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Then We Came to the End: A Novel
Joshua Ferris
Little, Brown and Company, 2007
Didn't want this novel to end!
+ A slow starter with a great finish.
+ An interesting character study
For those of you looking for a quick recommendation, I can say that this is the best book that I've read this year. It was funny but sad, outlandish but true, and I fell head over heels in love with it.
Ferris's novel is set in the fairly mundane setting of an office workplace, but the story ...
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Undaunted Courage : Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
Stephen Ambrose
Simon & Schuster, 1997
Undaunted Courage
+ Extraordinary
+ GREAT AMERICAN JOURNEY - MUST READ LEWIS & CLARK
+ The tale of the Lewis and Clark expedition
+ Ambrose at his Best
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Valis
Philip K. Dick
Vintage, 1991
Gnostic visions and sacred musings...not your typical science fiction
+ Reality is that which remains after you stop believing in it
+ When God is everywhere, how can he hide?
This is my first book by Philip Dick. I am now reading the follow up to Valis, "The Divine Invasion". I was motivated to pick it up because of the several references to Dick's work in another amazing (non-fiction) work by John Lamb Lash, "Not In His Image: Gnostic Vision, Sacred Ecology and The ...
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The Ruins
Scott Smith
Vintage, 2007
Compelling Story, Not for the Squeamish
Not only is this a very compelling story, it's a great character study of ordinary people put into extraordinary circumstances. I enjoyed the book partly because I identified myself and my friends in the two couples and two friends who enter the Mexican jungle searching for an afternoon's ...
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Claudius the God: And His Wife Messalina
Robert Graves
Vintage, 1989
At least as great as "I, Claudius"
+ An Enduring & Engaging Historical Yarn
+ Good Follow-up to My Favorite All-time Book
+ Absolutely brilliant!
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Brief History of the Czech Lands to 2004
Prah, 2003
This brief history of the Czech Lands has been compiled by leading Czech historians. Its brevity and clarity result from their highly skillful refinement and distillation of profound and detailed knowledge. This little book is one that the reader can either read from start to finish or use as reference for years to come.
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The Memoirs of a Prague Executioner
Josef Svátek
CreateSpace, 2008
A Pleasant Surprise!
+ Surprisingly Good
+ Great book & history
A Medieval executioner ?
Torture in the heart of late 16th and early 17th Century Europe ?
Not subjects in which I have a lot of interest, I must say !
But, despite being based on the writings of one Jan Mydlár, a master executioner of Prague, historic capital of Bohemia, this book is ...
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Napoleon
Felix Markham
Signet, 1966
Brief and Concise
+ Napolean in a Heart Beat
+ Short and concise
If you're looking for a complete account of post revolutionary Europe or of Napoleon's life, this is not the right book.
If what you're looking for is a summary of major events in the life of Napoleon, then this is the right book. It does not go into detail and leaves out particularly ...
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The Transmigration of Timothy Archer
Philip K. Dick
Vintage, 1991
My First Phillip K. Dick Novel
+ The thing is, you can't follow until you know where it goes
+ One of PKDs best
+ A mighty fine novel, makes the miraculous believable
+ The long search
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Budapest: A Novel
Chico Buarque
Grove Press, 2005
"I'm an amateur", "yet somehow I manage to get away with it"
+ "Hungarian... the only tongue in the world the devil respects."
+ The irresistable attraction of total immersion
+ Falling in love with a foreign language...
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Naked Lunch: The Restored Text
William S. Burroughs
Grove Press, 2004
Beyond Good & Evil
+ "The man is never on time."
+ Brilliant
Burroughs' work is a reaction to post -1945 cold war America in its radical deployment of tone, style and content. It endured bans, censorship and obscenity trials before hitting bookstores in the early nineteen sixties. But for all that, its continuing power is as spiritual work that makes it ...
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A Brief History of the Crusades
Geoffrey Hindley
Robinson Publishing, 2004
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Prague: A Novel
Arthur Phillips
Random House, 2002
Reminds me of Seinfeld
+ A snarky spin on the ex-pat life
"Prague" reminds me of "Seinfeld", and I say this as an admirer of "Seinfeld". The group of expatriates enjoys being together, and you enjoy their conversations; they are willing to do things for each other, but there is a lack of commitment; notwithstanding Scott's romantic idealization of a ...
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A Brief History of Medicine: From Hippocrates' Four Humours to Crick and Watson's Double Helix
Paul Strathern
Running Press, 2005
the truth about florence nightingale?
This book was fascinating and amazing and wonderful, untill I got to the part about florence nightingale. This person got it wrong, wrong, wrong! What he says about florence is all backward. It was her not the government who wanted to clean up at the crimean war, anyone who knows anything about ...
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Cat's Cradle
Kurt Vonnegut
Dell Publishing, 1998
As relevant today as it was in the past
+ Wild satire about nuclear arms and the end of the world
+ Positivist Humor
The 60's paranoia doesn't get more sharp, more funny and more smart than Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle". But, unfortunately, this portray is still somehow up to date than ever. Published early in that decade, this novel concerns on the fear of a chemical war and the end of the world. One of the ...
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