately, to me the book was between 3 and 4 stars, and fell to 3 stars for the long and rambling sections that I was hopeful would be tied together better. In the end, they were repetitive and just did not maintain my interest. Without question, Murray is an excellent writer and a deep thinker with a lot to say. In this book, there was just a bit too much of all of it.

Tragicomedy, my favorite, September 16, 2010

A gentle Irishman, mighty odd, August 7, 2010

Skippy lives, November 17, 2010
I thought it would be funny. I hoped it would be affecting. But I never suspected it would also be wise and, in its own unpretentious way, profound.
Maybe I'm still just dizzy from its weird and wonderful spell, but this strikes me as not just a great read, but great literature. This tale of an Irish boarding school is funny, devastating and rings absolutely true. Murray has an uncanny ability to recreate not just the language and dialogue of teenagers, but the way they think. Some of the characters seem like stereotypes at first -- the fat genius Ruprecht, the sarcastic cynic Dennis, the beleaguered teacher Howard, and the sensitive, disturbed dreamer Skippy -- but they soon come alive in all of their lovable, infuriating, goofy glory. They turn out to be far deeper and more complicated than we could have guessed.
The entire world of Seabrook, the fictional Dublin boarding school, comes vividly alive. Meanwhile, I was feeling the roiling emotions that come with being 14, emotions that I thought were 40 years in my past.
One of the finest passages comes at the end, when the confused girl Lori suddenly has an insight that comes too late to save Skippy, but just in time to save Ruprecht. It is this: We are so obsessed with wanting to be somewhere else -- or someone else -- that we fail to see the magic and beauty that we already have. It is a testament to Murray's art that this simple truth seems so absolutely crucial.
When I was finished, I immediately went back and re-read the last 20 pages, partly because I wanted to make sure I caught every nuance, and partly because I did not want the experience to end. I can't remember when I have been so completely poleaxed by a novel.

A candidate for my top book of 2010, September 27, 2010
I'm the product of an Irish Catholic boarding school for boys - I spent my high school years at a Franciscan boarding school about 25 miles north of Dublin. It was a formative, sometimes traumatic, experience. So I approached "Skippy Dies" with reservations, and a certain amount of trepidation. The defining characteristic of life in a boys' boarding school is tedium - would Paul Murray be able to capture the tedium accurately and still write an interesting book? Would reading it stir up a bunch of memories best left undisturbed? And could the book possibly live up to the considerable hype that it has generated?

It turned out to be pretty amazing. Paul Murray does indeed get boarding school life down right - he completely nails it. His more significant accomplishment is to have written a book whose appeal transcends the specificity of its setting. "Skippy Dies" is a sprawling, ambitious doorstopper of a book, with an extensive cast of characters (jocks, nerds, priests, lay teachers, parents, drug dealers, psychopaths), not unlike a Dickens story. Fortunately, Murray has the skill to bring these assorted character to life and to tell a story that grabs and keeps the reader's interest.

The main focus of the book is to present the events that led up to the death of 14 year old Skippy and to explore its effect on the school community. Along the way, Murray considers a huge variety of disparate themes, ranging from string theory to ancient Irish burial mounds to trench warfare in World War I. Not to mention the pervasive adolescent obsession with sex. At times it seems as if these are mere digressions in a book that's already quite hefty, but the author knows what he's about, and pulls the various threads of his tapestry together to a powerful and satisfying conclusion. With so many balls in the air, you keep expecting him to crash and burn, but he doesn't -- the writing is superb throughout, the story never flags, you don't want it to stop and are a little bit sad when it does.

What do we ask of a good novel? A question with as many answers as readers. I take a slightly old-fashioned view. If an author can create a vividly imagined world, make me care about his characters, and tell a good story that moves me, then I'm a happy camper. Paul Murray does all of these things in this terrific book, and does them so brilliantly that the story transcends the specificity of its particular milieu. Some reviewers have suggested that the book is likely to appeal only to male readers - I couldn't disagree more.

This is a terrific book - funny and moving, despite exploring some dark themes. The Man Booker judges should hang their heads in shame for their failure to include it on the 2010 shortlist.

NOT for the J. K. Rowling/Harry Potter set, August 8, 2010

Worth your time, October 30, 2010

Epic, October 12, 2010
It's not often that you pick up a novel that tackles such disparate topics as quantum physics, World War 1 history, Irish folklore, and donuts...lots of donuts. Skippy Dies reminded me of how mind - blowingly obnoxious teenage boys can be and also how crushingly hard it is to be fourteen. It's not for everyone. If you are easily offended by crass talk and lewd behavior, then this book is not for you. It is a very well told story full of humor and heartbreak that uses all of it's 661 pages to make you laugh, despair,contemplate your existence, and wonder how any of us every survive the trials of adolescence. The author expertly weaves together his story through the lives of characters carefully constructed and richly portrayed. The tale of how their lives intersect is both tragic and comic. Even though on occasion I felt that fate was truly messing with these people a bit too much, or when the irony and combined tragedies were just a bit too overwhelming, the author never lost my interest or my belief in his story.

So how does an author turn a book that gives away the ending in the prologue into a riveting page turner? You know what's going to happen...it's in the title! I don't know exactly how he did it, but I do know that he kept me up late wanting to know exactly how Skippy ended up dead, why Howard was called a coward, just what was up with Ruprecht and his inventions (I never thought string theory could be so engaging), and what exactly was the dark secret Skippy didn't want to face. He doles this information out as the story moves along, resulting in a perfectly paced read. This was a rich intricate novel that makes many that I've read lately pale in comparison. It should be winning many prizes this year, all well deserved. A solid choice for fans of literary fiction, especially coming of age stories. Recommended.

Kids Can Be So Cruel, November 15, 2010
Life is hard. Life can be absurd. And when you're a teenage, you're not equipped with the same perspective as an adult, and every decision, every crush, every cruel joke seems like the most critically important thing that will ever happen. That notion is the foundation on which Paul Murray builds his profound, often-funny, rather lengthy Booker Prize long-listed novel Skippy Dies.

Murray's trick, though, is keeping his readers interested when he kills his main character in the prologue. What emerges after we learn that Skippy really does die -- that the title isn't just a gimmick -- is a portrait of Seabrook College, a modern-day boarding school in Dublin, Ireland. The novel begins several weeks before Skippy's death, and follows him and his group of kind of nerdy (his overweight roommate Ruprecht is obsessed with astrophysics; 11-dimensional M-theory, in particular), prank-pulling, drug-doing, girl-obsessed friends through their day-to-day trevails.

The brilliance of this book is that we read with the same sense of immediacy that these kids seem to be living their lives. We're constantly looking for clues that might predict why Skippy will die; like everything seems important at the time, but we have no way of know what actually is. Isn't that the way teenagers are? Like everything that happen, or every decision may forge the path for the rest of you life? Ruprecht, wise beyond his years, explains (in example of some of Murray's sagacious prose):

"...that every path you take, no matter how lofty or effulgent, aches not only with the memory of what you left behind, but with the ghosts of all untaken paths, now never to be taken, running parallel."

Murray's writing (see below for another fantastic theme-furthering passage) and the huge cast of characters make this book tremendously readable. I especially enjoyed the story of Howard the history teacher, his crush on the substitute geography teacher, and his failing relationship with his American girlfriend, Halley. Murry is very insightful and writes with an amazing sense of affinity for his characters, even the ones who are real jerks. After all, life is hard. But reading this novel sure is lots of fun! Four out five stars (minus one for missing a few chances to edit some sections, which drag a tad). But still very highly recommended.

("And she realizes that love doesn't go in straight lines, it doesn't care about right or wrong or being a good person or even making you happy; and she sees, like in a vision, that life and the future are going to be way more complicated than she ever expected, impossibly, unbearably complicated and difficult. In the same moment she feels herself grow older, like she's finished a video game and moved on invisibly to the next stage; it's a tiredness that takes over her body, a tiredness like nothing before, like she's swallowed a ton of weight...") ... Read more

Editorial Review

The haunting follow up to the Edgar Award-winning debut In the Woods

Tana French astonished critics and readers alike with her mesmerizing debut novel, In the Woods. Now both French and Detective Cassie Maddox return to unravel a case even more sinister and enigmatic than the first. Six months after the events of In the Woods, an urgent telephone call beckons Cassie to a grisly crime scene. The victim looks exactly like Cassie and carries ID identifying herself as Alexandra Madison, an alias Cassie once used. Suddenly, Cassie must discover not only who killed this girl, but, more importantly, who is this girl? A disturbing tale of shifting identities, The Likeness firmly establishes Tana French as an important voice in suspense fiction. ... Read more

Reviews

The hawthorn as extended metaphor, July 22, 2008
There will be no spoilers in this review.

As in her first novel, In the Woods, Tana French has created another sensuous, lyrical, haunting, suspenseful story. Although it is considered a mystery, it is much much more than that. It is a story of identity in all its literal and metaphorical forms. It is a social commentary (but never sententious) and it is also about fear and flight and love.

Cassie Maddox and Sam O'Neill are detectives from In the Woods. Although Operation Vestal (from In the Woods) is mentioned several times, these books can be read in any sequence without ruining it for the reader. The setting is again Dublin, Ireland.

Cassie is the star attraction of this story as she goes undercover to live with four liberal arts doctoral candidates whose housemate, Lexie Madison, is found dead from a stabbing in an abandoned cottage. Lexie Madison looks exactly like Cassie, and the name is her last undercover alias, which adds to the mystery. The housemates will be told that she survived the stabbing.

It isn't necessary to give too many plot details. What is more important is the response from reading. This is a generous, gorgeous, thoughtful, poetic story. The tone is almost elegiac at times, especially during her descriptive paragraphs, and the author's use of the extended metaphor is prolific and often profound. At the end of the novel, I looked up hawthorn (the tree, flower, bush) on Wikipedia and had a chill run up and down my spine. Her descriptions, turns of phrase, elegant passages and graceful unfolding keep me fastened and fascinated. What I love about Tana French is that her novels are both character-driven AND plot-driven. She does not sacrifice one for the other. With most mysteries, I only read them once. But The Likeness can be read again just for the aesthetics. Also, there is no deus ex machina here. The story is excellently paced with a well-timed delivery of its climax.

Tana French is no lightweight, but she makes the story accessible to anyone who enjoys reading. She has that gift to appeal to a variety of readers-- even readers who look for largely escape mysteries. But this is not escape reading; it is the kind of reading that makes you ponder. It is philosophical and it echoes. It has shadows, swirls, hollows, heart,humanity, tension, suspense, whispers, hawthorn, hawthorn, hawthorn...

I look forward to the third book that Tana French is working on, with Frank Mackey (from The Likeness) as the main protagonist.

