The Dramatist: A Novel

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Sometimes You Just Can't Win

Ken Bruen Does it Again

Master of Noir

Makes Hell Look Like a Happy Place

"what dread hand?"

The Dramatist: A Novel
Ken Bruen
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Minotaur
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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The Magdalen Martyrs

Calibre Calibre

The Guards: A Novel

Priest: A Novel

Vixen (Inspector Brant)

ASIN: 0312363109
Release Date: 2007-03-06

Book Description

Seems impossible, but Jack Taylor is sober. One reason hes been able to keep clean: his dealers in jail, which leaves Jack without a source. That dealer calls him to Dublin and asks a favorthe mans sister is dead and the guards have called it death by misadventure. But he says that cant be true and begs Jack to have a look, check around, see what he can find. Jack agrees, though he cant possibly know the shocking, deadly consequences that granting this simple request will bring. Jack will understand soon, in the dark, lethal fourth entry in Ken Bruens award-winning Jack Taylor series.

Customer Reviews:

Sometimes You Just Can't Win.......2007-08-19

Jack Taylor is a man defined by his vices and weaknesses. Essentially, he is a man whose life has been largely consumed by an abuse of alcohol, pills, cocaine and nicotine. Taylor does nothing half way and his weaknesses have ensured that his personal life is a wreck; he runs women off at a steady pace and his closest friends are the two octogenarian women who run the failing hotel at which he's taken up permanent residence. But, hey, things are looking up for Jack. He's been off the dope and booze for a few weeks and he's even thinking about giving up cigarettes - all because his dealer has been given a six year prison sentence and Jack doesn't have the energy to locate a new supplier.

It is when Jack's dealer summons him to the prison to ask for help in finding out why and how his sister was killed that Jack reluctantly resumes his non-paying work as a private detective. The Dramatist is Ken Bruen's fourth Jack Taylor novel, and this time around, Bruen offers a more elaborate and detailed plot than in the previous three. Even so, Taylor's reluctance to get involved in the investigation of what he soon realizes was a murder and not an accidental death allows the author to detail Jack's daily struggles to remain sober and to rebuild the personal life that drugs and booze have taken from him.

This is the heart of the book and, along the way, Jack watches his mother's steady deterioration, is confronted by an old lover while struggling to maintain a new relationship, is challenged by one of his few friends to confront a group of vigilantes and is threatened by a deranged killer. Ultimately, the murder investigation is brought to a successful climax but that was not the most intriguing part of the book for me as a reader and, in fact, the killer's identity came as no great surprise. Rather, I found myself fascinated by the train wreck that is Jack Taylor's life. I rooted for him as he managed to stay off the booze after each personal crisis confronted him but I didn't really expect him to manage it. His personal history filled me with skepticism that his abstinence would last despite the fact that he continued to surprise his friends and even himself by remaining stone cold sober no matter what life tossed at him next.

But be warned: even my skepticism did not prepare me for the ending of this book. I was stunned at its suddenness and power. The Dramatist is the first Ken Bruen novel that I've read without thinking about, and admiring, the author's style more than the novel's plot. Jack Taylor fans will consider this one to be a classic.

Ken Bruen Does it Again.......2007-05-17

Ken Bruen's three previous Jack Taylor novels established the Irish cop as a complex, sarcastic, conflicted, and utterly fascinating anti-hero in a world of murky shadows and dangerous back alleys.

Now he does it again with The Dramatist, a book that is at least as good as the Guards (my personal favorite) and maybe even a little bit better because Bruen's handling of the emotional complexities of the story gets beter with each book.

This is compelling reading. Go out and get it now.

Master of Noir.......2007-05-08

criticising Ken Bruen at this point is a little like complaining that Michaelangelo's David has big hands. Bruen has a fluid and compelling style, a touch for dialogue like Elmore Leonard and a unique Irish voice. He does like to pepper his stories with references to pop songs that few have ever heard but this is a minor vice. His problem, if he has one, is that he is lacking that great Irish talent, a sense of humor. Especially in noir novels, the depression and gloom can be oppressive without a touch of lightness. Bruen's South London novels are much better than his Jack Taylor series in this respect. This novel has an ingenious plot but there are moments of unnecessary horror, to the point where you wish Taylor would just have a drink. But these are minor carpings. Bruen is the master of this field and always worth a read.

Makes Hell Look Like a Happy Place.......2007-05-04

There is some small injustice in describing Ken Bruen's "The Dramatist" as simply "noir". While all of Bruen's writing is bleak - in-your-face crime fiction with no regard for inane political correctness or modern niceties, "The Dramatist" reads like a chainsaw to the gut - an emotional tour de force that will leave fragments of Bruen's broken prose haunting your subconscious weeks after you've turned the last page. Yeah, this is black - Stygian black, about as dark as fiction gets.

