Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America after 9/11

Book Description

Islam is America's fastest growing religion, with more than six million Muslims in the United States, all living in the shadow of 9/11. Who are our Muslim neighbors? What are their beliefs and desires? How are they coping with life under the War on Terror? In Mecca and Main Street, noted author and journalist Geneive Abdo offers illuminating answers to these questions. Gaining unprecedented access to Muslim communities in America, she traveled across the country, visiting schools, mosques, Islamic centers, radio stations, and homes. She reveals a community tired of being judged by Americans' perceptions of Muslims overseas and eager to tell their own stories. Abdo brings these stories vividly to life, allowing us to hear their own voices and inviting us to understand their hopes and their fears. The younger generation of Muslims in particular is charting a different way of life. They are following new imams and placing their Muslim identity before their American one. And unlike their parents, they do not define themselves by their ethnic background, as Pakistani, Palestinian, or Yemeni. Instead they see themselves as belonging to a universal faith. Through their new organizations and websites, they exchange ideas about how to create a more Islamic lifestyle. Inspiring, insightful, tough-minded, and even-handed, this book will appeal to those curious (or fearful) about the Muslim presence in America. It will also be warmly welcomed by the Muslim community that it depicts.

Customer Reviews:

Much needed addition to the body of books about Islam .......2007-07-16

Because of the short sighted view of Muslims presented on, say, the evening news, far too many Americans are unaware of the diversity of the ummah
in this society. Mecca and Main Street provides a substantive glimpse of the aforementioned, and does so in a compelling fashion.

Best yet on American Muslims since 9-11.......2007-06-17

A previous study of "American Muslims" sketched examples simplified as an American reporter largely ignorant of Islam and Arabic and an outsider was not a bad introduction. Abdo ads knowlege of Arabic, years living in Egypt studying Islamist parties, and in Iran wearing Chador has much better depth and understanding and is better organized to analyse the issues anong Muslims: not just ptofiling and persecution, but also generational conflict, multicultul Islam developing from the universities, dealing with the real social and personal issues wihin the community itself. Better understanding the role of women and differences from integration in the US versus Europe are clarified. We still don't have a thorough study by a Muslim but the knowlege and empathy here achieves much credibility. Should be read and discussesd by interested Americans including student and Mosque reading groups.

She deserves lots of credit.......2007-06-13

It is seldom seen that a non-muslim has to say anything positive about muslims, specially in the Unites States. Lot of credit goes to Ms. Abdo for her fair and balanced view of Muslim life in America. Americans really need to open up their hearts and minds about muslims and stop judging through a tainted glass of hate and right wing brain washing. Don't judge the whole muslim "umma" due to the actions of 0.000001 %fanatics who think they are doing it in the name of religion.
The only complaint I have is that she didn't discuss much about muslims in America from the Indo-Pak sub continent, as they make up a substantial number in this country.

Mildly interesting........2007-03-05

If Abdo wrote this book to increase non-Muslims understanding of, and empathy towards, American Muslims, her work is hardly a resounding success. Why would young people growing up in a free country want some religious figure to tell them how to organize the minute details of their lives: how much to sleep, what to eat, what to watch on TV? Reading this book made me wonder whether the differences between Muslims, Christians, and secular Americans aren't insurmountable after all. Abdo doesn't deal with the most pressing issues that non-Muslims have with Islam, but does provide a history of Muslims in America. Somewhat illuminating, but not a page turner.

A Serious Piece of Scholarship.......2007-01-24

"Mecca and Mainstreet" is must reading for Americans casually curious about Muslims (those who follow the religion of Islam) in America, researchers formally studying the topic, and especially Muslim Americans - a burgeoning community of six million - seeking to discover and learn about their own complex but understudied history in the United States. Geneive Abdo has undertaken an impressive amount of primary source research: the book is the culmination of three years of extensive mixing and interviews with members of the Muslim community primarily in Chicago and to a lesser extent in other major cities such as New York, San Francisco, and LA. Moreover, her writing style is smooth and highly accessible - a key quality that is desperately lacking in most serious academic scholarship. Indeed, the presentation of "Mecca and Mainstreet" is as solid as the content.