Gorgeous writing, flimsy plot, December 2, 2008
Likeness is one of those off-kilter books that you love to read because the prose is stunning, but which fails completely as a novel. In order for French's plot to work you have to believe: 1)that an undercover cop could pass herself off as another person to a group of people who knew her "double" intimately, 2)that a person can go from being a hat designer to a PhD student in one year (transcripts? application process? recommendations?),3) that grad school students act like 15-year-olds (well, OK maybe that's not so far off the mark),4) that a trained undercover cop would keep important evidence (the diary) from her superiors, etc. etc. etc. I simply did not buy any of it. There were problems with the writing as well. I found the trendy post-modern "quotes" (Star Trek, Alice's Restaurant) disruptive. And those endless ambiguous, interrupted conversations hinting at dark secrets got old after a while. I wanted some resolution. Even the relationships between the characters were unconvincing. Was Cassie actually supposed to be in love with Sam? Why did Cassie want to be Lexi? Why did the villagers care so deeply about a woman who had died almost a hundred years earlier? In short, the premise was implausible, the book was over-written, and the psychology shaky.
French is a fabulous writer. I'm hoping that her third novel will be a charm.

Feckin' genius, August 19, 2008
It's feckin' genius, that's what it is. I couldn't write a single sentence as well as Tana French if I started now and lived to be a thousand. And she wrote a whole book, two books, of them. Flawlessly. Word after word, sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, until the book is as perfect as it could be. It boggles the mind, it really does.

The first time I picked up Raymond Chandler, I knew I was in the hands of something profound and mysterious. I haven't had that feeling again for many years, till In The Woods, and even more powerfully, The Likeness.

Here's an Australian sheep rancher, talking about his daughter:

"But when she was nine, her mother had hemmorhaged, ...and bled out before a doctor could get there. 'Gracie was too young to hear that,' he said. '...I knew as soon as I told her. The look in her eyes: she was too young to hear it. It cracked her straight across.'"

"It cracked her straight across". That's the power of metaphor in the hands of a master. It conveys in a way that touches the heart what exactly happened, in the same way that Shakespeare would use metaphor and words.

It's a privilege to read Tana French, it really is. I feel only pity for the person who wrote of the unbelievable plot, I do. This book isn't about a plot, just as Chandler wasn't about plot, just as we don't read Shakespeare for the plot. Anyone can do plot; but to give feeling and life, undoubted life, to characters on paper, that is to marvel at.

Cassie Maddox meets her doppleganger, July 17, 2008
The premise of The Likeness--Detective Cassie Maddox (heroine of French's memorable debut novel, the Edgar-winning In the Woods) assumes the identity of a lookalike murder victim who herself assumed an undercover identity Maddox abandoned years before--certainly sounds absurd on the surface, but the author makes it work, and makes it work well. Once Cassie's (and through her, the reader's) logical objections to the scheme are overcome, French proceeds to deliver a masterwork of suspense, dropping her heroine into a dangerous, emotionally charged situation, where she is constantly aware that any or all of the people she's trying to deceive may wish her dead. The fact that the novel is written in the first person makes it all the more intense.

another Edgar to come for Tana French?, July 18, 2008
The extraordinary follow-up to Tana French's Edgar-winning "In the Woods," "The Likeness" beautifully combines the narrative and the lyrical, interspersing moments of transcendent illumination with leisurely confident story-telling that doesn't let you go for a moment. The language is wonderful, the characterizations are complex and believable, and the suspense builds to a climax that surely will soon be incorporated into "a major motion picture." French credits her readers with intelligence and taste, letting this book be read on many levels, from dramatic mystery to speculation on subjects like the guts and work that being loved take; the thought that in life you take what you want and then pay for it (though you don't know in advance what the price will be); the changing nature of social subversion (which used to be expressed through discontent and now takes the form of contentment); what happens to people and societies when group memory is lost. A wonderful mystery, but not just a mystery. Highly recommended.

The Must-Have Read for Summer, July 24, 2008
It is safe to say that is the best book that I have read since completing French's "In the Woods" last summer.

A thriller that picks up some time after where "In the Woods" left off, the story follows the mysterious murder of Detective Cassie Maddox's doppleganger.

While the plot is sometimes totally incredulous, the quality of French's writing ropes the reader back in everytime reality threatens to destroy enjoyment of the novel. French strikes a tone that is intellectual (there are several long-winded monologues made by one of the characters Maddox encounters)- yet is at the same time accessible and easy to read. Something of a "The Secret History" style characters meets the cultural/class/society undertones of "Brideshead Revisited" makes this a totally engrossing read. Though the book reaches a much more concrete conclusion than that offered in French's previous offering, the novel still carries with it an air of mystery and unrest that is fascinating.

While I have seen several reviews that have said the book is a tad bit long-winded, I was not bothered by the length- to the contrary, I actually very much enjoyed spending all the time possible with French's clever characters (particularly the group of students that Maddox finds herself embedded among).

Am very much looking forward to Ms. French's next novel...

Exceptional, August 24, 2008
Although I read and thoroughly enjoyed French's debut novel "Into the Woods", her sophomore effort is by far superior. It was truly an exceptional and thrilling read. The way French fleshes out Cassie Maddox, Lexie Madison and the four housemates is truly astonishing. I have always been fond of character-driven plotlines and novels, and French truly impressed me with "The Likeness". The amount of depth present in these characters - their motivations, relationships, and personalities - was both fascinating and engrossing. This was a book difficult to put down.

To put it simply and sincerely: I loved "The Likeness" and would recommend any reader interested in a solid character-driven novel and thrilling mystery to buy this book.

I look eagerly towards her next novel! Hopefully, the wait will not be long.

Seductively safe atmosphere and delicately suspenseful plot. This is an intelligent, enjoyable mystery. Highly recommended, September 11, 2008
A year after the events in In The Woods, Cassie Maddox has an unheard of opportunity: A recent murder victim is her exact double, and even used an undercover alias that Cassie created years ago. Now, she can become the victim, stepping into her life and her friendship with a close-knit group of four students, to try and crack the case from within. The Likeness is strongly atmospheric, with an almost magical setting, a closely interwoven cast of characters, and slow, delicate suspense. It isn't an attention-grabbing book, but it is an intriguing, strongly constructed mystery, and I loved it. Enthusiastically recommended.

I picked up The Likeness because I read In The Woods and loved it--it was a dark and visceral book which captured me and simply would not let go. The Likeness is a different style of book. It still has a strong atmosphere, but that atmosphere is quiet, romantic, and almost magical (even though there's no magic in the book), building into slow suspense. Cassie enters an extraordinary life: a close-knit friendship whose apparent safety and strength seduces both Cassie and the reader; an old refurbished home which cocoons the occupants in a small, private world. Yet Cassie is in the middle of a murder investigation, and she is always in danger of being discovered or attacked; despite the utopian setting, the suspense builds: slow, delicate, insidious. It's a careful balance and, though it isn't as attention-grabbing as In The Woods, it makes The Likeness an intriguing and compelling read.

Meanwhile, French spins an intelligent mystery. There are some unbelievable moments (not just the coincidence of the shared appearance and alias, but that an undercover investigation like this would ever occur), but the twist and turns are realistic while still surprising and the final reveal is entirely logical--but also tense and frightening. French's writing style is strong: Cassie has a unique narrative voice, the story is well-paced, and the setting and characters come to life (although some characters have unrealistically strong and simplified traits). I loved In The Woods so much that I was almost hesitant to read The Likeness, afraid that it wouldn't live up to my expectations. While I still prefer In The Woods, my fears were for naught. The Likeness is intelligent and subtly nuanced, seductive and suspenseful, and a pleasure to read. I highly recommend it--and, despite being an indirect sequel, The Likeness stands alone and interested readers not need read In The Woods first unless they want to.

forget the plot, love the characters, January 6, 2010
I read the book, then I read all the reviews... and I started to doubt myself. I loved this book - it was pacy, unusual, I loved the characters and the feeling of warmth and 'home' Cassie feels. I didn't want it to end. However, having read the reviews, I have to ask myself whether the book really was ridiculous or not.
Yes, I suppose it was. I did think it was highly improbable that a group of close friends would not recognise another friend. In this sense, it was asking a lot of the reader.
But so many readers, like myself, gave this novel four or five stars, so something must have worked - and I suspect that they, like myself, loved the representation of the students. It was a warm, escapist atmosphere, reminiscent of Maeve Binchy perhaps. Wonderful for a rainy afternoon.
Incidentally, I took note of the reviewers who urged people to read The Secret History instead, and I could not have been more disappointed. High-brow and pretentious, I liked none of the characters and it had none of the warmth and spirit of this book, nor a likeable central character. I wanted to murder all of them.
Just one criticism - I am a bit sick of authors (male and female alike) who portray their female police officers as delicate, beautiful, enigmatic, yet still intelligent and feisty, with degrees and firearm prowess, never over the age of about 30 and never have children or are single parents. This sort of stereotypical description of your heroine is OK if you're Jackie Collins, but a UK crime writer? Can't the heroine be a normal woman?!

Not To Be Believed..., September 2, 2008
First off, I was a big fan of Tana French's first novel and it was deserving of an Edgar Award. I looked forward to her next effort. I was greatly disappointed.

Good fiction allows you to suspend disbelief. You can overlook a coincidence that propels a character or plot. Some author's ask to you do more than others. What Ms. French does with this story is so ridiculous that it made the entire enterprise next to worthless. The lead character is still interesting and she obviously knows how to tell a story but when that story is so far fetched, it makes the experience of reading it almost painful.

The book's premise is that everyone has a twin somewhere in the world. Fine. However, this story says that a detective's twin has been murdered. In the same country as the detective. In the same city as the detective. The murdered woman happens to have the same name this detecitve used in a previouos undercover operation. The detective's boss decides to put her undercover again to move into the house the deceased woman shared with 4 of her friends/classmates. Here, she is supposed to find out the truth about her "twin's" murder.

Maybe she might fool one of the friends. But she is supposed to fool all 4 of them?!? For weeks?!? Without anyone getting suspicious?!? There is more to the story and the 4 friends are an interesting group. If you can "suspend your disbelief" about the plot, may be you can enjoy it. I just couldn't. The story was just too silly to be plausibly believed and when you don't believe what you read, there is no sense contiuning. Again, Ms. French is talented. I hope she provides better stories in the future to show off that talent. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Parrot and Olivier in America has been shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize.


From the two-time Booker Prize–winning author comes an irrepressibly funny new novel set in early nineteenth-century America.

Olivier—an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville—is the traumatized child of aristocratic survivors of the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerant English printer. They are born on different sides of history, but their lives will be connected by an enigmatic one-armed marquis.

When Olivier sets sail for the nascent United States—ostensibly to make a study of the penal system, but more precisely to save his neck from one more revolution—Parrot will be there, too: as spy for the marquis, and as protector, foe, and foil for Olivier.