Galway ex-Guard Jack Taylor is back, who as a favor to his imprisoned former drug dealer is pulled into the investigation of the death of a college student. The apparently accidental fall down a boarding house staircase, while tragic, looks benign enough. Except for the unexplained volume of Irish playwright J.M. Synge ("A Playboy of the Western World") tucked under her body. But what seems to initially be an unexplained coincidence turns sinister when a similar fate visits another student. As expected from Burke, the mystery of the apparent murders, while compelling, fades a bit into the background under the ferocity and intensity of the irreverent and unrepentant Jack Taylor. And as always, the ridiculously well read Bruen spices this bare-knuckled tale with an eclectic collection of quotes from Synge (as expected), Robert Crais, James Lee Burke, Sean Burke, Matthew Stokoe, and several more. The Irish melancholy and fatalism reads as thick as a Galway sea fret as Taylor lumbers through the crimes and busted love affairs as well, leading to a climax that while fitting with the tone and timbre, nonetheless hit me like a two-by-four between the eyes.

The prolific Bruen continues to write like nobody in the business today. I'll concede, if you enjoy beautiful action hero-type people straight from People Magazine, complete with neat and happy little endings to wrap them up, then Bruen's jagged tales of sparsely written brutality may have you billing OT with your analyst. But if you're looking for that off-the-beaten track maverick who'd prefer to rewrite the genre than follow the pack, get to know this guy.

"what dread hand?".......2006-12-13

This is the fourth novel in Bruen's dark and brooding Galway series. Jack Taylor is battered by nearly every sling and arrow the Fates can muster, but he is still standing. Bruen is both moralist and philosopher as he chronicles Taylor's journey through a life rife with violence and devoid of any apparent meaning. This is a world where, as Vonnegut might say, God has gone out for a coffee break and forgotten to come back. Taylor, a profoundly imperfect alcoholic, does his best to follow his own moral compass. He tries to do the right thing. When moved to violence he is like the left hand of an absent god. Or is he the Devil's Right Hand? It's hard to say. His personal tragedies and hardships have approached Job like proportions. As Samuel B. would say: "I can't go on. I'll go on." Don't let Bruen's fondness for quoting Thomas Merton or Pascal fool you though. These novels are still ripping good entertainment despite the philosophical underpinnings. Yup, they're "Noir" alright. And Hank Williams was a "country singer". So what? The univeral themes of literature change very little, if at all. Bruen is not a slave to the form of the "crime novel". He uses that form to express himself much as a fine guitarist might use a 12-bar blues as a basis for the most individualistic or idiosyncratic playing. These novels have the weight and heft of a well-used hurley, or 'camaan', the ancient Irish weapon-cum-sporting implement that Taylor both delivers and receives lessons with. Take a firm but relaxed grip and swoosh it through the air. Think about the scumbag down the block who sold crank to your teenage nephew. What are you gonna do next?

The Players: A Novel of the Young Shakespeare

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Not so hot
The Players
"The Players" is tender, evocative and beautifully written.
Totally sensual and engrossing...couldn't put it down!
Historically detailed dramatization of Shakespeare's life

The Players: A Novel of the Young Shakespeare
Stephanie Cowell
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0393040607

Amazon.com

What better subject for a novel than William Shakespeare, the most celebrated writer of all time? Stephanie Cowell, an established writer of historical fiction, recreates Elizabethan England and conjures a compelling life of Shakespeare from his youth in Stratford to his early artistic and personal development in London where he wrote the plays and sonnets that put him on the path to literary immortality. Cowell works from a solid foundation of historical research but glides beyond that research with a novelist's eye and imagination into a clearly drawn chronicle of the events, situations, and relationships that formed the Shakespeare whose work is still vibrant, even after 400 years.

Book Description

A graceful and sensual historical novel tracing William Shakespeare's momentous path of self-discovery, both as a writer and as a young man. Before he was William Shakespeare, playwright and poet, he was simply Will, a young man who dreamed of the writer he would someday be. Based on extensive research and historical fact, this richly detailed fictionalization of Shakespeare's formative years begins with the glover's son roaming the fields of Stratford, hungry for knowledge and restless to escape the boundaries of his small town and loveless marriage. Will leaves his family for London and becomes a struggling actor whose charmed, reckless circle of literary and theatrical friends includes John Heminges, Ben Jonson, and Christopher Marlowe. All the while, however, Shakespeare continues to challenge himself as a writer; soon he is selling his plays and earning acclaim in the world of the London theater and aristocracy. Yet perhaps his finest and most heartfelt writing of the period can be found in the sonnets written for the Earl of Southampton, the beautiful young lord whose affection and aloofness stir the poet's soul. The earl becomes Shakespeare's patron, friend, romantic rival, and eventually, his lover. With the earl and the bewitching Italian musician Emilia Bassano, Shakespeare plunges into a tempestuous love triangle that will threaten both his desire to write and his sense of himself.

