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

Free Good Translation-4 in a Half Stars
I too like some of the reviewers was close to removing this free edition from my Kindle as I began to wonder when The Odyssey would begin. It starts at 8 % or location 413 on the third Kindle type size. The first 8% is a biography of Homer and a critique of Alexander Pope's translation of Homer's The Odyssey. I found the biography interesting and The Odyssey itself is a great Greek epic. A linked table of contents would have been nice and a page break between the foreword and the start of the actual work would have been appreciated. So I take off a star for that. With Kindle's bookmarking, highlighting, note adding feature, and search feature you can quickly find and go anywhere though from your Kindle menu so the point becomes mute. Then I add a half star back for it was free anyways.

Great translation
This is a wonderful translation of Homer's classic story of Odysseus and his return home. It was a nice read. ... Read more

Editorial Review

A Tale of Two Gentlemen-s Marriages to Two Most Devoted SistersThree days before their double wedding, Charles Bingley is desperate to have a word with his dear friend Fitzwilliam Darcy, seeking advice of a most delicate nature. Bingley is shocked when Darcy gives him a copy of The Kama Sutra-but it does tell him everything he needs to know.Eventually, of course, Jane finds this remarkable volume and in utmost secrecy shows it to her dear sister Elizabeth, who goes searching for a copy in the Pemberley library-By turns hilarious and sweet, The Darcys & the Bingleys follows the two couples and the cast of characters surrounding them. Miss Caroline Bingley, it turns out, has such good reasons for being the way she is that the reader can-t help but hold her in charity. Delightfully, she makes a most eligible match, and in spite of Darcy-s abhorrence of being asked for advice, he and Bingley have a most enduring and adventure-prone friendship. ... Read more

Reviews

Hilarious sequel!
I found this sequel to be laugh-out-loud funny and a wonderful take on the friendship between Darcy and Bingley. It starts with Bingley coming to Darcy for advice about his upcoming wedding night. Darcy, being the reticent man that he is, refuses to talk about "it" but agrees that he will help his friend...cue Kama Sutra book! It continues to explore how Darcy's and Bingley's friendship came to be in the first place and how it grew to what it is now, full of hilarious male competitiveness. We get to watch how these couples adjust to married life and then parenthood with the arrival of their children.

When Bingley comes to Darcy yet again for more advice when Caroline has a suitor that the "find-the-good-in-everyone" Bingley has a problem with, he asks for his friend's advice yet again. This time Darcy and Bingley set off to do a little investigating about the suitor with a new found wealth and things may not be as we think they are. (With a little help from Elizabeth and Mr Bennet.) We also get a little peek into the mind of Caroline Bingley that, believe it or not, is not as bad as we'd like her to be. There are new characters introduced in the second half of the story, but they only add to the dynamics of this wonderfully suspenseful, funny tale.

Ms. Altman's writing is witty, hilarious and right on the mark with where I'd imagine Darcy and Bingley's friendship to be. Darcy is always known for his reserve around a large group of people and especially strangers, but we get to that side of him that he only shows to his wife, Elizabeth and his closest friend, Bingley, and it's that side that we all fall in love with. A definite must for any P&P fan!

My Favorite Variation ever!!!
LOVED this book beginning to end!!! I laughed I cried & I laughed some more!! Absolutely perfect book! Especially loved how Darcy & Bingleys relationship was - they are close friends, & pick on each other etc.. it was so fun!
Ya gotta read it!

Nice sequel to Pride and Prejudice
This book is a continuation of one of my favorite novels, Pride and Prejudice. No pressure there, right? But this book delivers and I enjoyed it immensely. The sequel stays true to the characterizations in the Austen novel and it is nice to see where the Darcys and the Bingleys ended up after marrying.

This book has romance, action and mystery. It is written in a style that would make Austen proud. It is very well done. ... 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. Translation of Fantome de l'Opera. ... Read more

Reviews

The Best Translation
French is a beautiful and romantic language and English translations of the Phantom of the Opera haven't always come through quite as beautifully and often times they sound military. This translation flows very well. I was very surprised when I found it. I had read about three or four versions of the book in English from different translators when I stumbled onto this one by accident at the local library. I prefer books in hardcover and searched for this translation in that format but was not able to find it. Now, I have only one classic French book in paperback. This is really the best translation of this book. It flows easily although not as perfectly as the French does. Who knew Bantam could pull this off successfully?

An absorbing, haunting love story that was not meant to be.
What I enjoyed most about this book was the simplicity of language and the direct truth of human needs. Erik was physically deformed and sickly. Mostly, he was unloved and cast out from society; he was bigger than just the Opera Ghost. He was society's shame -- a shame they felt that should be hidden and not acknowledged (either out of fear or because of it... you choose). That lack of positive acknowledgement is what makes this book so sad and frustrating. He had love to give, but it was not wanted; he was deemed a creature of horror. But it was really the general attitude of society that was the horror -- not him. The book really echoes the truth that it is what is on the inside that matters, for that is what lasts the longest, and that people should be more open-minded to the mental and physical flaws that either God or Nature or both created. Erik is a symbol not of darkness and the gothic motif, but of light and life and living. If anyone liked this book, they should read Susan Kay's Phantom; it is a good precursor to Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera.

Intriguing!
I started reading The Phantom of the Opera last night and finished this afternoon. Having seen the recently-released film first, then having followed up by listening to a recording of Webber's famous musical adaptation, I was curious to read the text that had inspired the film and the music I enjoyed so much. The book was an absolute page-turner.

Erik's character is among the most simultaneously compelling and horrifying ones I've read. I love the way Leroux does not treat him as a mere boogie-man, but gives the readers multiple insights to a complex personality. I found myself amused at the Phantom's practical jokes and ingenuity (such as the banknote affair and Carlotta's unfortunate croaking performance), horrified at his vengeance, impressed by his mastery over the secrets of the opera house, and softened by his slavish love for Christine. Should I be repulsed by his evil deeds and dark past or moved to pity? Erik's character is truly one larger than life.

Raoul's character was really my only disappointment. I could not bring myself to like or empathize with him at all and liked Christine less for returning his love. He came across as a spoiled brat who had never been denied anything in his life and cannot comprehend why Christine doesn't throw herself at him whenever he snaps his fingers. He insults Christine cruelly in fits of jealousy and is scarcely less obsessive than the Phantom, but in a sniveling, childish manner. I also hated his refusal consider the Phantom's plight as described by Christine, never allowing pity to soften his desire to kill Erik out of pure jealousy (and he does, indeed, take a gunshot at him when given the chance). It is obvious that the Phantom could have killed Raoul in a heartbeat once within the opera house, but he displays amazing self-restraint when it comes to his rival, especially given his seemingly super-human capabilities.

I would recommend this book to anyone, "Phans" and those with no prior exposure to the story. Perhaps it is not top-notch literature, but a very entertaining book nonetheless. It is an intriguing read with incredible characters, a book difficult to put down and a story difficult to forget!

Worth re-reading.
This story comes off as a pretty typical penny-dreadful sort of tale at first glance, but there are subtle themes that are not apparent on the first read. I won't bore with details, but it is an unusually rich, human story despite the somewhat fantastical setting and the exaggerations inherent in the character of Erik.

Speaking of Erik (that's "The Phantom" to those of you who don't know), he's one of the best villians I've encountered in a while, right up there with Darth Vader. he is capable of extreme wickedness, but is still sympathetic, and those are always the villians that you remember. While Andrew Lloyd Webber did a fair job of adapting this tale to the stage and eventually film, much changed in the process, particularly Erik. He is not so slick in this book as he is in the musical, and definitely a bit more crazy, but I actually prefer Leroux's original to the derivative. The 2004 film did not quite do justice to this complex story and those who have only seen the film and no other form of the Phantom story ought to do themselves a favor and read the book.

In reference to the specific edition I purchased, the Greg Hildebrandt illustrated one, it is not, as has been mentioned in some reviews above (probably due to the fact that Amazon has made an unholy mess by crossing reviews from the umpteen different versions of this book), an abridged version. There are distilled children's editions out there, one by Peter Neumeyer, and another in the Illustrated Classics series but this isn't a children's edition despite the illustrations. This is, as far as I can tell (at least by comparing it to the free Gutenberg Project version) a complete translation of the original French text. I bought this edition specifically for the illustrations, which I enjoy, but some people do not care for the Hildebrandt style. If you like this artist, though, it is worth having for the pictures alone.

More than Just a Book
When I read Phantom of the Opera, I had already seen the Play in New York and the rescent movie, co-directed by Webber. I had high expectations of the Phantom; the story had already incurred tears of pain and suffering, and I suppose I expected more.
I don't particularly like Leroux's writing style, but there is more - much more! - to the story than that, much more to the story than the catacombs under an Opera house, wonderful singers, distorted genius and Persian policeman. This is Leroux's 'Heart of Darkness.' :)

(A note: the book offers much more (a scorpion or a grasshopper) than the movie, but both are good and, for once, the movie follows the book quite closely, until the last chapter. (I retrive them from this fate, for they could never have done it the way it was written.) I thought it was a nice touch from Webber to add the scene from Don Juan Triumphant, although I don't think that there is anything that could describe that music. "His Don Juan Triumphant seemed to me at first one long, awful, magnificent sob. But, little by little, it expressed every emotion, every suffering of which mankind is capable." I didn't feel this in The Point of No Return, but the idea of performing Eric's opera is wonderful.)

Epitaph to the Phantom, aka Eric, O.G. and The Angel of Music
"Poor, unhappy Erik! Shall we pity him? Shall we curse him? He asked only to be "some one," like everybody else. But he was too ugly! And he had to hide his genius or use it to play tricks with, when, with an ordinary face, he would have been one of the most distinguished of mankind! He had a heart that could have held the empire of the world; and, in the end, he had to content himself with a cellar." (From 'The Phantom of the Opera')

This is one of the all-time-best books I have EVER read!
Raoul knew the was something fishy about a voice behind Christine's dressing room door, especialy when he went inside her dressing room right after she left and there was no one there, but he didn't expect that it could be a Phantom. The Phantom lives under the opera, for he fears others seeing his deformed face, but he falls in love with one Christine Daae after giving her singing lessons, which hightens her status at the opera. Yet, Raoul is in love with the prima dona as well; Christine has a choice. You will not be able to put this book, which describes everything in large detail, down one second, as you follow the gripping tale of "The Phantom of the Opera". Leroux brings out his characters' personalities in a such a way that the whole story is believeable. This book could make a GREAT movie if they stayed close to the book, so that means that you ought to read this VERY VERY good book.

LOVELY LOVE STORY!
Just what my sixteen year old, love sick heart needed! This story met all standards that I held for it! Not only did it give insight to Andrew Lloyd Weber's miraculous production of The Phantom of the Opera, but it made me love the characters and want to read more! Unfortunatley, all good things come to an end, as does this book, (and A very tear jerking one I might add) I shared this book with my relatives, friends, and family and they have all come to my same conclusion: This is an EXCELLENT BOOK!! Buy one, read it, and I guarantee you'll fall in love with it! It makes you want to jump up, hop on a plane, go to the Paris Opera House, and look for Erik! (I tried...don't get caught breaking rules!) Great story and have happy reading!

Brilliant!
Often times mentioning "The Phantom of the Opera" ellicits snickers from theatre purists who see the musical as a somewhat ridiculously overblown slightly stupid story which all seems too far fetched to be taken seriously. I confess, I first fell in love with the story when I saw Andrew Lloyd Webber's rendition of the show (which I've seen about five times now) - a show which I now realize that if taken by itself, tends to be a somewhat ridiculously overblown slightly stupid story which seems too far fetched to be taken seriously. The original book changes everything.

Not only does the book contain the story of Erik, the Opera Ghost, but it also includes some of Leroux's own research into the story which he claims as true. Not only does he make this somewhat extrodinary claim to the truth of the story, but he in rather fine detail shows how there was really nothing supernatural at all about the story: even the seeming supernatural elements all have simple solutions: many of which Leroux himself found the 'keys' to while doing research for the book.

The book blows the musical away. Like sand-blasting a soup craker. But before I say more I will say that the musical picks up on many of the important parts of the book: that is to say, I would recommend reading the book and getting to know the story well, because then even though the musical only picks up on many of the important parts and not all, you'll know the rest of the story: and suddenly the musical won't be a somewhat ridiculously overblown slightly stupid story which seems too far fetched to be taken seriously - it's actually very believable.

Admittedly, it would have been far too difficult to make the entire story into a musical: but let me whet your appetite for the fuller details of this incredible love story by touching on a few of the most important difference between the book and the musical.

1. One of the most important characters from the book is gone from the musical. The very mysterious character called simply "The Persian" is not only Erik's one confidant in the book, but he also serves as a link between Erik and other people involved in the Opera. In the musical, Madam Giry represents both her role in the book, and The Persian. (I.e., in the musical, Madam Giry leads Raoul down to Erik's home under the Opera House: in the book, it's actually The Persian who does).

2. There is yet another character, simply called "A Shade" who also appears breifly in the book...a brief part, but actually quite dark.

3. Erik's brilliance as a ventriloquist is lost in the musical but fully explained and examined in the book

4. The most intriging part of the book, Erik's six-mirrored 'tourture chamber' - a major part of the story and a powerful demonstration of Erik's brilliance as a fearsome foe is completely missing from the musical.