As the narrative shifts between the perspectives of Parrot and Olivier, between their picaresque adventures apart and together—in love and politics, prisons and finance, homelands and brave new lands—a most unlikely friendship begins to take hold. And with their story, Peter Carey explores the experiment of American democracy with dazzling inventiveness and with all the richness and surprise of characterization, imagery, and language that we have come to expect from this superlative writer. ... Read more

Reviews

A FINE COMIC NOVEL THAT IS A RIFF ON TOCQUEVILLE IN AMERICA, March 30, 2010

Unreliable narrators, February 14, 2010
Peter Carey has always been a master at the unreliable narrator and in Parrot and Olivier we are treated to two of the them, alternating chapters and versions of the truth. Olivier is a spoilt young French aristocrat who is sent abroad to save his skin at the time of the 1830 revolution. His unwilling servant is Parrot who has far more practical commonsense than his master but has been sorely abused by dubious French aristocrats before. Both of the damaged heroes are searching for love and respect and to varying degrees they find it, though in both cases their long term happiness is in doubt. At least one of our narrators has a genuine historical counterpart, and other characters we meet have a passing resemblance to real people. However, Carey, as usual, has his way of subverting history, while at the same time he raising issues about the relationship between the New and Old Worlds, and the ways that they are governed . Don't expect Henry James, do expect Peter Carey on top form.

Servant and Aristocrat Address 1830's America, March 23, 2010
Olivier de Garmont, a 25 year-old French nobleman whose grandfather was guillotined during the 1789 revolution, is drugged by the Marquis de Tilbot, a close friend of Olivier's monarchist mother, and shanghaied to America. There, he is safe from the excesses of the 1830 July Revolution while he works as representative of the French government, investigating the American penal system. At the same time, Parrot, Tilbot's servant, agrees to accompany Olivier to America, where he is supposed to function as Olivier's protector and secretary, as well as a spy for his hovering mother. In PARROT AND OLIVIER IN AMERICA (PaOiA), Peter Carey examines how opportunity and democracy in Jacksonian America affect the cultured and charmingly observant Olivier and the capable Parrot, who is the equivalent of the modern-day personal assistant.

Peter Carey has based Olivier on Alexis de Tocqueville. In fact, Carey emphasizes on his website that he has threaded Olivier's commentary with excerpts from "Democracy in America," de Tocqueville's masterpiece. Olivier is a great character. He is a French aristocrat, fleeing democracy in his own country but fascinated by its operation in America; a highly cultured Frenchman, who is sometimes hilariously snobbish about American culture and cooking; and a young bachelor who falls in love with Amelia, a natural aristocrat and the daughter of a wealthy Connecticut farmer. Ultimately, Olivier must decide: Can a man with his background and values assimilate in democratic America?

Meanwhile, Parrot, whose real name is John Larritt, arrives in America without a good working relationship with Olivier, his boss. In his long association with Tilbot, Larritt has become skilled in art appraisal and the art business. But, he can serve no equivalent function for Olivier, who simply wants a servant and secretary. In America, Larritt is faced with the challenge of personal reinvention and must ultimately determine if and how America can suit his and his wife's talents.

In telling the story of Parrot and Olivier, Carey uses many narrative devices and issues that exist elsewhere in his oeuvre. This, for example, is my fourth Carey book that features a book within a book. (The others were Jack Maggs: A Novel, True History of the Kelly Gang: A Novel, and My Life as a Fake). Meanwhile, themes in PaOiA that are prominent in other Carey novels include fraternal tension and responsibility, absent fathers, fraudulent behavior by artists (Theft), and the mysterious power of love (His Illegal Self (Vintage International)). Similar to other Carey novels, PaOiA also has an abundance of sympathetic characters and writing that is brisk and sometimes amazingly lyrical.

Even so, I'd rate PaOiA a notch below Carey's other work. In part, I'd attribute this to the highly coincidental events featuring the character O'Hara, which serve to reunite Parrot and Olivier. I wonder: Are these events a direct reference to de Tocqueville's actual experiences in New York? And, even if they are, why are they necessary?

Also, I'd say that the critical relationships in this novel are men to women--that is, Parrot to Mathilde and Olivier to Amelia. In contrast, the relation between Parrot and Olivier, which gets lots of space, was primarily economic and functional. That's certainly okay. But I think Carey strived, but failed, to make that relationship mean more.

Marked up to four stars.

Across the Class Divide, August 25, 2010

Let's just say it up front: Peter Carey stands at the summit of stylists writing in English today. He has an astonishing ability to assume a voice - a Dickens character, an Australian outlaw, a runaway American boy, to name a few - and use it to assemble a world entire in itself. In this delightfully imagined jaunt through early nineteenth century America, he speaks through two alternating voices: the French aristocrat Olivier, highly educated but experientially cocooned; and John Larrit - Parrot - an Englishman much knocked about during his eventful life, now in the service of another French aristocrat. As a way of removing him from potential political harm, Olivier's domineering mother gets her son a commission to study the American penal system. Parrot is dispatched by his master to watch over Olivier in the New World.

Olivier struggles to fit the idea of America into his mental armoire, which contains sniffy upper class snobbery along with terror of the mob tyranny he witnessed during the French Revolution. Parrot, on the other hand, is much taken with the possibilities of re-invention he sees in the young country, and chafes under his servitude to Olivier.

Many interesting ideas are put into play, but lightly, gracefully. Much is made of artistic mimicry, from forgery of currency, to engravings of birds, to paintings that attempt to capture the evanescence of natural light. Or how one's emotional state rearranges one's rational conclusions - Olivier's feelings about America become inseparable from his reactions to the luscious Amelia Godefroy of the Connecticut Godefroys. There is subtle examination about the way our cultural assumptions (Blake's "mind-forged manacles") limit our perceptions of a new place.

Olivier experiences some undeserved acclaim and the promise of love, followed by a swift, steep fall from grace. Like his countryman Alexis De Tocqueville, he returns to France with reservations about our rude, energetic country, tempered by a grudging admiration. Parrot struggles to throw off the passivity and fatalism that have held him back since the untimely loss of his father when he was a boy. He wants to stay and become a new man in the New World. Olivier and Parrot are invigorated by their travels in America, as are we, led smoothly and safely to the end of the journey by Peter Carey, master ventriloquist.

Don't read the reviews!, August 1, 2010
Don't read the book reviews....

A strange way to start a book review, yes? In regards to this title, however, and all the buzz that has surrounded it since its release, I think it's necessary to offset some of the descriptions of this book.


Many, if not all, of the reviews of Parrot & Olivier in America refer to Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, pretty much the standard for history in the early US. They connect the character of Olivier with that of de Tocqueville himself, and suddenly the idea of reading this book sounds like a snooze. It's not that way at all, and I think while the similarity exists and may be intentional by the author, it's not a very good way to introduce this book.




Parrot & Olivier is an insightful yet amusing narrative of the lives of two wildly different characters, as well as the time they lived in. First, Olivier...the son of French aristocrats who needs an escape plan that doesn't necessarily look like an escape. He needs to get out of France for his protection after the French Revolution, so after some thought it's decided to send him to America to research the penal system in the colonies. It's a useful out, as whatever he may learn is politically valuable in France, plus it gets him out of the country in a perilous time. Parrot is an older man, a survivor of many political battles and social conflicts, and his ability to survive in desperate conditions makes him the perfect chaperone for Olivier. Parrot, of course, hates the thought of babysitting the privileged son, and has to be coerced into leaving. It should be noted that before the departure ever takes place, Carey tells the story of both of these men separately, relating their character as well as significant details about the Revolution and how they had to use their wiles to survive.




Once they leave France, the story picks up even more, and the pace is fast as they both journey into both a new land and new situations. They end up bickering, fighting, separating, and finally bumping into each other again. The scene that finds them reunited is a street fight, where Parrot thinks he's saving Olivier, only to be unexpectedly saved by the well-armed boy. It's a funny moment, one of many, but it points to the difficulties of survival in this new place without some sort of backing.




For his part, Olivier has no interest in the study of the prisons, and yet his actions lead Parrot to have to experience them firsthand. The interaction between the two and the period details, especially in New York, make this a fun, lighthearted read. One thing that Alexis de Tocqueville said, however, in his book, does apply beautifully to the theme of Parrot & Olivier:




"The growth of nations presents something analogous to this; they all bear some marks of their origin. The circumstances that accompanied their birth and contributed to their development affected the whole term of their being."




Carey uses this novel to actually study how these two men developed from their vastly disparate births, with a conclusion that leaves you pondering the entire concept of class, friendship, and the sense of belonging.

A nostalgic view of the way we (in the USA) were, March 13, 2010
In this warm, captivating, and accessible new novel, Carey returns to the epic sweep found in his Booker Prize winning works, "Oscar and Lucinda", and "True History of the Kelly Gang". The two protagonists, a young French aristocrat and an older, artistic, lower-class British cynic, are also the twin narrators, telling a single tale through alternating first-person chapters. Loosely modeled on de Tocqueville's enthusiastic descriptions of his travels through early America, this story advances across turn of the (19th) Century England, France, Australia and the U.S. The insolent Parrot and self-assured Olivier insightfully describe historical events and settings with Carey's trademark attention to detail, revealing humorous subtleties that most historians tend to leave out. Their contrasting personalities react differently to the American experiment, but both are moved by its bold novelty and optimism.

Other readers may share my sense of regret in looking back, through these characters' nearly 200-year-old European eyes, at the promise of what the Founding Fathers created here, and how we've lately squandered it. The world no longer looks to the United States with the same kind of anticipatory excitement that Olivier and Parrot expressed about our country's early, unformed days; to recreate that feeling, one probably needs to travel to China or Brazil, where economics, technology, and culture are similarly racing into unexplored territory, with as yet unrealized promises of greatness.

The book will not be released in the U.S. until April 20, 2010 (I picked up a copy in the Sydney Airport).

Good measure, December 6, 2010
In my 51 years of reading, I can think of no other book where the words hilarious and exquisite could be used in equal measure to describe a man's writing. I have never been so enthusiastic to re-read a book as I was with this one.

`I had not known America would be like this.', August 26, 2010
The novel opens in France where sickly, sensitive Olivier de Garmont and the remnants of his aristocratic family have survived the Revolution and the Terror of 1793, and are surviving the Bonaparte regime in their chateau in Normandy. The restoration of the monarchy brings no joy to Olivier's family, and his family decides to send him to America - ostensibly to study prison reform.

Parrot, considerably older than Olivier, is the son of an itinerant English printer. Olivier and Parrot are brought together by the mysterious one-armed Marquis de Tilbot whose presence looms large across the novel. When Olivier sets sail for America, Parrot accompanies him as both protector and spy.

The narrative shifts between the perspectives of Parrot and Olivier, covering both their adventures together and their separate lives. This enables the introduction and exploration of a number of different themes in the novel: including love, politics and ambition. I especially enjoyed the differing views of democracy:
`In a democracy, it seemed, one could not go against a servant's will.' (Olivier)
`I read Tom Paine by candlelight, but for 18 hours a day I was a vassal.' (Parrot)

Olivier is trapped by his past, caught between his aristocratic past and a brash new world where equality means dealing with people of different classes and station in life as though they are equals. Olivier is never really comfortable in America, although when he falls in love with an American heiress he sees some possibilities. Parrot, on the other hand, has already experienced much in his life and is more flexible in his approach to opportunities. It is Parrot's narrative that particularly enriches the story because it enlarges the world beyond that of the myopic Olivier.

