Average customer rating:
- A Journal of Grief
- Loss
- The Year of Magical Thinking
- Do not read this book for empathy or comfort
- Hip Hip.....Hmmmm
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The Year of Magical Thinking
Joan Didion
Manufacturer: Vintage
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1400078431
Release Date: 2007-02-13 |
Book Description
From one of America’s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage--and a life, in good times and bad--that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.
Customer Reviews:
A Journal of Grief.......2007-10-09
I probably don't need to write a review for this book, but I did want to put my opinion out there.
I wanted to read Joan Didion because of her reputation and this was the most readily available book. I have read a few of her individual essays but this was first exposure to a full length work by Ms. Didion. The writing in all of her work is strong. This book, however, seems almost to be missing something.
With that being said, what a terribly hard topic to write about and still write well? I would still recommend this to anyone dealing with the loss of someone close to you, but I think there is other work by Joan Didion that is a better example of her expertise.
Loss.......2007-10-06
I have just finished reading, "The Year of Magical Thinking". I was unable to put the book down, once I started it. I have been a health care professional for 30 years. I have dealt with personal experiences of death and loss, and have also had the privilege of observing people, dying patients, and their grieving families, who have undergone the same experiences. The author was able to convey the tremendous sense of loss that a person goes through when a close family member, or friend, dies.
It is almost as if an arm or a leg, or, even, a heart has been excised from the person who has been left to cope. I have found that the only thing that really alleviates the pain, is time. There are people who are so afraid of losing a loved one that they live their entire lives without being open to love because they fear the inevitable loss. I would recommend this book to everyone because, in a lifetime, we will all be called upon to cope with death, loss, and grief. When we experience our own "magical thinking", we will at least be able to understand that we are not alone. There are others who have felt the same way we do and have reacted in the same ways as we have.
The Year of Magical Thinking.......2007-10-01
A well-written book and a good sharing of personal emotions. Sometimes seemed like name-dropping at it's best (or worst) but I suppose if you know all the best people you mention them and their effect on your life.
Do not read this book for empathy or comfort.......2007-09-27
After my mother died this summer, this book was recommended to me. I am not familiar with Joan Didion (and I won't be in my future readings), but this book was horrible. I feel sorry that her daughter suffered, but I didn't care to read about that. I wanted to read about how she felt about the sudden loss of her husband. I was told she was so "real" in her writing. Whoever edited this book liked things unfinished. Very disappointed at the waste of time and money spent on this book.
Hip Hip.....Hmmmm.......2007-09-26
The Year of Magical Thinking was both magical and mundane. As I read Joan Didion's winning but somber prose and understood that this was her first book written without her deceased husband's help, I thought of a comment he made to her "Don't tell me ever again you can't write." (p. 166). Although a voracious reader I had not heard of either Joan or her husband, John Gregory Dunne, before this book. I'd like to read more of her work.
What impacted me was reading and for some reason remembering, for the umpteenth time, a failed relationship I'd had well over a decade before and how it marked me. Somehow, was it the book's theme or the prose of the author?, I realized that the trauma had later led me to a beautiful gift that I never would have had without the breakup. The Year of Magical Thinking freed me from something that had long hurt me. Was this my way Lexington Avenue crossing (p. 225)? Was this my leis left at St. John the Divine (p. 226)? The book helped me see what I'd been blind to for years. As well, chapter 16 was candid and impressive as it dealt with her successful husband's concern that he had "frittered away" his life. It seems that her reconstruction of his final days discovered a feared futility. Finally, in chapter 17 Didion expresses, after relating their life's events, activities and relationships, what she learned from and about grief.
Didion and Dunne, who were married for 40 years, inhabited a world I know little about. They reported from Democratic and Republican political conventions, were successful novelists and screen-play writers, lived in Malibu and New York, ate out as a way of life and would send the laundry out to be done. In their world they would decide on the buying and selling of a home by flying to Hawaii to think about it. Paris on a whim was easily accomplished. I was intrigued when she wrote of his time in Princeton and mentioned that he thought the Nassoons to be absurd (p. 144). Am I supposed to know who they were? Do I as the reader need to look that up? It seems from reading they lived on their terms and left little room for religion or a deep quest for meaning outside of their own lives. I find it sad that she could would so easily dismiss near death experiences and look for omens from falling bird poop, all the while not believing in He who watches the sparrows (p.227), a biblical reference for God. I don't pretend to know her religious/spiritual attitude, but The Year of Magical Thinking, a book on death and grief, does not spare one page for the subject.
There are other Death and Grief books I've read: A Grief Observed, A Severe Mercy, A View from a Hearse, etc. all of which present death via memoir. I am continually buoyed by C.S. Lewis' fictional The Last Battle, which concludes the Narnia series. As Aslan (who represents God) comes to judge all those in Narnia and bring about its demise, many go through the door into Aslan's country. From there it is "Further up and Further In" as friends are reunited and magic begins:
"There was a real railway accident," said Aslan softly. "Your father and mother and all of you are--as you used to call it in the Shadowlands--dead. The term is over: Holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."
And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One and the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. (The Last Battle, final page)
Didion's work, while it brought healing to me, could finally only take me to her study of geology for buoyant hope and left eternal darkness for her husband and for her daughter Quintana, who was ill throughout the book and died just months after John Gregory Dunne did.
And there was very little that was magical about that.
Amazon.com
Dave Eggers is a terrifically talented writer; don't hold his cleverness against him. What to make of a book called A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Based on a True Story? For starters, there's a good bit of staggering genius before you even get to the true story, including a preface, a list of "Rules and Suggestions for Enjoyment of This Book," and a 20-page acknowledgements section complete with special mail-in offer, flow chart of the book's themes, and a lovely pen-and-ink drawing of a stapler (helpfully labeled "Here is a drawing of a stapler:").