This is easily my favourite book that I've ever read, and I recommend it to people all the time. Read it and enjoy it!
... Read more

Editorial Review

Rebecca Kauffman's tranquil Old Order Amish life is transformed when she suddenly has custody of her two teenage nieces after her 'English' sister and brother-in-law are killed in an automobile accident. Instant motherhood, after years of unsuccessful attempts to conceive a child of her own, is both a joy and a heartache. Rebecca struggles to give the teenage girls the guidance they need as well as fulfill her duties to Daniel as an Amish wife.Rebellious Jessica is resistant to Amish ways and constantly in trouble with the community. Younger sister Lindsay is caught in the middle, and the strain between Rebecca and Daniel mounts as Jessica's rebellion escalates. Instead of the beautiful family life she dreamed of creating for her nieces, Rebecca feels as if her world is being torn apart by two different cultures, leaving her to question her place in the Amish community, her marriage, and her faith in God. ... Read more

Reviews

A Gift of Grace
Rebecca is an Amish wife who's been told she cannot have children. When her sister Grace dies, she leaves Rebecca her two teenage girls giving her the chance to finally be a mother. It sounded intriguing to me and rightfully so. The book had a lot of potential, a great plot and characters, just poor execution in my opinion. The entire first half was great, Clipston developed not only each character fully but also developed the relationships between the characters. She posed realistic conflicts between the "English" girls and the Amish community and made you sympethic to both sides.

One of the biggest conflicts throughout the book is between Jessica (the oldest daughter) and Rebecca's husband Daniel. Jessica is set on not conforming to Amish culture, and Daniel is trying to following the rules of his religion and expects anyone living under his own roof to do the same. Try telling a 16-year old girl that she can't use her IPOD and that instead of shorts and a tank stop she has to wear a full length frock. Anyone can see a conflict, but the conflict that had me the most intrigued was actually the one between husband and wife. Rebecca finally stood up to Daniel when he told her the girls should leave, and it almost tore her marriage apart. And the book goes on with each side holding their own views and not budging.

So up until there the book was exciting and enjoyable. My problem with the book came in the final few chapters Clipston resolved, or didn't resolve the conflict. You think the author is going to work out some type of compromise between characters as a resolution, but she doesn't. Rebecca has to give in and Jessica and Daniel both get their ways. I feel like the author takes the easy way out alongside her characters by not developing a better resolution. I felt like she built up this great conflict and then got tired of it so she just decided to let everyone have their own way. So a book with a lot of promise never reached its potential only because of the ending. I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the book and would still recommend it to anyone that enjoys fiction dealing with family relationships, Amish, and/or motherhood.

wonderful read
I think that Amy Clipston has captured the struggles of the Amish verses the English lifestyle perfectly. How do you go from having all the luxuries of the modern world and go to living in the past? You get to see the struggles from both sides as Rebecca tries to welcome her nieces, who don't even know her, into her life and treat them as if they were her own. I only hope that the next book continues where this one left off. There are many things that I wish to have answered and can hardly wait for the next book. I just wish authors could write as fast as I can read.

Wonderful Book to Share
I live in Wichita, Kansas and our state fair is held each year in Hutchinson, Kansas. To visit the fair we travel through the town of Yoder, Kansas. I've looked at the Amish houses, bought their bread and wondered about their lives. What interests me in their lives is how the reconcile themselves with the modern world. This book is an insightful and very easy to read look at their lives. I truly enjoyed the look into their lives and find that I have a new appreciation for their desire for simplicity in life. As the mother of a 17 year old girl, I found myself relating to the dilemma that Grace's daughters found themselves in. The author did a fantastic job describing the characters reactions and emotions.

I eagerly await the publication of your next book. The book is making it's way around my family and I know my 95 year old grandmother will even enjoy reading it. In reading the book you learn about some Amish recipes. It is wonderful that the author has included some of them. I haven't tried the recipes yet but I certainly plan too!
Outstanding book! ... Read more

Editorial Review

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women—mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends—view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t. ... Read more

Reviews

The Best Book in Years! An Instant Classic!

A New Classic for America

a treasure of a book
I was lucky enough to come across an advanced reader copy of this book. Set in Mississippi during the civil rights movement, the story is narrated by the three principal characters...Minny and Aibileen, two black maids, and Miss Skeeter, a young, white woman newly graduated from college. The characters are wonderfully developed, as are the historical background and setting. As each character took her turn at narrating, she became my favorite character until the next one took over again.I was torn between not being able to put the book down and not wanting it to end.

I can't say enough good things about this book

I wish I could give more than five!!
I LOVED this book. I mean I LOVED this book. I could not put it down, and when I had to, I was thinking about the characters and could not wait until I had time to read again.
I grew up in the South in the 60's and my whole neighborhood had housekeepers or "Help". We had someone who worked for us, we called her Nursey, and she was my friend, and my caretaker. After my parents got divorced, she was my rock. This is way to personal, but my stepmother was a witch, and when I think what Nursey had to put up with to stay with me and my sisters, to help take care of us, I just don't know how to express it. She did not leave because of us kids. This book gave me so much to think about and brought up so many feelings, so many good, and so so many not so good.
I'm grateful when I think about the last conversation I had with Nursey before she died, I was married already, living out of town, and I talked to her on the phone. I was able to tell her I loved her and to say thanks for everything she did for me. Was it enough, did it matter? Who knows, but I'm glad it was said.
This is such a beautifully written book, so absorbing..and I don't know how else to describe it. But I do want to say thanks to Ms. Stockett for this wonderful book, that even though I closed it the other day, I cannot quit thinking about.
By the way, I read this on Kindle, and I have decided to buy a hardback copy as well to put on my bookshelves with all my other favorites. I find it hard to believe this is her debut work, I look forward to whatever else Ms. Stockett has to offer us, she is a wonderful storyteller.

Will Be a Favorite of Mine for Years to Come
The Help, by Kathryn Stockett is a simply amazing debut novel that hooked me from the first chapter. It is sure to be one of my favorites for 2009.

The story takes place in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early 1960s. It is a story about the lives of black maids and the white women who employ them. It is also a story filled with hope, about (3) remarkable women set in difficult times. The voices are perfect pitch and even though the story deals with a serious topic, there is much humor for the reader to enjoy, and lessons to be learned by all.

We meet Eugenia Phelan (AKA ...Skeeter) who just graduated from Ole Miss College. Skeeter is back home living with her parents and she is bored with her friends. Her dream is to become a writer, and to move to New York City, but for now she is stuck in Jackson writing for the Junior League's Newsletter. Her mother, however, has other dreams for Skeeter: to find her a rich husband from a good Southern family. Skeeter is tall, a bit socially awkward, but she is very sensitive. Realizing how badly the black maids "The Help" are being treated by their white employers, she comes up with an idea to interview and write about the black maids in Jackson, and their relationships with their white employers. This is a dangerous project that must be kept secret, but one that has the potential of changing the lives of so many people. To Skeeter it is worth the risk, and it just may be her ticket out of Jackson and off to New York City if she succeeds. Abilene and Minny are the focus of the interviews although many more maids agree to participate.

Abilene is a 50 something black maid. She has endured many hardships including the death of her son in a tragic accident. Despite this she remains kind, sweet and dedicated to raising the children of her employers. Although she endures much discrimination, she tries not to judge people, and to remain loyal and kind to her employer, their family and their friends.

Minny is another black maid who has had many jobs. She is angry and bitter and she finds it hard to keep quiet about some of the discrimination she has seen. Minny cannot seem to follow her mother's advice: (7) rules which she preached to her, and that can pretty much can be summed up by saying "keep your mouth shut when it comes to white folks business".

I don't want to say too much more, but to say that this is one of those books that will make you sad when you have turned the final page. The characters and story will live on in your memory long after you've finished this book. I found myself putting sticky notes throughout so I could reread certain parts.

I found it interesting that this story in part was inspired by the author's own life growing up in Mississippi. Her family had a black maid named Demetrie. The maid died when the author was 16, and she never got to ask her how she felt about being black and working for a white family in Mississippi.

This book is highly recommended.

This Book Deserves 10 Stars

Editorial Review

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.
 
Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles—and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined. ... Read more

Reviews

"We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime."
This brilliant novel revolves around what is broken -- limbs, family ties, trust -- and the process of rebuilding them. It starts with the birth of twin boys to a nursing nun, Sister Mary Praise Joseph, in a small hospital on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; an event which no one had expected: "The everyday miracle of conception had taken place in the one place it should not have: in Sister Mary Praise Joseph's womb." The delivery rapidly becomes a debacle when it's clear that Mary Praise Joseph can't deliver her baby normally; the last minute arrival home at "Missing" (the Mission Hospital) by Indian obstetrician Hema saves the children, but their mother dies and their presumed father father, surgeon Thomas Stone, disappears into the night.

That brief summary does no justice to Verghese's powerful and remarkable prose style or the structure of the first part of the book which, although it revolves around the tragedy that claims the life of the twins' mother, also introduces the other main characters who will take the place of their biological parents. Darting back and forth between the events in the surgical theater (as Thomas Stone, horrified at what he sees, first tries to save Mary Joseph Praise's life by collapsing the skull of the infant he believes cannot be born alive), the mundane daily activities of his fellow doctor, Ghosh (trying to escape what he believes is a hopeless love for Hema) and Hema's struggle to get home to Missing from her annual holiday in India, the reader will find it impossible to put the book down and wants only to find a way of reading faster and faster to discover what happens next. By the time the twins are born, attached by a blood vessel at the head and separated at the last moment by Stone and Hema to save their lives, the reader will find himself or herself resenting every moment not spent following this story until the tale is told. And even when you are finished, the novel and its more-than-compelling characters will linger on in your mind...

Separated at birth, the twins grow up in the Ethiopia of the Emperor Haile Selaisse's reign, and Verghese introduces the reader to an ancient world that will be new to most readers, with all its flavors, colors, scents and sounds. His remarkable artistry ensures that this is never jarring but always intriguing and that the characters -- Indian expatriate doctors raising their two foster children, born to an Indian nun and an American surgeon, with the help of an Eritrean caretaker and her own daughter -- feel as familiar to us as if they were members of our own family. In the manner of a classic epic, Verghese picks his themes -- separation, the intersection of sex and death, wounds and what surgery can and can't accomplish -- and sticks to them throughout. And yet, those themes -- sweeping ones for any novelist to tackle -- never overshadow the fact that this is, at its core, the story of two brothers, Shiva and Marion -- or ShivaMarion, as Marion, the narrator, describes their single-minded unity in their youngest years.

Ultimately, the political events in Ethiopia and family betrayals send Marion fleeing to the United States. His odyssey seems to rupture all these ties and yet by the time the novel ends, we realize that every step has, in fact, been bringing Marion, Shiva and their extended family closer together as well as toward a resolution of the various plot twists. Training as a surgeon in a Bronx hospital where the only interns are from overseas ("the bloodlines from the Mayflower hadn't trickled down to this zip code", Marion reflects wryly), the finally encounters his birth father in person -- with dramatic consequences -- and has a chance to make peace with Thomas Stone, Shiva -- and himself.

Anyone familiar with Veghese's non-fiction writing (two very compelling memoirs, My Own Country: A Doctor's Story and The Tennis Partner) knows that he is an impeccable prose stylist. But relatively few non-fiction writers can also write wonderful fiction, much less produce this kind of complex drama. Rarer still is that this is a debut novel. Even the remarkable coincidences of the final third of the book never feel anything less than pitch-perfect: a real tribute to both Verghese's carefully-constructed plot and his eloquent, pitch-perfect writing.

It is rare for me to stumble over a novel of such a high caliber, one that creates the kind of characters I have never met before, characters who now are as vividly alive in my mind as any of the real individuals who populate my world. May this be only the first of many novels that Verghese produces for us, his lucky readers.

Are You Your Brother's Keeper?

Fiction at it's Best
Many readers will tell you that Cutting for Stone is the epic story of two conjoined twins fathered by a brilliant British Surgeon and an Indian Nun. And it technically is. Narrated by Marion the first born twin we are told of every influence on his and his brother's existence. More than the story being told however, the novel is an accurate portrayal of life in all it's cruelty and wonder.

The twin's mother dies in childbirth and their father abandons them minutes later. They are raised in a missionary medical hospital in Ethiopia. As they grow up they are forced to face their past and futures re-defining the meanings of destiny, love and family.

While reading you will notice the fine points are painstakingly researched as the story is and packed full of medical jargon and situations along with vivid descriptions of Ethiopian culture and history. My only reservation in recommending the book is the novels "hard moments" as almost every imaginable tragedy touches these brothers, and medical operations and oddities are very detailed. Squeamish readers may want to skim some of these passages.

All in all, this novel is elegantly told, superbly structured and the most original piece of fiction I've read in years. It's deserving of every positive adjective I can throw at it; marvelous, and thrilling. You will want to own and lose yourself in this book again and again. Buy it now, and thank me later.

Best book of 2009?
The plot of this book can be summed up neatly: Cutting for Stone follows the lives of two boys from birth to adulthood. The boys, Marion and Shiva are identical twins orphaned at birth who are raised by a surrogate family and grow up on the grounds of Missing Hospital in Ethiopia. Although they individuate in adolescence, their lives continue to be intertwined and develop along parallel paths. Eventually both men practice medicine, one in America and the other in Ethiopia. However, this book is so much more than plot.

Cutting for Stone is a beautifully written coming-of-age novel weaving family, hospital and house staff, patients, community, disease, and country into a complex tapestry. It incorporates love, lust, trust, betrayal, commitment, emigration, faith, poverty, life, death, hope, dreams, fears, and just about every other big theme you can imagine without ever becoming predictable, manipulative, or cliched. It's an epic story that feels intimate and cozy and enveloping. The characters are like family and I'd feel at home if I visited Missing Hospital, Matron, and the staff.

I usually read quickly, finishing a book in a day or two. Cutting for Stone took more than a week. The story was compelling, but I read slowly to savor the words and picture Addis Ababa through Marion's eyes. I didn't want the journey to end.

I will be recommending this book to all my reading friends for a long time to come and can't wait for Dr. Verghese to pass through my city on his book tour. Go grab a copy and start reading - you won't be disappointed.

