Fahrenheit 451

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In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."

Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television "family," imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbor Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.

Bradbury--the author of more than 500 short stories, novels, plays, and poems, including The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man--is the winner of many awards, including the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. Readers ages 13 to 93 will be swept up in the harrowing suspense of Fahrenheit 451, and no doubt will join the hordes of Bradbury fans worldwide. --Neil Roseman

Book Description

Nowadays firemen start fires. Fireman Guy Montag loves to rush to a fire and watch books burn up. Then he met a seventeen-year old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid, and a professor who told him of a future where people could think. And Guy Montag knew what he had to do....

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This is Bradbury's best-known novel. The science fiction tale concerns censorship and anti-intellectualism, carried on in an alternate society that conducts huge book burnings as part of the social agenda. It is a spooky and yet uplifting book.

Customer Reviews:

Fahrenheit 451.......2007-10-10

Timeless work on a futuristic society completely and utterly ignorant of any reality except their corporate jingles, giant TV's, and fake families. A look into a shallow desensitized self censored society where intellectuals are targeted as criminals, books are outlawed, and those who refuse to submit are tracked down by the mechanical hound.

Fahrenheit 451 is a frightening look inside of a corporate dystopian hell where there is no `We the People' just `we the market' and the State is omnipotent. Out on the fringes of the state's control remains a remnant of society, mostly hobos, who are dedicated to preserving the words that many will never read. A classic example when people stop thinking for themselves.

Never Gets Old!.......2007-09-20

With what is going on in Venezuela and the Government takeover of education this book rings true today! In fact, the Firemen would be burning this book too! A great read!

Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03

Watch tv, sheeple.

In the future, books are banned, and drugs and the good old electronic screen are used to keep the population docile and uninformed. Firemen don't put out fires here, they burn books when they are found, in a big macho showy way. One such bloke begins to have doubts about his occupation and society, and breaks away.

fantastic but realistic images of censorship and happiness.......2007-08-21

If you are interested at all in literature, I think this is a must-read. To me, it centers around the notion of censorship and how culture can seemingly determine the sense of happiness which can only really be derived from within. The characters and events seem futuristic in a sense but completely current. The writing style is not 'heavy', but the content certainly is. I believe this book is extremely well written and organized, and very applicable in a time when few people examine the substance underlying the superficial perceptions that are shaped by external forces.

John Welte's Review.......2007-08-19

I started reading Fahrenheit 451 for a summer reading assignment. As I kept reading I really got in to the book. Ray Bradbury did a great job describing the characters. The book is about a future world that gives you a glimpse of what our world would be like without books. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a book with some action and a great story.

American Literature, Vol. 2: Realism to the Present

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American Literature, Vol. 2: Realism to the Present
George McMichael , James S. Leonard , Bill Lyne , Anne-Marie Mallon , Verner D. Mitchell , and Mae Miller Claxton
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0131829599

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One for the Ages
A Novel Reviewed by an author
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Good Read

Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0061120065
Release Date: 2006-05-30

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At the height of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston was the preeminent black woman writer in the United States. She was a sometime-collaborator with Langston Hughes and a fierce rival of Richard Wright. Her stories appeared in major magazines, she consulted on Hollywood screenplays, and she penned four novels, an autobiography, countless essays, and two books on black mythology. Yet by the late 1950s, Hurston was living in obscurity, working as a maid in a Florida hotel. She died in 1960 in a Welfare home, was buried in an unmarked grave, and quickly faded from literary consciousness until 1975 when Alice Walker almost single-handedly revived interest in her work.

Of Hurston's fiction, Their Eyes Were Watching God is arguably the best-known and perhaps the most controversial. The novel follows the fortunes of Janie Crawford, a woman living in the black town of Eaton, Florida. Hurston sets up her characters and her locale in the first chapter, which, along with the last, acts as a framing device for the story of Janie's life. Unlike Wright and Ralph Ellison, Hurston does not write explicitly about black people in the context of a white world--a fact that earned her scathing criticism from the social realists--but she doesn't ignore the impact of black-white relations either:

It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment.

One person the citizens of Eaton are inclined to judge is Janie Crawford, who has married three men and been tried for the murder of one of them. Janie feels no compulsion to justify herself to the town, but she does explain herself to her friend, Phoeby, with the implicit understanding that Phoeby can "tell 'em what Ah say if you wants to. Dat's just de same as me 'cause mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf."

Hurston's use of dialect enraged other African American writers such as Wright, who accused her of pandering to white readers by giving them the black stereotypes they expected. Decades later, however, outrage has been replaced by admiration for her depictions of black life, and especially the lives of black women. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston breathes humanity into both her men and women, and allows them to speak in their own voices. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

One of the most important works of twentieth-century American literature, Zora Neale Hurston's beloved 1937 classic, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. Told in the captivating voice of a woman who refuses to live in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, it is the story of fair-skinned, fiercely independent Janie Crawford, and her evolving selfhood through three marriages and a life marked by poverty, trials, and purpose. A true literary wonder, Hurston's masterwork remains as relevant and affecting today as when it was first published -- perhaps the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature.

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"E-BOOK EXTRA: Janie's Great Journey: A Reading Group Guide; PLUS: The Comphrehensive Edition: This special e-book is the only edition to include all three essays by Edwidge Danticat, Mary Helen Washington, and Henry Louis Gates.

Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a Black woman in the '30s. Zora Neale Hurston's classic 1937 novel follows Janie's quest for identity -- a journey during which she learns what love is, experiences life's joys and sorrows, and comes home to herself in peace. "There is no book more important to me than this one." --Alice Walker "Their Eyes belongs in the same category with [the works of] William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway, that of enduring American literature." --Saturday Review

Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots."

Customer Reviews:

One for the Ages.......2007-10-07

Zora Neale Hurston's novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God" has been analyzed, criticized, and lionized over the brief span of its existence. Lately, praise has predominated though with continued carping on issues which she made clear she considered secondary to her purpose.

Hurston's mastery of language places this work in the top tier of Anglophone literature, and the broadness of her comprehension defies spatial, temporal, social, or political confines. Her novel is powerful because it is humane and universal in scope. The story enchants because the voice relating it is unfailingly compassionate.

