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20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (Scholastic Classics) 184 reviews
Jules Verne
Scholastic Paperbacks, 2003
Wow
+ Reading this with different eyes as an adult.
+ Reads Like a Travel Journal
+ Interesting Anachronisitc Book - Inconsistent Quality of Publishing
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People of the Book: A Novel136 reviews
Geraldine Brooks
Viking Adult, 2008
engrossing, beautiful story for all book lovers
+ A Very Interesting Story
+ A great historical mystery
The Sarajevo Haggadah of Pesach, one of the most mysterious and interesting Haggadot in the world, is at the center of Geraldine Brooks' novel "People of the Book".
Haggadah, which means "telling" is a rabbinic exegesis the Jewish liberation from Egypt, as told in the Exodus book of the Torah, ...
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Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure 94 reviews
Michael Chabon
Del Rey, 2007
Short, but sweet...
+ Chabon Lite
...just like this review.
If you love language...if you love adventure-writ-economical...if you believe that 'less is more'...then this novel is for you.
It's not for everyone. It is a sortakinda set-piece of muscular language; imagine if you will, Shakespeare writing a novella, and doing ...
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The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: And Other Tales of Terror (Penguin Classics) 7 reviews
Robert Louis Stevenson
Penguin Classics, 2003
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Dual Nature of Man.
+ A Short Masterpiece
+ Excellent edition of a classic tale
+ Interesting horror/study
+ A Great Horror Story
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Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance17 reviews
Richard Powers
Harper Perennial, 1992
A Most Interesting Meta-Fiction
+ Good 1st novel
+ An audacious novel
I agree with the other customer reviewers of this novel when they state that it is a "difficult" work. In many ways, reading Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance is not even like reading a novel. The book uses its main stories as a clothesline to hang an astonishing number of meditations on ...
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Exit Ghost46 reviews
Philip Roth
Houghton Mifflin, 2007
RANT AGAINST DEATH AND THE DEATH OF LITERATURE
+ Character driven novel w/focus on internal monologue
+ poignant, as always.
+ The past is prologue
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The Last Novel5 reviews
David Markson
Shoemaker & Hoard, 2007
THE GODLIKE POWER OF DAVID MARKSON
+ cult to mainstream
+ Postmodern Gem
+ A NEW SEMINONFICTIONAL SEMIFICTION
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Man in the Dark: A Novel39 reviews
Paul Auster
Henry Holt and Co., 2008
why fiction?
+ The Beautiful Man in the Dark
+ Almost, but not quite
+ Feels more like a Paul Auster brand than a book
+ Auster does absurdist fiction
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The Echo Maker: A Novel 102 reviews
Richard Powers
Picador, 2007
surreal landscape that sucks you in...
+ Intelligent and entertaining
Powers knows how to suck you into the turmoil and conflict in a character's life.
This book deserves all the accolades it received. I could not put this down. Great stuff on identity, sibling relationships, what it means to be intimate after decades in a romantic relationship, and how we are ...
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Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East13 reviews
Juan Cole
Palgrave Macmillan, 2007
Required Reading for Understanding the Middle East
+ Shades of 2003
Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East by Juan Cole should surely be considered "must reading" for anyone interested in today's foreign policy issues as they relate to this part of the world. It might appear a bit extreme to say it, but after reading this relatively short but deeply researched ...
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In the Skin of a Lion74 reviews
Michael Ondaatje
Vintage, 1997
p
+ Beautiful
I cannot say that I fell in love with this book upon first reading--in fact, had I not been stuck waiting for several hours with nothing else to do, I probably would never have made it through. It is constructed very tediously, the structure being as intricate (and perhaps, as initially ...
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Then We Came to the End: A Novel217 reviews
Joshua Ferris
Back Bay Books, 2008
I Laughed, I Cried - Three Thoughts
+ Adperson's anomie
+ Funny, fantastic, tragic book (and gorgeous dust jacket design!)
+ Funny, and a little bit of drama
+ One of the best you'll ever read!
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Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions151 reviews
Lisa Randall
Harper Perennial, 2006
Groundbreaking Physics in Beautiful Prose
+ Very clear, balanced intro to modern physics and its frontiers
+ Four reasons to purchase
+ Why I was interested in science in the first place
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Consider the Lobster: And Other Essays48 reviews
David Foster Wallace
Back Bay Books, 2007
Smart, eclectic, and hilariously funny.
+ for DFW disciples
Full disclosure: I have a major intellectual crush on David Foster Wallace. Yes, yes, I know about his weaknesses - the digressions, the rampant footnote abuse, the flaunting of his amazing erudition, the mess that is 'Infinite Jest'. I know all this, and I don't care. Because when he is in top ...
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The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell's Secret28 reviews
Seth Shulman
W. W. Norton, 2008
The Great Temptation
+ Entertaining and iconoclastic
+ Hold the Phone!
What an interesting story! And how dismaying it is to read how the honorable Alexander Graham Bell compromised himself, and then managed to suppress the truth from his mind in order to enjoy the fruits of his actions. He was in love with the daughter of a powerful lawyer, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, ...
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Treasure Island (Puffin Classics)
Robert Louis Stevenson
Puffin, 2008
Following the demise of bloodthirsty buccaneer Captain Flint, young Jim Hawkins finds himself with the key to a fortune. For he has discovered a map that will lead him to the fabled Treasure Island. But a host of villains, wild beasts and deadly savages stand between him and the stash of gold. Not to mention the most infamous pirate ever to sail the high seas...With a wonderfully funny ...
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Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance321 reviews
Barack Obama
Three Rivers Press, 2004
Obama, a remarkable generalizer
+ Get to know Obama
+ Don't "know" Barack Obama?
+ Best book ever
+ A thoughtful new president
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McSweeney's Issue 25 (Mcsweeney's Quarterly Concern)1 review
McSweeney's, 2007
I am not sure if I liked it or not
I am conflicted about this one, some stories were absolute junk, and others had tremendous promise of prose and story that they sucked you in only to fail to deliver (peacekeeper and naming of the island). None actually seemed to have a point. It s as if they were ideas for stories or screenplays ...
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Dracula (Penguin Classics)
Bram Stoker
Penguin Audio, 2005
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The Lost World (Modern Library Classics)73 reviews
Arthur Conan Doyle
Modern Library, 2003
An escape book!
+ Nice edition of 'Lost World'
+ Arthur Conan Doyle's favourite character
+ Masterful adventure in a prehistoric paradise
+ Super Reader
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