Captivating, Colossal
You know how some novels just possess you? Grab you by the hair, the head, the heart, the teeth, the gonads? Well, this epic family saga is one of those. It takes a little while--you need to have a little patience as it introduces the numerous main and supporting characters, the place, and the twines of the story. At about page 80, ballast is apparent. You are fastened. Momentum increases and you are completely absorbed.

The narrator, Marion Stone, a 50 yr-old surgeon, recounts his life from inception and of his twin, Shiva, and the lives of the people that loved them; raised them; abandoned them; permeated them. They were born conjoined at the head (successfully separated), sons of a Carmelite nun (and nurse), Sister Mary Joseph Praise, and an extraordinarily talented surgeon father, Thomas Stone, who had worked together for seven years. The place is Abba Adaba, Ethiopia, at the fictional Mission Hospital (pronounced "Missing" by many Ethiopians), where much of the story takes place.

These characters will inhabit you as you inhabit them and this staggeringly beautiful and moving story. They shimmer. They resound. You will see them as you go about your day--the deep color of their irises, the creases and folds of skin, the texture of their hair, the resonance of their voices. And you will feel the spirit and nature of them as they surround you.

Missing (Mission) becomes a powerful symbol in the story--the lacunae of memory, of narration, of events. All will eventually come together stunningly. Additionally, the title of the novel gathers not moss but succor, essence, and context as the story deepens and disparate pieces of the past become a whole. By the time you get to the end of the novel, those three words become the poignant portal to the denouement and the thrust of its theme.

At turns playful, comic, adventurous, distressing, shocking, tragic, and tender, Cutting for Stone has an unbearably beautiful soul. Edifying, supple, exuberant, and enduring.

"Your 'Gloria' Lives Within You."
CUTTING FOR STONE (a reference to the Hippocratic Oath, "I will not cut for stone"), Dr. Abraham Verghese's first novel, is a massive linear story of over 500 pages reminiscent of the great 19th century British novels-- Charles Dickens comes to mind, and one of the characters reads George Eliot's MIDDLEMARCH-- and first cousins with the novels of John Irving and Khaled Hosseini, another physician who, as the whole literary world knows, gave us THE KITE RUNNER and A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS. (That is not to say that this fine work of fiction is derivative in any way.) Verghese writes with the passion of Thomas Wolfe; but contrary to what that North Carolina writer said, sometimes you can go home again. The narrator of CUTTING FOR STONE is Marion, an identical twin of Shiva. They are born in Ethiopia in 1954 of an Indian mother and British father. Marion and Shiva's lives resonated with me-- at least a little-- since I am also a twin, through fraternal. Just like Marion and Shiva, my brother and I will go to our graves remembered by many (if at all) as simply "the twins." The action covers continents: Africa, Asia, Europe-- at least a brief stopover by Marion and his stepmother Hema in Rome near the end of the novel-- and North America. In addition to these three characters, there are Hema's husband Ghosh, Genet, Thomas Stone, Sister Mary Joseph Praise and a host of others you will be haunted by when you finish this novel.

Dr. Verghese's first book, a work of nonfiction, MY OWN COUNTRY, may well be the best thing ever written about AIDS. It is the doctor's account of the time he spent treating AIDS patients in the mid-eighties at the VA hospital in Johnson City, Tennessee, some sixty miles from where I grew up so I recognized many of the people he wrote about. His second book THE TENNIS PARTNER is a sad but beautifully written treatise on friendship. I wondered then if the author could match these two earlier successes with a work of fiction. The answer is a resounding "yes." This novel has everything going for it. In addition to the story that covers continents and characters whose fates will break your heart, The tone of the novel and Verghese's themes certainly satisfy Matthew Arnold's requirements for high seriousness: betrayal, missed opportunities, the definition of family-- doesn't our family consist of those people who love us?-- love and forgiveness.

Dr. Verghese in CUTTING FOR STONE returns to concerns he has written about previously, particularly in MY OWN COUNTRY, where he went to great lengths to express his belief that patients are people, regardless of their illness or station in life and should be treated as such-- or as Marion says here, not just a "'diabetic foot in bed two' or 'myocardial infarction in bed three.'" He also has written of the plight of Indian doctors in the U. S. who are too often seen as second class citizens who are caring for other second class citizens. Here Marion's friend Gandhi reminds him that at hospitals that he calls "Ellis Island" hospitals, that the physicians are Indian, Pakistani, Filipino or Persian while white doctors work at "Mayflower" hospitals such as Massachusetts General. Most importantly this writer's humanity is evident on every page. Notice, for instance, Marion's guilt when he has to kill a man in order to save his own life and the lives of his family. While this book is certainly about doctors as healers-- and I sometimes felt as if I were taking Surgery 101 and looking over the shoulders of Hema, Ghosh and other doctors' shoulders as they performed surgical procedures and learned more medical terminology than I wanted to know-- this book is also about Ethiopia, where Dr. Verghese was born, a country that he obviously loves passionately. His descriptions of that country, particularly the sky, are beautiful: "In a country where you cannot decribe the beauty of the land without using the word 'sky,' the sight of three jets streaking up in a steep climb was breathtaking." Or "The sky had started off bluffing, convoys of gray clouds scurrying across like sheep to market. But by afternoon a perfect blue canopy stretched from horizon to horizon." And finally "The sky was a mad painter's canvas, as if halfway through the artist had decided against azure and had instead splashed ochre and crimson and black on the palette."

In one of dozens of moving passages in this novel, Marion says that he became a surgeon because the character Matron goaded him, telling him that he should not settle for playing "Three Blind Mice" when he could pay Bach's "Gloria." He, who played no instrument and did not read music, responded that he could not dream of playing the "Gloria," to which Matron answered :"Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you.'" If Dr. Verghese were a concert musician, his "Gloria" would receive a standing ovation from a grateful audience whose eyes would be burning, or in the words of the writer himself "foggy."

There should be a law against fiction being this good.

Cutting for Stone: Look deeper for its meanings
Abraham Verghese has layered his tale that spans continents, moving as it does from India to Africa and then to the US, full of double meanings - like flavor upon flavor. The overall story is rich, multifaceted. But for me part of the delight of this read was to catch the double entendres. Here are some examples:

*NAMES: The main characters, twin boys, born to a beautiful Indian nursing nun whom no one even suspected was pregnant, were technically conjoined, sharing a short stalk of flesh at the top of their heads, essentially one organism in the womb. They are identical - mirror images of each other on the surface - separated during their brutal cesarean birth. The surgeon, their presumed father, cannot even comprehend their existence. Dr. Thomas Stone is so horrified by his failure to save the beloved nun, his surgical assistant for several years, he runs from the operating theater at Mission Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, abandoning the newborns. With no guidance from the newly dead nun, nor from the abandoning surgeon/father, Hema, a fellow surgeon and eventually their adoptive mother, names the boys Marion and Shiva. Marion is said to be named after a famed groundbreaking surgeon Hema admires. It is a signal from Verghese about Marion's ultimate nature: he is more like his mother (Marion - Mary-like) in that he will grow to be compassionate, brave, willing to help in whatever way he can and yet very contained about his own sexuality. It will be much of his undoing. The name choice of Shiva for the other twin is said in the story to be a nod to Hema's own cultural heritage as she is also Indian. However there are more subtle meanings. in Hinduism, the god Shiva is complex, contradictory. He is Lord Shiva, the transformer, aloof, above sentimental considerations, and also the dancing destroyer. Yet destruction also makes way for renewal. The child Shiva will reflect his father: a gifted intellect, skillful, yet incapable of grasping the emotional destruction his choices have on others, ultimately betraying his brother, transforming their relationship. Will there be an ultimate rebirth for them?

*PLACES: Even the hospital compound where the boys are born and where they spend their childhoods has a double meaning. The charity Mission Hospital compound is called Missing by the locals. The entire medical, religious and support staff form an extended surrogate family for the boys - each leaving their own formative mark on them. (One will precipitate a rift between the brothers that will take their lifetimes to heal.) Like any home, it is the center of the children's world. Yet all the while the boys, especially Marion, are acutely aware that there is something "missing" for them at Missing - they have no personal sense of either birth parent, not even a photograph. They only know their mother was dearly loved and their father was a difficult man as well as a fearless surgeon greatly treasured for his skill. But who are Sister Mary Joseph Praise and Dr. Thomas Stone? As they learn, so do we.

*IMAGES: At Missing Hospital Sister Mary Joseph Praise had done her clerical work in a cramped space near the sterilization unit. Above her small desk hung a photo of Bernini's sculpture of St. Theresa in the throes of religious ecstasy, orgasmic in its quality. Verghese knows that for centuries that sculpture has provoked discussion about its blatant sexual overtones, implying a similarity of being lifted out of oneself during utter surrender, whether to God or while giving oneself completely to another. He uses it as symbolic of the Sister's double and conflicting desire - thereby yet another double meaning - one for the service of God and the other for intimacy with her god of medicine, the man who was able to miraculously restore life even in seemingly hopeless cases - Dr. Thomas Stone. However, to the orphaned four year-old Marion, seated at his mother's desk, gazing up at that photo, his child's mind fantasized Theresa was his mother. As readers we understand that image in ways that will take Marion decades to comprehend.

Both Stone boys choose surgery as careers, despite the legacy of their father (and hence the title), a specialty that is both brutal and awe inspiring. Dr. Verghese clearly loves his own medical craft as well as writing. There are multiple situations that arise throughout the book where he describes surgical procedures with spot-on accuracy. In several circumstances they become a vehicle to explain the progress of surgery through the hands of medical pioneers.

Verghese handles these cases like he handles his characters - with utter compassion, never shrinking away from the truth of their disfunction or destructiveness, yet bringing us along for the glory of their triumph. Marion, Shiva, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, Dr. Thomas Stone, Drs. Hema and Gosh are all unforgettable. And because the book spans decades, the culture and history of Ethiopia have the space to saturate the story. Excellent!

Amazing epic
It is a rare book that instructs without preaching, touches emotionally without being maudlin, and delves into the intricacies of the human condition with humor, compassion and deep wisdom. This novel does all of those magnificently. The setting is in a mission hospital in Ethiopia, the narrating character is one of twins born there under mysterious circumstances, and the plot revolves around the events and personal interactions among a cast of colorful and diverse people. The author has woven these together with amazing and admirable skill into a novel of both sweeping breadth and touching intimacy.

As a personal aside, I'd like to say this: after sixty-seven years as a voracious and eclectic reader I had thought the time was past when I'd read a book that would involve me intellectually and emotionally. I am grateful to have lived long enough to have read this book. Thank you, Abraham Verghese.

Cutting to the quick
I have to start by clearing up the confusion I had with Abraham Verghese's title, "Cutting for Stone." As the book mentions several times but never precisely explains, the reference is to the Hippocratic Oath, "I will not cut for stone." However I had to look it up in Wikipedia to find the meaning, which is probably apparent to medical professionals. It was a prohibition from operating on stones, or calcified deposits, in the kidney or bladder. The ancient Greeks apparently thought surgeons should leave this menial procedure to barbers. The modern meaning seems to be that doctors should recognize they can't specialize in all areas. But I'd say closer to the original intent, and perhaps more relevant to today's medicine, would be: "I won't perform treatments just for the sake of making money."

Okay, I got that off my chest!

The title has at least a double meaning. The story flows from the unlikely and surprising conception of a pair of twins by an English surgeon, Thomas Stone, and an Indian-born nun, Sister Mary Praise, in Ethiopia in the mid-twentieth century. The story is narrated by one of the twins, Marion, who eventually becomes a surgeon himself.

Verghese is likewise a practicing surgeon, now living in the U.S., who grew up in Ethiopia. His account seems autobiographical, but much of it is invented, as he explains in detail in his Acknowledgments.

If I say too much about this book, I'll have to throw in a lot of spoilers, and suspense has its delicious rewards in this leisurely paced plot. So I won't. Suffice it to say, I believe your patience with Verghese will be rewarded.

I heard him speak at a book signing at an Ethiopian restaurant in Los Angeles, and he mentioned that he admired W. Somerset Maugham. This book does remind me of "Cakes and Ale," in more ways than one, including the crafting of its sentences. (Maugham also studied medicine.) It's not the page-turning, plain-vanilla, cliffhanger prose of Tom Clancy or Dan Brown. It's thoughtful, colorful, and literary. Slow down and enjoy it.

This novel is about family, community, betrayal, parental love and estrangement, sibling bonding and rivalry, personal bravery, not-so-uncommon acts of kindness, the heroic practice of medicine, suffering and compassion--and irony.

Lots of irony.

Cutting for Stone is selling well, so lots of other people must think it's worthwhile. The story doesn't read like a movie plot, but neither does The English Patient. Yes, this book is that big--in its scope and its ambitions, and in the magnitude of its achievement. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Reviews

Heartbreaking and inspiring, with unforgettable plot twists and credible characters
Barack Obama went to Martha's Vineyard and there obtained, a week before its release, a copy of Jonathan Franzen's novel. That same week, my family was heading to the Bahamas, and because we'd be isolated on a island three miles long and half a mile wide, with spotty internet access and even more problematic electricity, I was able to convince the publisher to give me an embargoed copy of the book.

I doubt that the President has made his way through all 562 pages of "Freedom." My wife and I have made it to the end. It required no effort of will, just a little negotiation ("I'll take the kid to the beach if you'll use the time to read"). That is how, on our final morning overlooking the pink sands where Corona makes its wish-you-were-there beer commercials, I staggered to the end, sobbing as I read the last ten pages. My wife finished the book while we waited for our baggage in New York, and then couldn't speak for most of the cab ride home.

What's the big deal?

The people.

Not the characters. The people. Men and women we come to know and care about, not because they're so admirable but because they're so real.