This lyrical voice was owned by no one but Zora Neale Hurston herself. Throughout her professional life, she remained true to her vision regardless of praise or criticism.

Ultimately, Hurston's literary worth, and that of her detractors, critics, and rivals, will be judged by generations to come. I'm confident that her stature will endure and her insistence on self-definition will be vindicated.

A Novel Reviewed by an author.......2007-09-30

Three stars due to the consensus that it is a classic.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston September 2007 Amazon
Janie Crawford, an attractive, confident, middle-aged black woman, returns to Eatonville, Florida, after a long absence. The black townspeople gossip about her and speculate about where she has been and what has happened to her young husband, Tea Cake. They take her confidence as aloofness, but Janie's friend Pheoby Watson sticks up for her. Pheoby visits her to find out what has happened. Their conversation frames the story that Janie relates. Janie explains that her grandmother raised her after her mother ran off. Nanny loves her granddaughter and is dedicated to her, but her life as a slave and experience with her own daughter, Janie's mother, has warped her worldview. Her primary desire is to marry Janie as soon as possible to a husband who can provide security and social status for her. She finds a much older farmer named Logan Killicks and insists that Janie marry him. After moving in with Logan, Janie is miserable. He is pragmatic and unromantic and treats her like a pack mule. Janie flirts with and marries in secret another man. After two decades of marriage, Janie asserts herself, Jody insults her appearance and after a savage domestic quarrel, it's over for them. Jody dies from illness and Janie is free. She rebuffs various suitors who come to court but when a man twelve years her junior enters her life there is mutual attraction. Only with her third and last lover, a roustabout called Tea Cake, does Janie at last bloom, as does the large pear tree that stands beside her grandmother's tiny log cabin. "She saw a dust bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!" They move to the everglades for the final tragic conclusion of the book. Rife with dialect, some may find the book time consuming. The title has nothing to do with the story, but it is a beautiful thought. The book has been made into a written-for-television movie starring Halle Berry.
Trish New, author of The Thrill of Hope, South State Street Journal, and Memory Flatlined.

Their Eyes Were Watching God.......2007-09-10

My son needed this book for school and we received in time for school. Great service!

Their Eyes Were Watching God.......2007-09-04

This book has been an extremely enjoyable read for me. It had a certain easy flow to it that made you want to keep reading it. This book didn't hook me right away, but I still gave it a chance. I am glad that I gave it a chance because it turned out to be one of my favorite books. If you enjoy hearing a good story, i recommend this book to you. Actually, I recommend this book to anybody and everybody! When i was asked to rate this book on a scale from 1 to 10, I replied by saying an eleven because i thought that this book was that good.

Good Read.......2007-08-21

This book is an easy read but it contains underling themes and plot structures that can be discussed in a class room setting. This is a good book and provides an interesting insight in young black woman's life who is trying to find her perfect mate.

Great Books of the Western World (Great books of the Western world)(60 Volumes)

Average customer rating:

The best of the best all in one volume
Poorly Organized
Great contents, but
Finest compilation of the writings of the most brilliant minds over the centuries past ever
Cost effective when you consider your options...

Great Books of the Western World (Great books of the Western world)(60 Volumes)

Manufacturer: Encyclopedia Britannica, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0852295316

Book Description

Information... Knowledge... Understanding... Wisdom...

From the ancient classics to the masterpieces of the 20th century, the Great Books are all the introduction you`ll ever need to the ideas, stories and discoveries that have shaped modern civilization. This collection of 517 classics in 60 beautifully bound volumes is color-coded into four subject categories: literature, history, philosophy, and science. And since this edition includes works from 20th century authors, it`s the most up-to-date collection of the Great Books ever.

Product Details

Reading and understanding great works by history`s outstanding minds has always been considered the substance of a liberal education. The Great Books of the Western World has been acclaimed as the greatest publishing venture of the 20th Century. The set now consists of 60 volumes, with 517 works by 130 authors spanning 30 centuries, on a total of 37,000 pages containing 29 million words. Among the Great Books` 130 authors, 47 are writers of imaginative literature; 29 are masters of mathematics and/or the natural sciences; 28 are historians or social scientists, and 28 or more are philosophers and/or theologians. (This totals 132 because William James and Alfred North Whitehead have made contributions in both of the latter two subject categories).

Volume Details

Volumes 1 and 2 of this collection is the Syntopicon, a unique two-volume guide (not sold separately) that enables you to investigate a particular idea and compare what different authors have to say about it. The Syntopicon comprises a new kind of reference work -- accomplishing for ideas what the dictionary accomplishes for words and the encyclopaedia accomplishes for facts. Also included is the Great Conversation, featuring fascinating background information, extensive timelines, photos, and quotes from the classic works and their authors.

Special colors on the Great Books` spines guide you quickly to the four subject areas - GREEN: Novels, Short Stories, Plays, and Poetry

Volume 3 Homer

Volume 4 Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes, Aristophanes

Volume 12 Virgil

Volume 19 Dante, Chaucer

Volume 22 Rabelais

Volume 24 Shakespeare l

Volume 25 Shakespeare ll

Volume 27 Cervantes

Volume 29 Milton

Volume 31 Molière, Racine

Volume 34 Swift, Voltaire, Diderot

Volume 45 Goethe, Balzac

Volume 46 Austen, George Eliot

Volume 47 Dickens

Volume 48 Melville, Twain

Volume 51 Tolstoy

Volume 52 Dostoevsky, Ibsen

Volume 59 Henry James, Shaw, Conrad, Chekhov, Pirandello, Proust, Cather, Mann, Joyce

Volume 60 Woolf, Kafka, Lawrence, T.S. Eliot, O`Neill, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Brecht, Hemingway, Orwell, Beckett RED: Philosophy and Religion

Volume 6 Plato

Volume 7 Aristotle l

Volume 8 Aristotle ll

Volume 11 Lucretius, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Plotinus