Abdo has separate chapters on the Muslim Students' Associations within various universities, new and rising imams (religious guides) - including interviews with some of the most well known spiritual figures within the Muslim American community such as Imam Hamza Yusuf and Imam Zaid Shakir - and Muslims taking Islam to the streets by providing social services. This latter section zooms in on the creative activities of Rami Nashashibi of IMAN (the Inner-City Muslim Action Network) in inner-city Chicago. There are also chapters on the experiences of Muslim Latino converts, culturally conservative Muslims in certain parts of Michigan, the changing and contested role of women in the mosque, and a concise and informative history that carefully traces the evolution of Islam in America.

The work also has problems. It is ISNA-centric. (ISNA, an acronym for the Islamic Society of North America, is the largest Muslim organization in the United States with immigrant Islam constituting the brunt of its economic base). For example, Arabs and South Asians are the Movers and Shakers of "Mecca and Mainstreet"; the Afro-American Muslim community is portrayed as somewhat stagnant and passive. Although Abdo, commendably, exposes the tension and thus distance that exists between immigrant and Afro-American Muslims - an important issue that is rarely discussed among Muslims - she fails to elaborate upon the significant wealth disparity that clearly exists between both communities. It seems pretty obvious to me that, generally at least, the Arab and South Asian Muslim community is highly-educated and saturated with professionals (doctors, engineers) that in turn give them greater resources to establish themselves - through the creation of mosques, Islamic schools, and other institutions - as the authoritative and representative voice of Muslims in America. The most impressive aspect of Abdo's narrative is that she has a firm grasp of how Muslim American society is transforming as second generation Muslims struggle to create an Islamic identity that transcends race, ethnicity, and petty nationalism - a core theme in her work. I must admit, however, that at times she over-romanticizes this Islamic universalism; there are also a fair share of Muslim youth who still uphold the tradition of their parents by rigidly identifying with their national and especially racial and ethnic baggage.

I highly recommend this book. As a history student of the Islamic revival - that has swept through the Muslim world since the 1970s - I had already been exposed to Abdo's work through her rigorously researched and vigorously written account of political Islamic activism in contemporary Egypt, "No God But God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam" (Oxford University Press, 2004). "Mecca and Mainstreet" is just as solid, and in its oral research, path breaking. At a time when mainstream journalists consistently manipulate images of Islam and Muslims to concur with, reinforce, and recreate racist assumptions about the religion's alleged "backwardness" and "barbarity", Abdo - as a journalist and a non-Muslim (she is of Lebanese Christian descent) writing for such major papers as the Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune - is to be commended and applauded by both the Muslim and the academic community for her objectivity, and the sheer courage and integrity that must come with that.

Shadaab H. Rahemtulla
M.A. Candidate
Department of History
Simon Fraser University
Vancouver, Canada

When A Child Is Born, So Is A Grandmother (Main Street Editions Gift Books)

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If you like Engelbreit you'll be disappointed
The perfect gift for Grandma
Perfect gift
A Happy Grandma
a very sweet gift book

When A Child Is Born, So Is A Grandmother (Main Street Editions Gift Books)
Engelbreit
Manufacturer: Andrews McMeel Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0740702041

Book Description

----------------Bookstore shelves are packed with books for new moms-finally, here's a touching collection celebrating the joy of becoming a grandmom.When a Child Is Born, So Is a Grandmother makes the perfect gift for the new grandmother or grandma-to-be. Illustrated by the one-and-only Mary Engelbreit and authored by Jan Girando, this book speaks to the very essence of the close bond that grandmothers will forever share with their precious grandchildren. Let Mom and Dad handle the discipline and the scolding and leave grandma to do the cuddling and the holding. One of the most popular pieces of art from America's favorite illustrator is her "When a Child is Born, So Is a Grandmother" image. Featuring that well-known drawing as its centerpiece, this book illustrates the joy and excitement every grandmother feels when their precious grandchild arrives into the world.

Customer Reviews:

If you like Engelbreit you'll be disappointed.......2003-05-10

As a fan of Mary Engelbreit and a first time grandmother-to-be I thought this would be a fun book.
It was dumb, not amusing and definitely not worth picking up.