Customer Reviews:

Not so hot.......2005-10-15

I was looking forward to a really good read here, but the book was dull, heavy, and depressing. There was also too much sex for me. A far superior novel on the same subject is YOUNG WILL: THE CONFESSIONS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, by Bruce Cook, which was lively and interesting. I'd also been planning to read Cowell's MARRYING MOZART, but after reading THE PLAYERS, I decided against it.

The Players.......2000-06-15

This beautifully realized and passionate fictional account of the young Shakespeare's life is rich with period detail that transports the reader back in time to Elizabethan England. The book is also filled with well-wrought, complex characters -- the actors, writers, and others whom Shakespeare knew -- and their relationships with one another. For anyone who loves historical fiction or Shakespeare, or wonders about the "Dark Lady" of the sonnets, this book will be mesmerizing. Highly recommended.

"The Players" is tender, evocative and beautifully written........1998-10-07

Stephanie Cowell's tender, deeply felt, beautifully written "The Players: A Novel of the Young Shakespeare" is a wonderful fictionalized biography, sweet, yearning and passionate. It is the story of Shakespeare's growing up and of his love for the Earl of Southampton and the celebrated Dark Lady of the Sonnets. Marlowe and Ben Jonson are two more of the brilliantly drawn characters, and the whole life of Elizabethan England, the bustle of the busy port of London, and of the art and theater of those days is so really evoked that we feel we are there. My emotions were aroused, and I found the story evocative of my own life, of feelings I have had, the events being so engrossing, so engaging and involving, that I was deeply moved. The Historical Notes at the end of the book are also fascinating. Read this book! You will love it, as I do.--Robert Blumenfeld

Totally sensual and engrossing...couldn't put it down!.......1998-10-06

Shakespeare came to life as never before. A deep portrait of a sensitive young artist finding himself in his writing. The love triangle was magical.

Historically detailed dramatization of Shakespeare's life.......1997-08-25

Of course the actors and writers went hungry when the City of London shut down theaters to combat periodic outbreaks of The Plague! Again, Stephanie Cowell treats us to such detail in a drama set in her meticulously researched Shakespearean London, this time about the great writer himself, before he became famous.

Book Description

"An autobiography is a book a person writes about his own life and it is usually full of all sorts of boring details.

This is not an autobiography. I would never write a history of myself. On the other hand, throughout my young days at school and just afterwards a number of things happened to me that I have never forgotten." -- Roald Dahl

As full of excitement and the unexpected as his world-famous, bestselling books, Roald Dahl's tales of his own childhood are completely fascinating and fiendishly funny. Did you know that Roald Dahl nearly lost his nose in a car accident? Have you heard about his involvement in the Great Mouse Plot of 1924? If not, you don't yet know all there is to know about Roald Dahl. Sure to captivate and delight you, the boyhood antics of this master storyteller are not to be missed!

Performed by Derek Jacobi

Customer Reviews:

Funny book.......2007-06-30

This hilarious book from Roald Dahl that tells about the funny things that he had done throughout his life. People who enjoy other books Dahl wrote will laugh on this one. For instance, Roald and his friends put a dead rat into a jar of Gobstoppers. IF you read the book, you should read more of Roald Dahl's adventures. I will recommend this book to people who like nonfiction and funny stories because it has both great and funny story.

Fun, easy read..........2006-11-11

My 15 year old brother-in-law enjoyed reading this book with me. I enjoyed it myself!!

Okay stories.......2006-09-26

Good book about growing up and some of the great stories you're expect from your grandfather. Could have used less information on the beatings headmasters used to give students.

''Some are funny. Some are painful. Some are unpleaseant. Perhaps this is why I have remembered them so vividly. All are true.''.......2006-09-02

So says Roald Dahl in the introduction to his autobiogrophy,BOY. The book is a collection of his childhood memories, from the magical summers in Norway to the dreary days at St.Peters boarding school. As in all of Dahl's works the characters are quirky and memorable,but more fascinating here because they really existed. The auther recounts the adventures of his childhood with tenderness and dry humor.

BOY,TALES OF CHILDHOOD is a terrific book, much more interesting than the average autobiography!

RATING:A

delightful melodrama.......2006-07-08

I'm a Dahl fan, a writer for both adults and children. I think the key to his success as writer for children is that he doesn't think children are stupid or don't understand what they see. From my own experience, and now as a father, I know that children see, hear, think and make conclusions with their experiences.

This book is a collection of sketches of Dahl's school years. It makes you understand many of the stories that appear in his books: he was born in a well-to-do family, and enjoyed always a high living standard even in the depression years. He attended exclusive british public schools, etc. Then he found a good job at BP.

The book is full of family love, anecdotes about a child's view point (adenoidectomy, the mouse plot, etc) which will make you smile or even laugh aloud. Some of those, together with the fact that his mother saved all his letters and family fotos and mementoes, which sprinkle the book, makes it a delightful read.