Volume 16 Augustine

Volume 17 Aquinas l

Volume 18 Aquinas ll

Volume 20 Calvin

Volume 28 Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza

Volume 30 Pascal

Volume 33 Locke, Berkeley, Hume

Volume 39 Kant

Volume 43 Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche

Volume 55 William James, Bergson, Dewey, Whitehead, Russell, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Barth BLUE: History, Politics, Economics, and Ethics

Volume 5 Herodotus, Thucydides

Volume 13 Plutarch

Volume 14 Tacitus

Volume 21 Machiavelli, Hobbes

Volume 23 Erasmus, Montaigne

Volume 35 Montesquieu, Rousseau

Volume 36 Adam Smith

Volume 37 Gibbon l

Volume 38 Gibbon ll

Volume 40 J. S. Mill

Volume 41 Boswell

Volume 44 Tocqueville

Volume 50 Marx, Engels

Volume 57 Veblen, Tawney, Keyne

Customer Reviews:

The best of the best all in one volume.......2007-08-18

These books are worth their weight in Gold. You can find most, if not all, of these writings for free on the internet since there is no copyright anymore; however, if you are looking for physical books then this is the way to go. Very well made and if you go to the Britannica website you may a good deal or at least a payment plan for the hefty price.

Poorly Organized.......2007-08-15

I had heard of the Great Books Project some time ago but had never actually had a chance to see these translations until this past semester at my school library. They were located on the top floor right next to the bathroom so I sort stumbled into them by accident one night. After sifting through a few of these I can't say that I was anything other than supremely disapointed. It was a noble attempt on Adler's part but it just didn't pan out for a number of reasons.

I'm not one of these diversity crackpots and I personally think schools that use this collection (albeit losely) as a foundation for their curriculum (St. John's in Annapolis particularly) are vastly more rigorous, comprehensive, and rewarding than those of practically every other American University. Four years of science, three of mathematics, three of intensive Greek and French, weekly seminars in Western Literature and Philosophy. It's no wonder that this environment produces among the highest acceptance rates into top professional and graduate programs in the country.

However, as I mentioned before these schools use Adler's collection as more of a suggestion than anything else mostly because this hodgepodge of some 37,000 poorly translated and at times even obsolete pages of loseleaf paper couldn't possibly offer the coherence required of a college program.

To be fair though this was not Adler's intention with this collection. Still, one is left wondering what exactly Adler's intention was with all of this. One would assume that the intention was to get these books into as many homes and minds as possible. That's a great idea in principle but if folks aren't interest in reading these books individually what would lead you to believe that assembling them in one giant mass makes them more intriguing? Certainly he couldn't have done this to make the books more affordable ($1000+)...oh dear God, I believe he did.

I found the translations to be cumbersome, utterly oblivious to the language of the author's time and location, and unnecessarily small in size. Oh and the paper is of extremely low quality as well at least in the series I read out of.

These are all problems but what I find most unfortunate is the lack of coherence to the whole thing. First off, WHERE are the history books? Aside from the two big Greeks there are absolutely none to be found in the entire collection. Tens of thousands of pages with no history whatsoever to put any of into context for the young reader who I'll assume is the target audience of this collection.

Secondly, I support the attempt to expose the general public to the beauty of mathematics and especially science. But seriously, is there any point in adding something like Newton's Principia to this collection other than to show off? Really, what percentage of the population can make sense of a book like that? Cambridge prints short introductory texts to dozens of subjects in the sciences that are more relavent to that 99.99% of the population that doesn't have an advanced degree in Physics of Mathematics. Next.

Third, if you're selecting works based on influence then how do people like Kierkegaard, Marx and Nietzsche only get one of work apeice included whereas folks like Chaucer, Pascal and Ibsen get numerous selections? How can it be that Pascal has had more influence than a man whose philosophy spawned worldwide panic, violence and revolution for most of the 20th Century?

Finally, if you're going to try and produce a comprehensive collection of the Greatest the Western World has produced why not select each authors most notable contributions to that legacy. Nobody remembers Thomas Mann for "Death and Venice." Nobody remembers Joyce for "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man."

But then again I could be wrong. Regardless, I am still going to give this book 4 stars for fighting the good fight against relativism, multiculturalism and the general degeneration of the human race.

Great contents, but.......2006-09-01

Bid a new set from ebay and it arrived in two boxes. It has great contents, but:

1) The books are small in dimension, so print is small and not easy to read.

2) The paper is thin.

3) Need more pictures.

4) Some volumes are quite thin. It will be better either adding more contents, or combine volumes to make the whole set more manageable.

5) The set is listed at $1,195, which translates to about $20 per volume. Judging from the quality of the book, printing quality should be no more than $5 per volume. They should reduce price to make it more accessible.

Finest compilation of the writings of the most brilliant minds over the centuries past ever.......2006-08-17

These books were first published in 1952. Only 500 sets were published that year, a Private Library Collection it was called, and sold for $500.00 per set. My father was one of the original purchasers, and he passed them down to me when he died. (It's still even in its original custom made bookcase!)
This entire set contains the writings of the most brilliant minds over the centuries past, carefully compiled by the publishers, with a ten-year reading plan that will give the reader the most valuable of all gifts: knowledge. A must-read for any true scholar!

Cost effective when you consider your options..........2006-03-14

Regardless of minor squabbling over what should and shouldn't be included, this is a very good collection of western works. I'd call it great in fact, when you consider the amount you'd have to pay to purchase all these seperate, not to mention all the wading you'd do through some not-so-necessary reads.

Insert the rest of a 'look how big my words can be' and 'I read this while still in the womb' review here. I'm not feeling up to the pomp.

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Awesome book
lightining
Over-hyped
A powerful novel, too often overlooked
Dramatic Expose; Still Relevant Today

Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0679732764
Release Date: 1995-03-14

Amazon.com

We rely, in this world, on the visual aspects of humanity as a means of learning who we are. This, Ralph Ellison argues convincingly, is a dangerous habit. A classic from the moment it first appeared in 1952, Invisible Man chronicles the travels of its narrator, a young, nameless black man, as he moves through the hellish levels of American intolerance and cultural blindness. Searching for a context in which to know himself, he exists in a very peculiar state. "I am an invisible man," he says in his prologue. "When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination--indeed, everything and anything except me." But this is hard-won self-knowledge, earned over the course of many years.