The perfect gift for Grandma.......2003-01-30

I bought this book as gifts for my mother and mother-in-law and couldn't have been happier with it. It is full of colorful, vibrant pictures and the words truly capture what a Grandmother is all about. Any Grandma would love this book!

Perfect gift.......2001-02-14

This book is a perfect gift for anyone you know that is going to be a grandmother or is already a grandmother. If you are invited to a baby shower, take along this extra little book for the mother of the mother-to-be. She will LOVE it!!!

A Happy Grandma.......2000-06-21

I just purchased this book for my mom. My baby will be her first grandchild. I had it gift wrapped and shipped to her directly, so it was a surprise. She was overcome with so much joy and emotion. I'm glad it made her so happy.

a very sweet gift book.......2000-03-14

This little book is great to give your mother when you find out you are expecting the first grandchild.

Designing Modern America: Broadway to Main Street

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The Creators of American Modernism

Designing Modern America: Broadway to Main Street
Christopher Innes
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0300108044

Book Description

From the 1920s through the 1950s, two individuals, Joseph Urban and Norman Bel Geddes, did more, by far, to create the image of “America” and make it synonymous with modernity than any of their contemporaries. Urban and Bel Geddes were leading Broadway stage designers and directors who turned their prodigious talents to other projects, becoming mavericks first in industrial design and then in commercial design, fashion, architecture, and more. The two men gave shape to the most quintessential symbols of the modern American lifestyle, including movies, cars, department stores, and nightclubs, along with private homes, kitchens, stoves, fridges, magazines, and numerous household furnishings.

Illustrated with more than 130 photographs of their influential designs, this book tells the engrossing story of Urban and Bel Geddes. Christopher Innes shows how these two men with a background in theater lent dramatic flair to everything they designed and how this theatricality gave the distinctive modernity they created such wide appeal. If the American lifestyle has been much imitated across the globe over the past fifty years, says Innes, it is due in large measure to the designs of Urban and Bel Geddes. Together they were responsible for creating what has been called the “Golden Age” of American culture.

Customer Reviews:

The Creators of American Modernism.......2007-04-17

Modernism was the artistic world's response to the widescale destruction and carnage of the Great War. Although the United States came out of the War as the world's strongest economic power, it was late to join in the Modernist movement. As late as 1925, the United States was unable to find qualified craftsman or manufactures working in the modern spirit to attend the Paris Exposition. This Exposition was to serve as the high point of the Art Deco movement.

Into this creative void, entered two American theater designers, Joseph Urban and Norman Bel Geddes. Sensing a need and market for new ideas, they left the Broadway theater and branched out into a truly astonding array of artistic ventures. Working seperately, they designed clothes, jewlery and fabric. In the world of architecture, they designed theaters, office buildings, houses and night clubs. They ventured into areas such as automobile, train and ship design. The two men became America's first and most influential industrial designers. Urban and Bel Geddes' creations dominated American material culture from the late 1920's to the mid 1950's.

There are some very attractive coffe table books about American Design during this period. From such books as "American Modern", "Machine Age", and "American Streamlined Design", I knew they were important designers but I had no idea of the sheer scale of their creations. "Designing Modern America" does not have the beautiful pictures of the earlier mentioned books but for detailed information on the age and history of its two design giants, it is a superior book. Highly recommended.

Miracle on Main Street: Saving Yourself and America from Financial Ruin

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One of the Top Books that I have ever read!
enlightening
To stand for the law or not?
Truth to keep you up nights
Miracle on Main Street- F. Tupper Saussy

Miracle on Main Street: Saving Yourself and America from Financial Ruin
F. Tupper Saussy
Manufacturer: Spencer Judd Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Business Law | Reference | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0911805001

Book Description

Saving yourself and America from financial ruin. Just as all the truths of God's reality are basically simple, once we let ourselves discover them, so THE MIRIACLE ON MAIN STREET reveals the beautiful but simple truth of how the individual in America today can restore freedom. The book is free from hatred, hostility, or revenge. It's the positive, loving nature of its answers that gives it its great power. Its course of action is fun! "Read it and try its recommendations. You'll like yourself more for doing so. And your children and grandchildren will love you for it!" - Bob Crane