It's true that some of the chapters are sombre, because for us it's shocking to know that children were so abused (beaten with a cane and deprived of affection, or bullied by older thugs who made them fag), but Dahl succeeds in making us loathe that supposedly elitistic education system. He doesn't make it sound as "the good old days, they had some bad things but not all..." In that sense, it's much better than "Tom Brown Shooldays" or Kipling's "Stalky and Co".

But all in all, he brings us the sense of a fantastic childhood, surrounded by family love, affection, and well being. I grew up in a partly similar context (the lack of affection in education, but not the beatings or the comfort)and it serves me to try to be a better father, more intent into giving my children nice emotional and intelectual experiences.

Enjoy!

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classic Jong

Serenissima: A Novel of Venice
Erica Jong
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0395429226

Customer Reviews:

classic Jong.......2002-12-20

This kinda-trashy, kinda-intellectual novel is classic Jong. The protagonist, a Shakespearean actress, certainly isn't facing a shortage of [physical] encounters. In fact, she has a romp with the Bard himself. The books is a little bit difficult to follow, as it bounces back & forth between Shakespearan times & modern times. It is spiced up with a word or two of Italian here & there, references to contemporary art, andnd it is rich with Shakespearean history & references to Shakespeare's works. If you like a little Shakespeare in your steamy romance reads, this book is for you.

Beatrix Potter: The Story of the Creator of Peter Rabbit (World of Beatrix Potter)

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life of a great lady

Beatrix Potter: The Story of the Creator of Peter Rabbit (World of Beatrix Potter)
Elizabeth Buchan
Manufacturer: Warne
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Literary Criticism & Collections | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0723244278

Book Description

While we know much of Beatrix Potter from her classic children's stories, there is a great deal more to this courageous woman than meets the eye. Born into a well-off but repressive family and society, Beatrix Potter's triumph over personal difficulties and her ground-breaking work in such fields as science and conservation make her a great role model and inspiration for children today. This splendid children's introduction to her extraordinary life story is ideal for young fans who want an informative and easy to understand text and provides an excellent source of reference for school projects.

Customer Reviews:

life of a great lady.......2001-08-12

This lady could have been a great scientist as she was meticulous in observation and wanted to be a biologist. However she was a dutiful daughter and turned her talents first to writing and illustrating childrens stories and later to being an innovative and hardworking farmer and breeder of sheep. Her intense love of the beauty of the lake district and the old villages led into the conservation movement and she helped the birth of the National Trust in England.

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A Novel of Fallen Ideals
When a "Real" New Yorker Is Just a Provincial
A challenging read
Turn of the Mid-Century
Don't listen to people from California

The Locusts Have No King
Dawn Powell
Manufacturer: Zoland Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1883642426
Release Date: 1998-06-01

Book Description

NO ONE HAS SATIRIZED New York society quite like Dawn Powell, and in this classic novel she turns her sharp eye and stinging wit on the literary world, and "identifies every sort of publishing type with the patience of a pathologist removing organs for inspection." Frederick Olliver, an obscure historian and writer, is having an affair with the restively married, beautiful, and hugely successful playwright, Lyle Gaynor. Powell sets a see-saw in motion when Olliver is swept up by the tasteless publishing tycoon, Tyson Bricker, and his new book makes its way onto to the bestseller lists just as Lyle's Broadway career is coming apart.
"For decades Dawn Powell was always just on the verge of ceasing to be a cult and becoming a major religion." -- Gore Vidal

Customer Reviews:

A Novel of Fallen Ideals.......2002-11-23

The title of Dawn Powell's 1948 novel is derived from the Book of Proverbs: "The locusts have no king, yet they go forth all of them by bands." The title suggests a certain degree of smallness, conformity, and crowd (swarm) mentality -- a lack of vision and a falling off of what creative life could be. I thought invariably of Nathanael West's "Day of the Locust" set in Hollywood, besides New York City that other center of American dreams. West's novel is a novel of irony which depicts conformity, crassness, and lovelessness in a manner that does resemble Powell's novel. There are parallels in Powell's book with many other novels as well.

"The Locusts have no King" is set in New York City between the period of the end of WW II and the first test nuclear explosion on Bikini Atoll in 1947. The novel is a story of fallen ideals and of the difficult effort required to keep and recover at least some sense of one's ideals. The ideals in question are primarily those of true love and passion and also those of following and remaining faithful to one's dream -- in the case of this book, the dream of writing

The story is told in Powell's sharply ironical voice. Some readers find her voice cool, brittle and impresonal. But I got involved with the main characters and found it moving.