As the book gets started, the narrator is expelled from his Southern Negro college for inadvertently showing a white trustee the reality of black life in the south, including an incestuous farmer and a rural whorehouse. The college director chastises him: "Why, the dumbest black bastard in the cotton patch knows that the only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie! What kind of an education are you getting around here?" Mystified, the narrator moves north to New York City, where the truth, at least as he perceives it, is dealt another blow when he learns that his former headmaster's recommendation letters are, in fact, letters of condemnation.

What ensues is a search for what truth actually is, which proves to be supremely elusive. The narrator becomes a spokesman for a mixed-race band of social activists called "The Brotherhood" and believes he is fighting for equality. Once again, he realizes he's been duped into believing what he thought was the truth, when in fact it is only another variation. Of the Brothers, he eventually discerns: "They were blind, bat blind, moving only by the echoed sounds of their voices. And because they were blind they would destroy themselves.... Here I thought they accepted me because they felt that color made no difference, when in reality it made no difference because they didn't see either color or men."

Invisible Man is certainly a book about race in America, and sadly enough, few of the problems it chronicles have disappeared even now. But Ellison's first novel transcends such a narrow definition. It's also a book about the human race stumbling down the path to identity, challenged and successful to varying degrees. None of us can ever be sure of the truth beyond ourselves, and possibly not even there. The world is a tricky place, and no one knows this better than the invisible man, who leaves us with these chilling, provocative words: "And it is this which frightens me: Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?" --Melanie Rehak

Book Description

Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.

Customer Reviews:

Awesome book .......2007-09-05

The book came in new condition and I would buy a lot more books from this company in the future.

lightining.......2007-07-20

I've only read a couple of novels in my life where I could feel the author's intensity, like he was on fire with the muse when he wrote it. One was a portion of The Idiot by Dostoevsky, the other was this novel.

It can't be sustained.The novel falls off after the first half, but how can you sustain perfection?

Over-hyped.......2007-07-06

Long-winded and boring. Those who admire style over substance may enjoy this novel. Ellison reminds me a little of Joyce, i.e., the writing, prose and style are inventive and, at times, beautiful. However, unlike Joyce, the story goes nowhere and any revelations seem naive. Even for the time, he realizes his characters as overly-broad charicatures. In the end, the novel's premise is fundamentally flawed as Ellison seems unable to separate racism from hatred of the poor and institutional (religious, corporate, governmental, etc.) oppression.

A powerful novel, too often overlooked.......2007-06-26

With the release of Arnold Rampersad recent much praised biography of Invisible Man's author, Ralph Ellison, the time has truly arrived for readers to look again at this extraordinary novel. Too long pigeonholed as "African American literature" Invisible Man doubtless stands as a contender for the greatest American novel of the 20th century. Ellison draws on a wide range of sources to construct this opus, African American folk lore, 19th Century American literature, the bible, and Shakespeare, all tools brought into service as build this intricate tale of his narrator and protagonist, the never named "Invisible Man." From the treacherous terrain of the deep south, to the hopes and disappointments of Harlem, and to the Byzantine world of the American Communist Party, Ellison brings his readers along on a well guided tore of the landscape of the African American experience pre-WWII.

Yet as I said at the beginning, Invisible Man is a novel that speaks to the very heart of the American experience with its complex pull between expectations and class, the belief in limitless potential based on meritocracy and the minefield that destroys that very dream. Through it all, Ellison tells his tale with wit and deft humor, all of which contribute to the edifice that is this awesome work of fiction.

Dramatic Expose; Still Relevant Today.......2007-05-26

The quintessential novel serving as a precursor to the civil rights movement, "Invisible Man" explores the trials and tribulations of a gifted black man in the Depression era South and Harlem. Although racial strife and inequality is the central focus to Ellison's work, larger questions of individuality and conformity in an imperfect world abound. Even though the systemic racism and Jim Crow violence of this era has been relegated to the back burner of history, "Invisible Man" is still a potent story today, regardless of one's race or position in life.

"Invisible Man" serves as an apparatus for Ellision to espouse his own beliefs on the role of Blacks in America. Although Ellison rejects a philosophy of conformance to white society and the pursuit of economic success to trump racial inequality, he also vehemently rejects the black supremacy ideology, personified by Ras the Exhorter. Yet, the most damning condemnation is reserved for the organizations who manipulate and cajole blacks for their own agenda, as personified by the Brotherhood. Initially, the narrator (the unnamed "invisible" man) is offered a job as spokesman, who will spout their socialist propaganda at massive rallies in an attempt to organize Blacks into a vital force for socialist change. However, it soon becomes evident that the White power structure of the Brotherhood is using him as a means to dupe others. Indeed, the Brotherhood ultimately decides to "sacrifice" their Harlem contingency, a nice way of saying they they will let Blacks wallow in their own cesspool of racism and horrid living conditions.

Throughout the novel blindness plays an important role. In his attempt to advance himself, the narrator is blind to the true ambitions of the Brotherhood. Ras the Exhorter, the fiery demagogue, is blind to the race riot and violence he helps to incite. The white oppressors are blind to the black individual and his ability to succeed. Indeed, it seems as if no one is immune to the blindness of stereotypes, be they black or white.

On a higher level, "Invisible Man" explores the meaning of individuality and an attempt to define one's self. Throughout the novel, the narrator lets others define who he is. Only when he realizes that he's been living a pipe dream does he wake up and cast off the illusions of equality and manages to understand himself. However, this relates to anyone who as ever struggled to define themselves.