But on to the true story. At the age of 22, Eggers became both an orphan and a "single mother" when his parents died within five months of one another of unrelated cancers. In the ensuing sibling division of labor, Dave is appointed unofficial guardian of his 8-year-old brother, Christopher. The two live together in semi-squalor, decaying food and sports equipment scattered about, while Eggers worries obsessively about child-welfare authorities, molesting babysitters, and his own health. His child-rearing strategy swings between making his brother's upbringing manically fun and performing bizarre developmental experiments on him. (Case in point: his idea of suitable bedtime reading is John Hersey's Hiroshima.)
The book is also, perhaps less successfully, about being young and hip and out to conquer the world (in an ironic, media-savvy, Gen-X way, naturally). In the early '90s, Eggers was one of the founders of the very funny Might Magazine, and he spends a fair amount of time here on Might, the hipster culture of San Francisco's South Park, and his own efforts to get on to MTV's Real World. This sort of thing doesn't age very well--but then, Eggers knows that. There's no criticism you can come up with that he hasn't put into A.H.W.O.S.G. already. "The book thereafter is kind of uneven," he tells us regarding the contents after page 109, and while that's true, it's still uneven in a way that is funny and heartfelt and interesting.
All this self-consciousness could have become unbearably arch. It's a testament to Eggers's skill as a writer--and to the heartbreaking particulars of his story--that it doesn't. Currently the editor of the footnote-and-marginalia-intensive journal McSweeney's (the last issue featured an entire story by David Foster Wallace printed tinily on its spine), Eggers comes from the most media-saturated generation in history--so much so that he can't feel an emotion without the sense that it's already been felt for him. What may seem like postmodern noodling is really just Eggers writing about pain in the only honest way available to him. Oddly enough, the effect is one of complete sincerity, and--especially in its concluding pages--this memoir as metafiction is affecting beyond all rational explanation. --Mary Park
Book Description
The literary sensation of the year, a book that redefines both family and narrative for the twenty-first century.
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is an instant classic that will be read in paperback for decades to come. The Vintage edition includes a new appendix by the author.
Customer Reviews:
a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.......2007-09-30
My high school book club wanted to read this book. It's a Catholic school and 2 students loved the book. I foraged through the whole thing looking for topics that would work with my students. Maybe I'm a prude but with so many expletives and other objectionable topics in this junker, I thought I could be hauled off to the "big house" if we read this book.
Yes, Dave Eggers has done a truthful account of his life and I did feel for him at times, but the ending really made me feel ripped off and used.
I tried to get my money back.......2007-09-18
I suggested this book to my book club without having read it first. Big mistake! All of us hated this book so much, that we wrote a letter to the publisher asking for our money back. Perhaps we don't understand Gen-Xers, but it seemed to all of us to be a book about NOTHING. At least Seinfeld made us laugh!
We now have a rule that no book is to be recommended to the club without having first read it yourself!
Wonderful, one of the best books I've read all year.......2007-08-24
Absolutely wonderful. This is without a doubt one of the best books I've read all year. Eggers' self-referential humor and heartbreaking asides weave a tapestry worthy of praise. I highly recommend this book to almost any audience. Audacious and thought provoking. An affirmation of living life and a meditation on mortality. It is probably the best example of what it is like to be a single twenty-something living in the U.S. in the modern era. Definitely worth the time.
Please read this book!.......2007-08-21
What an incredible account of the author's pain, hope, love, fears, hatred. It's the menoir of author, Dave Eggers, showing his life as guardian of his young brother after the death of their parents.
I don't think I have ever read anything so honest and stark in its emotional content. Particularily being a first-hand personal account of the events, the story shows the jumbles mess of emotions coming with such responsibility and stress.
Please do yourself a favor and read the book!
Neither Heartbreaking Nor Staggering.......2007-08-10
Dave Eggers is highly talented and creative, but the book just did not engage me. As I enjoyed the clever copyright notices and chapter descriptions, I was ready for a real tour de force. Alas, I kept my expectations high for more than half the book and then had to put it aside permanently. The story of the narrating character and his little brother had generated no tension in me. I couldn't see where they were headed, so could not really get on their side. This gifted writer needed stronger guidance from his editor.
Amazon.com Reviews
Heralded as the "best book on the dope decade" by the New York Times Book Review, Hunter S. Thompson's documented drug orgy through Las Vegas would no doubt leave Nancy Reagan blushing and D.A.R.E. founders rethinking their motto. Under the pseudonym of Raoul Duke, Thompson travels with his Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo, in a souped-up convertible dubbed the "Great Red Shark." In its trunk, they stow "two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers.... A quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls," which they manage to consume during their short tour.
On assignment from a sports magazine to cover "the fabulous Mint 400"--a free-for-all biker's race in the heart of the Nevada desert--the drug-a-delic duo stumbles through Vegas in hallucinatory hopes of finding the American dream (two truck-stop waitresses tell them it's nearby, but can't remember if it's on the right or the left). They of course never get the story, but they do commit the only sins in Vegas: "burning the locals, abusing the tourists, terrifying the help." For Thompson to remember and pen his experiences with such clarity and wit is nothing short of a miracle; an impressive feat no matter how one feels about the subject matter. A first-rate sensibility twinger, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a pop-culture classic, an icon of an era past, and a nugget of pure comedic genius. --Rebekah Warren
Book Description
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever committed to the printed page. It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken.
Now this cult classic of gonzo journalism is a major motion picture from Universal, directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro. Opens everywhere on May 22, 1998.
Customer Reviews:
I know, I know..........2007-09-30
I know, it's THE Hunter S. Thompson book. It would be like having the gall to write a review for the Grapes of Wrath or Slaughterhouse Five and think you'd be doing anything other than blabbing just to see your own words on a computer screen.
That said, read this book this instant. Whatever good anyone's ever said about this book, it's twenty times better. I read it in two sittings and only stopped myself from reading it again because it was a library book and had to be returned.
The late HST's gift for gonzo, that strange mix of fiction and nonfiction, is ultimately realized in this book. Reality is seamlessly mixed with a bizarre fantasy world of sentient reptiles and split personality through the medium of hard drugs that serve to clarify (and sometimes amplify) a violent and twisted town in a strange time.