Like Patty Berglund, a former college basketball star, now a stay-at-home mom. In her slowly gentrifying neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota, she was, Franzen writes, "already fully the thing that was just starting to happen to the rest of the street." That is: "a morning of baby-encumbered errands, an afternoon of public radio, the Silver Palate Cookbook, cloth diapers, drywall compound and latex paint, and then Goodnight Moon, then zinfandel." The questions that plagued her: "Where to recycle batteries? ... How elaborate did a kitchen water filter need to be? ...Could coffee beans be ground the night before you used them, or did this have to be done in the morning?"

Like Walter Berglund, her husband. Son of a man who owned a small motel in Hibbing --- yes, that Hibbing, where Bob Zimmerman grew up and dreamed himself into Bob Dylan --- he was the very nice guy you never really knew in college because he was studying so hard and working his way through school. He'd met Patty there and knew she was The One, and waited for her to know it. And when she said yes, and shared that her dream was motherhood, he shelved every exalted ambition to get a job in Corporate Communications at 3M. When we meet him, he's the executive director of Minnesota's Nature Conservancy, having trouble with his teen-aged son, about to move to Washington for a new job --- he'll sell his St. Paul house "near the bottom of the post-9/11 slump."

One more character drives this novel, Walter's college roommate and unlikely best friend. Richard Katz is the leader of nihilistic rock bands, and he's made for the part: talk, dark and arrogant, deadly attractive to women and eager to exploit that attraction. You don't want the truth served up with nasty spin? Keep away from Richard.

Patty keeps away. Not because she dislikes Richard --- she craves him. But she's made her choice: a man who will do anything to create a home with her. Hot sex? It passes. It has to. Except that....

This is Fiction 101: Building Characters, and if you're surprised how hard it grabs you, it's because today's most acclaimed fiction is too "literary" to care more about people than language or structure or the next definition of fiction. Franzen, like Balzac and Dickens, is a journalist at heart --- what he's created in "Freedom" is this generation's "Bonfire of the Vanities."

The mark of this kind of novel is not only that it feels true but that it becomes true. There's a sequence here about American profiteering during the early days of the Iraq War that's excruciating in its account of American officials who didn't give a damn. Now, as the war "ends, recent articles remind us of billions lost and unaccounted for. These crimes, for the government, are consigned to a memory hole. But there's no lack of accountability here. Not on Franzen's watch.

Look anywhere in this novel, and you'll see how it defines our time. Like that bird on the cover. It's not decorative. It's going to have its own preserve in West Virginia, courtesy of a billionaire who will, in exchange for a few protected acres, get to blow up mountains and harvest coal. And just as we're reading this, here is Jane Mayer's revelatory New Yorker profile of David and Charles Koch, the billionaires whose companies pollute and despoil while David gives hundreds of millions to Lincoln Center, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Let's consider the title. Franzen's characters are not like the Koch brothers or the coal magnate or the Iraq fraudsters. They are their victims, living in an America where we make our biggest choices as shoppers. It's a dreary, ugly culture. Even Walter --- staid Walter --- comes to make a surprising indictment: "As long as you've got your six-foot-wide-plasma TV and the electricity to run it, you don't have to think about any of the ugly consequences. You can watch 'Survivor: Indonesia' till there's no more Indonesia!"

The personal quarrels? Just as lacerating. I can't imagine having a fight with my wife as ugly as the ones in these pages. But they're not set-pieces. They're the intimate moments of people whose conflicts, though maybe not ours, are recognizable to us. And when those fights end, sometimes there is clarity, even beauty:

"She cried then, torrentially, and he lay down with her. Fighting had become their portal to sex, almost the only way it ever happened anymore. While the rain lashed and the sky flashed, he tried to fill her with self-worth and desire, tried to convey how much he needed her to be the person he could bury his cares in. It never quite worked, and yet, when they were done, there came a stretch of minutes in which they lay in the quiet majesty of long marriage, forgot themselves in shared sadness and forgiveness for everything they'd inflicted on each other, and rested."

"The quiet majesty of long marriage" --- that phrase stopped me cold and led me back to the ultimate subject of this book, which is, I think, the challenge of building a functional romantic partnership when you're carrying the legacy of your flawed family and your country's dishonest and exploitative culture. Again, I suspect this challenge isn't unique to Patty and Walter Berglund. It's mine, for sure. And, just maybe, yours.

And that is why the end is so devastating. It's richly symbolic --- and, for once, the symbol works. It sets our fond hopes against our hard realities. It reminds us of the limits of our personal power. It redefines what "freedom" is for people like us, in a time like this. And it suggests, after our big dreams have been crushed, that we may still make smaller dreams come true.

I wish I could be more specific, but that would spoil your experience of "Freedom." Let me just say that the end is everything you want from a great book --- it's not rushed or tacked on or phony or commercial or cynical. It's at once heartbreaking and inspiring, and it makes you both elated and very, very sad. But, most of all, it immortalizes Patty and Walter and confirms what you are, by then, already feeling --- these imaginary people are in your heart, the way your closest friends are.

Love Grows
"Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved." -- Matthew 24:11-13 (NKJV)

Freedom is the best new work of fiction I've read so far in 2010.

Freedom looks at the pain, responsibility, and potential involved in doing what appeals to you . . . regardless of the cost to anyone else. It's a worthwhile trip that manages to touch on a wide variety of ways that freedom pulls us in some directions and away from others. There's plenty of food for thought here, parceled out in bite-sized nuggets that you can chew on for weeks to come.

I was particularly impressed by the story's narrative structure. As the book opens, you see the Berglund family from the outside-in, the neighbors' view. Very quickly, one set of patterns are disrupted into a totally unexpected direction, drawing you irresistibly into wanting to know what happened.

In part the answer is that no one who isn't in a family really knows what goes on in a family. In another part, it's that people keep secrets from one another . . . particularly what they see as their own dark sides that they don't want others to know about.

From there, the story richly expands into four narratives, by narrators whose connections to others are rich and hard to grasp . . . even for themselves. It's only by overlaying the narratives that the whole picture begins to emerge. At times, you'll want to shake one character or another into doing something different, but of course you cannot do that with a fictional character any more easily than you can with most real persons.

Jonathan Franzen is a well-read author and a talented writer so his narrations dig deep into a variety of literary sources and methods to establish mood, color, imagery, emotion, psychology, physical sensations, and experiences that you'll find seem more than vaguely familiar . . . even when you cannot exactly place them. It's all subtly and humorously done, by an author who loves people and wants the best for them. There's a warm heart underneath all the Sturm und Drang that is what ultimately sets the book apart.

I was pleased to see that the book takes seriously such important subjects as marital love, friendship, sexual attraction, depression, sibling rivalries, parental mistakes, social responsibility, and serving one's fellow human. Rather than treating each topic as a single point of light, Mr. Franzen steps back to give you a globe's eye view from both without and from within. It's at once both terrifically subjective and wonderfully objective.

Be careful that you don't read any reviews that get into much of the story. You need to be surprised in places for this book to work its full magic on you.

Bravo, Mr. Franzen!

Loved The Book
I purchased Freedom: A Novel the day it was released and meant to write a review. Just got an email from Amazon, announcing that Freedom is the newest Oprah pick, so decided to review it here.

As a non-fiction author, I have always been awed at the ability of (good) fiction writers because they take characters and bring them to life! To do this successfully is a true gift--a gift that Jonathan Franzen possesses.

There are few things more satisfying than a great novel...and a long great novel is even better! Jonathan Franzen managed to keep me riveted for almost 600 pages. You know the feeling...when you are reading a terrific book, all you want to do is read it!

Now, Freedom is just the type of novel I love, as he depicts characters from a sociological point of view. While I also enjoy sociological books from a historical perspective (Sinclair Lewis, Steinbeck, Dostoevsky, etc) I also love a novel set in our current times.

Without giving away the plot, suffice to say this novel deals with life in the 21st century and that Franzen does an excellent job of portraying both the minutia and the bigger picture.

I found myself nodding throughout;as in, I get this. But I also laughed...and, warning--do not read ending in public if you don't like crying in front of people! Ultimately, this book will have you reflect on your own life and the choices you ultimately make.

Highly recommend.

Non-fiction author, reader, reviewer ... Read more

Editorial Review

What readers are saying"Whoa, Darcy!""Some parts are hilarious and some a walk on the wild side for Austen characters. Curl up and enjoy!""Tells the tale I always wanted to hear...how the Darcys lived happily ever after...""The only fault I found with this book was that it ended."Every woman wants to be Elizabeth Bennet Darcy-beautiful, gracious, universally admired, strong, daring and outspoken-a thoroughly modern woman in crinolines. And every woman will fall madly in love with Mr. Darcy-tall, dark and handsome, a nobleman and a heartthrob whose virility is matched only by his utter devotion to his wife.Their passion is consuming and idyllic-essentially, they can-t keep their hands off each other-through a sweeping tale of adventure and misadventure, human folly and numerous mysteries of parentage.Hold on to your bonnets! This sexy, epic, hilarious, poignant and romantic sequel to Pride and Prejudice goes far beyond Jane Austen. ... Read more

Reviews

I wish I could erase this from my memory..., February 25, 2006
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an author who ventures into writing the continuation of a beloved classic should write something that would give said classic justice. I'm always wary of trying sequels of classics written by a different author because the few that I have read have let me down. In most cases, the authors who write these sequels don't understand the original characters well enough and proceed to write a version of the aforementioned characters that are incongruous to the ones you know and love and leave you wishing you hadn't given such a poor attempt at reliving the magic of said novel a whirl. That is definitely the case with Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll. This is a continuation of Pride and Prejudice, after Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett get married. They are in complete newlywed mode and have lots and lots of sex. (And I do mean lots and lots of sex, some of which borders on being pedantic. More on that later.) When they are not in the sack, they are dealing with misunderstandings, namely one centered on Darcy's supposed bastard son. Elizabeth also tries to help her sister Jane and her less than exciting marriage to Mr. Bingley. There are some twists throughout the novel.

Jane Austen's writing style was often criticized as being "soulless" because of the lack of emotional and sexual tension between her main characters. (Well, there have been people who've said that, but in my opinion Darcy and Lizzy and the characters in her other novels had plenty of romantic tension.) I believe it was Charlotte Bronte who was the most critical of the back-then anonymous romance writer we all now know as Jane Austen. It appears that Ms. Berdoll tried to remedy that by adding eroticism in her continuation of the classic. Ordinarily, I love erotic retellings of classic fairytales and novels, but I was unimpressed with the erotica aspects this time around. I had actually looked forward to reading an erotic telling of P&P, which means that I'm not an Austen purist by a long shot, but the sex between Darcy and Lizzy is so over the top I found myself rolling my eyes. After the tedious too large, too small explanation, the virgin who had hitherto lived a sheltered life with her parents and four sisters has sex not unlike a courtesan from the first go. You also get cliche descriptions of the hero's enormous appendage. Ugh. I am an avid erotica reader and I do like the men to be well endowed in said novels (and I have, in fact, pictured Darcy as a well-endowed man, especially after watching Colin Firth's lake scene in the A&E/BBC mini-series adaptation), but those descriptions were just silly and not at all erotic. Also, the protagonists are not believable here. This version of Darcy and Lizzy drove me crazy because I found myself thinking, "The real Lizzy would never do that," or "The real Mr. Darcy would never say that." Elizabeth isn't the intelligent, spirited and witty young woman this time around. It seemed to me that all she did was swoon over Darcy's sexual prowess. As for Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, he is not the misjudged gentleman in this one. The author has turned him into the jerk Elizabeth had thought he was in P&P. And what the author did to Mr. Bingley is nauseating. He cheats on Jane and has an illegitimate child? Ick! Anyway, once the reader gets the sexual part out of the way (well, sort of), the storyline is kind of interesting, except that the misunderstanding frustrated me because the characters react in ways that they never would have if Austen had written this (which, of course, she never would have). Also, the author's attempt at adding an Austen- and Regency-like language seemed forced and fake. (If I ever read the word "howbeit" again I will scream.) The author of this erotic continuation of a beloved classic missed the mark big time. I used to enjoy imagining what Mr. Darcy would be like in bed. And that is just it. This novel is nothing but the author's sexual fantasies centering on Darcy and Lizzy, not unlike a piece of fan fiction you would find on the Internet. Ms. Berdoll has proven that some things are better left to the reader's imagination.

Howbeit the unromantic sex scenes and pseudo-Regency prose bade me get my money back...., August 9, 2005
My experience with this novel can be summed up in one sentence: "You keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means." [Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride] Mr Darcy Takes a Wife is full of malapropisms and misapplied SAT words. Time and again I found myself cringing on behalf of the author and her editor. The writing is soooooo bad! I was afraid to continue reading it lest I suffer irreversible left-brain damage.

For that reason, I did not finish MDTAW. So, although, to be fair, I rated the book 2 stars instead of 1 (in case the end was more entertaining than the beginning), I would advise that you avoid it if any of these things apply to you: 1) you're a JA purist; 2) stupid metaphors drive you crazy; OR 3) you have a basic affinity for English grammar.

I intend no insult to those reviewers who thought this book was well-written (for everyone has different tolerance and tastes, and it is unnecessary in such a forum to resort to pettiness), but there can be little doubt that the writing in Mr Darcy Takes a Wife *is* almost embarrassingly bad. I say this not only as an avid reader, but as one who reads critically.

First, let me say that I love Jane Austen. Like many here, I, too, have re-read Pride and Prejudice every year since I was 12 years old. I also have a degree in English literature, and have read many, many British novels over the course of my life. Thus, I can safely say that the overblown language of this book bears little resemblance to that of any classic from the 19th century (or any other era, for that matter).

That said, I am not some humorless snob who whines about a few split infinitives and cannot appreciate a fun, fluffy romance novel. And I am not at all put off by romantic re-interpretations of JA's books, especially well-written sequels that alter the characters somewhat. So I guess I'm not a purist in the strictest sense. In fact, I love reading different interpretations of Lizzy and Darcy--if they're well-conceived. Sadly, this book is neither well-written nor well-conceived.