Customer Reviews:

One of the Top Books that I have ever read!.......2002-07-30

Though, it has been many years since I read this one, I will
never forget its content. After reading this one, you will
reexamine your values and definitely have a deeper insight
into how and why this country was founded.

enlightening.......2001-04-23

Read this book in 1980, lost the copies I had and FINALLY found it- thanx to amazon.com.. Got me and many other people i introduced it to thinking: Could this be true? Is it that easy? What are the repurcussions? Will I, or any one else, get in to trouble following the authors suggestions? Where can I find more information on this subject? Where can I find a lawyer to represent me should I get in to a 'jam' with the "powers that be" by following these ideas? The second best book I've ever read on this subject; am still, waiting for the first best...

To stand for the law or not?.......2000-02-10

I read this book in l984 and I was amazed. Something which is seemingly so complex is actually quite simple. Mr. Saussy gives the reader an excellent explaination of the intent of the constitutional framers in regard to our money system and to the honesty which such a system produces. For years I wondered about Mr. Saussy and only tonight I learned that he has returned and he has written a new non-fiction book for his audience. F. Tupper Saussy has returned and freedom lovers have an important symbol back! Read this book if you can.

Truth to keep you up nights.......2000-02-07

This book offers an exceptional wealth of information. Written from a Christian perspective, it will compel you to delve deeper into the subject of our governments' agenda in the realm of money. I started it, then couldn't put it down. When I finished it, I brewed some coffee and reread large portions of it. I wanted to call the author, the publisher, anyone who could and would verify all the info presented here. I marvel at the fullness of the book, yet am driven to learn more about the topic.

Miracle on Main Street- F. Tupper Saussy.......1999-11-29

I have read this book and highly recomend it to any one who wants to know about the real intent of the Founders of the USA. This book is a gift to every individual in this Great Country from one of the most intellegent individuals I have had the privilige to to know personally. It will set you free and stir the spirit up that made being an American and what it stands for, freedom!

When Terror Comes to Main Street: A Citizens' Guide to Terror Awareness, Preparedness, and Prevention

Average customer rating:

An overdue analysis of the threats we face
When Terror Comes To Main Street
Eye opening must read!
Tell It Like It Is
Strong, Clear and Logical

When Terror Comes to Main Street: A Citizens' Guide to Terror Awareness, Preparedness, and Prevention
Joseph A. Ruffini
Manufacturer: Archangel Group, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 097677531X

Book Description

When Terror Comes to Main Street delivers the straight scoop about terrorism, the worst attacks yet to come, and what common citizens must do now, individually and collectively, to prepare for and even prevent terror attacks in their communities.

This book is the blueprint for citizen understanding, preparedness, and prevention.

Customer Reviews:

An overdue analysis of the threats we face.......2006-10-10

This book contains insights and information far above what we are going to get from television or the newspapers. Col Riffini is on time and on target and the depth of knowledge he brings to this issue far exceeds anything else that I have read. The events of recent days (I write this on 9 Oct 06) proves that his analysis is correct. This is a must read for those who want to educate themselves with respect to the war on terror and the dangers that we and our children will face far into the future.

When Terror Comes To Main Street.......2006-08-03

A long overdue review of the real threat we face. Col. Ruffini has done a great job on research and has substantive recommendations to counter these threats for first responders and the general public. Good read!

Eye opening must read!.......2006-08-02

THis book is a must read given the current state of our world with respect to the war on terror. It is educational and informative. Prior to reading it, I was unaware as to how the Islamist movement originated and why the hatred exists. Now it is all too clear. This book will also make you realize how ill-prepared we, as common citizens, are when it comes to terror awareness and prevention. The authos has a direct, informative style and his knowledge in this area is unequalled. I highly recommend this book.

Tell It Like It Is.......2006-06-23

Joe Ruffini is known as an "Information Warrior" in both the US Government and the private sector. To everyone's benefit in homes and companies across the United States, he has compiled his thoughts in print about the complexities of the threat and the need for daily awareness by citizens at all levels. The book is a "must read" and I strongly recommend it!!