This book will have you laughing hysterically at parts, so don't read it around other people unless you're okay with passing it to them. This book will have you cringing at the brutality of human nature at points, so have your wits about you.
I really can't say anything else, other than that this book must be purchased and read this very instant if you haven't already done so.
A must read for anyone.......2007-09-21
Thompson's book helps create a vivid picture of the drug fueled 60's and early 70's a way no one else has before.
Good stuff, but less important than his other work.......2007-09-14
¨Fear and Loathing¨ is a great ride for sure. A drug-addled, hilarious, disturbing romp through Las Vegas in search of the American Dream. Thompson is definitely a skilled writer and an outlaw and this stuff comes through in this book. I don't want to shrug this work off by any means, but I definately prefer his other work, such as ¨The Great Shark Hunt,¨ because it truly brings out Thompson's outlook on the world, his hatred of wealth, power and greed, etc. This book is fun, but Thompson is definitely capable of more depth and thought. While this work might be what gave him his big break, he definitely went on to better things.
Buy the ticket...take the ride.......2007-08-23
A bizzare journey to the heart of the American Dream, funny, witty and full of memorable episodes. The illustrations by Ralph Steadman are also superb. Raul Duke says it clearly : "buy the ticket...take the ride"
A wild and extraordinary ride down a lost highway ..........2007-08-20
The lost highway of the American Dream.
I wasn't old enough to remember much from the late 60's early 70's let alone the political aspects of Nixon's presidency or the drug culture of the time, so this review won't have any profound social or political commentary, except that comparisons can well be made to the drug culture of today, and it is glaringly apparent that not much has changed.
Considering the climate of the time: Nixon's presidency, the war in Vietnam, and the country's young men succumbing to the draft, it was no wonder that an entire generation wanted something more, for this was not the American Dream they had been sold. And for some, the only way to drown out the hypocrisy gnawing at your brain is to give your brain an escape. Expand your mind, as that might be the only part of you that is truly free. Whatever it takes to get you directly out of your head -- the higher the better. This story chronicles a journey utterly devoid of restraint and reason as these two men, Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, and their trunk full of felonies set themselves loose upon Las Vegas -- the last vestige of the American Dream. However, their idea of the American Dream is not how most of us would understand it, but somehow, through the fog of hallucinatory metaphor, we can actually see and feel what the main characters are searching for so desperately.
All that aside, even if the 60's culture is beyond your age group, Thompson's writing is worth the read -- Brilliant, sarcastic, and frighteningly funny: Bars seething with has-been lounge lizards, tearing the patrons to shreds, blood soaked tacky hotel rooms, police car chases, kidnapping, gambling, excess, and debauchery ... not to mention the Narcotics Convention. The dialog is brilliant. Harrowing experiences abound; it is amazing that the two main characters make it out of Vegas alive.
Definitely a wild ride for all.
Amazon.com
"Long before it legally served me, the bar saved me," asserts J.R. Moehringer, and his compelling memoir The Tender Bar is the story of how and why. A Pulitzer-Prize winning writer for the Los Angeles Times, Moehringer grew up fatherless in pub-heavy Manhasset, New York, in a ramshackle house crammed with cousins and ruled by an eccentric, unkind grandfather. Desperate for a paternal figure, he turns first to his father, a DJ whom he can only access via the radio (Moehringer calls him The Voice and pictures him as "talking smoke"). When The Voice suddenly disappears from the airwaves, Moehringer turns to his hairless Uncle Charlie, and subsequently, Uncle Charlie's place of employment--a bar called Dickens that soon takes center stage. While Moehringer may occasionally resort to an overwrought metaphor (the footsteps of his family sound like "storm troopers on stilts"), his writing moves at a quick clip and his tale of a dysfunctional but tightly knit community is warmly told. "While I fear that we're drawn to what abandons us, and to what seems most likely to abandon us, in the end I believe we're defined by what embraces us," Moehringer says, and his story makes us believe it. --Brangien Davis
Book Description
"Long before it legally served me, the bar saved me," asserts J.R. Moehringer, and his compelling memoir The Tender Bar is the story of how and why. A Pulitzer-Prize winning writer for the Los Angeles Times, Moehringer grew up fatherless in pub-heavy Manhasset, New York, in a ramshackle house crammed with cousins and ruled by an eccentric, unkind grandfather.Desperate for a paternal figure, he turns first to his father, a DJ whom he can only access via the radio (Moehringer calls him The Voice and pictures him as "talking smoke"). When The Voice suddenly disappears from the airwaves, Moehringer turns to his hairless Uncle Charlie, and subsequently, Uncle Charlie's place of employment--a bar called Dickens that soon takes center stage. While Moehringer may occasionally resort to an overwrought metaphor (the footsteps of his family sound like "storm troopers on stilts"), his writing moves at a quick clip and his tale of a dysfunctional but tightly knit community is warmly told. "While I fear that we're drawn to what abandons us, and to what seems most likely to abandon us, in the end I believe we're defined by what embraces us," Moehringer says, and his story makes us believe it. --Brangien Davis
Customer Reviews:
"the Tender Bar".......2007-10-02
This book is just so "touching", which is a weak word to use for such a great book! Being a mother, my heart just aches for this dear young boy,then man, as he goes through life. Am sure his Mom is so proud of him! Definitely recommend...RM
3 1/2 stars really.......2007-09-08
Interesting life
Great writing style although the attempts at humor & the similes/metaphors were ever so slightly overdone in my opinion
Filthy language through major sections:(
Unusual Story.......2007-08-30
I'm not sure if I enjoyed the story or writing more. The story is disjointed like the life of the narrator, but the pages flow nicely and I'm very happy I read it.