Case in point: Although the cover said the author is American, I felt as if the book had been inexpertly translated from another language! Whichever reviewer said that the author wrote this with thesaurus in hand was correct. It seems as if she used her word processor's thesaurus to come up with obsolete/complicated synonyms for ordinary words, then simply substituted them without regard to precise connotation and nuance. Even Charles Dickens, who was supposedly paid by the word, used fewer pretentious adjectives than Ms. Berdoll. Furthermore, whereas Mr. Dickens was a master of the mot juste, Ms. Berdoll seems to have little regard for the precision of the synonyms she uses. I did many a double take over a poor word choice, and even went back and checked the dictionary on the chance that, perhaps, I was mistaken. I was not.

Plus, her faux-Victorianisms are ridiculous!!! Actually, I think she may have confused Elizabethan with Georgian English--and still she got it wrong! The resulting prose is so stilted and convoluted, that it's often hard to understand what the author is trying to say. For example: "To her dismay, their re-emergence into company bade the Master of Pemberley serve compunction by abandoning that much-appreciated endearment." WTF???!!! It doesn't even make much sense in context!

I cannot imagine that the author read much 19th century English literature (nor even watched much British TV) prior to seeing the 1995 P&P miniseries, because she displays no understanding of the appropriate rules of style and grammar. That wouldn't be a problem, if she didn't try so very awkwardly to imitate them!!! I laughed out loud when I read: "Propitious fortune allowed her to descry whom the crepuscular light yielded." Wow. That sentence should be entered in one of those world's lousiest fiction contests.

Worst of all, even if I try to judge the book in it its own right (as a lurid romance novel), it fails miserably. The sex scenes in this book are surprisingly unmoving. They are neither romantic nor sensual, merely graphic and technical--wherein descriptions of size and seepage (ew!) proxy for eroticism. They are devoid of tenderness and passion. In short, they're boring. Furthermore, the convoluted sentences and clumsy euphemisms distance the reader from the action. I like a good romance novel, but this isn't one.

I am so sorry I paid money for this book. I don't remember who recommended it to me, but I'll have to have a word with them. As a book lover, I very rarely return books, even those I do not like. I have thousands of books--literally. But I returned Mr Darcy Takes a Wife, because I hate to think that my money supports or, worse, encourages this sort of thing.

I'm all for injecting passion into Jane Austen's wonderful stories. But this is just depressing. I've read better JA fan-fiction on the Internet. No, really.

Jane Austen Must Be Rolling in Her Grave, June 11, 2006
I LOVE Jane Austen, PARTICULARLY Pride and Prejudice, so I was excited at the prospect of a good sequel. Was I in for a suprise. Reading through it, there were parts that I had to put the book down and just laugh my head off. A few examples of what set me off: When Lydia is trying to warn her sisters concerning the evils of intercourse, she says to Jane: "...if you allow Mr. Bingley to kiss you too ardently, he will be aroused to such lust his loins will ache and his engorged lance will burst from his nether garments to ravish you! Wickham's waggled at me more than once!"
Another example: When Elizabeth was trying to decide how to tell Darcy about her monthly, she thought of saying, "Sorry my dear, we cannot make the beast with two backs for I am riding the red stallion." I mean...come on.

Once I stopped laughing, I started becoming offended. Not at the sex, although it was raunchy, ridiculous, and ubiquitous, but more at the way she portrayed the characters. I suppose that if you were not a fan of the original, it would not be as insulting, but having fallen in love with Austen's complex, realistic, and honorable characters, it was humiliating to watch Berdoll turn them into typical romance-nonsense characters obsessed with sex. Elizabeth was changed from a strong, confident, intelligent woman into a weak and pathetic doll who follows her husband's every command. Plus she says and does things that she certainly never would in the original story. And Bingley, Bingley of all men has an illicit-love child. Furthermore, the writing itself was MONSTROUS. I think she tried to mimic the writing style of Austen's period, but the result was a miserable failure. The sentences were filled with extra words and phrases, none of which made the slightest bit of sense, and period phrases were mixed in with modern slang. Berdoll has forever destroyed the words "heretofore", "hence", "subsequent", and "therefore" for me by using them improperly AND in every other sentence, and if I never hear the word "howbeit" again, it'll be too soon. I think she was under the impression that it's a direct synonym for "although", and it's definitely not.

I only managed to read 1/3 of the book, and then just skimmed through parts of the rest, but I think that I can safely say this ranks high in my top ten list of "The Worst Books EVER". DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME!!

Sullying Jane Austen's Reputation, June 21, 2004
I have loved the works of Jane Austen for nearly 40 years, having read each of her novels many times and her unfinished works as well. Like most of the world, I loved the Pride and Prejudice series that appeared on A&E a number of years ago and which starred Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. Apparently unlike author Linda Berdoll, however, I knew that the "wet shirt" version of Mr. Darcy departed from Jane Austen's understanding of her character and his world.

This sequel shows no understanding of Darcy and Elizabeth; no understanding of Jane Austen's writing style (I don't believe she ever used the word 'howbeit'); no understanding of the laws of entail (Mr. Bennet's estate could not have been entailed on his sister's son, nor could Lady Catherine have taken possession of Pemberley in the event that Mr. Darcy died without a male heir); and no understanding of a world that was still primarily agricultural, but on the cusp of industrial.

This sequel is a sad representation of Jane Austen's great characters and sullies her reputation as a novelist. If the author cared to write an early 19th century bodice-ripper, she could at least have changed the names.

Pemberley Polluted, September 13, 2006
"Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?" Apparently, they are. This is by far THE WORST book I have ever read. I might have been able to express interest in the story line had my better sensibilities not been outraged over the treatment of Jane Austen's original characters. In my mind, Linda Berdoll has DEFILED the characters of both Mr. Darcy and Bingley. The sex between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy can only be described as pornographic. It is disgusting rather than romantic. Bingley, who in the original is so enamored of Jane, has an adulterous affair. It doesn't even make sense. Not only has Berdoll butchered Austen's endearing characters, but she has also butchered the English language. I'm not sure whose style she is trying to imitate, but it is certainly not Austen's. I love to re-read and pass on my books, but this book is destined only for my trash can.

Romantic Trash, April 14, 2007
I absolutely agree with PonyExpress and ChicBookFiend. This book is AWFUL!!! I couldn't even finish it. (My opinion of it was backed up by someone else who had read the whole thing.)

This book is nothing more than supermarket romance trash. (Which would be FINE, we all like a little fun now and then, if it was SUPPOSED to be a romance novel with Fabio on the cover, but it seems the author is trying for so much more.) She doesn't succeed, because she can't write. She isn't witty, funny or anything in between. Her attempt to write like Jane Austen is laughable.

As others had said, I am no Jane Austen purist, and I am no prude. However, this book has way WAY too many sex scenes. There was no plot that I could discern of outside of the sex. (Morning/noon/and night that's all the Darcy's seem to do.)As others have said, the sex is so over the top, it becomes quite silly. (For instance, Darcy instructs Elizabeth not to wash afterwards so that he can get off on knowing his juices are seeping down her leg at the party.)THAT was the moment I put the book down...disgusting.

There is nothing recognizable in Darcy or Elizabeth from Ms. Austen's novel. As another reviewer said, the idea of Darcy and Elizabeth together as man and wife is much better left to the imagination. (Or a better writer.)

Can't force myself to finish it, November 26, 2006
I know my review will be a little myopic. I couldn't read past the first 70 pages, and I only read that much because I was on a plane at the time and had nothing else to read. Someone who knows I love Jane Austen gave me this book, thinking I would enjoy reading what allegedly happened next. Within the first 20 pages, it was evident that this book is largely a bodice ripper, which is not my particular taste. I found myself rolling my eyes with every subsequent mention of the size of Darcy's immense manhood -- and there were waaaaay too many such mentions. There were sexual details in this book that I would never expect to read in a modern-day love story (with the exception of bodice ripper paperbacks), let alone a story from this era. It was also clear from reading these first few chapters that the author was writing a sequel to the BBC/A&E miniseries more so than the original novel. And be advised that this is a sequel with flashbacks, so it takes liberties in fleshing out the original novel's storyline. I found that a bit presumptious. If you love romance novels and loved the original P&P, this is your book. Otherwise, I'd give it a pass.

Unbearably bad!!, March 6, 2006
This is one book I wish I had checked out from the library, rather than wasting my hard-earned dollars on. Quite simply, Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, Linda Berdoll's so-called "sequel" to the great Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, is trash! I understand, from reading the "about the author" notes, that Berdoll is a "self-described Texas farm wife," and that this is her first novel. I am SO not surprised at this information. This woman has all the literary talent of a bad Harlequin romance novelist, and she would do well to go back to canning her tomatoes, cooking her armadillos, or whatever else it is that "Texas farm wives" like to do with their time -- and leave the novel-writing to those who know how to tell a good story.

What's wrong with the book? Well, what ISN'T wrong with it? Where do I start? I suppose, to be completely fair, I have yet to read a sequel to any great novel which I have found satisfying. I experienced my first sequel disappointment when I read Alexandra Ripley's Scarlett, a continuation of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind. I can still remember how breathlessly I waited for Scarlett to finally hit the book store, how quickly I raced out to buy it once it DID hit the stores, and how I turned the pages in great anticipation, only to be bitterly disappointed at the end. I experienced the same disappointment after reading Susan Hill's Mrs. DeWinter, the sequel to Daphne duMaurier's Rebecca. While these books were, at best, only pale reflections of the original great novels, at least Ripley and Hill did their homework! Unfortunately, Ms. Berdoll did not do so. One might have expected her to expand somewhat upon the last few paragraphs of Austen's novel, where she tells us a little bit about the subsequent lives of our beloved characters. For instance, Austen tells us that Darcy and Elizabeth eventually reconciled their differences with his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Berdoll would have us believe that Lady Catherine and Elizabeth remained the bitterest of enemies, and that Elizabeth actually fired a gun during one of their confrontations! Further, when giving us a bit more of Darcy's family history, Berdoll refers to his mother, and gives her the name Elinor. How can this be, when Austen refers to his mother by name in the original novel, as "Lady Anne Darcy?" Austen tells us, at the end of Pride and Prejudice, that Wickham and Lydia's "manner of living, even when the restoration of peace dismissed them to a home, was unsettled in the extreme." The worthless Wickham and the flighty Lydia did manage to stay together in spite of their instability, according to Austen. Yet Berdoll would have us believe that Wickham faked his death at Waterloo, shot his own illegitimate son in order to effect his desertion from the army, left Lydia a supposed "widow," and ran off to places unknown! How can this be? I could go on for pages about the inconsistencies here, but I think you get the general idea. I have to wonder whether Berdoll ever read the original novel in the first place, because HER characters are as similar to the Bennets and Darcys of Austen's book as Santa Claus is to the Great Pumpkin!

A minor annoyance for me was Berdoll's fondness for, and overuse (to put it mildly) of, antiquated words and phrases, most notably the "howbeit" (although, nevertheless) found several times throughout the book. In the unlikely event that I EVER open this book again, I may, just for my own amusement, actually count how many times she uses this ridiculous word. I own every single novel that Jane Austen ever wrote...and honestly, I don't believe that she ever used the word "howbeit" in any one of them!

Major annoyances in this book include Berdoll's incredible preoccupation with the sex lives of her characters. While I'll be the first person to admit that I have no problem with a LITTLE bawdiness, Berdoll's erotica is not only laughably written, it's...nasty! Is it supposed to be erotic when Darcy examines his blood-stained fingers while doing the "wild thing" with his menstruating wife? Do Austen fans REALLY need a description of how Darcy shows Elizabeth the joys of oral sex? And what IS this preoccupation with the enormous size of Darcy's manly equipment or the tightness of Elizabeth's "womanhood"? Puh-leeze!!! Not only are the sex scenes too numerous, badly written and completely over the top, so is the general plotline! Are we actually supposed to believe that in the first few years of her marriage, Elizabeth suffers kidnapping and attempted rape, and has to watch while her husband kills those responsible; suffers two miscarriages and a stillbirth; has her husband's cousin fall in love with her; has her brother-in-law make a pass at her; and finally gives birth to the Pemberley heir in a carriage, while on her way home from her father's funeral? How many people suffer this much angst throughout an entire lifetime??

Another thing I hate about this book is its character assassination. Not only does Wickham turn out to be an adulterous cad (I don't think that anyone was surprised by that), but we're supposed to believe that our beloved Bingley was also unfaithful to his Jane -- and had a child from this adulterous union? And are we really supposed to believe than an honorable man like Colonel Fitzwilliam could make a declaration of love to the wife of his favorite cousin? Surely not! This "Texas farm wife" is completely unfamiliar with her characters, and undoubtedly, poor Miss Austen is rolling in her grave over this absolute travesty of a sequel! Berdoll obviously doesn't think it's enough to commit mere character assassinations, however, so she throws in a bit of gratuitous violence just for fun. Not only do we have the aforementioned kidnapping, beating, and attempted rape of Elizabeth, along with Darcy's revenge, but the same man who attacks Elizabeth commits numerous acts of violence earlier in the story. Further, Elizabeth's toadying cousin, Mr. Collins, meets an exceptionally frightful and undignified demise...but why?? Since it was NOT an "essential" plot device, I can only assume that it happened because Berdoll gained the majority of her storytelling experience from the watching of bad soap operas. Finally, was it REALLY necessary to kill off our beloved Mr. Bennet before he had the joy of seeing his favorite daughter safely delivered of her twins? Supposedly, Berdoll is in the process of writing her sequel to the sequel...but what on Earth is she ever going to find to write about when she's managed to create such destruction among the original characters? Heaven only knows -- but I do know that I'll not be stupid enough to buy any Austen "sequels" written by this ridiculous excuse for an author again. Do yourself a favor, and DON'T buy this book!