Overall, Ellison provides a multi-dimensional and thought-provoking novel. Although it was written sixty years ago and most of the systemic racism is gone, it is still relevant today. Indeed, it may be even more relevant as we attempt to break from the conformance of society and find our true selves.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Oprah's Book Club)

Average customer rating:

The Quiet Man.
Character study, not a story
No thrilling page-turner, but a deep, honest look into the heart of man!
The Meaning of Life
doesnt stand up over time

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (Oprah's Book Club)
Carson McCullers
Manufacturer: Mariner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0618526412
Release Date: 2004-04-21

Book Description

With the publication of her first novel, THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, Carson McCullers, all of twenty-three, became a literary sensation. With its profound sense of moral isolation and its compassionate glimpses into its characters' inner lives, the novel is considered McCullers' finest work, an enduring masterpiece first published by Houghton Mifflin in 1940. At its center is the deaf-mute John Singer, who becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s. Each one yearns for escape from small town life. When Singer's mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where Mick Kelly, the book's heroine (and loosely based on McCullers), finds solace in her music. Wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated -- and, through Mick Kelly, gives voice to the quiet, intensely personal search for beauty. Richard Wright praised Carson McCullers for her ability "to rise above the pressures of her environment and embrace white and black humanity in one sweep of apprehension and tenderness." She writes "with a sweep and certainty that are overwhelming," said the NEW YORK TIMES. McCullers became an overnight literary sensation, but her novel has endured, just as timely and powerful today as when it was first published. THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER is Carson McCullers at her most compassionate, endearing best.

Customer Reviews:

The Quiet Man. .......2007-09-27

An outstanding and realistic examination of the human condition. It's an indirect examination ("thoughts that wound from behind" as the great philosopher/storyteller Soren Kierkegaard put it) and that's what makes it so effective.
Everyone is so caught up in their own problems and acting out their desires that nobody notices the quiet suffering of the saintly central character. When he exits his void is felt yet no one can fathom the reasons for his disappearances. Maybe Jean Calvin was/is right about that thorough-corruption doctrine.
Carson McCullers sounds Kierkegaardian in showing the limits of organized religion and social action. The men of purposeful action (street preacher Simms, vagabond Jake Blount, and house-calling Doctor Copeland end up estranged, embittered, and feeling a lack of accomplishment. Meanwhile, the non-formalists (John Singer, Mick Kelly, and Biff Brannon) are better-adjusted and seem to have done more for the world. McCullers doesn't forget the "middle path" either by giving us Portia Copeland, a decent and generous church-goer who talks a little too much.
Our author echoes the sentiments of fellow Southerner William Faulkner on the civil rights issue. Both McCullers and Faulkner despaired at the suffering of blacks under Jim Crow but were wise enough to know the situation could not be legislated away (after all Jim Crow was a creation of government too.) Racism is a human failing to see The Other as a fellow child of G-d. It's an animalistic impulse, as Rabbi Daniel Lapin (a teacher of mine) rightly points out. Trying to speed the undoing of this impulse through legislation and protest marches, while not completely unhelpful, risks bloodshed. Having the faith/attributes of Biff (who runs a restaurant/hospitality center in the spirit of Biblical patriarch Abraham, the father of faith), Mick and Singer makes peaceful change possible in time.
Doctor Copeland and Jake Blount foreshadow the professional protestors of our era. Their enjoyment in physical confrontations tells us a good bit about the psyche of poverty pimps and union thugs.
Singer's life shows the truth of what another of my teachers (the saintly Rabbi Avigdor Miller ZT"L) once said -- "It is the quiet man that is respected." The public activist hero portrayed in Hollywood and TV news misleads many into thinking that they must pour forth a constant stream of verbiage to make an impact and promote "understanding." Rabbi Miller and other sages know better -- Most talking is counterproductive.
McCullers (who was 23 at the time "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" was published) proves herself the Great American Prophetess of the Great American Loneliness. Widespread ambivalence and inarticulateness amid the Information Age and cell-phone-driven communications "revolution" wouldn't have surprised Carson McCullers.
To close, here's a gem -- "He (Biff) had known his loves and they were over. Alice, Madeline, and Gyp. Finished. Leaving him either better or worse. Which? However you looked at it."

Character study, not a story.......2007-09-13

I read tons of "pulp" novels and I've started adding some classics to my wish list--largely to see if the books I abhored in high school would be more enjoyable if they were not assigned reading. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was no better now.
As a character study it is superb; the main characters are deep, believable, and unique. I understood the characters, or at least why they didn't understand themselves. Each chapter with Mr. Singer made me smile with anticipation while I waited for something magical to happen to make the characters happy.
That was the problem with the book. Each chapter barely moves the story forward, and in the end nothing happens. There is so much potential for characters to talk and understand and change, but it never happens and the potential hangs over the entire book like a cloud. The book simply ends. No character is better off than they were in the beginning, no character's life path is appreciably changed from those of their next door neighbors. In short, with the exception of Mr. Singer, there was no reason to write about these characters in terms of their participation in events that are worth writing about.
The book was not a labor to get through, but I was largely unsatisfied with the resolution. I don't need a happy ending, but atleast give me a sense that the previous 200 pages somewhat affected that ending.

No thrilling page-turner, but a deep, honest look into the heart of man!.......2007-09-09

It's no fast-paced thriller, nor is it a gripping page-turner, it is however, an incredibly deep look into the heart and soul of man. Not until you finish the very last page and reflect on what you have read, can you truly begin to understand the simple truth behind the title, `The heart is a lonely hunter.'

The heart of man is lonely, always seeking, always needing something... elusive. We all share the need to feel connected, to be part of a whole. To know truth, and be at peace. We are so many disjointed voices that few of us are ever really heard.

Set in the deep South, Carson tells of a deaf mute named John Singer and a group of frustrated individuals that gravitate towards his serene and kindly nature--a young girl, desperate to follow her dreams; a drunkard, willing to impart his wisdom on the uninformed; a black doctor, eager to lift his people to equality; and a café owner, stuck in the routines of life.

Each seek Singer's company and tell of their woes with a deep believe that he, and only he, truly understands their ply. In him, each sees a kindred spirit. But what, exactly, does Singer see in them?

The Meaning of Life.......2007-08-29

"Seek and ye shall find," Jesus is quoted as saying in the Bible. All of us, no matter what our religious affiliation--or lack thereof--are seeking out a dream, a little piece of happiness. Sometimes this process is conscious and sometimes a subconscious imperative drives us forward towards that piece of happiness.