The central character of the book is Frederick, a serious writer and scholar (not attached to any university) who studies medieval history and writes books and articles which few people read. For many years, he has been carrying on an affair with a woman named Lyle, who writes plays together with her crippled husband. Frederick's head is termed by what we today would call a bimbo appropriately named Dodo. ("Pooh on you"!, she says, througout the book) At the same time, Frederick's financial fortune turns when his publisher prevails upon him to edit a periodical appropriately named "Haw" which becomes a commercial success.

The main plot of the story involves Frederick's attempt to understand and put his love life and his writing life back together.

Powell develops this basically serious story is an atmosphere of superficiality. The story moves forward in the bars and pubs of New York City and in party scenes among those on the make. Powell is a master at describing the bars and the streets of New York and in depicting party chatter. The book is full of tart, cutting one-liners and of aphorisms. The theme of fallen ideals in love and thinking is carried through in the settings of the story. Powell has a deeply ambivalent attitude, I think, towards these settings. She clearly knows them well.

This is not a book to be read for the author's skill in plotting. The book is cluttered with many characters and incidents. Powell is a wondeful prose stylist in this book as in her other novels that I have read. In this book I found places where the prose as well as the characters were cluttered and laid on too thick. The strength of the book lies in its description of New York and in Powell's description of how ideals and visions can come short. I found this poignantly displayed.

Powell's own description of "The Locusts have no King" offers valuable insight into what the book has to offer. She wrote:

"The theme ... deals with the disease of destruction sweeping though our times... each person out to destroy whatever valuable or beautiful thing life has... The moral is ... one must cling to whatever remnants of love, friendship, or hope above and beyond reason that one has, for the enemy is all around ready to snatch it."

This is an excellent novel by a deservedly rediscovered American writer.

When a "Real" New Yorker Is Just a Provincial.......2002-07-01

This is a fine, funny satire of New York literary life, and of the thousands of "real New Yorkers" who arrive from their small town or boring suburb and don't write that great novel, or make it big in the theatre, but live the literary lifestyle and are, in fact, "pretentiously bohemian, loudly literary" - in fact, not very likable. You've met people like this, and thanks to the talent of Dawn Powell you can laugh your head off about them.

Here's the guy who tells you "The reason I never went in for painting is I'd want to do it so much better than anyone else." Here's the woman whose "voice showed such cautiously refined diction as to hint at some fatal native coarseness." Here's the folks at a party "generously happy in the pleasure their company was surely giving." And here's the stranger who bends your ear with: "My great ambition has always prevented me from doing anything."

A great piece of description comes during Powell's depiction of a night school for recently-arrived "real" New Yorkers afraid of revealing their ignorance: "There were courses in Radio Appreciation," and such like, leaving the narrator "marvelling afresh that so many grown up, self-supporting people should be eagre to spend money studying not a subject itself but methods to conceal their ignorance of it."

The whole novel is a vast canvas of such scenes and throughout Powell is painting a absorbing picture of 1940's New York (and the New York of today!). One thing Powell is excellent at, in a way Eugene O'neill is, too, is in stripping away the pipe dreams that people veil their lives with, and showing the reader the real, stark truth. Her satire is worthy of Saul Bellow and Gore Vidal; indeed of Aristophanes and Petronius - the latter two writers she loved (she was friends with Vidal, too, in the New York of the 40's and 50's). If you like this one, try her Happy Island, and indeed, all her New York novels.

A challenging read.......2000-11-23

The novel explores a world the movies managed to miss -- the working bohemian class of the late 1940s. The narrator is extremely chatty, and there's a lot of telling instead of showing. But the effort is worth it. The two main characters -- an itinerant scholar and a playwright who props up her physically challenged husband -- are not too sympathetic, but at the end you're glad that they end up the way they do. Intertwined into the plot are some great observations on a world long plowed under by the Donald and the Rudy.

Turn of the Mid-Century.......1999-06-09

Like Kurt Anderson's recent novel, this gem satirizes the New York media scene, but it takes place during the post-WWII years. The author's story holds up and does not feel dated, and her characterizations are dead on (especially good for laughs is the aptly-named airhead Dodo).

The late Dawn Powell deserves the praise reaped with the rediscovery of her novels. I am already considering which one I will read next.

Don't listen to people from California.......1999-01-07

This book is a really fun look, a slice of life in NYC and its publishing world in post-war America. I can't think of anybody who wouldn't thoroughly enjoy not only this story, this satire, but the writing as a whole. This, among other Dawn Powell books, is what I recommend to people looking for something to read that won't bore them to tears!

The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder (Henry McBride Series in Modernism)

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The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder (Henry McBride Series in Modernism)

Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Gertrude Stein, the great lesbian modernist, met Thornton Wilder when he was a young writer in search of a mentor. Stein became that mentor and helped Wilder shape his aesthetic into classic American plays such as Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth. Begun during Stein's lecture tour of the U.S. in 1934, their friendship lasted until Stein's death 12 years later. These letters record Wilder's attempts to help Stein with publication and Stein's insistence that the writer's work is not teaching or lecturing or seeking fame, but writing. The Letters of Gertrude Stein and Thornton Wilder records not only a friendship, but also the writers' struggles with the position of their writing in American culture.