A Wonderful Memoir of an Evolving Life.......2007-08-26
Moehringer uses the story of a bar as the setting for his own story, growing up on the fringes of respectable working class life and achieving a certain degree of success. The bar is where the fatherless Moehringer learns to be a man, surrounded by a collection of significantly flawed characters drawn from Manhasset's odd mix of upper and lower economic class. Unlike many tales of surmounting economic and social hurdles, Moehringer manages to keep himself and his achievements in the background. He focuses on the struggles and screw-ups and nicely captures the conflicts of class, peer group, and community that accompany many people's upward climb. In places like the blue collar side of Manhasset, upward mobility is something that is both encouraged and a source of threat. Moehringer had sense enough to recognize this and to recognize when his triumphs were a wedge and how the bar and its regulars could be an impediment to growing up and moving on. It's apparent that Moehringer's life is still one with missing pieces and struggles to come.
This appears to be one of the few Niman scholar books that doesn't run out of gas before the end.
INSIPID.......2007-08-26
This is such a disappointing memoir! Most of the book is an account of this young Ivy Leaguer's pathetic on-again, off-again, puppy love tryst with his college age heart throb and his "struggles" to get passing grades. Such insipid writing is not worthy of note. Are we supposed to cry over this? I had enough but I kept waiting for more. I kept reading to the end hoping that some depth might develop. Unfortunately the book retained its shallow treatment page after page. Bring on the violins.
Average customer rating:
- Bad ending
- Good but ending disappoints
- Bizarre crime noir
- not the best
- Starts fast but stumbles early
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Pig Island
Mo Hayder
Manufacturer: Atlantic Monthly Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0871139529 |
Book Description
The acclaimed author of The Devil of Nanking returns with a riveting, disturbing thriller of religious fanatics, hoax debunkers, and the dark side of belief. Journalist Joe Oakes makes a living exposing supernatural hoaxes, but when he visits a secretive religious community on a remote Scottish island, everything he thought he knew is overturned. On the trial of a strange creature caught briefly on film, so deformed it can hardly be human, Oakes crosses a border of electrical fencing, toxin-filled oil drums, and pigs’ skulls to infiltrate the territory of the groups’ isolated founder, Malachi Dove. Their confrontation, and its violent aftermath, is so catastrophic that it forces Oakes to question the nature of evil—and whether he might be responsible for the heinous crime about to unfold. Startling and uncompromising, Pig Island confirms Mo Hayder as one of the most talented, compelling thriller writers now working.
Customer Reviews:
Bad ending.......2007-08-26
Had me hooked. I'd give it the thumbs up until almost the end. I would say the last 6th of the book lost it. I wanted some of the characters Lexie was involved in to appear, and they didn't. I wanted her to be more linked to the blame. My first read of Mo, so I will try another based on reader reviews.
Good but ending disappoints .......2007-08-06
About: Mysterious happenings on an island, reporter tries to get the real story
Pros: Fast paced, engaging story, looked forward to picking up again after putting it down.
Cons: The "twist" ending that was hyped by the blurbs on the back cover had me all psyched, but the end left me disappointed, especially since the book itself was so good. I'd have preferred a "normal" ending.
Bizarre crime noir.......2007-07-25
I didn't realize until I finished Pig Island that I had just read the strangest crime noir novel ever. Angeline is fiction's most bizarre femme fatale; a scheming beauty with a twist (or should I say 'tail'?). This novel doesn't always work, including, unfortunately, the ending, and it doesn't help that Oaksey is a character you find yourself rooting against, but Pig Island is worth a read to those looking for something a little odd.
not the best.......2007-07-24
The reviews on the dust jacket led me to expect a much better book. I found the experience of reading it very trying. The characters were all thoroughly unlikable. The narrator, Oaksey, a journalist, was surprisingly irritating for what was essentially a cardboard cutout character. In one sentence he used the term "ciggy" over and over. Despite his blue-collar roots, I would expect a journalist, even of the most debased sort, to have at least some gift of narrative, but Oaksey didn't. I do like a scary story, but this one just fell flat for me.
Starts fast but stumbles early.......2007-07-11
This book began very well. It was exciting and interesting. However, the plot slows significantly after about a quarter of the book, and the weak character development and lack of depth of information was enough to sink it for the rest of the way. I would have liked to see Hayder develop more of the cult character and let her main character interact with them more, but she didn't. Instead it is all about death, death, and death right away, with nothing left to carry the book the rest of the way through. She also could have done more with the idea of summoning demons and other creatures, but she left all very shallow. In the end, she took the reader through a strange journey which was not all that exciting, through conversations on bestiality, spina bifida, and other incongruent issues. Finally near the end the book twists, turns and then ends, which would have been great except that it was all too obvious. Better character development and more consistent plot would have made this book much better in the end. It is not something I would recommend.
The Sureshot
Amazon.com
Kingdom of Fear is billed as a memoir, but in essence, all of Hunter S. Thompson's books could fit into this category since his life and work have always been tightly bound together by a mythology largely of his own making. (After all, this is the man who, before earning a single dollar as a writer, began meticulously saving a copy of every letter he ever sent.) Still, this is certainly an unconventional memoir, but then what would you expect from the father of gonzo journalism? In these pages Thompson manages to dig deep and reveal a few "loathsome secrets" without offering the kind of personal details he has always avoided. His childhood, for instance, is basically summed up in a sentence: "I look back on my youth with great fondness, but I would not recommend it as a working model to others." He does, however, reflect upon his considerable legacy, including his well-known, and admittedly exaggerated, use of controlled substances ("The brutal reality of politics alone would probably be intolerable without drugs"), as well as offer assessments of his own work, such as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ("It's as good as The Great Gatsby and better than The Sun Also Rises").