Painfully bad, March 20, 2007
I love Jane Austen's novels, but this author is no Jane Austen.. As a Georgette Heyer devotee, too, and an English major who concentrated in 18th and 19th century women's literature, I am not daunted by archaic language, but this novel reads as if the author tried to make every statement as convoluted, complex and arcain as possible, even using words out of context just to make a sentance as "18th centuryesque" as possible.

Really, I'd rather have a tooth pulled than read in graphic detail about the size of Darcy's unit or the soreness of Lizzie's girly bits. I mean, come on already! The love between them is depicted as more laughable cinemax-style soft core than passionate and heart wrenching.

Really, there's nothing of Austen's original Pride and Prejudice here, just an abomination with characters bearing the same names.

Reader, I enjoyed it., May 15, 2004
I have to say the responses to this book are as funny as the book itself. I, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed it. Austen wrote the nineteenth-century equivalent of pulp fiction, and this is the "transliteration" of said pulp--metaphors fully materialized, in keeping with twenty-first century sensibilities. So Darcy and Lizzy like sex. What else is romance about? Isn't that implicit throughout? These prudish reviewers are like so many Mr. Collinses, aren't they? Lighten up. This book was fun. The diction wasn't exactly on target, I admit. I'm a literature professor, and can't help noticing that it is a little strained at the beginning. But once you get into it, it's like Austen meets Fielding, really. Tom Jones and P & P, with a little pulp romance thrown in. This is supposed to be entertainment, not Literature. And I think an early nineteenth-century reader, one familar with Moll Flanders or Shamela, for example, would have appreciated it more than some of these readers seem to. If you don't like the sex, there are lots of great overly-euphemised novels out there. But they won't be as wicked a read as this one. Sometimes I fear that the reading public is just losing its appreciation for irony. Not to mention burlesque. We're a sober lot, this century. Alas. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Lacey Yeager is young, captivating, and ambitious enough to take the NYC art world by storm. Groomed at Sotheby's and hungry to keep climbing the social and career ladders put before her, Lacey charms men and women, old and young, rich and even richer with her magnetic charisma and liveliness. Her ascension to the highest tiers of the city parallel the soaring heights--and, at times, the dark lows--of the art world and the country from the late 1990s through today. ... Read more

Reviews

The Manhattan Art Scene: Tom Wolfe Redux
The actor and comedian Steve Martin has written a novel, AN OBJECT OF BEAUTY, that captures the contemporary art scene in all its sordid, devastating brilliance.

Once a generation, it seems, the art world comes under a scathing literary attack of satire that puts artists, collectors, dealers and art institutions in their proper place. Tom Wolfe did in 1975 in his savage satirical essay, "The Painted Word," to wit:

"Each new movement, each new ism in Modern Art was a declaration by the artists that they had a new way of seeing, which the rest of the world (read: the bourgeoisie) couldn't comprehend," wrote Wolfe. "'We understand!' said the culturati, thereby separating themselves also from the herd. But what inna namea Christ were the artists seeing? This was where theory came in. A hundred years before Art Theory had merely been something that enriched one's conversation in matters of Culture. Now it was an absolute necessity. It was no longer background music, it was an essential hormone in the mating ritual."

Compared to Wolfe, Martin at least has the courtesy to cloak his satirical criticism in fiction. His satire is kinder, gentler than Wolfe's outright attack on the fickle nature of modern art. That said, Martin's breezy but riveting contemporary tale of the art world is no less vital than Wolfe's harsh style. There is a lot of uncomfortable truth on the nature of art in both books.

Martin is a serious art collector and he clearly knows the world of art - as he should after spending millions of dollars on acquiring art. His knowledge of the art world is on display throughout this nuanced book.

The plot lines in AN OBJECT OF BEAUTY are, penetrating. There are sub plots that add continuity to the tapestry that Martin is trying to weave, but like the art world he is describing the book is transient. One art movement rises while another falls - all on the whims of dealers and collector. Artists (once they have conceived and created their art) have little to do with the process

The book tells the story of Lacey Yeager. In the beginning she is young, beautiful and only dimly aware of the art when she wins an entry-level a job at Sotheby's. But Lacey is also smart, and she uses her wile and her beauty to advance quickly in the Manhattan art world. The story of Lacey's rise in the art market is reported and told by a writer for the Art News, Daniel Chester French Franks, an astute observer who once (and only once) shared Lacey's bed during their long friendship.

Like Wolfe, Martin (through the narrator Daniel Franks) makes some astute observations on the state of American art:

On the vagaries of the value of a work of art: "The lure in art collecting and its financial rewards, not counting for a moment its aesthetic, cultural and intellectual rewards, is like the trust in paper money: it makes no sense when you really think about it. New artistic images are so vulnerable to opinion that it wouldn't take much more than a whim for a small group of collectors to decide that a contemporary artist was not so wonderful anymore, was so last year."

On the collapse of the art market following the 2009 financial crisis: "Art as an aesthetic principle was supported by thousands of years of discernment and psychic rewards, but art as a commodity was held up by air. The loss of confidence that affected banks and financial instruments was not affecting cherubs, cupids and flattened popes. The objects hadn't changed: what was there before was there after. But a vacancy was created with the clamoring crowds deserted and retrenched."

Readers familiar with the modern world of art will, no doubt, have fun identifying the models for the major players in this excellent novel. Barton Talley is a bulwark of integrity in the fickle Manhattan art world. He becomes Lacey's mentor (for a time), and instructs her in the intricate tactics and strategies in the art market. Talley runs an elegant gallery in a townhouse on East 78th street. In fact, there is a similar gallery in that location, run by an equally powerful contemporary dealer who deals in the masterpieces of the day (the reader will have to make that connection on his or her own).

Martin keeps his book topical. He takes us through the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001 (just as Lacey mounts a major, hopefully lucrative exhibition), and he uses the 2008-09 financial crises to demonstrate just how fragile the art market can be. There are also cameo appearances in Martin's book by such well known glitterati as mega-dealer Larry Gagosian and Peter Schjeldahl, the art critic for the New Yorker magazine.

Finally (and importantly) like Wolfe in "The Painted Word," Martin incorporates reproductions of modern art into the narrative. These are exquisite reproductions that illustrate key junctures of the story of Lacey Yeager's rise in the intensely provocative Manhattan art scene. Martin has written and produced a very good book.

Read it!
I almost did not buy this book,because of 3 star review by some people.I should know better and trust Steve Martin instead.Great book,If you don't read it,your loss!

A nice surprise.
I hadn't read any of Steve Martin's work before, but it had good reviews so I downloaded it. It was an easy read/entertaining. I have alway thought that it took intelligence to have the insight necessary to be a good comedian and this book confims that. It is well written, had well developed characters and the author seems to have a keen understanding of human behavior.

Worth two reads
Steve Martin's An Object of Beauty is one of the few novels that I'll read a second time and enjoy it more for knowing what's in store. The story is first a knowledgeable and believable look into the art world, showing both the beauty of that world and the byzantine machinations underlying it. The lead character, Lacy Yeager is, for a while at least, the supreme navigator in that environment.
Lacy is no angel. She jokes early on that she's thinking of getting a dog that's near death because "it's less of a commitment." But the life force and wit of this character are the real drivers of this novel. And, personally, I'd love to see her back in a sequel.
The writing is smart and funny throughout with memorable lines like: "mannequins in the store windows were like saluting soldiers as they strolled in their enchanted state of opulent seduction." If you are a reader whose idea of excitement is a car chase and a shoot out you should pass on this novel. Martin's plotting is both complex and subtle. But the climax and resolution are well worth the wait.

Intelligent Read
I have a fair amount of familiarity with the art world, but I think Martin makes it understandable for anyone so we can drop into the reality presented in this book. The photos of the art are a must. I couldn't put it down. There were moments of the zany side of Martin in here, but mostly it is an intelligent read, a unique and interesting treasure of a book.

The Great Gatsby in Art Speak
For a book about surface-appreciation and the nature of beauty, this book's jacket-designers knew the cover would be judged. First of all, using canvas as the book cover is a brilliant idea. The print of oilpaint-like quality is a delight. Moving into the novel, the aesthetic appeal continues. Martin's prose is clear both when he is speaking literally and figuratively. His similes and allusive turns of phrase give the novel striking textures in what could otherwise be a not-so-striking read. He weaves subtlety into the surface elements by stretching our imaginations like canvas across the frame.

To increase the license for such figurative speech, he makes his narrator an art writer, Daniel, who, as the Independent notices, functions much as Nick Carraway does in The Great Gatsby. Daniel is the witness who, like Carraway, steps over the line once or twice but for the most part provides a line, if only by doing so. Both men remind us there is a line.

When we think of the main characters of Great Gatsby we think of Gatsby and Daisy. Similarly, the focal point in The Object of Beauty appears to be Lacey Yeager. But in both works, the narrator is the one controlling the information. Seemingly innocuous and apparent instruments of narrative, the narrators in both works bring their own baggage with them to the story. In a novel about objectifying beauty, the Daniel undergoes a similar transformation as Lacey, learning the value of slow time in love, breaking below the surface distractions of desire, thereby embodying the narrator in the narrative and making him the embodiment of novel's theme.


Similarities between this book and Gatsby reach beyond narration. Martin indulges his own Fitzgeraldian bifocals to witness both the elegance and the grotesqueness of the New York scenes. In the sympathetic character of Patrice, we see the genuine lover of art. One of his many counterparts, Mr. Alberg, comments "Collector is too kind a word for me. I'm a shopper." Then the latter tells, and tells again, a tale about a Joseph Beuys' "felt suit," the reader feels much the same as when reading of cruel Tom Buchanan's mistress' blood dripping over a fashion magazine in the hot, second chapter hotel room. Martin's eye roams the aesthetic spectrum, counterpointing artworld stimulus (much of it beautiful) with artworld behavior (much of it not).

Lacey embodies Daisy and James Gatz both. As he showed us with Shopgirl, Martin studies psychology and personality. Lacey is a narcissist to the nth degree, as Daniel shows us. But of course could Daniel be missing a part of the story, leaving it for the reader to tell? This is where Martin's ability to create and captivate really comes into play. We all know girls like Lacey, have been destroyed by them. We also make excuses for them, which is something that Daniel does not do. She is compared to money much in the same way that Daisy is. Daniel doesn't comment on any of Lacey's inner life because, like money, she has none. But both Daisy and Lacey have stories shaping them from within. The absence of Lacey's story makes the reader as susceptible as the book's other characters to the too-quick evaluation of "an object of beauty."

The Great Gatsby would not have its thrust and balance without the fireworks-less pairing of Nick and Jordan. Martin builds a figure into Object of Beauty. "We could talk for months," says Daniel of his relationship (details witheld). He describes his love interest as being the only person with a normal upbringing, which renders her impervious to Lacey's "full courtship press" of the art world at the moment when it really matters. This slow-and-steady approach to love mirrors the low-key attention of the true collector, rather than the minute-makers who create fame out of novelty.

The "series of successful gestures" which Nick Carraway sees in Gatsby's life is also evident in Lacey's. And in both stories, there comes a point at which things fly out of our control, regardless of the perfection of our gestures. Had it not been for the hit-and-run in Gatsby or the sub-prime loan crisis on Wall Street, our narrators would have different stories to tell, stories of unhindered rises from reality into dreamworlds. The setting of Martin's book makes the reading strangely less intimate than that of Gatsby. If Fitzgerald's novel was prophetic, Martin's is deeply reflective, exploring the great WTF all economies still feel the effects of, and even going so far as to stitch a narrative, however at once literary and economic, into a chaos. What redeems Gatsby is the truth: that it was never as beautiful as he thought it was. But in Object of Beauty, even in a world fallen to pieces in so many ways, beauty is indeed a redemptive constant, and while the word itself might get dropped from our vocabularies in service to some fashions, Martin asserts it does and always will exist. We just have to be broken from time to time in order to recognize it and allow it all the way in, if only in order to find again a line within ourselves we don't allow ourselves to cross, ever again.






... Read more

Editorial Review

"Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did." So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls’s no-nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town—riding five hundred miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car and fly a plane. And, with her husband, Jim, she ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one of whom is Jeannette’s memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle.

Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. She bristled at prejudice of all kinds—against women, Native Americans, and anyone else who didn’t fit the mold. Rosemary Smith Walls always told Jeannette that she was like her grandmother, and in this true-life novel, Jeannette Walls channels that kindred spirit. Half Broke Horses is Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults, as riveting and dramatic as Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa or Beryl Markham’s West with the Night. Destined to become a classic, it will transfix readers everywhere. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic A Dance to the Music of Time offers a matchless panorama of twentieth-century London. Now, for the first time in decades, readers in the United States can read the books of Dance as they were originally published--as twelve individual novels--but with a twenty-first-century twist: they're available only as e-books.A Question of Upbringing (1951) introduces us to the young Nick Jenkins and his housemates at boarding school in the years just after World War I. Boyhood pranks and visits from relatives bring to life the amusements and longueurs of schooldays even as they reveal characters and traits that will follow Jenkins and his friends through adolescence and beyond: Peter Templer, a rich, passionate womanizer; Charles Stringham, aristocratic and louche; and Kenneth Widmerpool, awkward and unhappy, yet strikingly ambitious. By the end of the novel, Jenkins has finished university and is setting out on a life in London; old ties are fraying, new ones are forming, and the first steps of the dance are well underway."Anthony Powell is the best living English novelist by far. His admirers are addicts, let us face it, held in thrall by a magician." --Chicago Tribune"A book which creates a world and explores it in depth, which ponders changing relationships and values, which creates brilliantly living and diverse characters and then watches them grow and change in their milieu. . . . Powell's world is as large and as complex as Proust's." --Elizabeth Janeway, New York Times"One of the most important works of fiction since the Second World War. . . . The novel looked, as it began, something like a comedy of manners; then, for a while, like a tragedy of manners; now like a vastly entertaining, deeply melancholy, yet somehow courageous statement about human experience." --Naomi Bliven, New Yorker"The most brilliant and penetrating novelist we have." --Kingsley Amis ... Read more

Editorial Review

With Home to Holly Springs, New York Times bestselling author Jan Karon launched a new series, The Father Tim Novels, featuring the retired Episcopal priest that her readers have come to love. In the second novel in the series, Father Tim and Cynthia travel to Ireland to do genealogical research and discover family secrets. Jan's new book will surely delight her avid fans, earn her new ones, and send them running or the first book in the series as well as all the Mitford books. ... 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. See also Arabian Nights. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Reviews

Matterhorn - A grunts view., March 25, 2010
I am not qualified, so I will not attempt a literary review of the book "Matterhorn". What I am qualified to comment on is the authenticity of this novel. I was in Vietnam at the same time the author was, our experience differed mainly in the name of our units. Marlantes was in Charlie 1/4, I was in Alpha 1/4. It's all so accurate, so real, and brought back a flood of memories from my time in the jungle. If a person wants to know what it was like to be a grunt in a Marine Corps rifle Co in I Corps in the Republic of Vietnam in the late 60's, then read "Matterhorn". I cannot express how impressed I was by this novel. Mr. Marlantes NAILED it. He wrote my story, and the story of the men I humped those jungle trails with, the men I fought, cried, and died with. Thank you Sir.

