I slogged through this endless mosaic over the course of about 50 lunch breaks. As with some of Delillo's other books, I had no idea what's going on. Every time I felt like I knew what was going on, plot-wise, those characters/that storyline, went away. Never did I find fusion among the various stories or characters.

But. It's Delillo, and there is something so transporting and lovely about some of his sentences. Absolutely definitely not all of his sentences. But some of them make me stop reading, read the sentence again, and almost start crying. He has beautiful words.

After I finished this book, and had to have a mental IV for about a month, I started missing it. I couldn't remember what I thought it was about, but it emits some kind of literary pheromone that attracts me.

I have the 560 model. It started giving me Sony's version of the "no disc" error, which I am now learning is a common malfunction in many players. This occurs when the player can't read the inserted disc and tells you INSERT DISC. On Sony players, it's called a C 13 00 error.

When this happened to me a few nights ago, I searched the internet for anything I could find related to this error code. It turns out that not only the 560, but many other Sony models, have so predictably suffered from this defect that there are huge anti-fan clubs of people out there who now hate Sony.

I was on Amazon searching for a replacement player when I saw that other manufacturers players suffer the same problem. Two separate Panasonic owners who had the "no disc" error on their players wrote in their bad reviews "Tomorrow, I get a Sony. I should have done that in the first place." It makes me sad.

Don't get a Sony. The reputation for quality I used to have in my head about Sony is completely destroyed after reading all the nightmares people have had with this error and with customer service.

The designs are lovely, and this book distinguishes itself from others like Koolers' in that each and every design is shown not only in chart form, but also photographed as a finished piece. This is invaluable to me as a beginning stitcher.

There are so many designs in here...I love looking thru the book over and over again, thinking of the possibilities available to me as I strive to become a "domestic goddess". HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

I have the longer version of this book also, the one for adults ("Puppies"). There isn't much to say about these loving photo albums except that the photos are wonderful and peaceful. I like to have the Wegman books near my bed for when I am wound up and unable to sleep. They are very calming and sweet.

Yes, I said "smartly". The storyline is intentionally idiotic, and many of the jokes are profoundly cornball. What makes it work is that it's corny on purpose. It's over-the-top in that way that some may find it easy to misinterpret.

It is truly a treasure trove of hilarious dialogue, too. My favorite has to be William H. Macy's line to a TV reporter. She had just asked him about the oddball superheroes victory over the terrible villain, and he replied "We struck down evil with the mighty sword of teamwork, and the hammer of not bickering."

That kind of humor makes me absolutely bust a gut.

I think if you like Spinal Tap, or Waiting for Guffman, this might be a movie to appeal to you. I highly recommend it, with this caveat: the story itself is not great, and the humor is not in-your-face. Just be prepared for a different type of humor, that has more to do with verbal silliness than anything else.

This is one of a very few movies about which I am completely equivocal. Some parts of it I absolutely revel in, and other parts could not possibly be more cliche and trite. For me, a positive viewing of this movie depends entirely on my mood. It is pretentious but has worth if you are feeling like doing any kind of self-exploration. If you are in a cynical mood, you will find plenty to mock here.

Not a great review for not a great movie.

This was my first McEwan read, and while it was lovely in some ways, I don't necessarily agree that it's all everyone is raving about. It seemed to me not all that interesting a story, nor all that accomplished prosaically or stylistically.

There were instances in which I found myself thrilled and smiling, times when I reread passages to enjoy something a second time. But I guess mostly I just want to convey that all the hoopla here and in other media about this book falls into the "emperor has no clothes" category as far as I'm concerned.

It's a good book, not a great book, and I'd have given it 3.5 stars if I could have.

The story was not particularly unique or interesting, ditto the characters. Some of the stylistic components were good, and I really liked the quotations from bee books that headed each chapter. The quotes were thematically relevant and lovely on their own as well.

Mostly I thought there was no "there, there." Blah blah blah, white girl and black nanny run away from unpleasant circumstances during times of racial unrest in the South. Their adventures while on the lamb were not interesting. The little attempts at making secondary characters have dimension by virtue of their quirkiness was a flop, if you ask me.

It wasn't horrible, but it just wasn't worthwhile either. I can't imagine what people are accustomed to, that they're giving this thing four or five stars.

This isn't a book that Henry Kissinger needs to read. It's a book for those of us who feel like we don't know what happened during the Vietnam era and who want to be able to converse halfway intelligently about it.

I did not find the approach bizarre at all. The section on Indonesia, for example, was one of the book's best parts in that it attempted to show the the US's view of Vietnam involvement was based upon its (America's) experience with Indonesia. This section compared Indonesia and Vietnam in a variety of ways in order to show that American involvement in Vietnam, while ultimately disastrous, may have been partly motivated by our hope that events would unfold the same way there as they had in Indonesia.

I've been playing hearts online for a few months now, and have been horrified to learn how bad I am at this game. I take everyone's advice, pass a low heart, void a suit if possible, etc etc etc, but still I eat her highness four out of five hands. So I bought this book. Well, with the exception of a few helpful thoughts in the very beginning of the book, there is emphatic attention paid throughout 75% of the book to preventing Moon, and achieving it. Let me tell you something, MOST of the people in online hearts are not thinking moon usually. That's why I said that this book is not for beginners, in my review title. I am sure it's great for people who have a good grip of the strategies best practiced in this game. But if you are looking to LEARN those strategies, I don't believe this book is good. It's very limited in teaching those things, although it is not totally silent.

I also found the writing style extremely cumbersome. A hand is diagrammed, then its play-through is described in prose, and this is a lesson. NOT. I wanted much more in the way of "black letter law" -- strategies that are time-tested, and then a demonstration of the applications of these strategies.