In this collection of twisted parables and outlaw adventures, Thompson writes about his early run-ins with agents of authority and the lessons learned; his stint in the Air Force and the beginning of his journalism career; his unsuccessful, though illuminating, bid for Sheriff of Aspen, Colorado in 1970 as the Freak Power candidate; the casualties and unintended consequences thus far in the War on Terror; and numerous examples of present-day injustice and hypocrisy--all with his characteristic mix of brutal frankness laced with humor. He also offers his own take on state of the Union: "The prevailing quality of life in America--by any accepted methods of measuring--was inarguably freer and more politically open under Nixon than it is today in this evil year of Our Lord 2002." Thompson continues to make even the most deadly serious subject matter endlessly entertaining. --Shawn Carkonen
Book Description
Brilliant, provocative, outrageous, and brazen, Hunter S. Thompson's infamous rule breaking -- in his journalism, in his life, and under the law -- changed the shape of American letters, and the face of American icons. Kingdom of Fear traces the course of Thompson's life as a rebel -- from a smart-mouthed Kentucky kid flaunting all authority to a convention-defying journalist who came to personify a wild fusion of fact, fiction, and mind-altering substances.
Call it the evolution of an outlaw. Here are the formative experiences that comprise Thompson's legendary trajectory alongside the weird and the ugly. Whether detailing his exploits as a foreign correspondent in Rio, his job as night manager of the notorious O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, his epic run for sheriff of Aspen on the Freak Power ticket, or the sensational legal maneuvering that led to his full acquittal in the famous 99 Days trial, Thompson is at the peak of his narrative powers in Kingdom of Fear. And this boisterous, blistering ride illuminates as never before the professional and ideological risk taking of a literary genius and transgressive icon.
Customer Reviews:
Not his best.......2007-03-18
Mr Thompsons autobiography is somewhat lacking compared to his other works. It seems, that he in his later years didn't have that much new to say, and this volume shows it very clearly. It deals with the legend of HST, not the man Hunter Stockton Thompson, and only plays the same tune that we've been hearing since F&L in Las Vegas, only in a strongly diluded form.
A great drawback is that he recycles a lot of stuff from his earlier work, which if you're a fan/reader of his you can't help but feel a bit cheated about. The book isn't that long as it is, but when half the material already has been printed before, and therefore probably, for fans at least, is on your shelf already, it gives the feeling of the good Mr Thompson not really making an effort writing this volume.
It's not all bad though. There are highlights in the book. His description of his childhood is enjoyable and very biographical. The last chapter is also very enjoyable, although not that good as biographical material, it does for a good reading.
It starts out legitimate enough, but quickly turns to his rambling and at times incoherent style of writing. Worth reading if you're a completist. I would recommend the compilations of his letters "The Proud Highway" and "F&L in America" as biography instead. They are much better.
Significantly Better Than "Hey Rube".......2007-03-16
This book (2003) and "Hey Rube" (2004) appear to be the last of HST's books. While "Hey Rube" contains lengthy discussions of gambling on professional football and basketball (including "March Madness"), this book is more far-ranging, containing everything from Thompson's reminiscences of his youth to his (highly negative) thoughts on George W. Bush. There's even a chapter from "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972," one of the finest political books ever written.
The quality of the writing on the recent pieces is not quite up to that of his best from the past, but is still infinitely better than the mindless slop produced by other contemporary "writers." The man was an artist.
As always, one of the disturbing things about Thompson is his ability to assess politics correctly in real time. Reading back, you think "Why didn't people take this man seriously at the time?"
"Indeed," as Doc would say.
The best collection.......2007-01-19
It's true, there are lots of parts of this book that can be found in other books, but this is still the best HST book I've read. It's sort of like a greatest hits. The new parts however, are the best part of this book.
Some of his best work ever!.......2007-01-13
By far simply one of his best collections. It seems the good doctor saw what was on the horizon and unforunately he was right. The world is a lesser place without him and we should all cherish every word. His insight was frightening an accurate. BUY THIS BOOK!
Just what you would expect from a drunkard.......2006-12-04
Paranoid drivel is the best I can come up with ZZZZZZZZZZ.
Book Description
Empirically proving that -- no matter where you are -- kids wanna rock, this is Chuck Klosterman's hilrious memoir of growing up as a shameless metalhead in Wyndmere, North Dakotoa (population: 498). With a voice like Ace Frehley's guitar, Klosterman hacks his way through hair-band history, beginning with that fateful day in 1983 when his older brother brought home Mötley Crüe's Shout at the Devil. The fifth-grade Chuck wasn't quite ready to rock -- his hair was too short and his farm was too quiet -- but he still found a way to bang his nappy little head. Before the journey was over, he would slow-dance to Poison, sleep innocently beneath satanic pentagrams, lust for Lita Ford, and get ridiculously intellectual about Guns N' Roses. C'mon and feel his noize.
Customer Reviews:
Decent, But Glam Rock is Not Metal.......2007-09-18
This book is deceiving. It is NOT about metal, it is about glam rock, or hair metal (Motley Crue, Poison, Def Leppard etc.), which is NOT really metal. It is POP rock.
Having said that, this book is still mildly entertaining. It is a pretty well told story of growing up in a really small town and listening to ROCK, and some metal, and not really fitting in. There are numerous humorous scenarios and it is an easy read.
However, at times Klosterman can get VERY pedantic, especially when discussing his tastes in music. If he doesn't like a band, song, whatever, it automatically sucks, and is open for his harsh criticism. As a HUGE fan of Iron Maiden, it was very hard to sit and read him rip apart one of my favorite bands.
Read for yourself, some will love, some will hate.
chuck klosterman wouldnt know heavy metal if it hit him upside the head.......2007-08-14
this is the most worthless book i have ever read in my life. anyone who gets duped into buying this toilet paper should just give me their money and i will kick them in the nuts. its about the same effect as reading this trash.
chuck klosterman isnt from fargo. chuck klosterman is the reason why metallica skipped fargo on one of their tours. chuck klosterman doesnt represent the metal scene in the fargo area.
What Would He Write Now?.......2007-07-18
I grew up in an Illinois town that sounds a lot like Chuck's -- just a bit bigger, perhaps... And, like Chuck, I had a problem in the 90s admitting I listened to (and loved) heavy metal. In 1997, I went so far as to give away all of my "hair metal" albums to a co-worker. Did I still like the music? Sure, but I thought I would "move on."