Strong, Clear and Logical.......2006-06-22

Col. Ruffini uses plain, simple language. With his clear organization Joe keeps the reader from being lost in tangents.
He tells you what the terror threat to America is. He does it completely and economically.

Giant Book of Word Search Puzzles (Giant Book Series)

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Wouldnt Buy again
For children.

Giant Book of Word Search Puzzles (Giant Book Series)
Main Street
Manufacturer: Main Street
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0806926775

Book Description

Look up and down, and diagonally, too: there's a "buried treasure" of words to uncover, hidden among the random letters. Young puzzle and language lovers can show what sharp eyes they have with this huge collection of word searches. Each one has a different theme, from Things That Fly (airplane, mosquito, flag) to Martial Arts (aikido, kickboxing), from Sundaes (caramel, cherry, yummy) to Wild Cats (cheetah, ocelot, puma). There are even 24 super School Time terms to track down. Only the best and most interesting word searches are found here--hundreds of them--and so are the answers, in the back, for anyone who needs a little help.

Customer Reviews:

Wouldnt Buy again.......2007-09-21

This book for priced so high I thought you would get a series of books for the cost. I buy books like these at dollar tree for a dollar for one and paid over 12.oo for this

For children........2006-03-25

I purchased this thinking it would contain word searches for the adult mind and instead received a very large book with enormous font, childish pictures, very small word searches and easy words.

This was obviously meant for children. Not necessarily a waste of money, but definitely not what I wanted.

Lewis: Main Street and Babbitt (Library of America)

Average customer rating:

Beautiful edition of two important American novels
Relevant to today's Society
America the beautiful?

Lewis: Main Street and Babbitt (Library of America)
Sinclair Lewis
Manufacturer: Library of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0940450615

Book Description

Sinclair Lewis drew on his boyhood memories of Sauk Centre, Minnesota, to explore middle-class life in America as no writer had done before. These remarkable novels combine biting satire with an lingering affection for the men and women who, as he wrote of Babbitt, want to "seize something more than motor cars and a house before it's too late." "Main Street" was a phenomenal event in American publishing and cultural history; it is a wry, sad, funny account of a woman who attempts to challenge the hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness of her Midwestern community where the romance of the frontier has dwindled to drab reality. "He is America incarnate, exuberant and exqusite," H.L. Mencken said of George Babbitt. With this boisterous, vulgar, gadget-loving real estate man, Lewis fashioned a new and enduring figure in American literature, the total conformist--and captured the noisy restlessness of American commercial culture.

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful edition of two important American novels.......2004-11-09

These two novels have changed their reason for importance since they were written. When new, they were very current. Full of fashionable slang, capturing the rising tide of America's urbanization, female independence, new machines, greater sexual license, and the pressures all this put on an agrarian culture. Now they capture memories of a time that seems more distant than it is. All of it seems so innocent and simple. Yes, the writing is very good if not great and the characters still do live, but their context is a memory.

Lewis' writing is certainly effective, memorable, and attractive. All reasons to keep reading him and enjoying the stories and thinking about what he has to say. I think what keeps him from being timeless is that it seems to be all about evoking a time and place. There is certainly nothing wrong in doing that; it is just that as the times change the writing may not survive being transplanted into the new context. I think it is a testament to the author's power that he is still read and lives in our present, even if his influence continues to diminish.

At the end of "Main Street" when Carol Kennicott says, "But I have won in this: I've never excused my failures by sneering at my aspirations, by pretending to have gone beyond them." I think we admire her. However, when she continues, "I do not admit that Main Street is as beautiful as it should be! I do not admit that Gopher Prairie is greater or more generous than Europe! I do not admit that dishwashing is enough to satisfy all women! I may not have fought the good fight, but I have kept the faith." any intended irony is made more strange by the added irony of history and cultural change since these words were written. It all feels more distant and even unnecessarily argued given where we are now. Do young people today even wash dishes? Europe generous?