The five main characters of "The Heart is A Lonely Hunter" are all seeking their dreams in an unnamed mill town in the South in the late 1930s. For teenaged Mick Kelly, the dream is a career in classical music that her impoverished family can't afford to provide. For the relentless black Doctor Copeland, the dream is freedom and equality for his people. For restaurateur Biff Brannon the dream is having children. For vertically-challenged drifter Jake Blount the dream is a Marxist revolution to level the playing field for all people. And last, but most important, the dream for deaf-mute John Singer is to be reunited with his long time partner Anatopolous, who was committed to an institution.

Singer becomes the prime focus for the other four. One by one they inadvertently seek him out and spill their wishes and desires to him, although he often doesn't understand them. To Mick he is a secret friend who understands her. To Copeland he is a wise man who understands the struggles of the black minority. To Blount he is a comrade in arms for the revolution. And to Biff he is a kindred spirit, a fellow observer of humanity.

Yet for as much as he represents to them, they mean relatively little to Singer. His thoughts are consumed by his love--platonic, we assume--for Anatopolous, the one he thinks understands him. But much as Singer is a false idol to the other four, Anatopolous is a false idol for him, a lazy, selfish, slovenly person incapable of appreciating Singer's love. In the end these troubled souls are left to pick up the pieces after the false idols shatter, as they inevitably do. This leads each of them to make a decision and to enter a new phase of life.

What makes this book so wonderful to read is the profound understanding of humanity shown here. All of us at one time or another have felt the pent-up ambition Mick feels at wanting something that remains just out of reach. We've felt the righteous anger to right a terrible injustice like Doctor Copeland. We've felt the isolation of being the outsider like Blount. We've all felt the confusion after a loss like Biff. And those of us fortunate enough--or perhaps unfortunate enough--have felt the heartache of an unrequited love like Singer.

These people all seem real because their hopes and desires are those hopes and desires we all have. Their dreams aren't altogether different than those each of us seek, whether we're aware of it or not. We know their longing and desperation to find someone who understands them, even if that someone is a deaf-mute who can only nod along.

Because of that, the book touches something deep in our consciousness, something primal within all of us--the need to seek out for something greater. The most astounding thing about "The Heart is A Lonely Hunter" is that the author was only twenty-three years old when she published this. At a time when most of us are just getting out into the "real world" and discovering ourselves, McCullers already had it figured out.

This is truly a literary achievement that you should seek out at your local bookseller or library at once, those who haven't already done so based on Oprah's recommendation.

That is all.

doesnt stand up over time.......2007-08-13

Lula Carson Smith was my favorite author for a long time. However i must have outgrown her, because i found a recent re-reading of 'the heart...' to be a little tiresome. i agree with another reviewer who noted it was easy to tell the characters were developed by a 23 y/o.

Perrine's Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry

Average customer rating:

Perriene's Sound and Sense
Excellent for use with students
Good AP Textbook
Almost a great resource (that I'd give 3.5 Stars, actually)
a little at a time

Perrine's Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry
Thomas R. Arp , and Greg Johnson
Manufacturer: Heinle
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0838407463

Book Description

An introduction to poetry presented in a compact and concise anthology, SOUND AND SENSE continues the tradition of offering clear, precise writing and practical organization initiated by Laurence Perrine years ago.

Customer Reviews:

Perriene's Sound and Sense.......2007-09-24

This book came to me in a short amount of time. It was also in perfect condition. Thanks.

Excellent for use with students.......2005-11-02

I am currently using this book with 11th grade English students, and they have been truly caught up in it. We are actually having arguments in class over poetry!! I do find, however, that it is helpful to do the chapter on rhythm and meter much earlier than I would if I were following the chapters in order. My experience is that students have a difficult time hearing the rhythm of poetry and are generally unable to read aloud with any success. Jumping ahead early to the chapter on rhythm and meter and having the students tap out the meters and then mark the scansion produces a wonderful improvement in their ability to hear the poems and read them aloud. I would heartily recommend this book for use in grades 11 and 12, and for college freshman. It makes the study of poetry hugely enjoyable, as it should be but rarely is, for both student and teacher.

Good AP Textbook.......2004-12-16

My senior AP Literature and Composition class is using this book as a textbook, and I would have to say it is the best high school English book I've ever used. The questions following each included piece really helps you to focus on what is important in the passage, and the introductions to each chapter are brief and to the point.

Almost a great resource (that I'd give 3.5 Stars, actually).......2003-07-11

My first exposure to Sound and Sense was in high school, and, at the time, I found the book so valuable a resource that I later purchased a copy. Post-college, my views have changed somewhat.

If the tone of the writing was not so condescending, this could be a great book. It defines most of the terms necessary to understand critical texts on poetry, including those analyses related to meter, style, and tone. I find the questions after each poem to be helpful and thought-provoking. That said, it is frustrating to me that the author presents ideas and arguments in absolutes (must, must not, never, always, etc.) and then asserts that the logic that MUST be applied to point A CANNOT be applied to point B (but maybe I have spent too many hours working with lawyers).

My suggestion would be to read the text with a grain of salt. Glean the terminology, answer the questions posed at the end of each poem, follow their suggestions of rereading and considering the many facets of poetry, and try to overlook the condescending manner in which the authors display their opinions as fact.

a little at a time.......2003-02-23

I've been nibbling away at a 20 year old edition of this book for a few years in my spare time, and almost every bite has increased my abitity to appreciate poetry. I like the examples, most of them seem pretty old, Frost is about as modern as he gets, but thats ok with me. You might find this book a little annoying if it was required reading in a course, sometimes it asks more questions than it answers.

Angle of Repose (Contemporary American Fiction)

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Greatest Love Story of All Time
Sweeping, epic, moving, everything a book should be!
Dated but Pleasant
History lesson in an interesting format
Rich prose

Angle of Repose (Contemporary American Fiction)
Wallace Stegner
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 014016930X

Book Description

Wallace Stegner's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is a story of discovery--personal, historical, and geographical. Confined to a wheelchair, retired historian Lyman Ward sets out to write his grandparents' remarkable story, chronicling their days spent carving civilization into the surface of America's western frontier. But his research reveals even more about his own life than he's willing to admit. What emerges is an enthralling portrait of four generations in the life of an American family.