Semper Fi

A story within a story, within a story,.., May 29, 2009
A Story Within a Story, Within a Story.....
A review of
Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes

Although it's true that Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War isn't your ordinary war novel, it will give the reader an historically accurate and alarming vivid experience of the conflict that took place over 40 years ago in South East Asia. Just like other books of this type, the person who reads this 622 page book will be taken through the lives of teen boy's as they struggle with the reality of becoming a Marine, their painfully rapid acceleration into adulthood and too often their seemingly meaningless demise. As in other stories about war it has all of the usual components like the deep comradery between solders, the sorrow of loss, the intense fear of battle and the excitement of combat. Readers of this genre will not be disappointed. However, author Karl Marlantes has gone above, beyond and far deeper with Matterhorn than the ordinary war novel.

In this book about the Vietnam War, is another book about humanity and humility, and yet another about the complexities of racism. What also immerges within these pages is another story laced with subtle religious symbolism and the effects of a sacrosanct ideology. Even a rendition of a well-known allegorical tales is exquisitely presented as still another story in this winning novel.

The individually unique characters in this book grapple with meaning; the meaning of leadership, the meaning of reason, the meaning of war, the meaning of death and the meaning of life. Human dilemmas such as honor vs. cowardice, morality vs. malice, feminine vs. masculine and belief vs. doubt are painstaking studied and flushed out through the rich personalities portrayed within. It's also important to note Marlantes has captured, as only a combat veteran could, the quick wit and primordial humor present between soldiers during wartime.

The author brings you along as Second Lieutenant Waino Mellas, the man character, goes through profound physical, psychological and developmental transformations.
We meet Mellas with a detailed description of his appearance. He's donned in a new flak jacket, embarrassingly shiny new boots and the "...dark green t-shirt and boxer shorts his mother had dyed for him just three weeks ago..." We also join in with his thoughts.

"Forty new names and faces in his platoon alone, close to 200 in the company, and they all look the same, black or white. It overwhelmed him. They all wore the same filthy tattered camouflage, with no rank or insignia, no way of distinguishing them, from the skipper right on down. All of them were too thin, too young and too exhausted."

Another carefully crafted character is Hawke, an older Marine at 22 with a large red moustache who is filled with the kind of wisdom born out of experience.
`
"Hawke had been in-country long enough to be accustomed to being scared and waiting--that came with every operation--but he was not used to being worried, and that worried him".

The relationship between these two men at first tenuous, grows with a need for survival and the kind of respect only shared by those who have endured what many only experience in their worst nightmares.

Some of the other personalities that Marlantes has expertly woven into this human drama are: Lieutenant Colonel Simpson a despicable alcoholic who the reader can't help but pity, Vancouver who has chosen to live life on his own terms, Cassidy the hard and bitter gunny, Doc Fredrickson and senor squid Sheller both who use the minimal medical supplies, their dedication and their compassion to help gravely wounded soldiers, Hippy "... a creature of unknown order, a spirit carried by crippled feat..." and the self assured Lieutenant Karen Elsked, an integral part of the parable within this story of war. These are only a few of the cast of characters superbly developed in Matterhorn.

The fine and clear word smithing in this novel brings the reader into the jungles of the Quang-Tri Province of Vietnam. You can smell the freshly cut bamboo, feel the sting of ant bites, shiver as the leeches slide under your utility shirt, and see the "...fine faint plume...darker grayish silver cloud hardly distinguishable from the overcast backdrop.." of Agent Orange. As night or rain falls you experience the wet, the cold

Reading Marlantes's vivid words have you feeling the pain of jungle rot, emersion foot, starving hunger, debilitating thirst and the pummeling of mortars.

"Another explosion hit only 15 feet from their hole, followed by four more. They winced with the pain as the concussion slapped against their eardrums. Mellas felt the air rush from his lungs. He felt he was in a heavy black bag being beaten with unseen clubs. Shrapnel hissed overhead and dirt rained down their heads, down their backs, in between their gritted teeth, and caked around their eyes, Smoke replaced oxygen. They couldn't talk. They endured".

Because of the authors' dedication to detail and authenticity words like hooch, squid, fragging and gungy or acronyms like FAC, C-4, or 175's could leave those without a military background lost. Marlantes skillfully handles this problem with creating an easy to use "Glossary of Weapons, Technical Terms, Slangs and Jargon". He also includes a "Chain of Command" flow chart complete with radio call signs.

Marlantes's story telling capabilities evoke emotions not often accessed while reading a novel. Any reader of Matterhorn is advised to allow the story to completely envelope you in order for a true depth of understanding to take place.

Lastly, at the risk of revealing the allegorical tale mentioned earlier, it must be said that Marlantes does an exquisite job of showing the meaning of this tale. One must have compassion and live the honorable life instead of falling prey to evil. So "There it is".

Lorry Kaye, MA, LMHC

Not just another war novel; an American narrative classic, February 14, 2010

Move over, Tim O'Brien..., April 19, 2010

More than War, April 16, 2009
War novels are not my normal "go-to", however, reading Matterhorn based on a recommendation of a friend, was a captivating experience I can truly say I am a better person for having. It grabbed me from the first scene and didn't let me go. Due not just to the horrifically honest account of Vietnam (a chilling time we have yet to learn so much about and from), but much because of the fascinating, deeply human, characters and relationships the author created. Every place of my heart was touched by the trials of these comrades. I can't recommended this book enough. It is about so much more than just war. Both your mind and heart will be blown open. I promise.

A phenomenol book, July 6, 2009
I was visiting Cannon Beach Oregon and found this book as a "staff pick" in a small bookstore. Now I know why as it's author lives just up the road from Cannon Beach in Seaside Oregon. I picked it up and began to read and was immediately captivated by the story and the protagonist, Lt Waino Mellas. Lt Jim (Jayhawk) Hawke was bigger than life and the guy everyone wants to be like. I've read a lot of books on war (required in AF professional military education courses) and particularly the Vietnam War as I am a veteran of that particular conflict. The Things They Carried and Going after Cacciato, both by Tim O'brien are lightweights compared to this book and both are considered classics. James Webb's Fields of Fire, while good, also cannot compare Matterhorn and it too, is considered a classic. This book is so real that the pain, the hunger, the thirst, the mental anguish, and yes the joy of it's characters becomes tangible. I find it particularly haunting and have not been able to stop thinking about it since finishing it several days ago. The idiotic mistakes and the egos of the Majors, Lt Colonels, and Generals all in the interest of advancing their own careers were totally repugnant and also true to life based on my own 20 years of experiences in the military, - I was fervently hoping that the author would kill some of them off at the hands of the enemy.

As I understand it this book has been taken out of print and will be replaced by a Hardback version in November of 2009 - well deserved recognition - in my mind it is a classic. I plan to reread it many, many times.

Bayoneted from the front by the enemy, and behind by command, February 4, 2010

absolutely awesome, April 17, 2010
I also served in VN during 1969, albeit with an armored cavalry regiment much farther south (III Corps). My war was a bit different than Marlantes' in its particulars, but it was the same bloody business in its essentials. The author has caught the full flavor of the whole experience, especially-- and vividly-- the crisis of combat and its brutal effects on those who fight.
I appreciated very much his full-bodied characterizations of the leaders and the led at all levels. No one is demonized; all are portrayed in wholeness as real people (people very much like many I personally knew). If there be villains, they are off-stage: the country's political leaders and "the best and the brightest" who advised them, who got us into an unwinnable war which they had no clue how to properly conclude. All these many years later I bear much bitterness and anger at the loss of some incredibly good men to hubris and arrogance. I am grateful to Mr. Marlantes for telling it like it was, and shining a strong light on the nobility of men under fire in situations no non-combatant will ever understand. This book is destined to become a classic, and should be read by anyone who considers sending young people into such a situation ever again.

You are there ..., April 20, 2009
A remarkably good novel that seems to draw upon so much immediate, real-life experience that I wonder if "novel" is even the best term for it. Like James Mitchner's South Pacific (NOT the musical but the original "novel") or Ronald J. Glasser's 365 Days the line between truth and fiction is subtle and artfully drawn. I was transported back to stories told by friends, just a bit older than I, who experienced this war first hand ... and I matured with the characters as they grew into their surroundings, changed from boys to men, from arrogance to humility and wisdom.

Great work.

Amazing!, April 14, 2009
Best war book of its time. A phenomenal read about an important piece of our history presenting the realities of a war we have too readily tried to forget. The timing of this book in the context of where America stands today makes this an even more important read here and now. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Editorial Review

WE DON'T WANT TO TELL YOU TOO MUCH ABOUT THIS BOOK.

It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it.

Nevertheless, you need to know something, so we will just say this:

It is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific.

The story starts there, but the book doesn't.

And it's what happens afterward that is most important.

Once you have read it, you'll want to tell everyone about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds. ... Read more

Editorial Review

As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and, ultimately, it was their only hope for survival. ... Read more

Editorial Review

When your son can’t look you in the eye . . . does that mean he’s guilty?

Jacob Hunt is a teen with Asperger’s syndrome. He’s hopeless at reading social cues or expressing himself well to others, though he is brilliant in many ways. But he has a special focus on one subject—forensic analysis. A police scanner in his room clues him in to crime scenes, and he’s always showing up and telling the cops what to do. And he’s usually right.

But when Jacob’s small hometown is rocked by a terrible murder, law enforcement comes to him. Jacob’s behaviors are hallmark Asperger’s, but they look a lot like guilt to the local police. Suddenly the Hunt family, who only want to fit in, are directly in the spotlight. For Jacob’s mother, Emma, it’s a brutal reminder of the intolerance and misunderstanding that always threaten her family. For his brother, Theo, it’s another indication why nothing is normal because of Jacob.

And over this small family, the soul-searing question looms: Did Jacob commit murder? ... Read more

Reviews

Misrepresents Asperger's, March 27, 2010
As a person with Asperger's I am dismayed with Picoult's portrayal of an adult with Asperger's Syndrome. Picoult starts off by showing us all the sources she has used for her research but once one starts reading it is obvious she is so full of research she doesn't know what to do with it. She has taken every possible symptom of both Asperger's and autism (which are two different diagnoses) and put them all into the character of Jacob. Not only is Jacob loaded down with every single symptom, each of his symptoms are of the most extreme variety. A real-life 'aspie' (as we call ourselves) will have some, perhaps even many, but certainly not all textbook examples, of the symptoms and then they are at varying degrees. What Picoult has done here is a disservice to the Asperger's community.

From the mother: "Since there's no cure yet for Asperger's, we treat the symptoms ...". Asperger's is not a disease or an illness! There is no cure because one is not needed. Just from reading the positive reviews of this book I see the word "illness" being used over and over to describe Asperger's and that is because the book has left readers unfamiliar with AS with that impression. I could sit here and write an essay refuting all the quotes on the dog-eared pages I created while reading, but I won't. If you want a realistic view of a young man with Asperger's I urge you to read the book "Marcelo in the Real World" by Francisco X. Stork. The main character is 17 years old and is very comparable to Jacob only the author has done an excellent job in portraying Asperger's, showing the struggles we face but also shows that we do indeed function and do not need anyone's sympathy.

BTW, I did give the book 2 stars because if I removed the whole Asperger's element I thought the mystery was quite interesting with a fun little twist to the solution.

"The world, for Jacob, is truly black and white.", March 2, 2010
In "House Rules," Jodi Picoult explores the complex world of Emma Hunt, who is almost entirely focused on helping her eighteen-year-old son, Jacob, learn to communicate appropriately with his family and peers. This is a Herculean task, considering the fact that Jacob has Asperger's syndrome, a disorder characterized by a compulsive attachment to order and routine, a tendency to take comments literally, hypersensitivity to bright lights, human touch, and scratchy fabrics, a reluctance to make eye contact, lack of empathy, painful bluntness, and difficulty relating to others. Emma's life is complicated by the fact that her husband, Henry, left shortly after their younger son, Theo, was born. Fifteen-year-old Theo deeply resents the amount of time and money that his mother lavishes on his older brother. At great expense, Emma brought early intervention therapists into her home who were "intent on dragging [Jacob] out of his own little world." She also buys costly medicines, supplements, and special foods that, she insists, help regulate Jacob's behavior.