The novel may have been inspired by Alexis de Tocqueville's travels through America, but there is more than one story in this novel. Parrot's life has been far more varied and he is, it seems, far better equipped to survive in the New World.

I am tempted to write more about this novel: it's vibrant, energetic and vastly entertaining. But for me, a lot of the pleasure was derived from reading the novel without knowing what was likely to happen next, and I don't wish to spoil this for others. Read it for pleasure, dissect it for significant themes if you so choose. But if you do choose to explore those themes then you may need to reread the novel - or read it at a far more leisurely pace than I did.

`Who would have imagined such an extraordinary world?'

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Travelers, June 23, 2010
Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in 1831-33, ostensibly to examine the prison system, but his observations of the young nations were more generally perceptive, as published in his DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA of 1835. Australian novelist Peter Carey, who has lived in America for twenty years, has reimagined Tocqueville under a thin disguise as Olivier de Garmont, the sickly offspring of an ancient Norman family, some guillotined in the Revolution, some spared, now finding himself an anachronism in his own country. Carey is excellent at portraying the political situation in a France where liberty steered a precarious path between tyrannies on either side. Olivier arrives in an America of paradox, on the one hand feted for his old-world position, and glad-handed on the other by people he could previously have dismissed as servants or tradesmen. He falls in love with the country (and with a beautiful American heiress), but his love alternates with bewilderment and even dislike.

Olivier is interesting in a sort of academic way, but Carey's masterstroke is to pair him with an English traveling companion several decades his senior, known as Parrot. The son of an itinerant printer in Devon, Parrot's life takes a new turn when he meets "Monsieur," a one-armed renegade French aristocrat who crops up throughout the novel as a diabolus ex machina, and is ultimately responsible for bringing Parrot and Olivier together. Transported to Australia (though not as a convict) the teenage lad learns to fend for himself, building some skill as an artist. Eventually, he is brought back to France by Monsieur, and used by him in a variety of shady dealings. He also falls for a fiery female painter named Mathilde, tossing like a towed dinghy in the wake of her genius. Whenever Parrot is the narrator, the language comes violently to life. Here is Mathilde's mother on her arrival in America "...wrestling with the rolled-up canvas, clanking and clattering with those beaten blackened pans she had carried like gold napoleons across the sea. With a nod and nudge she made it clear my only job was to hold her sobbing daughter and my heart was brimming, one part rage, one cockalorum, all sloshing and gurgling and spurting through my chambers." Those who have read TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG know well what Carey can do in this vein.

Olivier has known only one life before coming to America; Parrot has lived through several lifetimes, and looks only to stop travelling, settle down, and discover what he really is. America provides that for him, as it so often does. As a European immigrant myself, I find it uncanny how well Carey has captured one's love/hate relationship with this country -- including the incredulity of most Americans that this could be anything other than total love. I am also struck by the way in which, by setting the genteel breeding of Olivier against the rough practicality of Parrot, he once more touches upon a central duality in Australian literature (it is the theme, for example, of Patrick White's VOSS), though translating it to America, where the problem of maintaining culture in a pioneer world found its own meaning and vibrant solutions.

Reader in Limbo, November 13, 2010

Editorial Review

The House at Riverton is a gorgeous debut novel set in England between the wars. It is the story of an aristocratic family, a house, a mysterious death and a way of life that vanished forever, told in flashback by a woman who witnessed it all and kept a secret for decades.

Grace Bradley went to work at Riverton House as a servant when she was just a girl, before the First World War. For years her life was inextricably tied up with the Hartford family, most particularly the two daughters, Hannah and Emmeline.

In the summer of 1924, at a glittering society party held at the house, a young poet shot himself. The only witnesses were Hannah and Emmeline and only they -- and Grace -- know the truth.

In 1999, when Grace is ninety-eight years old and living out her last days in a nursing home, she is visited by a young director who is making a film about the events of that summer. She takes Grace back to Riverton House and reawakens her memories. Told in flashback, this is the story of Grace's youth during the last days of Edwardian aristocratic privilege shattered by war, of the vibrant twenties and the changes she witnessed as an entire way of life vanished forever.

The novel is full of secrets -- some revealed, others hidden forever, reminiscent of the romantic suspense of Daphne du Maurier. It is also a meditation on memory, the devastation of war and a beautifully rendered window into a fascinating time in history.

Originally published to critical acclaim in Australia, already sold in ten countries and a #1 bestseller in England, The House at Riverton is a vivid, page-turning novel of suspense and passion, with characters -- and an ending -- the reader won't soon forget. ... Read more

Reviews

I loved this book, March 17, 2008

Deliciously Engrossing!, February 4, 2008

Upstairs/Downstairs Charm and Haunting Mystery Combine for Compelling Novel, May 20, 2008
It's hard to believe this magnificent novel is a first effort by Kate Morton. I will certainly be looking forward to her future work, as this is a well-crafted narrative that exposes a story from the past through the remembrances of ninety-eight-year-old Grace Bradley.

A scandalous tragedy at a lavish English party in 1924 is about to be made into a movie and, as the last surviving person from the event, Grace is interviewed by a dedicated young filmmaker. The filmmaker wants to be clear on all details of a young poet's suicide and present an accurate portrayal. Only Grace knows that history in not correct and what everyone thinks happened did not happen at all. She has kept the secret for over 70 years and it has haunted her memory.

Morton does a masterful job of taking the reader into the lives of the idle rich, the servants who are devoted to them, and the secret liaisons that connect the two classes in forbidden ways. The conflict between desire and possibility is played out generation after generation.

The unreliability of accepted facts, the haunting of the present by the past, and the inescapability of inherited social standing determining one's fate all combine for a searing story I could not put down.

The characters are wonderfully three-dimensional, the plot well-paced and highly believable, the explosive conclusion well worth the time invested. I cannot recommend this one highly enough and can only hope Kate Morton continues to gift us with her talent for storytelling.

War and remembrance, January 24, 2008
"War makes history seem deceptively simple. They provide clear turning points, easy distinctions: before and after, winner and loser, right and wrong. True history, the past, is not like that. It isn't flat or linear. It has no outline. It is slippery, like liquid; infinite and unknowable, like space. And it is changeable: just when you think you see a pattern, perspective shifts, an alternative version is proffered...."

The House at Riverton is a true historical novel, in all senses of the term. Told from the first person perspective of 98 year old Grace, the narrative alternates between present and past, the story flowing seamlessly from the recesses of her memory and more than 50 years of painful reflection. Riverton has many themes: the myriad damages wrought by war, the relentlessly impersonal evolution of society, the slippery intricacies of relationships, the crucial importance of self-actualization. It is mystery in reverse: from many clues, from the atmosphere of secrecy and suspense, we know with absolute certainty that something dreadful happens, but the exact nature of the tragedy becomes fully apparent only on the final page. Ms Morton's characters, Grace, the sisters, the men in their lives, the servants, are genuine and vibrant, real people that the reader comes to know, love, hate, and care about in one way or another. By the conclusion of this finely crafted novel, we know Grace the best, and as she faces her own death, we understand that she has learned important lessons from the past, has truly learned to live her own life on her own terms.

Riverton is an exceptionally strong debut from a gifted writer. One can only imagine and anticipate what Morton might have in store for us next!

"Time was no friend to those who lived in that house.", January 25, 2008

AMAZING GRACE, February 12, 2008

D�j� vu all over again, August 23, 2008
"The House at Riverton" centers on the lives of Grace Bradley, a housemaid at the English country estate of Riverton and two of its residents, sisters Hannah and Emmeline. The novel spans the years of 1914 to 1924 in Essex and London. During a soir�e at Riverton, a young poet, Robbie Hunter, commits suicide and only the two sisters and Grace are witnesses to the truth behind his tragic death.

The novel begins in 1999 with a 98-year-old Grace, now nearing her end as a resident in a nursing home. A filmmaker who's directing a retrospective of Riverton approaches her, eager to plumb her memories of the house, her years of service and Robbie's death. This project becomes a catalyst for Grace's revelations of her time at Riverton and the disastrous misunderstanding that led to that fateful night. The story unfolds through flashbacks, alternating between the early 1900s and 1999.

One can almost tell that Ms. Morton is a romantic at heart. Her characters are imbued with the tragic romanticism pervasive in historical fiction. Whether this is a welcome element or not depends greatly on the reader's preferences. I find it to be tedious only because I prefer stark realism. (For example, it would have been far more interesting for me if WWI had been woven into the characters' lives in more than a cursory way, considering that it toppled four empires and its casualties numbered in the tens of millions.) Even setting that aside, the "Upstairs Downstairs" redux here is too obvious. The characters that populated the 1970s miniseries are unashamedly `resurrected' so to speak--Mr. Hudson is now Mr. Hamilton, Mrs. Bridges is now Mrs. Townsend, Ruby is now Katie, Rose is now Grace, etc. One can almost `hear' Gordon Jackson, Jean Marsh and Angela Baddeley `speaking' the dialogues in this novel.

There are two mysteries in the story--first is Grace's paternity, and second is what really happened the night Robbie supposedly killed himself. The first can be easily discounted. Only the most inattentive of readers will miss the clues that were evident by page 50. Ms. Morton doesn't so much as drop or couch clues as she allows them to sprout hands and wave hello. Not a good thing for a mystery. The second is treated much better, and though one can still guess the secrets Grace has been keeping for decades, the truth is still satisfactory since it is incorporated in a very touching way to her final days with her family.

Re the plot, Ms. Morton has dutifully listed the sources of her inspiration, but I have some difficulty reconciling `inspiration' with the `lifting' of plot points. Anyone who has read Margaret Atwood's "The Blind Assassin" or L. P. Hartley's "The Go-Between" or Barbara Vine's "A Dark-Adapted Eye" will immediately recognize the similarities. (Even the book's opening line is derivative of du Maurier.) Re the devices, there's nothing new with an elderly person nearing the end of his/her life needing to reveal decades-long secrets through flashbacks ("The Thirteenth Tale," "The Brimstone Wedding," "The Chatham School Affair," "The Sixth Lamentation," etc.). Same with the unexplainable `lure' of a manor (Manderley, anyone?), the noblesse oblige of the upper class, past secrets that haunt the present, female frustration over restrictive social mores, hysteria, etc. Even a casual reader of Gothic already knows these devices and tropes by heart.

