kidnapped blindness sidetracked independent

books:

68 reviews
Halldor Laxness

Harvill Pr, 1999

godd bless
I dont know that thing of reversing the scandinavians back to be catholic.. but man...man!!!! this genius won that Stalin's literature award for The Atom Station and The Nobel as well... and between a couple of hundered sheep and an iclandic state of mind (nature )..the iceland state of mind better say.. there is a leftover priest sitting on turgenev's grave saying.. what did u say ...

Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Panther)

277 reviews
Haruki Murakami

Harvill Pr, 1999

Read this one, don't bother with the rest of Murakami's books
I've read 5 of Murakami's books now, starting with Wind-up Bird. Every other book was a major disappointment after this one. Wind-up Bird offers interesting characters, an engaging (though infuriatingly intricate) plot, and some kind of resolution by the end. All of the other books came off as pretentious and inane - nothing much seemed to happen in them, but it took a hell of a lot of words, and ...

Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (Panther)

32 reviews
Jose Saramago

Harvill Pr, 1998

A supplement to the previous review
The previous reviewer suggested that the "ghost" character Pessoa may have been based on an actual person. It's true. Fernando Pessoa was an outstanding Portuguese poet. What's interesting here is that Pessoa wrote under several pen-names, and in some cases he would write praise or criticism in one pan-name of his own writing done in another pen-name. These pen-names were characters in and of ...

Kidnapped

84 reviews
Robert Louis Stevenson

Harvill Pr, 1997

Kidnapped or the Lad with the Silver Button
This edition of "Kidnapped" is a joy to own and a delight to read. G. Weldon Sydney Australia

Blindness (Panther)

343 reviews
Jose Saramago

Harvill Pr, 1999

"If you can see, look. If you can look, observe."
"Blindness" is my first reading of anything by Saramago. After thumbing through it in the bookstore and looking at its sheer density, seeming lack of dialog, paragraphs, and usual punctuation, I decided to leave it alone, until now. This tale of a pandemic of blindness in an anonymous country is absolutely terrifying. Randomly the white blindness comes and a nation is transformed. The thin ...

Doctor Zhivago

79 reviews
Boris Pasternak

Collins Harvill Pr, 1988

Pasternak v. Reader, Round II
My first reading of Dr. Zhivago was in high school. At 15, the book was a chore. Impenetrable and numerous Russian names (often for the same character) and endless description of the Russian landscape left me exhausted and unimpressed. After rereading and enjoying a few other high school assignments, I came across Dr. Zhivago on my bookshelf and wondered if I would find more appreciation for Mr. ...

Faceless Killers (Kurt Wallender Mystery)

43 reviews
Henning Mankell

Harvill Pr, 2000

The Best Wallander Novel: Short and Well Written With an Excellent Plot
This is not a classic novel, nor will Mankell win a Nobel prize for the effort but this is his best novel as a balanced and well written piece of literature. It is probably not quite as entertaining as One Step Behind, a later novel. It is short and well balanced with interesting characters. It is the first novel in the Wallander Swedish police detective series. I thank fellow reviewer Leonard ...

So Long, See You Tomorrow (Panther)

52 reviews
William Maxwell

Harvill Pr, 1998

Reconstructing a lost world
William Maxwell, in So Long, See You Tomorrow, performs one of the prime directives of literature, reconstructing a lost world. And Maxwell is patient and rigorous. We get the feeling, when reading this novel, that Maxwell is writing his work more to assuage his sense of loss than to inform or entertain us. This gives this novel almost the feel of a diary or memoir not meant for public review, ...

Gospel According to Jesus Christ (Panther)

76 reviews
Jose Saramago

Harvill Pr, 1999

Imaginative and Provocative
This is a wonderful work of fiction that is creatively devised and unique. It is certainly, as has previously been forewarned by others, not for the devout reader who will take offense when faced with a work of fiction that does not accurately depict Jesus and those closest to him as is told by the canonical Gospels and orthodox scholarship. Saramago takes the Gospels and distills them into a ...

Treasure Island

250 reviews
Robert Louis Stevenson

Harvill Pr, 1997

Tense, Readable Adventure
This is a solid condensed version of the classic search for buried treasure in the late 1700's. Author Robert Louis Stevenson draws readers in early as the Captain arrives at the Benbow Inn in Britain, focused on incoming ships, and warning young Jim Hawkins of one-legged visitors. The story picks up as Billy Bones arrives, bringing danger and discovery of the treasure map, a discovery that ...