Average customer rating:

Mixed review
Very good story
Empty
Striving
Quick read full of human emotion

What to Keep: A Novel
Rachel Cline
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Family Saga | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 1400061830
Release Date: 2004-04-20

Book Description

Denny Roman at twelve: a midwestern girl with a clueless family, a bit part in the school play, a crush on the drama teacher, and concerns about frontal development. Her mother and father, divorced neuroscientists, are raising her with benign neglect. The family is virtually run by an agoraphobe named Maureen, who has a taxi fleet and a superorganized and compassionate method of managing other people’s lives, especially Denny’s.

Denny Roman at twenty-six: jets home from Hollywood for the weekend and lands in the marital minefield of her mother and stepfather’s imminent relocation to New York. She has to pack up her childhood possessions in forty-eight hours before returning to L.A. for a big audition with Robert Altman. She’s supposed to be deciding what to keep, but she’s worried about what to wear. In a deranged moment, she kisses her stepfather. On the lips.

Denny Roman at thirty-six: A playwright on the eve of her first Off-Broadway production and once again living within sparring distance of her mother, she comes home from rehearsal one afternoon and finds a thirteen-year- old boy on her doorstep: Luke, the son of Maureen and a Mauritanian refugee cabdriver. Bewildered by his mother’s recent death, Luke is looking for a place where he might fit. Will Denny keep him in New York? Will she get any help from Sean—an actor whose good looks may be all there is to him? Will she be reconciled with her mother at long last?

What to Keep looks into the lives of Denny Roman, her mother, her father, her stepfather, and her surrogate mother—all practicing variations on the theme “parent” but none of them quite done being children themselves. Bubbling with sly humor and psychological insight, their story holds out a refreshingly flexible and realistic model of what a good family—whether created by nature or chance or both—can consist of.

Customer Reviews:

Mixed review.......2007-01-02

I've just scanned the reviews and see that several feel the same way that I do about this book. I have a mixed review for RC's book. I was somewhat disappointed with this book due to the lack of character development in the early part of the book. I had questions about the characters that she simply left unexplored or at the very least unanswered.

The story telling was lacking in certain points and made me wonder if the editing staff had deleted too much?!

The last few chapters were redeeming, when the writing became better and she explained more. Did she intentionally do this? Just as Denny (Eden) is becoming comfortable in her own skin and is finally "grown up" the book is better? Is this a coincidence?

The last sections exhibited strong storytelling and a certain truthfulness that I appreciated.

I hesistate suggesting this book to others to read, unless they understand that at times you'll be frustrated with the writing/plot/storytelling.

Very good story.......2005-10-17

This was a great story, well told. It kept me interested. I would highly recommend it.

Empty.......2005-10-12

The author says that the theme of the book is "Life is what happens when you're making other plans". That theme didn't translate well into a novel because the entire story feels empty and lacking.
The most disappointing aspect of this book was the character development. The characters were a mystery to the reader and to themselves. They do not "get" themselves or understand their actions (which comes from the authors second theme "brains that misbehave"). The characters personalities are vague and their sense of self is zero. The two main characters are the hardest to grasp: Lily and her daughter Denny. Secondary characters, Maureen, Luke, and Phil are actually better. Maureen was my favorite and I feel the author's strongest character in the novel. She was strong, well defined, interesting and had a "real" life happening in the story unlike the other characters who are removed from their life.
The other drawback to this book is the time frames in which it was set up. The first part takes place when Denny is 12 and in middle school. The second part is Denny at 26 and developing a career. The final portion is Denny in her late thirties. The sections don't set each other up well and the author doesn't take the time to catch you up to date and fill you in on these large time gaps. That increases the sense of detachment and understanding of the book. This book does not allow you to "get inside" you don't become immersed in the lives of the characters. The immersed aspect is in my opinion the beauty of a good book and this book doesn't have it.
I never fall asleep reading; in fact I generally have to tear myself away from a book to go to sleep..... but not this book- it often put me to sleep for a nap never mind at night I was out cold. I finished the book and aside from the Maureen portions in the beginning the last 30% of the book was my favorite so I'm glad that I finished it.
I do not suggest you read this book unless you have a very different taste in reading than I do. If the positive reviews on Amazon which outline the good aspects of this book (it is original, it's intellectual, and humorous) interest you then give it a try- you might like it because it is not a terrible book and the author is talented in her style, it's just not my definition of a "great book".

Striving.......2005-07-24

I could not get into this book at all. It seems like the writer is trying too hard to set a mood but not giving us enough of the characters. I had a hard time plodding through the entire story.