I appreciate the fact that historical fiction is a daunting challenge to a writer who, at the minimum, has to accurately depict the place, time and lingo of a past era. However, there are minor flubs here that could have been easily caught by the editor. (Ms. Morton is Australian writing in the voice of an Englishwoman.) `Cane' should have been `walking stick'; `ma', `da', `wee' are Highlands-speak, the characters are English, not Scottish; `Selfridge's' as anyone who's shopped in London knows should be `Selfridges'; `haberdashers' sell notions if they still exist, they certainly don't sell Dictaphones; `salary' ought to be `wages'; Grace buys Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Valley of Fear" before it is published as a book when it would have been more believable for her to have read Strand Magazine's prior serialization of it; the carrying of handguns was not outlawed until the 1950s, yet here, it occurs in the 1920s; etc.

Call "The House at Riverton" derivative or pastiche--both are true--but, surprisingly, it still manages to be an enjoyable read, especially its latter chapters. Lovers of historical fiction will derive much pleasure and may be much more forgiving than I've been. For a first effort, the writing is skillful, and if one dismisses from the mind the many sources of its characters and plot, it really can be engrossing.

Engrossing and Riveting!, February 5, 2008

Never judge a book by its cover!!, December 13, 2007
THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON was a big disappointment to me, pretty much from its opening chapter. In its beginning I saw a good deal of similarity, hopefully unintentional, to the opening of the 1997 film "Titanic". In RIVERTON, we have Grace, the nearly 100-year-old heroine, having to relive a pivotal event in her life because of the curiosity of a filmmaker. Shades of Rose, the nearly 100-year-old heroine of "Titanic", reliving the pivotal event in her life because of the curiosity of the undersea treasure-seeker.

Later in the story it also became apparent that Grace of RIVERTON would share with Rose of "Titanic" the experience of a woman breaking free from the mould they were expected to occupy and living their lives in dramatically different ways than expected of women of their time.

But actually the author's usurping that particular theme didn't bother me as much as other unconscious (I hope), "borrowings". As I continued to read RIVERTON I kept thinking: "haven't I read/seen this somewhere before?" And indeed, I had.

In the Author's Note at the back of the novel, Ms. Morton references "Upstairs, Downstairs", the popular 1970's British TV serial. Reflected in the relationship between the characters of the maid, Grace, and the mistress, Hannah, were shades of the relationship between Rose and Elizabeth, and later Rose and Hazel (characters from "Upstairs, Downstairs"). Mr. Hamilton the butler, with his speeches on duty, loyalty to the Family and the invisibility of a good servant, could easily be Mr. Hudson, the devoted family butler from "Upstairs, Downstairs". The character of Emmeline in her scatty, 1920's flapper phase could easily be Georgina from "Upstairs, Downstairs". And so on...

But even aside from this, I thought the plot stayed static and somewhat, I'm sorry to say this, blah. I think I solved the mystery surrounding the death of the poet quite a while before the answer was revealed (this being the mystery that the filmmaker is investigating, with Grace's assistance).

The author seemed to be trying too hard to evoke an era she loves; perhaps loves too much. I didn't feel drawn into this story or into these characters' lives. Old Grace/young Grace; Hannah; Emmeline, or the poet Robbie Hunter - they didn't strike me as being anywhere near *living* people; they remain shades of the author's imagination.

For me THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON doesn't succeed as a "family saga"; as a "WWI drama"; as a mystery, or, most unfortunately of all, as an original, satisfying piece of fiction peopled with believable characters. ... Read more

Editorial Review

This is Chinua Achebe's classic novel, with more than two million copies sold since its first U.S. publication in 1969. Combining a richly African story with the author's keen awareness of the qualities common to all humanity, Achebe here shows that he is "gloriously gifted, with the magic of an ebullient, generous, great talent." -- Nadine Gordimer ... Read more

Reviews

A Difficult, Worthwhile Read, September 13, 2002
The first time I read this book, I hated it. Just flat hated it. That was my junior year of high school. Flash forward a few years to college, and it's on the reading list again. "Why, oh why?" I moan. Then I read the thing. And you know what I discover? It's a masterpiece.

Chinua Achebe describes "Things Fall Apart" as a response to Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", which is, comparatively, a denser, perhaps less accessible read. The parallels are there: the ominous drumbeats Marlow describes as mingling with his heartbeat are here given a source and a context. We, as readers, are invited into the lives of the Ibo clan in Nigeria. We learn their customs, their beliefs, terms from their language. Okonkwo, the main character, is the perfect anti-hero. He is maybe Achebe's ultimate creation: flawed, angry, deeply afraid but outwardly fierce. To have given us a perfect hero would have been to sell the story of these people drastically short. Achebe's great achievement is in rendering them as humans, people we can identify with. So they don't dress like Americans, or share our religious beliefs. Who's to say which method is correct, or if there has to be a correct and incorrect way. Achebe provokes thoughtfulness and important questions. His narrative is easy to read structurally, but the story itself is painful and frustrating. It is worthy of its subject.

"Things Fall Apart" provoked some of the best classroom discussions I've ever experienced. As a reader, it has enriched my life. My thanks to Achebe for his marvelous contribution to literature. This book has a permanent place on my shelves.

Read This Book, April 16, 2000
The first two-thirds of "Things Fall Apart" is an affectionate description of the culture of an Ibo clan told from an insider's viewpoint, focusing on the life of Okonkwo, one of his tribe's most respected leaders. The customs and religion of the Ibo village are described with sympathy and simplicity, creating a sense of nostalgia for a way of life completely exotic to Western sensibilities, but making the reader feel the force and logic of a traditional culture seen from within. This idyllic description is clouded by the reader's awareness of the culture's fragility, a foreboding sense of pity and of looming disaster. Disaster comes, of course, in the shape of white missionaries. In the last part of the story, evangelizing Christians and English colonial administrators establish themselves in the Ibo village, and act to corrode and unravel the traditional life of the Ibo people. An escalating series of misunderstandings and conflicts between the whites and natives lead to the inevitable tragic ending. In the last paragraph of the novel, the perspective shifts suddenly to that of the English colonial adminstrator, and ends with one of the most powerful and affecting last lines of any novel I've read.

This book was thoroughly enjoyable, and I recommend it unreservedly.

Things Fall Into Place, September 21, 2004

The more the reader thinks about Things Fall Apart, the more he becomes aware that the heart of a story is about the struggles of an individual and less about what is a compelling and unsentimental survey of Nigeria's Ibo culture just before the arrival of white settlers.

The story's protagonist is Okonkwo, who at first appears to be a model warrior and self-made man who slowly discovers that the attributes he believed would serve him well as an adult instead breed a fear of failure and profound frustration. He is a complex and heavy-handed head of his household who is at once sympathetic and cruel.

Most of the story is told before the actual appearance of the first white settlers, but their pending arrival hangs over the middle part of the book like a rain cloud. By the time it actually happens in the last 50 or so pages of the book, Okonkwo has been driven into exile, his life a shambles. He has only a slim hope of redemption, and that is shattered by the arrival of the settlers.

Okonkwo's story is a relevant one even at a time when cultural and political imperialism has turned away from Africa toward the Middle East, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. But more important than its relevance is its artistry: it is a deceptively simple epic tale somehow packed into just over 200 pages, and one of the most impressive first novels on record. Don't miss it.

Ultimately, Worthwhile for Recreating a Culture before Colonization, March 14, 2007
SPOILERS AHEAD:
This novel was set in the Igbo homeland in what is now southeastern Nigeria in the late 1800s/early 1900s. I read about three-quarters of the book before I could begin to appreciate it.

Up to then I'd disliked the main character, Okonkwo, an important person in the village whose major traits were harsh anger, pride and inflexibility, finding him one-sided and uninteresting. I felt the description was plodding and little of importance was happening, and wasn't greatly interested in the village life. Much of the novel was concerned mainly with his point of view, and his interactions with the other, relatively minor characters were unexciting. When a dramatic event occurred, such as his accidental shooting of a villager that led to his exile, it was described in a flat, undramatic tone that seemed inappropriate and puzzled me.

I couldn't help comparing this novel unfavorably with another I happened to be reading, Palace Walk, by Naguib Mahfouz, with its complex, many-sided protagonist, the many other strongly developed people in his family, the dramatic interaction between them, and the rich world around them that was reasonably familiar.

It was only after reading some background material on the Internet that I could begin to understand how Achebe's novel aimed to recreate a vibrant culture that had existed before colonization on its own terms, with its oral tradition, rituals and taboos, and guardian spirits, and show what had been lost. The focus on a period before colonization and the depiction of the whites as interlopers has been called innovative for its time. Likewise the use of language in the words of the villagers, instead of pidgin.

A scholar of African lit, Bernth Lindfors, has described the book like this: "Instead of representing Africa as a barbarous wilderness where savages lived in a permanent state of anarchy until the white man came bringing peace, law, order, religion, and a 'higher' form of civilization, Achebe showed how Africans led decent, moral lives in well-regulated societies that placed strict legal and religious constraints on human behavior. Indeed, according to Achebe, things did not fall apart in Africa until Europe intruded and set everything off balance by introducing alien codes which Africans were then told to live by. Europe did not bring light and peace . . . it brought chaos and confusion" (from the preface to the Anchor Book of Modern African Short Stories).

At the same time, Achebe showed how some elements from outside the traditional culture, such as Christianity, weren't merely imposed from above but appealed strongly to some of the Igbo, especially those at the bottom of the society, and those who felt the new religion was more powerful. And he showed that the traditional society had its own internal problems and was ripe for change. Achebe himself has been quoted as saying, "My sympathies were not entirely with Okonkwo . . . . Life just has to go on and if you refuse to accept changes, then, tragic though it may be, you are swept aside" (from Under African Skies: Modern African Stories).

The conventional action came almost entirely in the last quarter of the novel, when the encroaching missionaries, together with the trading culture and the colonizers' threat of force, began to overwhelm the village. Although I can't say I identified with the main character even by the end, by then I could better appreciate the loss of the village culture.

Potentially deadly, so be careful., April 27, 2000
Because it's easy to read but hard to interpret, Achebe's masterwork has become a fixture thoughout secondary and higher education. Unfortunately, its current status as a "classic text" as well as a multicultural icon threatens to make it merely another institutional artifact rather than the genuinely provocative text it is capable of being. Achebe does not gloss over the apparently savage, cruel, sexist practices of the Ibo people before the arrival of the white missionaries. Yet students are quick to overlook these tensions in the narrative, preferring to go for the "platitudes" about imperialism that they know are expected of them in the classroom devoted to assuring "diversity" is in the curriculum. The other "tension" that is often overlooked is one outside the text: respecting the autonomy and identity of an African country by staying out of its affairs vs. intervening to bring an end to mass genocide (Rwanda), starvation (Ethiopia), and enslavement of children (Sudan). Why is it a "moral imperative" for the West to interfere in Kosovo but not in Rwanda? If these tensions are not confronted, the novel is a well-crafted folk tale about a tragic hero, and also another occasion for student apathy. Achebe himself has invited strong moral judgements about his text by applying the same to Conrad's "Heart of Darkness."