Little Big Man (Panther)

32 reviews
Thomas Berger

Harvill Pr, 1999

terrifically funny but sometimes touching novel
I was pretty much hooked by the narrator's first words: "I'm a white man and never forget it" (followed by "but I was brought up by Cheyenne from the age of ten"). A few paragraphs later: "I never suspected it at the time, being just a young boy, but I realize now that my Pa was a lunatic," and I was a complete goner. Little Big Man is an extremely humorous novel of the American west, ...

Silk

89 reviews
Alessandro Baricco

Harvill Pr, 1998

As soft, subtle and exquisite as the finest...
Alessandro Baricco knows the fine art of storytelling. His use of colors, tenderness, eroticism and time weave a most beautiful canvas print of words. Silk is the International Bestseller about Hervé Joncour, a thirty two year old Frenchman living in the 1860's. While on leave from the Armed Forces, Joncour meets with a friend, Baldabieu, who is a successful owner of multiple silk mills in ...

Killing Mister Watson (Panther)

23 reviews
Peter Matthiessen

Harvill Pr, 1998

Excellent exploration into human nature
It took me a few chapters to get totally hooked on this narrative. At first, I wondered why I'd want to read a book that gave the ending in the first few paragraphs as well as in its title. Soon, though, I realized that not only is this a well-written historical novel about the early years of Florida's development, it's a haunting exploration into the nature of human beings. How all of Mr. ...

Out of Egypt (Panther)

2 reviews
Andre Aciman

Harvill Pr, 1997

Out of Egypt
Out of Egypt, is a very special memoir about growing up in Alexandria before the author and his family were forced to move from Egypt in 1965 . It's a fascinating memoir of a time and place that no longer exists, and a wonderfully written account .

Fencing Master

96 reviews
Arturo Perez-Reverte

Harvill Pr, 1999

My favorite novel from this author
The Fencing Master is, without a doubt, my favorite work by Arturo Perez-Reverte. You don't have to be at all familiar with fencing to enjoy this book. The book is masterful in terms of prose. Beautiful writing (kudos to the person who translated it from the original Spanish), sensuous and intriguing settings, characters so real they could walk off the page...the book is just amazing. Don ...

South of the Border, West of the Sun

117 reviews
Haruki Murakami

Harvill Pr, 1999

Haunting
Three years ago I read this novel, and it haunts me still. A beautiful contemplation on love, loss, longing and regret. It is my favorite of Murakami's novels, though I love all that he writes. Not as wacky as Kafka on the Shore or countless others, this story is more refined and mysterious. Murakami took me to all the lonely, sad places that dwell in the human heart and left me there. His ...

Midnight in Sicily (Panther)

35 reviews
Peter Robb

Harvill Pr, 1999

The Poetry of Finitude
One of the greatest books about Sicily ever written. It evokes like no other the visceral reality of the acceptance of Death as the only truly "serious thing". Another masterpiece from my second favourite contemporary writer (second, that is, only to Nick Tosches, himself a master of all things Sicilian).

Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape

28 reviews
Barry Lopez

Harvill Pr, 1999

Filling and fulfilling
I bought this book while in the tourist center at McKinley National Park in Alaska because of the chapter on Polar Bears (someone at the desk recommended it to me). I have found this book to be amazing. This is one of the most rewarding books I've ever read. It's one of very few books that I'll read more than once. Lopez's writing creates a desire to know more, to research more, and to ...

Sidetracked (Kurt Wallender Mystery)

26 reviews
Henning Mankell

Harvill Pr, 2000

Good But Not His Best Novel: 4 or 5 Stars, Spoiled By Too Many Murders
I thank fellow reviewer Leonard Fleisig for bringing this author to my attention. The writing is simply superb. I am very interested in reading more books by the Mankell. So far, I have bought and read six novels in the Wallander series. I thought that the novel was excellent up to a point. But then when the bloody and gruesome murders go on and on - and right to the end - it becomes a bit too ...

Cathedral (Panther)

37 reviews
Raymond Carver

Harvill Pr, 1999

A hope-filled turn for a great American writer
I read some of the stories in Cathedral during my undergraduate years, and upon my recent re-reading of the entire short story collection, I realize now how little I understood Raymond Carver's work back then. I have since read nearly all of Carver's stories, which, collectively, have come to represent a revival of the short story during the 1980s. Arguably, the short story has since fallen ...

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