The name Babbitt lives on as a kind of archetype. When someone is called a Babbitt, everyone of a certain age and older knows exactly what is meant. When I grew up in the `60s he was revived as an epithet for our parents' generation and yet the baby boomers became more conformist and materialistic than any previous generation. Maybe that is why we haven't taught George F. Babbitt and his exploits to our children as well as we might have.

The perfect sentence for Babbitt is, I think: "Nothing gave Babbitt more purification and publicity than his labors for the Sunday School." Will anything else help you understand his character more fully?

The Library of America is a largely magnificent series of very handsomely done editions that are of such quality that they are permanent additions to your library. I love having them on my shelf. They are a joy to read, hold, and admire. In addition to the two novels there is a chronology of Lewis' life that serves as a mini-bio, John Hersey provided the notes on the text. A fine edition of two important American novels.

Relevant to today's Society.......2002-03-21

I read "Main Street" several years ago. It impressed me then and the memory of it has stayed with me. I had previously read "Babitt" and "Arrowsmith" which were both good novels but neither compared to "Main Street". Both previous novels poked fun at small town middle America. As a resident of North Dakota, I got a good chuckle over Lewis's portrayal of Arrowsmith's brief trip to our fair state. My recollections of "Babitt" are that it was rather satirical in its' imagery of a shallow well-to-do man. All of us could chuckle at him because he reminded us of so many people we knew. The impact of "Main Street", to me, is how we see the world through the eyes of the main character; the doctor's wife. She is a real person dealing with real observations about real people in a real community. Something in her clicks and says, "this is all too shallow, too plastic, too predetermined". We agree with her and yet feel somewhat uncomfortable in doing so because there is so much that she questions and much of it we have already accepted. I was extremely impressed with Lewis's portrayal of this feminine character and how he chose her (as opposed, for example, to her husband) to be the eyes of his reality. For that time and place, it was, I think, a bold move on the author's part. And it works! I remeber the impact of her questioning her relationship with her husband. It almost seemed like a scene out of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".

This book was the one that made Lewis notorious in his own home town. I expected to have to appreciate the times to be able to appreciate the book. I found myself sensing issues and scenarios that are just as common and real today. If you only have time for one book by America's first Nobel Prize-winning author, I recommend that you select this one to read. You won't be sorry!

America the beautiful?.......2000-04-08

Both Mainstreet and Babbitt are critical and realistic apraisels of life in America. More specifically mid-western America. Carl Van Doren commented saying,"Not one of them ( the contemporaries of Lewis) has kept so close to the main channel of American life as Mr. Lewis or so near to the human surface. He is part of a channel and a surface. To venture into hyperbole, not only is he one American telling stories, but he is America telling stories." These books once swept the nation with controversy due to their honesty of American life. I would recommend these books to anyone who enjoy books about people and the details concerning their lives, dreams and aspiratins. Lewis slowly draws the reader into the ever intricate and mediocre lives of the characters. While the stories are rarely fast paced they are certainly worth the read. If I had to make any recommendation I would advise reading Babbitt first due to the fact that it is more involving and fluid than Mainstreet. In addition to the two novels this book is published under a beautiful binding made to library standards. Enjoy.

Average customer rating:

welcome to "main street"
A timeless quest
Down On "Main Street"
not for me
We All Live in Our Small Towns!

Main Street (Signet Classics)
Sinclair Lewis
Manufacturer: Signet Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0451526821

Book Description

In this classic satire of small-town America, beautiful young Carol Kennicott comes to Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, with dreams of transforming the provincial old town into a place of beauty and culture. But she runs into a wall of bigotry, hypocrisy and complacency. Main Street established Lewis as a major American novelist.

Download Description

The first mainstream book to attack conventional ideas about marriage, gender roles, and small town life, "Main Street" established Lewis as a major American novelist.

Customer Reviews:

welcome to "main street".......2007-10-01

I feel like every book I read is time I literally have to steal from the rest of my life. I feel resistance to my reading habits- from my job, my wife, etc. It's like I have to fight for every moment for every single book that I want to read. I guess that makes it more rewarding, but it also means that my reading habits have acquired a patina of guilt- like I'm a drug addict. That's how I feel about it - that I have to keep it secret, that I have no one to share it with, that I am isolated and alone when it comes to my reading habit. It's a small part of my life, but a distinct one.