Quick read full of human emotion.......2005-07-13

Rachel Cline weaves a beautiful story out of three snapshots of the main character's life, spanning three decades. Cline manages to cover a lot of time in this short book, yet the scenes are vivid and detailed; nothing is skimmed over. I felt really close to Denny as I saw her in the different phases of her life.

This book really hits home on the theme of parenting. Denny has a surrogate parent who affects her in each of the three life periods. Denny, her friend Maureen, and another character are all children who grow up in a house without a father, and there are parallels between all of their lives. We see Denny go from a child with somewhat absent parents to the age where she considers becoming a parent herself, and the transformation makes for great reading.

Average customer rating:

A Year in a Life
Going Solo
Going Solo Review
Going Solo By Roald Dahl
Unbelievable and Amazing Stories!

Going Solo
Roald Dahl
Manufacturer: Puffin Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Teens | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0141311428

Book Description

Superb Stories, Daring Deeds, Fantastic Adventures

Here is the action-packed sequel to Boy, a tale of Dahl's exploits as a World War II pilot. Told with the same irresistible appeal that has made Roald Dahl one the world's best-loved writers, Going Solo brings you directly into the action and into the mind of this fascinating man.

Performed by Derek Jacobi.

Customer Reviews:

A Year in a Life.......2006-12-24

What an entertaining read this proves--not surprisingly--by the author of the children's classic, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Continuing the autobiographical expose of British boarding schools as revealed in BOY, Dahl opens this meant-for-adults book with a delightfully wacky view of his fellow Englishmen en route to work in Africa. Scornful of the repeated falls from stoic grace by so many of his predecessors, this young Empire Builder is at first shocked by the sight of so many decent chaps who have Gone Native--a result of prolonged absence from the UK and intense heat exposure. Can an idealistic youth rise above heat, humidity and British bravado to maintain his unflappable equanimity, or will he too succumb to the national trend?

Most of this book, however, consists of Dahl's serious account of his contribution to the Allied air war in Africa's western desert, followed by a long recuperation from head trauma. Before he returns safely to England, he describes the deadly action in Greece where German planes far outnumbered the intrepid RAF pilots. Interspersed among the reports of the air war are his own b/w photos and letters (self-censored) to his beloved Norwegian mother in England. This account will easily capture the reader's interest as Dahl translates the global struggle by bringing it down to an intensely human level. With his treasured possessions--pilot's Log Book and his 2nd camera--we leave him when he is reunited safely with his mother. A fast read--well worth the effort even if you are not a war buff.

Going Solo.......2006-11-29

Going Solo (the sequel to Boy) is a collection of Roald Dahl's most interesting stories of his time in Africa. These include: meeting a man you gives himself dandruff, teaching an African boy to read and write, seeing a lion attack a cook, learning to fly without a teacher, crashing in the African desert, leading a unit of R.A.F. soldiers to stop a caravan of German people from leaving Dar es Salaam, becoming temporarily blind, meeting the girl of his dreams then falling out of love when he sees her and living on a Greek airfield soon before he was grounded. Roald Dahl's style of writing changes each time slightly changes to fit the story. Basically, you get the idea that you have known Roald for years and he is just telling you an amusing story. Going Solo was not as interesting as some of his other fiction stories. For some readers it may not be interesting enough to keep you in the book; but it is not boring, thrills and adventure are always happening. To compare this to Boy would be a little difficult because even though they are the same writer, Boy is about his childhood and is for younger readers. Going Solo is probably for older readers. Even it you do not like one of the chapters the next will bring you back in. So if you want a lot of good anecdotes to read then or if you really liked Boy, you should pick up Going Solo.

Going Solo Review.......2006-05-24

Going Solo is the great story that Roald Dahl adventured throughout his young life. Roald Dahl accomplished many things once he was able to do things on his own. Mainly the book is about himself traveling all over Europe and Africa just trying to experience as much as he could. He travels all over the bottom of Europe and works way down and around Africa staying at many non civilized villages and getting to know many natives. At the time he is working for the Shell Oil Company until he finally quits. In East Africa he also is endangered with a near fatal death with a Green Mamba , one of the most deadly snakes. Roald also has a passion for the air force, and ends up joining the RAF. Going Solo is one of the most adventurous books that I have ever read, with the nonstop climax's and so many near death experiences. This is a very descriptive book with so many heroic twist that can keep anyone's attention. Roald Dahl is very famous for most of his work such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but this book is amazing because this all actually happened to writer in real life. The greatest part about the Roald Dahl in Going Solo is that he never gave up, even after a plane crash that he should not have been able to live after. He was told that he would be blind for the rest of his life, but about a month later he started to gain his sight back. I feel that this book is a miracle.