Like other great quests in literature, Lyman Ward's investigation leads him deep into the dark shadows of his own life. The result is a deeply moving novel that, through the prism of one family, illuminates the American present against the fascinating background of its past.

Customer Reviews:

Greatest Love Story of All Time.......2007-08-10

I read this book because a friend of mine (a male friend) called it "the greatest love story of all time". It's a hard book to get into, but once your past the first 50 pages it all becomes worth it. It really is a great love story, it shows you a very non Hollywood side of love, love can be very hard. I highly recommend the book to anyone in the mood to think.

Sweeping, epic, moving, everything a book should be!.......2007-08-10

I am so glad I heard about this book from a reading club list! I am very surprised that it is not better known as one of the great examples of American literature. The book, which parallels the lives of a handicapped man living in the 1970s in California and his grandmother, a true pioneer, is engrossing and gives the reader a real glimpse at life in the American West in the late 1800s.

I was truly moved by this book and it will remain one of my favorites for quite some time.

Dated but Pleasant.......2007-01-12

This book, writeen in the '70s, requires some patience. The story of the developing West, interwoven with the narrator's own story, is interesting, if not exciting.

History lesson in an interesting format.......2006-11-10

If you are from the Bay Area, you have to read this one! Not to take anything away from the Pulitzer prize winning (and deserving) story telling, but what made this book memorable to me were the references to San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Cruz peppered throughout. I felt like I was back in the days of the Gold Rush... and couldn't put the book down.

Rich prose.......2006-11-10

I'm love writers who use language to paint vivid pictures - of people, landscapes, cultures, situations - and Stegner's a master at that. Although his 'word pictures' are secondary to the main stories - of two marriages dissolving under stress - the settings and the ways the characters interact with them are what make this book shine. This one's a classic, and should be on the required reading list of college freshman English classes.

Average customer rating:

Vonnegut at the end
Beautiful
A banal book from a great writer
Not Kurt's best
A Few Last Jabs . . .

A Man Without a Country
Kurt Vonnegut
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 081297736X
Release Date: 2007-01-16

Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“[This] may be as close as Vonnegut ever comes to a memoir.”
–Los Angeles Times

“Like [that of] his literary ancestor Mark Twain, [Kurt Vonnegut’s] crankiness is good-humored and sharp-witted. . . . [Reading A Man Without a Country is] like sitting down on the couch for a long chat with an old friend.”
–The New York Times Book Review

In a volume that is penetrating, introspective, incisive, and laugh-out-loud funny, one of the great men of letters of this age–or any age–holds forth on life, art, sex, politics, and the state of America’s soul. From his coming of age in America, to his formative war experiences, to his life as an artist, this is Vonnegut doing what he does best: Being himself. Whimsically illustrated by the author, A Man Without a Country is intimate, tender, and brimming with the scope of Kurt Vonnegut’s passions.

“For all those who have lived with Vonnegut in their imaginations . . . this is what he is like in person.”
–USA Today

“Filled with [Vonnegut’s] usual contradictory mix of joy and sorrow, hope and despair, humor and gravity.”
–Chicago Tribune

“Fans will linger on every word . . . as once again [Vonnegut] captures the complexity of the human condition with stunning calligraphic simplicity.”
–The Australian

“Thank God, Kurt Vonnegut has broken his promise that he will never write another book. In this wondrous assemblage of mini-memoirs, we discover his family’s legacy and his obstinate, unfashionable humanism.”
–Studs Terkel

Customer Reviews:

Vonnegut at the end.......2007-09-27

It occurred to me while reading "A Man Without a Country", Kurt Vonnegut's last offering, that we all have it in us to write a comparable book regarding our own lives. However, few of us could write in the style of Vonnegut, and his short but pointed book is well worth the hour or so it takes to read.

"A Man Without a Country" blends humor, fact, sarcasm, wit and a lifetime of observation. It is Andy Rooney, Garrison Keillor and George Carlin wrapped into a small package of good writing, Vonnegut-style, of course. Age brings perspective and with that Vonnegut has plenty on which to comment. As one who survived the bombing of Dresden in 1945, the author has an earned platform to speak about war and he does so quite often in this book. But it's his humor, often black but always funny, that propels things along. Vonnegut, a humanist, addressed a group of fellow humanists upon the death of Isaac Asimov. He told the assemblage, "Isaac is up in heaven now". Vonnegut goes on to say, "it was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored." Lines like that give a warmth to the book, yet he saves his best line for "W". Vonnegut says, "...do you know why I think George W. Bush is so pissed off at Arabs? They brought us algebra". With that comment I had to take a minute or so away from the book to wipe the tears from my eyes.

I highly recommend "A Man Without a Country" for its appealing nature and visionary comment. Kurt Vonnegut departed this life with just the right things left to say. I could add that "Kurt is up in heaven now", but I wouldn't want to get my fellow humanists going. The book is a pleasure.

Beautiful.......2007-09-06

A conversation with America's greatest writer about the same things everyone in the country had had on their minds that year, this work by the late Kurt Vonnegut was just what I was waiting for and it delivered a kind of comedy and editorial that people all over the country were holding just on the tips of their tongues. Vonnegut is suing PALL MALL cigarettes for keeping him alive in a time when the three most powerful people in the world are named Dick Bush and Colin. He puts himself out there and tells the truth like he always did.

peaCE,

Jacques Paisner, Author of Albuquerque Blues

A banal book from a great writer.......2007-08-14

Another Amazon reviewer, commenting on Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions", wrote (quote) "You know that anything goes once you pick up a work by the zany and terrific Kurt Vonnegut. The man knows how to dish up satire like none other. He'll spew out his complaints about the government, the world, people, etc., and instead of making it sound like a bunch of inane ranting he uses all of that to create a crazy world filled with outrageous characters and situations."

Very nicely said. It is too bad that, at some point, Vonnegut did decide to write up "a bunch of inane ranting", which he then condensed into this booklet. I do love the two books of Vonnegut I have read, and I do think that there is much to be ranted about the government, the world etc etc, but the rants in this book are not mush more valuable than mine or yours, or those of a random guy you hear ranting on your way home on the subway.