Guess what? It didn't take me long to buy all the stuff back. I couldn't deny what I loved.
Chuck's book's main problem is that he still "sits on the fence." By the end of the book, he more or less admits that he likes the music of his formative years, but he still seems to have a problem being true to what he likes. Maybe this is his attempt at humor -- I don't know, as this is the first time I've ever read his stuff. All I know is, if he wants to write a book about heavy metal and what it meant to him, then he shouldn't describe it as "boring," as he does in a few places, and he shouldn't say one thing one place and the complete opposite in another place... that is, without letting it be clear how he truly feels now.
The book came out about six years ago, though, and if he went through the phase of "I can't listen to this crap any more" like I did, then maybe he's finally accepted that the music will belong to him for the rest of his days, and that it's okay to listen to the music of your high school years.
mr klosterman's narrow mind and bad taste do not warrant book length treatment.......2007-03-26
mr klosterman wonders why so much is made of the chapter titled "i get drunk and go to a hockey game:" an essay describing his penchant for alcohol abuse. well, sir; here's the deal: it's the only really fine piece of writing here. otherwise, the glories of having bad taste in music just do not carry a book. and then there's mr klosterman's narrow little mind. a very small place it seems, where ole' chucky loves to dictate how other people (especially people older and more talented than him) should carry on with their lives. this book simply adds up to one big drag. i don't know mr klosterman, never even seen him; but i predict divorce/failed relationships galore for the man. a narrow mind and poor thinking cannot equal success in that department of life. his book was overwhelmingly a waste of my time.
You Can't Kill Rock'N'Roll......It's Here To Stay!.......2007-01-10
I absolutely love this book. As a child of the 80's and particularly 80's metal this book was a real trip down memory lane. His personal stories are wonderfully written and his analysis of the genre is pretty much right on. The only problem I have with the book is that he tries too hard to defend 80's metal. I feel no need to do so because I simply don't care if other people liked it or not. I did and so did a lot of my friends. In fact I still love to crank the "80's metal" playlist on my iPod.
To me the 80's is the by far the greatest musical decade precisely because most of the music had no deep meaning. It was about having fun and enjoying life(although not by the same moral code I followed). The 90's came along and all of a sudden everyone is depressed and they're trying to tell me why I should be also. Sorry, there are too many reasons NOT to be depressed, especially in this country.
This book is funny, witty and a fantastic read, even if you're not a fan of 80's metal. I look forward to checking out some of his other titles.
Book Description
In this "honest and searching look at the perils of growing up a black male in urban America" (San Francisco Chronicle), Washington Post reporter Nathan McCall tells the story of his passage from the street and the prison yard to the newsroom of one of America's most prestigious papers. "A stirring tale of transformation."--Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The New Yorker.
Customer Reviews:
What is up the profane language?.......2007-10-04
I was not to moved by this book. I asked my son to read it out loud to me and of course he paused the majority of the time because of the profanity in the book. Young black men have a tendency to grow up around profane language and circumstances that are not accomodating to their life and the writer should have took into consideration that if their are a lack of black male role models for young males that makes them seek something or someone that they can relate whether that is good or bad. The title "A young black man in America" with this type of language is promoting profanity which promotes mental negativity and the lack of need to broaden their language and keep a limited vocabulary. This book is a written confirmation that not only should you think before you speak but think before you write. Their is not enough respect among young males to begin with and the writer can relate to them without nurturing their profane vocab or disrespectful mentality. We need writers that have a positive impact on the reader and not one that promotes the typical behavior I see from most young black males.
Good book that tells it like it is.......2006-06-25
Follow the life of Nathan Mc Call in this book, see how America works through his eyes. This book was thought provoking, eye opening and sad.
You feel for Nathan and what he goes through but you don't really end up liking who he is as a person. This book allows you to see what it is like growing up as a black male in America.
Education, jail, work, crime, children, friendships with white people. This book is open and honest and I recommend it to anyone who wants to begin to try and understand and see what it is like growing up as a black male.
It certainly opened my eyes!
Walking in other shoes.......2006-06-20
This book hurts to read. So much pain in so many lives. But what McCall does is put you in his shoes--this is no easy task for someone who is both white and female. It opens a huge door of understanding. It is not a book for the immature or the fearful. I read some of these reviews and wondered, "What book did they read?" Definately not light reading. Powerful, frightening, enlightening. Needs to be read.
The reality in the race relationships in the United States .......2006-04-25
I have read this book over and over and I still find parallels in the life of Nathan McCall and my own life. Mc Call calls it as it is, the society that we live in is not leveled and only one group that gets all the privileges. That there is no recognition that the success of the whites was made on the backs of African Americans that worked for free, and gave that wealth that even today whites get to enjoy. To many people who think that racism is a thing of the past this book is a revelation and goes deeply into the inherit truths of racism and its consequences. Many people think that black teenagers are "ready" for a life of crime, but the truth is that a hypocritical racist society has designated a path for those teenagers, to see a prove of this just look at school systems in white and black neighborhoods. It is like we are living under two separate states, same flag, same country but different standards of living and I'm not talking about 1862 or 1963, I'm talking about 2006. This book is very powerful with a strong sad message.
Suburban Shakedown.......2006-01-21
Nathan McCall shares his personal story as a "wild child" of color, becoming a man in a racially prejudices country; his crimes and imprisonment, gang warfare, street smarts and wisdom, and finding his way to truth and sanity.
Not diminishing responsibility for his own life choices, McCall's story is very real and honest. It challenges America's institutional establishments of prejudice and cruelty, illustrating the imbalances in a white dominated world.
I loved it!