Going Solo By Roald Dahl.......2006-02-07

I read the fantastic book named Going Solo by Roald Dahl. This book was an autobiography of Roald Dahl's life prior to and during World War II. The book explained many of his encounters with the enemy as a pilot for the Royal Air Force in Roald Dahl's personal view. There are an uncountable number of fascinating events that occur when he is a pilot. Some of them include when he receives a life threatening injury, going into a hardcore battle with no experience at fighting enemies, and getting out of a long-lasting dogfight where he was outnumbered 200 to 12. The other half of the book explained his thrilling adventures prior to the war when he worked for the Shell Company. Some of his experiences while working for the Shell Company included chasing a lion, saving a man from a deadly Black Mamba, and sighting a deadly Green Mamba enter his friends house. Every page of the book was full of plot and adventure, and I could not put this book down.
In the beginning of the book Roald Dahl is on a ship, which was taking him from England to Africa for a job with the Shell Company. He ended up in a beautiful tropic town named Dar es Salaam, located in Tanzania, which is on the coast of Africa. Once there, he was given a personal `boy' named Mdisho, which back then was like an unpaid worker. Mdisho and Roald form a very close father-son relationship, Roald being the father and Mdisho being the son. Roald teaches Mdisho many things, while Mdisho goes out and works for him. After a while, Roald decides to join the army as a Pilot Officer. He began his journey in flight training for six months. Then, he was given directions to join up with the 80 Squadron, who were fighting in the middle of the Sahara desert. The directions were incorrect and he ended up crashing and getting a life-threatening injury. Once he recovered, he was to meet up with the 80 Squadron again, who were now located in Greece. He finds himself fighting in Greece with only 12 planes in the whole of Greece. The Germans had thousands of planes located in Greece, so they fought as best they could. Once it was getting too dangerous, the 80 Squadron left and went on to a place named Argos, which was another fifty miles along the coast. After that, they went along to Palestine and Syria, and fought off more Nazis. He then was experiencing major headaches when flying and had to be sent home. This is a brief overview of the book, and as you can see it's full of suspense.
This book was an awesome book, because I learned a lot about how life was during World War II through the eyes of a magnificent writer. It was so good that I read it the first day I started reading it. Roald Dahl draws out a scene for you each battle, so you can imagine like you are there with him, in his Hurricane airplane fighting off the Nazis. This book is for the sort of person that enjoys reading fast-paced books and loves to read about history. Also, if you like the author Roald Dahl, I would suggest reading it because it tells a lot about him, and his personal history. If this book sounds interesting to you then I definitely recommend it and suggest you check it out, or maybe you might want to check out the prequel to Going Solo titled Boy.

Unbelievable and Amazing Stories!.......2005-10-31

WOW! Going Solo, by Roald Dahl is an amazing and heart capturing book. Read this book if you love war stories. These stories are serious, funny, and keep you wanting more. I found the book almost impossible to believe during some points in the amazing novel.
Dahl's biography tells about his survival in the dated war planes without experience (while outnumbered 100 to 1) and on the ground as commander with no experience again. Dahl uses great language and thought to describe things and to progress the novel with amazing simplicity. To me, simplicity and straight-forwardness makes a book enjoyable (not school like), and pretty easy to read. It is not a "piece of cake" reading, but it isn't unbelievably hard. His survival in the air of Greece and Africa come down to one thing, instincts. I believe Going Solo shows how most humans would act during a war; very scared, rather excited, nervous, and filled with heart pumping adrenaline. As I read, my eyes read faster than my brain could keep up with. I felt I was flying right next Dahl, watching him struggle to survive the most horrid war of history, World War II. What I also love about Roald Dahl's story is that he has a perfect balance of humor and exploding action. There was never one seriously boring dead place.
This is one of the best books I have ever read. I love Going Solo because I always want to read more. Most of the time I do not wish to put it down. These are the types of books I love to read. Astonishingly, the novel feels like a movie. At the last second when all hope seems to be lost, Dahl shows his intelligence by giving you a story you will remember for a long time. That is why I recommend this book.
Do not read Going Solo if you hate adventurous, unbelievably true World War II stories. Trust me; read Going Solo if you want a great read with amazing plot.
The novel builds and builds with drama and action, then the unfathomable happens...read Going Solo to find a great ending with a great last word.

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please read this book
jazz, stories, history- it doesn't get any better than this!

Divine Days: A Novel
Leon Forrest
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

jp-unknown1 | Specialty Stores | Books
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ASIN: 0393312216

Customer Reviews:

please read this book.......2005-08-16

Divine Days is as beautifully written as it is challenging. It is massive, complex, and wonderful. Leon Forrest is truly one of the great writers of the 20th century. History may look back and place Forrest in the Canon along with the likes of Ellison, Faulkner, and Morrison. On the other hand, the book may continue to be overlooked. Either way, do yourself a favor and read this book. You'll be glad you did.

jazz, stories, history- it doesn't get any better than this!.......1998-06-07

Written in the free-form style of jazz music, Leon Forrest's novel captures the pride, woe and miracle of a people and of a generation. There will never be a more human, more complete, more whole celebration of storytelling and history than Divine Days!!!

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