One of the Best Books Ever Written - Great African Novel!, April 18, 2003
I was required to read this book in a college literature class and actually dreaded reading it because I really had no interest in Africa. After reading this book by the amazingly talented Chinua Achebe, I became more interested in Africa than I would have ever thought possible! Achebe has masterful skill in portraying African culture to the readers. He colors Africa in a magnificent yet somewhat tragic shade.

I wrote an essay in college based on the Nigerian folktales in this book and received a 100% from my professor. This book has the power to touch lives and I recommend it to absolutely everybody on the planet. I have given my copy to my brother in hopes of educating one more person in this world on African culture. If you think this book is just for African Americans you're wrong... I am caucasian and this book has become my absolute favorite ever!

Please buy this book and when you've read it pass it along to someone else. This book really enlightens people and makes the world more aware of the great and slightly overlooked continent of Africa - and in particular, Nigeria. I will travel to Africa someday solely because of this book!

Things Fall Apaprt:Simple Folktale, Complex Message, March 6, 2000
Things Fall Apart is an excellent book that introduces the reader to both the African Ibo culture and the struggles of one individual. This novel opens with the despcription of simple daily life in the village of Umuofia educating the reader of the primitive daily life in Nigeria at the turn of the century. The novel describes the village life as it was before the white man at all times making the reader aware that their simple village life is about to change. The main chracter Okonkwo is a strong warrior whom possesses all of the villages most repsected attributes. However, he is man that struggles with the fear of failiure and uncontrollable anger. Throughout this novel we see how these qualities lead to self-destruction in the face of a changing world. The end of the novel most clearly shows how severe Okonkwo's destructive nature has become in an unexpected way. When I first began to read Things Fall Apart I did not understand the importance of the novel. As I easily read along I was not understanding many of the deeper messages that the book was communicating. I was simply enjoying the folklore and the simple stories that were told within the novel. However, this changed when the novel took a turn from describing less of the village life and more of Okonkwo's struggles. It was here that I began to see all the issues that an African villager might have been facing and understanding Achebe's message. Okonkwo was a man that was faced with the changes brought about with the white man. Okonkwo feared the impact that these men might have on future genrations and questioned whether village life would ever be the same again. I saw this message as valid for not only historical analysis but also present day analysis. We live in a world, and I live in a country that sees the need for further colonization and development in foreign countries to offer the natives a better way of life. However, this novel clearly presented that although a foreign country might have good intentions they are not always what it best for the country. The reason is that the outsiders are never truely understanding of the culture that existed prior to their arrival and therefore can never offer what is best for the culture. In this novel we see that although the Ibo life was imperfect, with the arrival of the white man, a war zone of ideologies was created in which neither culture lived peacefully. I thoroughly enjoyed my read of Things Fall Apart and would recommend it to any reader interested in the African culture and history. I recommend that, even if some of the descriptions seem rather dry, stick with it and you will find Achebe's messsage thought provoking and powerful.

Classic, March 22, 2007
I don't even feel worthy enough to write a review for this novel. It is the greatest work of literature to have come out of Nigeria and perhaps even the entire African continent and one of the most brilliant pieces of fiction in the world. It has somehow become staple reading English literature for all levels of Nigerian education and the unattainable standard by which subsequent indigenous literature is judged by.

The plot revolves around Okonkwo; a physically and materially powerful member of his village, his family, the entire village as a whole and how Okonkwo (representative of Iboland as a whole) reacts when forcibly faced with colonization.

This book deliciously tells the tale of a lost world and the way Chinua Achebe handles the psychological aspects of his tale is pure genius especially that breaking moment in time when the old is violently juxtaposed against the new and a mad, sad confusion sets in.

I like that this book affords me the opportunity of interacting with a culture I should be acclimated with but I am unfortunately too removed from.

A must read for any person who indulges in [socio-political] classic literature (Dickens, Orwell, Shakespeare etc) . Chinua Achebe is an undisputed master at this game.

Things are falling apart, February 4, 2006
I read "Things Fall Apart" in my school days in the then Rhodesia. I immediately fell in love with the book because I could relate a lot with tribal life in my village and the various forces that were impacting on it. The customs, rituals and beliefs were very similar. The impact of white missionaries on the lives of people in my village was also very powerful and caused a lot of clashes with the local people's way of life. Things all around us were changing, exposing the fragility of our culture, resulting in inevitable conflicts.

The main character, Okonkwo, was a respected and powerful village hero. However, as we progress with reading the book, he is struck with tragedies which ultimately consume him because of his inability to cope with change. This book had a profound influence on me and made me appreciate the intellectual talent within the continent.

The book is a must read for people on the African continent where strong traditional beliefs still have a firm hold in a time of breathtaking changes wrought about by the unstoppable globalization process. The ability of African people to stop or significantly influence the pace, direction and extend of change is very limited. The tragedies that befell Okonkwo are continuing but in different forms on the continent. This is largely due to the failure to adapt to change and failure to appreciate that, however much we firmly hold and justify some of our beliefs, we cannot force others to agree with us and if we try, we will fail anyway.

An important lesson from this book is the echoing of Charles Darwin's conclusion that it is not the strongest of the species or the most intelligent that will survive in a changing environment, but those species that can best adapt to change.

Wonderful, Interesting, Great to learn more about Africa, May 17, 2003
I chose to read this book for a report in my High School World History class. From some of the reviews I read, they made it seem like the book was going to be a boring waste of my time, but it wasn't. It is an easy book to read, not long at all, and it helps you learn a lot about the Nigerian culture. The book is about a man named Okonkwo who is afraid to share his feelings for fear of being thought as weak and he had to protect his reputation. He is brave, but stands alone a lot with his decision to fight. He believes everyone in the tribe has turned into women when they do not want to fight, but deep down he is just like them, but afraid of how people will now view him. When he starts to become violent he accidentally kills a man and is forced to leave his tribe. When he is allowed to return his society has changed dramatically. Missionaries have come to teach the different African countries of the right ways, but the people of Okonkwo's tribe have different views on how to live their life. The missionaries do not understand their way of life and so this book show how communication can be a problem that can lead to the downfall of a once powerful society. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about previous African culture in a well written, interesting, book. ... Read more

Editorial Review

In Sky Magic, book #2 of the Haven Series, the Pact that has kept the peace for centuries between humanity and the Faerie is broken. Oberon, King of the Faerie, lost his Sky Jewel and can no longer command the marching Rainbow to keep the peace. Once again the darkest and most evil of his kind plague human lands. In defense of the Haven, a champion must be chosen to wield the Axe Ambros. A magical weapon powered by the legendary Amber Jewel, the eye of a long dead golden dragon, the Axe is difficult to master. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between thesensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, CountVronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage andmust endure the hypocrisies of society. Set against a vast and richlytextured canvas of nineteenth-century Russia, the novel's seven majorcharacters create a dynamic imbalance, playing out the contrasts ofcity and country life and all the variations on love and familyhappiness.While previous versions have softened the robust, andsometimes shocking, quality of Tolstoy's writing, Pevear andVolokhonsky have produced a translation true to his powerfulvoice. This award-winning team's authoritative edition also includesan illuminating introduction and explanatory notes. Beautiful,vigorous, and eminently readable, this Anna Karenina will bethe definitive text for generations to come. ... Read more

Reviews

Greatest Novel Ever Written, July 5, 2004
I read this book in 1993, and I still remember the experience. It has been called the greatest novel ever written and I agree.

It is a very long book: I read a few chapters a day over a long period of time. Over time the feeling developed that the characters, and Tolstoy himself (in Levin), were people I knew -- people with whom I spent some time each day. The philosophy was mind-expanding; I'm sure my views were affected.
For me, the important thing in reading this book was not to try to "get through" it, but to "visit" it as I would visit congenial neighbors. When I finished, I felt loneliness over loss of contact with the characters.
I'm going to read it again some day.

Move over, Mrs. Garnett., March 2, 2001
Yes, this is the translation to read -- every sentence has been carefully thought through: a translation you could only get from a native-born Russian (Larissa Volokhonskaya) and an English-speaking person (an American, Richard Pevear, her husband) working together, with a native ear for BOTH languages. The prose just flows -- to the point I was hardly are conscious of reading a translation (the highest compliment). My wife (Russian) likes this English-language version so much she has read part of it, first out of curiousity just to see how good a translation can be, then for the pleasure of the English prose. She says Tolstoy in the original is better and since I can read some Russian, I agree. There are some words, expressions that are, after all, untranslatable -- maybe you can find a literally equivalent word, but not an emotionally equivalent one. So study your Russian (I intend to) and maybe someday read the orignial. Meanwhile, there's this. A great classic and a tour de force translation that just rings true on every page.

A beautiful mosaic of interlinked stories ..., June 1, 2004
"Anna Karenina" (1873-7) is a book that could be compared to a beautiful mosaic of interlinked stories. Thanks to Tolstoy's book, we get to know characters who sometimes seem so real that we cannot help but living with them the series of events that are recounted in this book.

Who are the main characters?. Well, we might begin by telling something about Anna Karenina, the woman who gives this book its title. Anna is someone who has found some satisfaction in a marriage to a husband she doesn't love. Her life isn't exciting, but she is comfortable, and has a son that means everything to her. Her world will be shaken when a nobleman, Count Vronsky, falls in love with her. He pursuits Anna until he convinces her to become his lover, indulging in an adulterous affair. But... will he go on loving her, even after she risks all for him?. And did she do the right thing, by following her heart without thinking about the consequences of her actions?.

There are many more characters, but I would like to highlight one of them: Levin. Levin is a rather eccentric gentleman farmer, who worries about things like the meaning of life, and allows the reader to share with him the kind of doubts that many have had, but few voice. He ends up finding happiness, but his path is not easy, especially because he is prone to reflect on issues that cause him anguish. His story is linked at the beginning of the book to that of Anna and Vronsky because the woman he loves, Kitty Shcherbatskaya, thinks she loves Vronsky. However, as the story advances, you will probably end up comparing Anna and Vronsky's relationship to that of Kitty and Levin. One is all drama, and passion; the other, calm and contentment. Which one is better?. And according to whom?.

I want to point out how well Tolstoy depicted 19th century Russian society, especially the differences between social classes and how much hypocrisy permeated the moral codes of polite society. If you pay close attention you will notice that several themes also to be found in other classics are recurrent in "Anna Karenina". One of them is fate, and some of the others are the omnipresence of death, the meaning of life, and the power of faith. There are many more things I would like to say about this book, but I think you will do better if you start to read "Anna Karenina" right now, instead of spending more of your time reading a long review such as this one :)

On the whole, I highly recommend this book. It is one of those few books that don't allow you to remain indifferent. You might hate it or love it, but it will necessarily make you think about several important subjects, whilst reading a good story.

Belen Alcat

Great Edition of a Great Story, September 8, 2001
This Edition, Pevear and Volokhonsky (Viking 2001), supposedly renders Tolstoy's Russian more faithfully than earlier ones, which attempted to "soften" him a bit for Western sensibilities. I actually bought this for a class, and my teacher, who reads it in the Russian, simply couldn't praise the translation enough, so if you're determined to read Anna Karenina already, you should probably get this edition.