Main Street was an epic commerical success when it was released in the 20s. It's an odd choice for a commerical blockbuster, but Lewis must have captured the zeitgeist- I see it kind of like an American take on existenalism. Primitive, rudimentary, but accurate and complex in its own way. Main Street tells the story of Carol Kenicott, who marries a small town Doctor from Minnesota in the first fifty pages and then spends the rest of the book bitching and moaning about the vagaries of small town life- with it's close mindedness and preachy intolerance.

After this book "Main Street" entered the American lexicon as a short hand for a collection of attitudes that embodied small town america- and a negative anallysis of those attitudes, but Lewis's book is more sympathetic to small town america then one might expect.

The true hero of this book is Doctor Kennicott- who puts up with wife Carol's complaints with barely a whimper. As for the attitudes of main street- I think all of America, with maybe a few big city exceptions, resembles Main Street- Lewis notes that many of the people in his fictional Minnesota town left for southern california, so in that way I think this is a useful book to read for "blue staters" when they are trying to understand what makes the "red state" world tick.

A timeless quest.......2007-07-05

I wish I had read this in high school as it was undoubtedly on our reading list. I had confused Sincliar Lewis with the Upton Sinclair (a common confusion I suspect) muckracker novels which didn't appeal to me. How wonderfully Main Street captures the arrogance of youthful certainty about how others should improve themselves or, in this case, the town. If you like movies of the 1930s, you will like this book's dialogue style. This book is not an easy read as one sometimes needs to reread a paragraph to determine whether it is inner thoughts or dialogue, but the book offers a fascinating peek at the issues of the time and how they were viewed by many Americans. Many of those issues and attitudes linger on. Carol's quest to make a difference is a timeless quest that is no more easily solved today than it was then.

Down On "Main Street".......2007-04-16

"Is it really my failure, or theirs?"

Carol Kennicott asks herself this question nearly 250 pages into "Main Street," regarding her impossible relations with the residents of the town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. By this time, I was asking a similar question: "Is it really my failure, or Sinclair Lewis's?"

"Main Street" seemed a good idea as it sat on my shelf. Touted as a satirical look at middle-class America, it was Lewis's first successful novel, ushering in a new era upon its publication in 1920, and breaking critical ground for the Golden Age of American Literature, of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner. Lewis was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. How could I go wrong picking it up?

The book tells the interminable story of Mrs. Kennicott, who marries a country doctor while imagining herself an improving influence on his as-yet-unseen town of Gopher Prairie. Imagine her surprise when she is greeted not as a liberator but grist for the gossip mill, with her Big City ideas and lack of churchiness.

Carol's alternating turns of resistance and acceptance are about the sum total of this plotless book. Lewis's descriptive powers are much in evidence, and you find yourself trapped in G.P. as much as Carol, his descriptions of noisy neighbors and smug dinner parties bearing the unmistakable imprint of someone who grew up in small-town Minnesota and knew of what he wrote. The problem, when you get past the period slang and the barbed commentary, is that the subjects of Lewis's satire are so miserable and nasty you can't understand why Carol thinks she can change them, except perhaps with the idea nature couldn't possibly create people as one-dimensional as those found here.

I thought I'd never read a duller work about small-town Americana from the early 20th century than Thornton Wilder's "Our Town." My apologies, Thornton. "Main Street" is as down on the same locale that "Our Town" exults, only Lewis lays on derision with a dripping trowel. Wilder, by contrast, seems almost surgical in the delicacy with which he makes his points. Lewis makes sure that when he presents us with the atheistic radical Miles Bjornstam, he is not only a voice of reason and affability to Carol but ultimately run out of town for his beliefs on the heels of having suffered a great tragedy, just in case we didn't otherwise get how miserable a town Carol is stuck in.

"And you want to reform people like that when dynamite is so cheap?" Carol fumes early on.

There is one effective section in the book, when Carol first discovers how isolated she has become and feels the "moist, fleering eyes" of prying neighbors so powerfully she draws down her window shades. Passages with her husband, the stolid, straying, but not worthless Dr. Kennicott, present some desperately-needed ambiguity.

