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Careless Love, Jul 6 2004
What a good book! Too bad it takes place in England. It seems to me there was a case similar in USA where the teacher was jailed, resumed affair upon release, became pregnant, was jailed again. The boy's mother was vexed but no one could keep them apart. Interesting is that all Heller's characters have their motivations revealed. However, they do seem rather shallow people all trying to put their own little goals into action, especially the main teacher-lover. But she is usually in a daze and becomes a stalker when she is dumped. The wisest one may be the angry daughter. Who wouldn''t be angry living in the midst of such oafs?
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Outlaw Sea
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de William Langewiesche
Édition : Hardcover |
| Availability: Currently unavailable |
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This is the best book I've read in a while., Jun 27 2004
How do you pronounce this man's name? He has a wonderful way with words and I think I am going to subscribe to the Atlantic Monthly just so I can read more of his writing. This book was really scary at times and I couldn't put it down. What I like most about the author is that he doesn't try to force his opinions on the readers. Or if he does, it isn't obtrusive. His description at the end of the shipbreaking yards in India are incredible and I would love to see pictures of them.
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Don't waste your money buying this book., Jun 27 2004
This books makes me ashamed that I am a white female. Alison Rose is the most vapid foolish sycophant little rich girl imaginable. There is not one funny or witty remark in this book. I don't know what she means by being insane. Perhaps she does have schizophrenia. That might be a reason for her super dull behavior. She zeros in on men who have some sort of fame: Burt Lancaster's son, a mnor film celebrity, several New Yorker writers and then debases herself and flatters them endlessly until they submit to her company but some how she cannot even tell us why they are interesting to others. She copies down the most banal things they say. I see on the book jacket that now she occasionally writes for Vogue. She is not employed by the New Yorker and was briefly a receptionist there. Her 94 year old mother should have written the book. Alison's father was correct about her from the start. But instead of a psycho, she's a sycophant.
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Dud, April 30 2004
Not a very interesting book. The author states over and over and over again how emotional she is because her mother died at age 78. She drinks alcohol. Chapter after chapter. However, her love for her mother is never shown in detail, its just mouth service. Blah Blah Blah. I'm so upset. Goal of book is to show author's family is very high class. Does Torregrosa really write for the New Yorker? You'd never know it.
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Autistic Swimmer, April 29 2004
The book was a disappointment for me in some ways. I am a swimmer and I was looking for some explanation for Lynne's extrodinary feats of swimming long distances in very cold water. Perhaps it takes a certain kind of blank mind to be able to accomplish such things and so she has no life other than swimming. Someone must have taken some photos of the venues and of her. Why not publish them in the book? How did she get so incredibly strong? Plus, a description of her weight at various times in her life would be really insightful. I read in an article in the New Yorker that she is 5'6'' and weighs 185 pounds. But she ignores that completely although it would be of enormous interest. Vanity perhaps. Also we don't know what age she was when she swam the Bering Sea. She sprints often to keep warm. She checks her hands to make sure they are paddles. She counts her strokes to 1,000 and then starts again. The doctors check her (...) temperature and its high. That's about all of the information she gives out. Her spectacular swims are quite exciting and fun to think about when swimming: the huge dolphins bumping into her, breaking through ice pans with her elbows and much more. But one more weird thing: she never has given up or lost. Just once when swimming in the polluted Nile River in Egypt she swallowed a turd and got dysentery and so had to drop out. Other then that she ALWAYS wins everything.
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Mating
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de Norman Rush
Édition : Hardcover |
| Availability: Currently unavailable |
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Give us another, please, Mr. Rush., Feb 23 2004
Don't read this book if you do not have an academic turn of mind. The vocabulary is out of sight but is just part of the fun. I did not know what I was getting into. I saw on the cover that the book had won a national award and I knew I was going to be spending two weeks in a hammock in Panama so I bought it and was thrilled to learn that it takes place in Botswana where I had visited before with the terrific books of Alexander McCall Smith and the Miss Marple of Botswana. I read every sentence and laughed out loud many times. The ending itself is funny. The protaganist gets herself so zonked out on her honey that she has to repete exactly the foibles of her predecesor when he is for once, just trying to be honest with her. Of course, she is young and believes in everything she learned in college. I certainly hope Rush is rushing to get another big fat careful novel out to us.
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