As for the story, I found that the 800 pages just melted away. Long doesn't mean hard, after all, and I was sorry to see it end, to tell the truth.

The story revolves around seven different people in 1870s Russia. Superficially, it tells how Anna Karenina left her husband for another man, destroying her family, how Stiva Oblonsky ruined his family without leaving it, and how Konstantin Levin courted Kitty Shcherbatsky and they built a new family together.

Although it's enjoyable even on the superficial level, Anna Karenina rewards careful study, revealing intricate structure and interlocking symbolism throughout. Tolstoy thought it was his best work; critics have called it one of the best novels ever written; don't miss it.

Magnificent and Tragic, June 5, 2004
One of the greatest novels of all time. Once you read it straight through and experience its immensity and depth, you can keep it around and dip into it when you need to be reminded that a work of art -- novel, play, film, what have you -- can give you not only continued enjoyment but profound truths. Tolstoy is one of the few writers I've ever read -- indeed possibly the only writer I've ever read -- who really treats men and women equally. Now in later life he wrote many provocative things about gender, but at the time he wrote Anna Karenina, he saw the soul inside a human with unlimited generosity. Note his loving attention to the emotions and suffering of the young adolescent Kitty Scherbatsky who becomes in fact a heroine of the work, and how he takes her every bit as seriously as he takes any male character in the book. If you go on to War and Peace, you'll find the same inquiry into the depths of the soul in total resregard of masculine/feminine identity. It has been said that Tolstoy raised the novel to the level of Greek or Shakespearean tragedy. I believe that he did. I believe he did because, being Russian, receiving the novel as something of an imported form from England and/or France, he did not have any prejudice towards it as some sort of "domestic" or "popular" form. In other words, no one told him the novel couldn't be great. And he made it great. Read this book, even if you have to carry it around with you for a while. I recommend the old translation by Constance Garnett, but there are other ones.

A tale of tales, June 2, 2004
What we have here is a conglomeration of short stories sewn together into one wonderful tale. For the most part, the stories swirl around the life of Anna Karenina, a lady that has conformed with her life. She lives in a comfortable marriage and a boy that she loves to death. But that safe world would quickly be turned upside down when love, the one thing that she really is missing, comes calling in the name of Count Vronsky.

Anna is torn between what is right and what is desired. Her desires trump righteousness and she succumbs to the yearning arms of the nobleman. After they pursue their passion, the happily-ever-after ending seems to avoid them. Is the Count willing to continue their relationship? Is she truly happy with this adulterous affair or will she want more?

In the middle of the affair is another relationship begging to blossom. Levin, a calm and collective farmer that has deep thought about life itself is in love with Kitty. However, Kitty has a crush on the Count and that throws blinders on what is right in front of her. Eventually, the story will show two types of relationships with these four characters. Anna and Vronsky's sinfully passionate versus the path of logic of Levin and Kitty.

Overall, the story is one that cannot be ignored. For better or worse, you will have to opinionate on it. It forces you to like it or leave it. There is no room for indifference. I enjoyed the tale and recommend it.

Best book I've ever read, June 7, 2004
After owning this book for almost a year and being intimidated by it's 800 pages, I finally dug in about a month ago. All I can say is this: On June 1st, I ran out to purchase David Sedaris' new book, which I have been waiting for these last 4 years with breathless anticipation....but instead of devouring it immediately, I finished the last 100 pages of Anna first. That says alot for my commitment to this amazing book! I was so enthralled...the rich inner lives of these characters, the beautiful writing. I found myself reading sentences over and over, basking in their beauty.

I am surprised by the reviewers comments that the decisions and scenarios in this book are black and white, that the characters are stereotypes. I think the opposite is true---Tolstoy gives you a window into the thought life of every character and a glimpse at just how "grey" their struggles really are, the duality of their lives. Like Vronksy's desparate love for Anna, coupled with the nagging notion that he just might have left behind a life that he misses. Who cares (as many readers apparently do) that Anna doesn't show up until 80 pages in???? This book is more than one woman, it is a masterpeice filled with many memorable characters, male and female alike. It's the richness of the supporting characters that take this book to the next level. Simply amazing!

I tend to loathe Oprah for her book club "magic wand", but I am happy that she will bring a new crop of readers to this wonderful piece of literature. Not only will you appreciate the plot and the characters, you will appreciate the craft of writing itself.

The Best Novel in History, June 18, 2004
Anna Karenina is arguably the best work of fiction ever written. It is very long, and, at least for me, was not the kind of book you can read 50 pages at a time, like a contemporary work of fiction. Anna K. is more like a book you have to savor, a few pages at a time.

Although this book is about romance to a degree, as one who can't stand books or movies with romantic themes I can say that those who don't like romance should read it anyway, because romance is not the dominant theme, despite some appearances. Rather, this is a book about life, and it takes in the whole of life for Russia during the late Tsarist period. History rather than literature is my primary interest, and those who are historically-minded will find this book a treasure.

Despite being a tale of adultery between Anna K. and Vronsky, a young aristocrat, it is a morally uplifting book which emphasizes the joy and satisfaction that Levin and "Kitty"
(Katya/Yekaterina/Catherine) have in their marriage and their simple life at the estate. I heartily recommend this book.

All Good Reviews are Alike . . ., December 24, 2002
I had finally read my 10 year old copy of Anna Karenina to death. Therefore I decided to buy a new one. I was a bit leery about trying a new translation, but this edition pleased me very much.

There are three main reasons that I recommend this book:

1. Great Story
2. Very good Translation
3. Durable Hard Cover

Great Story

In this novel Tolstoy presents marriage and human relationships in a realistic manner. Anna Karenina details a passionate love affair and it's doleful consequences. The reader experiences this tumultuous love from the point of view of the two paramours, as well as the friends and family members whom their lives touch.

Nevertheless, a tale about a cheating wife does not great literature make.

The existential struggle for meaning in life and the nature of God figures strongly as a theme in Anna Karenina. Overshadowing, in my opinion, even the experiences of the book's namesake. Any lover of philosophy will enjoy this book immensely.

The Translation

As I mentioned before, this is a good translation. By good, I mean the following:

1. Russian words are footnoted - Some words lose their meaning and cultural context when translated to English. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky did a wonderful job leaving these terms in tact. There are notes at the back of the book that fully explain each Russian word.

For example, who knew that the "roll" that Stiva eats in my previous translation was actually a "kalatch?"

2. Names of the Characters are Preserved - Princess Darya Alexandrovna Oblonsky is also known as Darya and sometimes as Dolly. The use of names and nicknames is very important in language. I appreciate that the translator preserved the use of the patronymic and various names of each character. Too bad there is not a way to translate the Russian forms of address. Sigh.

3. Foreign Language Passages are Footnoted - Many of the members of the social sphere in which the book is set spoke multiple languages. Thankfully, when Tolstoy wrote a passage in French or German, the translators let it alone and wrote a translation at the bottom of the text.

Hardback

I tend to manhandle my books, so I like hardback. I think I've had this book for about a year. It's held up pretty well.

Unless you're the kind of person who uses bookmarks and doesn't fold pages, I recommend this edition instead of a softback book.

In conclusion, Pevear and Volokhonsky's work stands out as a stellar translation of one of literature's greatest masterpieces. I highly recommend this book!

Tragic, but truly unfortunate?, July 28, 2005
Violet Baudelaire is the Anna Karenina of our day. Sad, very sad. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The fairy tale lives again in these forty new stories by some of the biggest names in contemporary fiction

Neil Gaiman, Michael Cunningham, Aimee Bender, Kelly Link, Lydia Millet, and more than thirty other extraordinary writers celebrate fairy tales in this thrilling volume-the ultimate literary costume party.

Spinning houses and talking birds. Whispered secrets and borrowed hope. Here are new stories sewn from old skins, gathered from around the world by visionary editor Kate Bernheimer and inspired by everything from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" and "The Little Match Girl" to Charles Perrault's "Bluebeard" and "Cinderella" to the Brothers Grimm's "Hansel and Gretel" and "Rumpelstiltskin" to fairy tales by Goethe and Calvino.

Fairy tales are our oldest literary tradition, and yet they chart the imaginative frontiers of the twenty-first century as powerfully as they evoke our earliest encounters with literature. This exhilarating collection restores their place in the literary canon. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Introducing a major literary talent, The White Tiger offers a story of coruscating wit, blistering suspense, and questionable morality, told by the most volatile, captivating, and utterly inimitable narrator that this millennium has yet seen.

Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life -- having nothing but his own wits to help him along.

Born in the dark heart of India, Balram gets a break when he is hired as a driver for his village's wealthiest man, two house Pomeranians (Puddles and Cuddles), and the rich man's (very unlucky) son. From behind the wheel of their Honda City car, Balram's new world is a revelation. While his peers flip through the pages of Murder Weekly ("Love -- Rape -- Revenge!"), barter for girls, drink liquor (Thunderbolt), and perpetuate the Great Rooster Coop of Indian society, Balram watches his employers bribe foreign ministers for tax breaks, barter for girls, drink liquor (single-malt whiskey), and play their own role in the Rooster Coop. Balram learns how to siphon gas, deal with corrupt mechanics, and refill and resell Johnnie Walker Black Label bottles (all but one). He also finds a way out of the Coop that no one else inside it can perceive.

Balram's eyes penetrate India as few outsiders can: the cockroaches and the call centers; the prostitutes and the worshippers; the ancient and Internet cultures; the water buffalo and, trapped in so many kinds of cages that escape is (almost) impossible, the white tiger. And with a charisma as undeniable as it is unexpected, Balram teaches us that religion doesn't create virtue, and money doesn't solve every problem -- but decency can still be found in a corrupt world, and you can get what you want out of life if you eavesdrop on the right conversations.

Sold in sixteen countries around the world, The White Tiger recalls The Death of Vishnu and Bangkok 8 in ambition, scope, and narrative genius, with a mischief and personality all its own. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international publishing sensation -- and a startling, provocative debut. ... Read more

Reviews

Caught in the rooster coop, May 27, 2008
In his debut novel, Aravind Adiga takes on some hefty issues: the unhappy division of social classes into haves and have-nots, the cultural imperialism of the First World, the powder-kegged anger that seethes among the world's dispossessed, and entrapment. But his skills as an author protect the novel from becoming one of those horrible didactic stories in which characters and plot are little more than mouthpieces and vehicle for delivering Great Truths. The White Tiger entertains and gives pause for thought. This is a good combination.

The plot centers around Balram Halwai, a laborer born and raised in a small village utterly controlled by crooked and feudally powerful landlords. The village is located in 'the Darkness,' a particularly backward region of India. Balram is eventually taken to Delhi as a driver for one of the landlord's westernized sons, Ashok. It's in Delhi that Balram comes to the realization that there's a new caste system at work in both India and the world, and it has only two groups: those who are eaten, and those who eat, prey and predators. Balram decides he wants to be an eater, someone with a big belly, and the novel tracks the way in which this ambition plays out.