Amazon.com
Mark Twain grew up with America. Born in 1835, he reached adulthood as the country was expanding and threatening to splinter all at once. Along with his towering talent and personality, his timing and instinct for finding the action allowed him to play a major role in pushing the boundaries of American culture and mythology by creating a new approach to literature. "Breaching the ranks of New England literary culture was Clemens's most important achievement (short of his actual works), and a signal liberating event in the country's imaginative history," writes Ron Powers in this dazzling biography. Not only did he observe and chronicle this cultural shift, he participated in it, allowing him to report "from the yeasty perspective of the common man." While still Sam Clemens, he worked as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River and experienced the Wild West of the Nevada Territory as a miner, land prospector, and newspaperman. Later, while still the people's champion, he married into wealth and ran with the moneyed class of the Gilded Age--until his money ran out--and toured the world meeting with the famous and powerful at every stop. He was, as Powers puts it, "the nation's first rock star." But Twain was more than just a writer and Powers strives to cover all sides of this complex man. Employing an approach he calls "interpretive portraiture," he explores Twain's personal relations, temperament, religious skepticism, and psychology as closely as his written work. He discusses Twain's zeal for life along with his "chronic insecurity," and describes how this eternally optimistic and forward-looking man was prone to spells of nihilism and despair. Powers is a talented and lively writer clearly up to the task of covering this American legend, and his book vividly and thoroughly explains why Twain was "the representative figure of his nation and his century." --Shawn Carkonen
Book Description
Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries. Yet somehow, beneath the vast flowing river of literature that he left behind -- books, sketches, speeches, not to mention the thousands of letters to his friends and his remarkable entries in private journals -- the man who became Mark Twain, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, has receded from view, leaving us with only faint and often trivialized remnants of his towering personality.
In Mark Twain, Ron Powers consummates years of thought and research with a tour de force on the life of our culture's founding father, re-creating the 19th century's vital landscapes and tumultuous events while restoring the human being at their center. He offers Sam Clemens as he lived, breathed, and wrote -- drawing heavily on the preserved viewpoints of the people who knew him best (especially the great William Dean Howells, his most admiring friend and literary co-conspirator), and on the annals of the American 19th century that he helped shape. Powers's prose rivals Mark Twain's own in its blend of humor, telling detail, and flights of lyricism. With the assistance of the Mark Twain Project at Berkeley, he has been able to draw on thousands of letters and notebook entries, many only recently discovered.
It is hard to imagine a life that encompassed more of its times. Sam Clemens left his frontier boyhood in Missouri for a life on the Mississippi during the golden age of steamboats. He skirted the western theater of the Civil War before taking off for an uproarious drunken newspaper career in the Nevada of the Wild West. As his fame as a humorist and lecturer spread around the country, he took the East Coast by storm, witnessing the extremes of wealth and poverty of New York City and the Gilded Age (which he named). He traveled to Europe on the first American pleasure cruise and revitalized the prim genre of travel writing. He wooed and won his lifelong devoted wife, yet quietly pined for the girl who was his first crush and whom he would re-encounter many decades later. He invented and invested in get-rich-quick schemes. He became the toast of Europe and a celebrity who toured the globe. His comments on everything he saw, many published here for the first time, are priceless.
The man who emerges in Powers's brilliant telling is both the magnetic, acerbic, and hilarious Mark Twain of myth and a devoted friend, husband, and father; a whirlwind of optimism and restless energy; and above all, a wide-eared and wide-eyed observer who absorbed every sight and sound, and poured it into his characters, plots, jokes, businesses, and life. Mark Twain left us our greatest voice. Samuel Clemens left us one of our most full and American of lives.
"No one understands the complicated American the world knows as Mark Twain better than Ron Powers. Finally, we have scholarship and writing worthy of the man. Powers's prose is insightful, elegant, and gets to the center of Twain's life, humor, tragedy, and outrage."
Ken Burns
Download Description
"Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries. Yet somehow, beneath the vast flowing river of literature that he left behind -- books, sketches, speeches, not to mention the thousands of letters to his friends and his remarkable entries in private journals -- the man who became Mark Twain, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, has receded from view, leaving us with only faint and often trivialized remnants of his towering personality. In Mark Twain, Ron Powers consummates years of thought and research with a tour de force on the life of our culture's founding father, re-creating the 19th century's vital landscapes and tumultuous events while restoring the human being at their center. He offers Sam Clemens as he lived, breathed, and wrote -- drawing heavily on the preserved viewpoints of the people who knew him best (especially the great William Dean Howells, his most admiring friend and literary co-conspirator), and on the annals of the American 19th century that he helped shape. Powers's prose rivals Mark Twain's own in its blend of humor, telling detail, and flights of lyricism. With the assistance of the Mark Twain Project at Berkeley, he has been able to draw on thousands of letters and notebook entries, many only recently discovered. It is hard to imagine a life that encompassed more of its times. Sam Clemens left his frontier boyhood in Missouri for a life on the Mississippi during the golden age of steamboats. He skirted the western theater of the Civil War before taking off for an uproarious drunken newspaper career in the Nevada of the Wild West. As his fame as a humorist and lecturer spread around the country, he took the East Coast by storm, witnessing the extremes of wealth and poverty of New York City and the Gilded Age (which he named). He traveled to Europe on the first American pleasure cruise and revitalized the prim genre of travel writing. He wooed and won his lifelong devoted wife, yet quietly pined for the girl who was his first crush and whom he would re-encounter many decades later. He invented and invested in get-rich-quick schemes. He became the toast of Europe and a celebrity who toured the globe. His comments on everything he saw, many published here for the first time, are priceless. The man who emerges in Powers's brilliant telling is both the magnetic, acerbic, and hilarious Mark Twain of myth and a devoted friend, husband, and father; a whirlwind of optimism and restless energy; and above all, a wide-eared and wide-eyed observer who absorbed every sight and sound, and poured it into his characters, plots, jokes, businesses, and life. Mark Twain left us our greatest voice. Samuel Clemens left us one of our most full and American of lives. "
Customer Reviews:
Absolutely marvelous book!.......2006-12-28
Powers gives us a terrific chronology, densely packed information, charming and insightful prose, plenty of great Twain quotes and anecdotes, empathy for the tragedies of Twain's life and twitting of his oddities when called for. I found it quite remarkable that the book could be so factual and also so readable. There's an excellent index, solid background references, and many laugh-out-loud moments. Adding to the pleasaure of this reading experience are some delightful and - new to me - photographs. Strongly recommend this outstanding biography.