It is unfortunate that sometimes great artists feel compelled to stray into areas which are not their own. Even sadder than their beliefs and views end up being listened to just because they come from someone accomplished in something. Unfortunately, being a great writer (and I do think he is), or a great actor or director, does not necessarily make you a very deep political thinker.

To feed any "anti-establishment" feelings, give me any day one of the outstanding investigative reporters out there. There is way too much well documented, well written, honest anti-establishment work out there (Seymour Hersh's "Chain of Command", just to mention one example) to waste time on this sort of booklet. I received it as a gift, and I gave up after a few pages, because I was really getting nothing out of it. Booklets like this one, in my opinion, do more harm than good to the ideas they want to represent.

Not Kurt's best.......2007-08-08

Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors, and I really wanted to read some new material and get his take on the present. We're at a major crossroads in history where a new paradigm is emerging. And yet, there seems few author's worth reading anymore -- not like the Vonnegut's who gave us new and interesting perspectives on decades' past.

Unfortunately, his views on the present are tired and cliche. I almost wish I didn't read this book as it diminishes my respect for the author.

Example: he wrote something about a child being better off in an enlightened country, not the US, which had universal health care and better schools. He blames conservatives/republicans. I felt like throwing the book away! Forget politics (if possible). This is tripe. I thought aloud... we spend a _fortune_ on education and healthcare. The new perspective I was hoping for? ... Euro-socialism I suppose.

What I'm saying is, I didn't want to read tired old left-right, conservative-liberal gibberish. I was hoping for some FRESH ideas from an original, free thinker. I was looking for a new paradigm -- not liberal-lite, shallowness.

A Few Last Jabs . . . .......2007-07-27

Kurt, Kurt, Kurt . . . A few last jabs before you went down for the count. No, this can't be compared to his earlier novels, or his later novels. It is not meant to be---it is a memoir of sorts---his last parting thoughts on the way things are. A Man Without A Country is a concise, simple little ditty, with a few quick jabs to once again jolt the minds of the choir. Like Mark Twain before him, life just plain got to him. I know the feeling. At 57, I am feeling much the same way. After spending some hard-time on earth, dealing with the workings of this world and man's never changing habits, any thinking, caring person would have to throw their hands in the air and say, "When will we ever learn!" And it seems, from Twain's time on---and from way before---back to the first primates to utter a sound and drop from the trees in search of something to kill, man hasn't changed a spit. A Man Without A Country is a dang good little book, and an enjoyable read from a man who will be sorely missed. Hi Ho! Mr. Vonnegut, Hi Ho!

Bewick Cory

Average customer rating:

Indian
Enchanting and riveting, this story will stay with you
Island Of The Blue Dolphins!
May be too adult for 10 or 11 yr olds
good

Island of the Blue Dolphins
Scott O'Dell
Manufacturer: Yearling
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0440439884
Release Date: 1987-02-01

Amazon.com

Scott O'Dell won the Newbery Medal for Island of the Blue Dolphins in 1961, and in 1976 the Children's Literature Association named this riveting story one of the 10 best American children's books of the past 200 years. O'Dell was inspired by the real-life story of a 12-year-old American Indian girl, Karana. The author based his book on the life of this remarkable young woman who, during the evacuation of Ghalas-at (an island off the coast of California), jumped ship to stay with her young brother who had been abandoned on the island. He died shortly thereafter, and Karana fended for herself on the island for 18 years.

O'Dell tells the miraculous story of how Karana forages on land and in the ocean, clothes herself (in a green-cormorant skirt and an otter cape on special occasions), and secures shelter. Perhaps even more startlingly, she finds strength and serenity living alone on the island. This beautiful edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins is enriched with 12 full-page watercolor paintings by Ted Lewin, illustrator of more than 100 children's books, including Ali, Child of the Desert. A gripping story of battling wild dogs and sea elephants, this simply told, suspenseful tale of survival is also an uplifting adventure of the spirit. (Ages 9 to 12)

Book Description

In the Pacific, there is an island that looks like a big fish sunning itself in the sea. Around it blue dolphins swim, otters play, and sea birds abound. Karana is the Indian girl who lived alone for years on the Island of the Blue Dolphins. Hers is not only an unusual adventure of survival, but also a tale of natural beauty and personal discovery.

Customer Reviews:

Indian.......2007-10-01

White people found her people and took them off island with lie of freedom. She escaped and remain on island with brother. Wolves eat brother. She walk alone and with a special wolf who is kind to her. one day she enter a water cave, found out the truth about her people fate. her people died and she survived. one day white people return to the island once again, she finally allow herself to join them. she became famous and she is buried in california. her clothing is in museum in Italy. wonderful story of her courage life.

Enchanting and riveting, this story will stay with you.......2007-08-27

I have to smile when reading these other reviews that say this book was one of their favorites as a child. It also was mine. I've read so many books, that most times the memory of the details within them grow dim, but not with "Island of the Blue Dolphins". I can still picture the breathtaking beauty of the island where Karana spent her growing years. I still remember her joys and trials of living alone for so long, after everyone had left. Her ingenuity and strength still amazes me. I can't wait until my children are old enough so I can enjoy this Newberry book with them. It's definitely one in a million.

Island Of The Blue Dolphins!.......2007-08-19

When I was on vacation at Martha's Vinyard I went to the book store and bought Island Of The Blue Dolphins for myself and I loved it!! I love it so much because of it's beautiful discriptions and details that I can picture in my mind. This book is beautifully written and has wonderful detail of natural survival of hunting, and making friends (Rontu and Rontu-Aru and the English girl Tutok, the fox and Won-a-nee the otter). How many wonderful and beautiful adventures of exciting survival can one indian girl have? I am 10 years old and recommend this book to whoever loves reading and is a fan of detail and beauty!!!!!!!!

May be too adult for 10 or 11 yr olds.......2007-08-15

My 11 yr old enjoyed this book but says it was too sad for her taste. Kids!

good.......2007-08-13

THIS BOOK WAS FOR MY GRANDDAUGHTER. She liked it very much. I am looking for some other books for 7th graders do you have any suggestions?

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