A key metaphor in the novel is the rooster coop. Balram recognizes that those who are eaten are trapped inside a small and closed cage--the rooster coop--that limits their opportunities. Even worse, they begin to internalize the limitations and indignities of the coop, so that after awhile they're unable to imagine they deserve any other world than the cramped one in which they exist. Balram's dream is to break free of his coop, to shed his feathers and become what for him is a symbol of individualism, power, and freedom: a white tiger. But as he discovers, white tigers have their own cages, too.

Of course, it's not simply the Balram's of the world caught in the rooster coop. Adiga's point seems to be that even the world's most privileged suffer from a cultural and class myopia that limits perspective and distorts self-understanding. The White Tiger is a good tonic with which to clear one's vision and spread one's wings.

From The Darkness into the light, October 12, 2008
What's astonishing about "The White Tiger" isn't Adiga's depiction of the social and economic inequalities of contemporary India. Other writers--Rohinton Mistry in " A Fine Balance," Kiran Desai in "The Inheritance of Loss," among others--have written very good novels about this. What is astonishing is the economy with which he does it. Novels about societal inequities are often lengthy; think of a novel by Dickens or Stowe or Dreiser or Steinbeck, in which the accumulating weight of the details of suffering creates a powerful impression. Adiga creates two disparate worlds, Balram's tiny native village in the Darkness and the sliver of Delhi he inhabits in his life as a driver for the urbanized son of the village landlord. The first is a place of absolute hopelessness presided over by allegorical figures of corrupt wealth: the four landlords known as The Stork, The Buffalo, The Wild Boar, and The Raven. From afar (and occasionally up close) The Great Socialist is re-elected again and again through promises of change (always unkept) and corrupt electioneering. Balram's family, it is clear, will be poor forever.

The city, for Balram, consists of the glittery American-style mall (which he can't enter); the air-conditioned Honda that he drives; and the red bag stuffed with cash for politicians with power over The Stork's businesses. These two settings (and the human animals that inhabit them) set out a chasm that is utterly unbridgeable. Thus, when Balram murders his master (a fact established at the very beginning of the novel), it seems less a tragedy than the outcome of impeccable logic. I kept thinking of Dreiser's Sister Carrie, another small town character who migrates to the city. But where Dreiser is intent on portraying Carrie as someone corrupted by grinding social forces far beyond her control, Adiga deftly portrays Balram as an entrepreneur, one whose tiger's leap across the chasm is equally the product of social forces he cannot control. This leap leads to a 21st century ascent (in social and economic terms) not a 19th century descent into the loneliness that an obsession with wealth can bring.
M. Feldman

Incredible Journey Through A Changing India, September 5, 2008
A Man-Booker Prize nominated book by Aravind Adiga.
They remain slaves because they can't see what is beautiful in this world
-The Poet Iqbal, as quoted by Balram, the protagonist of the book.

To read this book is to leave with the impression that India is a mess. It is 99% of the 2nd most populous nation on Earth being kept in chains of servitude by themselves. Adiga has written a compelling first novel on the liberation of a man born to be a servant of the rich. It describes the way that Balram, a boy born in the Darkness - small villages away from the coast, is sold into indentured servitude to pay off the dowry debts associated with marrying of a daughter. Balram, told by a school inspector that he is a White Tiger - something born once a generation, rises through sheer ambition to become a driver for a local landlord. Through his cunning, he is brought to Delhi to serve as driver for Ashok - the son of the landlord.

As a driver, he begins to understand the relation between master and servant in his culture. The servant is nothing more than a throwaway item to be used and discarded.

A pivotal moment of the book occurs when Ashok's wife demands to drive after a wild night out with her husband. On the way home, she hits and kills a young child. No one saw the accident. Yet, to be safe, the landlord's family arranges for Balram to confess to the hit-and-run accident. It is a source of pride for Balram's family - that he would do this for the master!

From this point, Balram begins a series of rebellions leading up to the murder of Ashok and the theft of millions of rupees. This is not a vicious murder of a hated landlord. Rather, it is an amoral killing of the system that Ashok represents. It is the death of the old system. Yet the old system did not know it was dying. Balram runs away to the southern coast - to Bangalore, the tech capital - and sets up a taxi system for tech companies with the help of bribery of the police. When one of his drivers accidentally kills someone, he uses his connections in the police to sweep it under the rug. He protects his driver. Yet he insists on going to the family's house, paying his respects, giving them thousands of rupees, and hiring the killed boy's brother. The system is not dead, yet Adiga suggests it is changing as the few servants who free themselves change it from within.

This is not what westerners would call a morality story in the Western sense. There is a man willing to kill to get ahead. This is a man held up as honorable. The beauty of Adiga's writing is it opens a window into the culture that lets you root for Balram, hold him as honorable, even as he does dishonorable things.

Good read.

Is White Tiger at best a Paper Tiger?, December 23, 2008

Well written but a Booker's winner?, April 6, 2009
Let me start by saying that this book is certainly an above-average debut in what has now become quite a crowded and competitive space for novels about the sub-continent. Prose is beautiful, energetic and certainly works well to drive the story along. It makes the novel a swift read; there were hardly any passages that I felt like skipping or skimming over.

However, when I think of a Booker's prize winner, I think of a work of fiction that astounds in its depth of thought, with a style of prose that does not just deliver the plot line with sprinkles of humor but rather slaps you out of a lulling stupor and sends electric shocks up your spine. If it does not do that, then it should not be a Booker's winner.

I felt the same way about 'The reluctant fundamentalist' by Mohsin Hamid. That was another novel that received big praise from the western media but seemed rather bland to me, lacking even in material and original ideas. Perhaps it is because I am from the sub-continent myself and the ideas presented are not so original or out of the ordinary to me. Even then, I believe that the prose should take care of that and for me, Adiga's words did not cut it in White Tiger.

Debut novel about India a fantastically dark read, May 2, 2008
White Tiger by Aravind Adiga is the compelling story of an Indian man trying to break free of societal chains and expectations. Balram Halwai lived in the Darkness, a small village, in India under the thumb of his grandmother and the rules of his culture, until he is hired as the driver for a landlord who brings him into the Light of Delhi. The story is told through a letter Balram is writing to a Chinese official to show him entrepreneurial spirit. Balram is intelligent, which gains him the nickname White Tiger in his home town, but because of his family name and no education, he can expect nothing greater than being a virtual slave to his boss. He has dreams of something, anything different than the life laid out in front of him, but they only begin to take root when his boss changes. As long as his boss is honorable in his actions to Balram, he can accept his lot in life, but when the man starts abusing him and sleeping with prostitutes, Balram sees that he is just as corrupt as the rest of the system and decides to break free, utilizing violence to do so. Despite Balram's deplorable behavior, you can't help but root for him and want him to break the cycle of back-breaking labor and destitute poverty that has followed his family for generations. He's a funny narrator whose descriptions of both monetary and moral poverty alternately make you laugh and cry. Adiga is a fresh voice and a stellar writer.

Highly Entertaining but Ultimately Shallow, February 16, 2009
You know what to expect from a novel about India, right? The saffron scented air; the orange and pink silks; the jangling stacks of gold bangles; the mystical mists rising off mountains; the hair-raising squalor juxtaposed against unbelievable architectural spendor . . . . Well, you'll find little of that here, in this fast-moving, highly cynical tale of an opportunistic self-made man who rises from the muck of a small Indian village to the entrepeneurial paradise of Banglalore with very few regrets along the way.

The depictions of poverty and filth are familiar from other novels about India; you can be sure that any mention of a stream, river, lake or washpan will lead directly into a lingering description of the water's fecal content. It's the descriptions of the rich that surprise; rather than living out a Raj-era fantasy of the Indian good life, the rich in Adiga's Delhi live in high rise apartments furnished with rented white couches, consume pizza and counterfeit English booze, and listen to Sting and Eminen on the CD player. In a hilariously ironic detail, even their New Age music is imported; the chill-out music of choice is not Ravi Shankar, but Enya.

The book is a highly entertaining page turner, and the narrator's voice is witty and distinctive. In the end, however, I found the book to be lacking in depth. Rather than fully fleshed out characters, the book relies on caricatures, and the political critique is totally lacking in nuance. It's good in the way a Carl Hiaasson novel is good; it's a fun caper novel with colorful characters in a highly distinctive setting. But Booker worthy? Not to me.

great read, September 26, 2008
I too thought of Dave Eggers as I read this great book by an exceptionally gifted new author. I would find it difficult to judge morals in this book as I would to judge the same in India today. Yes, Balram kills a guy but he plays Robin Hood doesn't he. He does not kill without a great deal of thought and he's not pleased and he wouldn't have if he had seen a better way to live, to help others. True, he knows this is not what Ghandi would have done This book does much to show the modern India and the real mess that really exists there and he does regret but how does one justify or not justify the way the masses are treated in that county where one life matters little. But it's not my place to judge him. What would I do in the same situation I could not fathom surely. Greed and corruption exists and people reduced to the lowest denominator by the upper classes ruthlessly treated like slaves and worthless people not even as human beings. I thought the book overall as exceptional read and the author a very gifted voice who has much to say. This exceptional novel will stay with me for some time and I will ponder the moral and ethical issues and dare not to judge.

"I was a driver to a master, but now I'm a master of drivers.", January 22, 2009
A great book...deserving of its Man Booker Prize.

As much as I liked Edward Luce's In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India, this fictional work is the most vivid and revealing book about India that I've read to date. Author Aravind Adiga comes out of the gate with both guns blazing and never lets up. The book is constructed as a series of dictated reveries addressed to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Adiga's tale speaks of an Indian/Chinese future with the US as a bit player.

As early as Page 2, Adiga bares his teeth:

"Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except you don't have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy or punctuality, _does_ have entrepreneurs."

From there on in, the author wades in and fires haymakers like that on every page. His pace and urgency never flag.

The tone is captured by a single line of English his driver/protagonist quotes early and often: "What a f---ing joke." It's a phrase that is throw out with such aplomb and bitterness by his master's ex-wife that it catches the driver's ear despite his unfamiliarity with the language.

I found it very enjoyable to pair this book with a viewing of Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire [Theatrical Release]. Both are rooted in what Adiga calls the Darkness. In Adiga's tale, cynicism wins out and produces a deeply flawed survivor and winner. Boyle's film, by contrast, gives us the triumph of the good and pure in the form of humble chaiwallah, Jamal Malik.

A Sly Look into Modern India, January 23, 2009
Despite a few flaws (like cartoonish secondary characters), I strongly recommend "The White Tiger" for three reasons: (1) Aravind Adiga skillfully constructs an intriguing, humorous narrative that moves like the wind; (2) he brings us into a foreign world to which most Americans are oblivious; (3) it presents a moral ambiguity that you'll want to discuss long after you're through reading the book. ... Read more