In addition to his other quirks, Jacob is obsessed with forensics. He watches a television show called Crimebusters and keeps a detailed journal of each episode; he even shows up at real crime scenes and offers to "help" the detectives solve their cases. Much to Emma's chagrin, he regularly stages his own mock crime scenes at home, using corn syrup to simulate blood. His preoccupation with true crime becomes an issue when someone he had recently quarreled with is found dead. Eventually, evidence comes to light pointing to Jacob's guilt. Could something have happened that caused him to snap? It would not be the first time that he lashed out after someone provoked him. After Jacob is arrested, in desperation Emma chooses an inexperienced lawyer named Oliver Bond to represent her son. Bond will have to pull a few rabbits out of his hat to earn sympathy for his idiosyncratic client.

The central characters all have imperfections. Emma, who is disconcerted by the curveballs life keeps throwing her way, never gives into despair. Still, her preoccupation with Jacob shortchanges Theo, who feels neglected and unloved. Jacob is a smart yet very troubled young man who will need a miracle to get out of the mess he has helped create. He is aware enough, however, to realize that people think of him as "the weird kid who stands too close and doesn't shut up." Theo is a rebellious and angry teenager who acts out in frustration because he is burdened with a sibling who acts like "a total nutcase." Oliver is a kindhearted twenty-eight year old attorney whose lack of familiarity with criminal law may prove costly. Jess Ogilvy is Jacob's compassionate and sensitive tutor, whose job it is to teach him social skills, such as how to make small talk and the importance of looking people in the eye. Yet she is foolish enough to stay with her boyfriend, Mark, an aggressive boor who cruelly teases Jacob.

Picoult effectively conveys the anguish of a single parent who invests almost all of her energy trying to give her son a chance to enjoy a fulfilling life. But the price that she pays is steep, not just financially, but emotionally. Emma has few pleasures, no vacations, and no luxuries; her younger son must settle for whatever time and attention she can spare. We cannot help but empathize with this family in distress. Picoult's narrative device of allowing each character to convey his or her thoughts in alternating chapters works well. In spite of its length (over five hundred pages), the story moves along briskly and is helped immeasurably by sharply written dialogue and liberal doses of humor.

"House Rules" has lively courtroom theatrics and a dash of romance. Although the plot has gaping holes (including an enormous coincidence that makes it difficult to suspend our disbelief) as well as a bit too much sermonizing, Picoult wisely avoid overdosing on melodrama and sentiment. She drives home a theme that is close to her heart: Family members may occasionally loathe one another, but it is well worth the effort to make peace. This is an engaging, entertaining, moving, and at times, eloquent work of fiction that will appeal to fans of Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time."

Fun reading but no mystery, March 6, 2010
I almost always enjoy Jodi's books and while I did enjoy reading House Rules I can't put it in the same class as others she has written. It was an interesting look into Asperger's but at times seemed a little cliche and did not always ring true. Also the plot was just weak. It was so obvious from the very beginning what the "twist" was that I almost didn't want to finish reading because I knew how it was going to end from the time the girl went missing. Still, Jodi has a very engaging style and her characters are mostly interesting and very well fleshed out which kept me reading to the end. Maybe borrow this one from the library instead of buying right away. Worth the read but others of her books come much more highly recommended.

Inaccurate portaryal of Asperger's, March 31, 2010
I had so looked forward to House Rules when I first heard about it. I couldn't wait to finish the series I was currently reading to get started on it As the mother of an Asperger's Child who was diagnosed a year ago at the age of 10 I wanted to feel good that someone was writing about this syndrome. Being aware is key. But within the first quarter of the book i was so disappointed. This is not an accurate portayal of someone with asperger syndrome. I actually started to dislike the character of Jacob. Something just did not ring true. He has way too many symptoms all at the highest level. This is not typical. My fear is that those who read the book will think that all asperger children are at this level, when in all actuality these wonderful kids vary as much as any other group. I myself was thinking that the character of Jacob was more towrd the low level Autism than Asperger's. Who knows, maybe if my child didn't have Asperger's I would have enjoyed the book, but i also know that I would have come away with the wrong impression about these wonderful, smart, quirky, fabulous human beings. And to me that is very sad. When fiction deals with a real lif situation it should ring true, not be made more dramatic for storyline purposes.

Jodi Picoult does not understand Asperger's Syndrome, March 10, 2010
Jodie Picoult's image of an adult with Asperger's inaccurate and offensive. I and some other adults with Asperger's I know are not good at understanding what other people are thinking or feeling unless we are told directly. But we have feelings and we care about others, at least as much as neurotypicals [i.e., people without Asperger's].

A character in Picoult's novel says, "lack of empathy simply means someone is cold, heartless, without remorse." This is the definition of Asperger's Picoult uses, and it is central to her plot. But this definition is wrong. What she is talking about here is lack of sympathy: an inability to feel hurt when others are hurt; a lack of desire to help others when they need help. What she is describing is somebody without a conscience: a sociopath. What she is NOT describing, at least not accurately, is somebody with Asperger's.

I may not read people correctly and may sometimes act in ways that are inappropriate, but I care about others and try to do good as much as anybody without Asperger's. I just need things explained to me more than others do.

Utterly disappointed!, May 3, 2010
WARNING: SPOILER

I am going to quote from the interview above with Ms. Picoult:

"Q: Why did you choose to end the book when you did, rather than going into what happens to the characters in the aftermath of the trial?

A: Because at heart, this is Jacob's book. And remember, to Jacob, there was never any real mystery here, was there?"

With all due respect to the author, there was never any real mystery here to US, either!

I have read every single one of Jodi Picoult's novels. I have loved some more than others, but never have I disliked any, until now.

I was intensely looking forward to buying and reading this book. I have a grandson who is on the autism spectrum, and to Ms. Picoult's credit, she explored the world of Asperger's Syndrome. Jacob is somebody I would like to befriend. That, for me, was the good side.

The bad:

- Her delivery of information about Asperger's bordered on a professorial lecture ... not just once, but over and over again, from his mother, his psychologists and even Jacob himself.

- There was an unbelievable amount of repetition about Jacob's affect, his likes, his dislikes, his meltdowns, his compulsions. We must have heard at least 5 times about the food and clothing colors. Once was enough, we got it!

- The "mystery", however, was the worst part of this novel. I knew from the moment Jacob came home that Tuesday and went into complete meltdown, exactly what had happened, and why.

- Ms. Picoult's treatment of Jacob's defense sickened me. She attempted to present what would happen to an "Aspie" if they became involved in the legal system. Well, all I can say is God help anybody, neurotypical or not, if they were mothered, and represented by anybody, as Jacob had the misfortune to be. LEGALLY INSANE? Oliver and Emma, neither one, ever asked Jacob: DID YOU KILL HER? And yet they dared to present him as legally insane. Of course, we know why the question was never asked ... if it had been, and Jacob had told the truth as he "always" did, the book would have been over and done with at 250 pages.

- Ms. Picoult, and all of us, would have been better served if the question HAD been asked. She could then have gone on to explore, side by side, the defense of an Asperger's man, and the defense of his neurotypical brother, to truly show any differences that might exist. As it is, we don't know about those defenses because the book ended, lazily on the part of the author, without us knowing anything!!!

I don't devour novels just to find a happy ending, I read for the love of reading. Reading this book was an exercise in frustration and it left me angry on so many levels.

This is more preaching than mystery, April 9, 2010
I was very excited to read this book when it first came out. I have heard many good recommendations about Jodi Picoult so I thought picking up a book where the main character has the same diagnosis as my son was a good fit. I was wrong.

To be fair, I'm only about a quarter of the way through the novel. I simply cannot seem to bring myself to want to read this boring, soap box lecture. To begin with, the cover shows a young boy sitting by the lake. Why? The story is about an 18-year-old man! It's a small thing, but I kept finding myself wanting to identify with the child on the cover instead of viewing a grown adult behaving the way Jacob does.

The protagonist has every single Aspie symptom there is; a highly unlikely situation. He is treated with every drug, vitamin, diet, behavior modification and treatment that's ever been suggested. Perhaps the writer wanted to demonstrate how difficult life can be with a special needs child, but it came across to me as if she were preaching a cure. At one point, she lists how vaccinations are related to children with autism. The tone in which these "facts" were presented come across like an agenda and have nothing to do with the story line. I found myself spending more time wondering about Jacob's condition and treatment than the mystery.

I worry how this book will portray the condition to those who haven't experienced it. I can't speak for all people with Aspergers, only for my own son. He is loving and caring and has moments of true empathy towards others. His social issues stem from others misinterpretations of his actions, not his lack of feelings. It's a shame the author didn't take as much time understanding that as she did the autism-extremists' agenda.

Confused?!?! NO "REAL" ENDING?!?! WHY??????, April 3, 2010



___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I have to say that I have read all her books. I cannot believe the ending of this book. The character of Jacob answers very SIMPLE questions, and yet, no other character asks him the question of, "Did you kill Jess?" or "Do you know who killed Jess?" or "Recount exactly what you did and saw at the house that afternoon".

The ending was HORRIBLE. It was as if the author just looked at her unfinished work, and said..."Well, forget it. I'll just sorta end it NOW". The ending stated nothing about whether the Jacob, or Theo, for that matter, were convicted on the murder of Jess. The book, I guess what us all to assume they didn't. It doesn't state at all.

It leaves ALOT of issues lose in the ending:

1.) The presence of Henry (the father of Theo and Jacob, and Emma's ex-husband)
2.) The new relationship of Emma and Jacob's lawyer, Oliver.
3.) The verdict from the Jury.
4.) Whether Jacob and Theo ever faced the jury that afternoon and exactly hat happened.
5.) Any important character development of Dep. Rich?
6.) Possibly NOT a accurate portrayal of A.S. and/or Autism?

----I'm not looking for responses that answer these questions from users from Amazon.com. I'm only sharing my opinion and understanding of the reading. More than anything, I'm disappointed at Jodi Picoult, herself. She just didn't give this book her all. Why do I write this? Read all her other works, especially her popular and best selling works, other than this one, and you will easily understand.---------

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Not her best work..., March 8, 2010
After last year's disappointing _Handle with Care_, I had higher hopes for this year's book. Ultimately, I was disappointed. I thought that the issue of Asperger's was an interesting one, but this book needed an editor who was willing to do more cutting. The book dragged on, there were many redundant scenes and to be perfectly honest, the length felt more like a ruse to mask the fact that the plot was predictable. I had guessed the ending about three pages after everything got moving, and spent the remaining four hundred or so pages trying to convince myself that it could not possible be so simple. Once I reached the conclusion, I was disappointed at how open-ended it was. The book followed her by-now-standard formula, and it certainly was well-written, but overall was a bit of a let down in the plot-department. I am looking forward to next year's publication, but after two disappointing years in a row, my hopes are not that high...

Get real, April 23, 2010
As someone who works with young people with Asperger's, and someone who is the parent of a young man who has Asperger's, I have one question. What could Jodi Picoult have been thinking? No person with Asperger's spends as much time as Jacob does thinking about his disability. People with Asperger's are the way they are, and most of them don't dwell on it. That's always been the way things have been for them, so it doesn't seem unusual. I have never in my whole life heard a person who has Asperger's say something like, "When I get upset, I repeat words over and over and talk in a flat voice." A real person with Asperger's wouldn't notice unless someone pointed it out to him or her at the time.

In my experience, people with Asperger's tune into some people more than others. Sometimes they need some help understanding a social or emotional situation, that's all. There's a saying in the Asperger's community. "You've seen one person with Asperger's, and you've seen one person with Asperger's." They're all different. Nobody who has Asperger's displays every single symptom of Asperger's (and so many symptoms that *aren't* indicative of Asperger's, like lining up toys and losing speech at age 2) as Jacob does. This book really ticked me off. If I could have given it negative stars, I would have.

ps. People with Asperger's can and do lie. Just ask my son if he has taken a shower or brushed his teeth. ... Read more

Editorial Review

"Sentimental, heartfelt….the exploration of Henry’s changing relationship with his family and with Keiko will keep most readers turning pages...A timely debut that not only reminds readers of a shameful episode in American history, but cautions us to examine the present and take heed we don’t repeat those injustices."-- Kirkus Reviews

“A tender and satisfying novel set in a time and a place lost forever, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet gives us a glimpse of the damage that is caused by war--not the sweeping damage of the battlefield, but the cold, cruel damage to the hearts and humanity of individual people. Especially relevant in today's world, this is a beautifully written book that will make you think. And, more importantly, it will make you feel."
-- Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain

“Jamie Ford's first novel explores the age-old conflicts between father and son, the beauty and sadness of what happened to Japanese Americans in the Seattle area during World War II, and the depths and longing of deep-heart love.An impressive, bitter, and sweet debut.”
-- Lisa See, bestselling author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan


In the opening pages of Jamie Ford’s stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle’s Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.

This simple act takes old Henry Lee back to the 1940s, at the height of the war, when young Henry’s world is a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While “scholarshipping” at the exclusive Rainier Elementary, where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship–and innocent love–that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept.

Forty years later, Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko. In the hotel’s dark dusty basement he begins looking for signs of the Okabe family’s belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice–words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago.

Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable duo whose story teaches us of the power of forgiveness and the human heart.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

Editorial Review

BONUS: This edition contains a Major Pettigrew's Last Stand discussion guide.

You are about to travel to Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and a cast of characters both hilariously original and as familiar as the members of your own family. Among them is Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the unlikely hero of Helen Simonson's wondrous debut. Wry, courtly, opinionated, and completely endearing, Major Pettigrew is one of the most indelible characters in contemporary fiction, and from the very first page of this remarkable novel he will steal your heart.


The Major leads a quiet life valuing the proper things that Englishmen have lived by for generations: honor, duty, decorum, and a properly brewed cup of tea. But then his brother's death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village. Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their respective spouses, the Major and Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more. But village society insists on embracing him as the quintessential local and her as the permanent foreigner. Can their relationship survive the risks one takes when pursuing happiness in the face of culture and tradition? ... Read more