But the book just keeps going, hammering home the same points, before winding down with an ending that feels more like a cop-out, in which the still-radical but more placid Carol settles for the status quo while imagining her sleeping infant daughter as "a bomb to blow up smugness." Polemics can produce great writing, but seldom great literature, and "Main Street" is a case in point.

The Signet Classic edition from 1998 features an introduction by Thomas Mallon which was the most enjoyable part of the book, candidly pointing out the book's faults but arguing for its continued value, as it imagines Carol's experience being like that of a young Hillary Rodham first arriving in Little Rock. Suffice to say I had a lot more fun reading it than I did the rest of this book.

not for me.......2007-01-06

I didn't care for this novel. I thought that the book had too much needless, useless information. I didn't care for the long winded descriptions and explanations, they didn't lend anything to the story. I also thought that the characters seemed one dimensional. All of the characters seemed like little molded toys and not real people. On the positive side, I got to look at a small midwestern town during this time period.

We All Live in Our Small Towns!.......2006-12-29

Obviously the protagonist Carol wants more to life in Gopher Prairie. She wants culture and intelligence and witty conversations. Of course where can you find that now without paying a price. Even in the urban cities lies problems beneath the surface, I think Carol should learn to appreciate what she has much like the author who despised small town America. If you come from a small town, it does not mean that your mind is small. Of course, most people travel around the world seeking a utopia or paradise to call home. Carol represents the author's resentment and hatred toward his hometown. I thought it was funny that the author wanted a Pulitzer when he would receive literary's highest honor of the Nobel Prize for Literature and the first American to receive such an honor. Oh well, be grateful what you have and remember the grass may not be as greener on the other side.

Main Street (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (B&N Classics)

Average customer rating:

It may sound good...
Excellent and Well Told Story

Main Street (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (B&N Classics)
Sinclair Lewis
Manufacturer: Barnes & Noble Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 1593080360

Book Description

“This is America—a town of a few thousand, in a region of wheat and corn and dairies and little groves.” So Sinclair Lewis—recipient of the Nobel Prize and rejecter of the Pulitzer—prefaces his novel Main Street. Lewis is brutal in his depictions of the self-satisfied inhabitants of small-town America, a place which proves to be merely an assemblage of pretty surfaces, strung together and ultimately empty.

Customer Reviews:

It may sound good..........2007-03-30

The other review is nice and all, but if you value your time, you will not waste it on this dreadful book. Sure, it sounds like it has some significance. It does not, however, posses a plot that makes you actually want to read. This is the book that you'll be crying over, because you've gotten to the 200th page with 200 more to go, and nothing interesting has happened at all yet to grasp your attention as a reader. Needless to say, most of the sales of this book go toward naive students (such as myself) who have no idea what they are getting themselves into. Please, it you ever want to to enjoy reading again (or get a decent grade on that paper you've been assigned,) do not attempt to read this book. You will find yourself abstaining from most forms of literature following the completion of Main Street.

Excellent and Well Told Story.......2004-06-04

Carol is a girl with big dreams. When she marries Kennicott, she moves from the Twin Cities where she has supported herself, to rural life in Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, where it is her dream to transform the sleepy town into something better.

The ups and downs of Carrie Kennicott's life were felt by each member of our Family Book Club. Just when it seems things can't get any worse for Carrie, they can -- but sometimes they get better.

This book has been subject to a lot of literary criticism. Surely, the story can be studied in many ways at many levels. However, one does not need to have a master's in English in order to get a lot of enjoyment out of Main Street.

Set in the 1920s, Carrie's story -- her feelings, the changes she tries to make to Gopher Prairie, and all of the people she meets there -- could easily be told today with only minor changes. And, although this book is overall rather depressing in nature, there were quite a few places that it had me laughing out loud.

Main Street really captures the aura of small town America, especially middle Minnesota. The real life Gopher Prairie is Sauk Centre, Minnesota. It's an interesting place to visit, as the main street there has now been renamed Sinclair Lewis Boulevard.

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The Miracle on Main Street
F. Tupper Saussy
Manufacturer: Founders Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1886953031

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