A Full, Rich Life.......2006-10-29
This thorough and well-written biography of a gifted indivudual leaves one with the feeling of having known Mark Twain, Samuel Clemmens, personally. The book offers two additional values: One is getting a glinpse of what life was like during the late 19th century. The other is what it meant to experience the Civil War from a state so far removed from the action that the war seemed to be going on in another country.
Great account of a remarkable American life.......2006-10-08
An interesting biography of Mark Twain aka Samuel Clemens, a journalist and a writer.
Although he had no formal education, Mark Twain was arguably the best English language writer since Shakespeare, with his greatest contribution to the American literature being the novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Mark Twain traveled around the world, and had a great sense of humanity
He was a patriot who loved his country and the 19th century. But he condemned his American society for its hypocrisy. He was anti-colonial and anti-imperialist. He condemned the US for the invasion of Cuba and the Philippines, and the annexation of its neighbor, Mexico.
3.5, Round Up to 4 Stars........2006-10-01
You don't need to be incredibly familiar with Mark Twain's novels to follow this biography. In an apparently un-Twain-like linear fashion, Powers discusses the sources of Sam Clemens' stories while describing the formative years of his life. He then references these early experiences in later chapters when discussing the motivation behind each of Twain's works. He goes into great detail about the writing process, how manuscripts can begin vigorously, be set aside for a decade, then finished when enough inspiration has accumulated or enough memories have congealed to round out the story.
I don't think I've ever read a biography of an author. But Sam Clemens' lead a hectic life outside of literature. Powers covers everything from Clemens' boyhood adventures to his myopic business ventures, from his glory days as a Mississippi steamboat pilot to his failure as a Nevadan silver miner. Once his personal life is fleshed out and his acquaintances are described, it's easier to see how the writing of Mark Twain became the copyrighted American voice of the late 19th century.
My only serious complaint about this biography is the vocabulary. How many times can you drop the word "absquatulated" in a book and not sound pompous?
Simply THE best Mark Twain biography.......2006-09-16
Mr. Powers leaves every other Mark Twain biographer in the dust. This work is not only beautifully detailed and researched; it is a constantly engaging 'page turner.' Beyond all that Mr. Power's own gift as a writer is extraordinary...his words literally leap from the page. One of the best reads I have had in a long time.
Book Description
BONUS FEATURE: Exclusive interview with the author.
From one of the most beloved and bestselling authors in the English language, a vivid, nostalgic and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the middle of the United States in the middle of the last century. A book that delivers on the promise that it is “laugh-out-loud funny.”
Some say that the first hints that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came from his discovery, at the age of six, of a woollen jersey of rare fineness. Across the moth-holed chest was a golden thunderbolt. It may have looked like an old college football sweater, but young Bryson knew better. It was obviously the Sacred Jersey of Zap, and proved that he had been placed with this innocuous family in the middle of America to fly, become invisible, shoot guns out of people’s hands from a distance, and wear his underpants over his jeans in the manner of Superman.
Bill Bryson’s first travel book opened with the immortal line, “I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.” In this hilarious new memoir, he travels back to explore the kid he once was and the weird and wonderful world of 1950s America. He modestly claims that this is a book about not very much: about being small and getting much larger slowly. But for the rest of us, it is a laugh-out-loud book that will speak volumes – especially to anyone who has ever been young.
Customer Reviews:
Bryson Scores Again!.......2007-05-12
Bill Bryson's story of growing up in Iowa is a terrific book. I bought it in large print for my mother, who can read only large print, and who has difficulty hearing too, so this is the only way she could enjoy the book. She too adores Bill Bryson. We love his facility with language, and his many ways of making us laugh. He's a marvelous storyteller.
Great Fun.......2007-02-13
This was a wonderful book, which also deviates here and there into politics and general history.
I really came to enjoy Bryson's observations about how "the good old days" were also fraught with some significant downsides, which we've gratefully grown beyond.
One carp: Bryson himself reads the audio edition, and he's not the most gifted reader I've ever heard. He's so laconic that the material really has to carry itself.
H'mmm - maybe that's not such a bad thing after all...anyway, you'll enjoy this book in any form.
PS - if you like this, you'll love the writings of Jean Shepard, too.
Let's Trade Childhoods.......2007-01-11
Bill Bryson is by far the funniest, most insightful, travel writer today.
Here his travels are temporal, instead of spacial as he takes us back to his childhood - and what a childhood it was. His writing is so personal and open that you can't help but feel that this book was written specifically for you.
It is both a very middle class North American tale, set in the fifties and a Calvin archetype (as in Calvin and Hobbes) visioneering a rich and adventurous landscape, that none of the adults could see.
May The Thunderbolt Kid ride again.
David Cale
Bathroom Humor.......2007-01-09
I am a big fan of Bill Bryson but was a little disappointed with the Thunderbolt Kid. Some of the eating habits were outright gross. Many of the stunts and shenanigans were not what I'd expect out of Bryson. Much of his wit was missing in this book. I had few if any laugh out loud moments through this book.
Another Bryson masterpiece.......2007-01-09
Bill Bryson takes you back to another time. His plain stated humor makes you laugh aloud and reminds us how fun childhood was. A must for all Bryson fans.
Books:
- Theogony, Works and Days (Oxford World's Classics)
- Thomas Hardy
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Understanding the Purpose and Power of Prayer: Earthly License for Heavenly Interference
- Wanderlust: A History of Walking
- We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction (Everyman's Library)
- Where Did I Come From?
- Where God Was Born: A Daring Adventure Through the Bible's Greatest Stories (P.S.)
- Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?: Leading a Great Enterprise through Dramatic Change
- A Bend in the River
Books Index
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