night-side wonderland carthusians metamorphosis

books:

267 reviews
Israel Joshua Singer

Vanguard Pr, 1976

Knocked For A Loop
When I bought this book, Steinbeck could not have been further off my radar. I suppose I expected a solid, picaresque novel that was good in a musty "literature" sort of way. I could not have been more wrong. I don't think that I have ever been punched in the gut more times by a work of art. The mixture of mythology and gritty realism never felt forced, in fact it made the story even more fluid ...

Them.

22 reviews
Joyce Carol Oates

Vanguard Pr, 1969

makes me want to shoot myself...
... but I love this book. jules, maureen and loretta are the most foolish, pathetic and delusional narrarators that you will ever come across. almost every sentence is painful and will make you want to slap some sense into them. unfortunately, after a while you wind up thinking like them, and in the end you actually agree with their unsettling point of view. This book will haunt you..

Metamorphosis

153 reviews
Franz Kafka

Vanguard Pr, 1946

Man Turns Into Bug: The Perfect Interpretation of Human Nature
Literature throughout history has tried to exemplify the personal identity of human beings, but none has done it so creatively and as hilariously as Franz Kafka's masterful novella, "The Metamorphosis". Kafka has created the most absurd situation; a traveling salesman wakes up one morning to find that he has turned into a giant dung beetle. Yet Kafka uses the absurdity of this premise to ...

Planet of the Apes

89 reviews
Pierre Boulle

Vanguard Pr, 1963

Fantastic Science Fiction Novel
I am a kid, and many who read the reviews for this book are most likely adults and will probably skip this review. Hear me out! This book is an extraordinary leap in science fiction even for a book written this long ago. The plot is great, and the book is filled with suspense and mystery that keeps you glued to your seat, turning page after page after page after page... Anyway, I highly ...

Thicker Than Water: A Father Dowling Mystery

2 reviews
Ralph M. McInerny

Vanguard Pr, 1981

A priest, a cop,a murder and wit.
This is the first of the series I've read, and I'm rather pleased. There's wit and priestly advice and murder too. The collection of characters is the kind you'd expect in a story about a small parish priest, and there is a character you won't expect like Marcus the pamphleteer. I don't deal in spoilers, but Marcus is a one of the more interesting characters in the story, a story which begins ...

The Bridge over the River Kwai

18 reviews
Pierre Boulle

Vanguard Pr, 1954

The Bridge. The Movie
OK. I don't normally (actually I never have) review a movie. I feel more comfortable with books. However, I reviewed Pierre Boulle's book last May and still see it as a Top 10 novel with great juxtapositioning of truly dicey moral issues. But a couple of weeks ago, I was at my local library and someone was returning the "The Bridge over the River Kwai" DVD. I had seen the movie as a youngster ...

A Garden of Earthly Delights

8 reviews
Joyce Carol Oates

Vanguard Pr, 1967

Excellent quality of writing
The plot was all right, but I was most impressed by Ms. Oates's lyrical use of language. She has the ability to transform the most mundane actions, feelings, or settings into something that seems really unusual or noteworthy just by describing it a certain way. I love the way the the main character, Clara, sees the world...it is very refreshing and unusual. I can't really tell if the awesome ...

The Amazing Mycroft Mysteries: Three Novels

1 review
Gerald Heard

Vanguard Pr, 1980

Sherlock Holmes pastiches
Don't let the Mycroft fool you. These are top-drawer Sherlock Holmes stories written by a master of the pastiche genre. If you are a Holmes fan, read these tales, you will not be disappointed!

Auntie Mame

18 reviews
Patrick Dennis

Vanguard Pr, 1954

Everyone Should Have an Auntie Mame!
Auntie Mame is just the sort of novel that leaves you dancing for more. I was first introduced to Auntie Mame through the Rosalind Russell film, which is just wonderful. You can imagine how pleased I was to find this book and to know that the adventures went even further than the film. After reading this book, I became so attached to Mame and Patrick that I felt like they were old freinds and I ...

History of Anti-Semitism: From the Time of Christ to the Court Jews.

1 review
Leon Poliakov

Vanguard Pr, 1972

Most Interesting Work on the Subject
It is a shame that Poliakov is not better known in this country. The subject matter is far greater than the title suggests. This is really a kind of panoramic history of Europe in the style of Braudel, only much less densely written and pleasurable to read. The translation only improves matters. With all the poorly written material on this subject, it is a shame that Poliakov is not brought ...

Wheel of Love and Other Stories

2 reviews
Joyce Carol Oates

Vanguard Pr, 1970

A key short story collection of the last 30 years.
It's a shame this collection is no longer in print. When it came out in 1970, it created a huge stir (Oates had just won the National Book Award for the novel "them") and signalled the full flowering of a brilliant short story writer. Oates has released several fine collections over the years--my second favorite by her is "Last Days" (1984)--but this one has the strongest impact. Anyone who ...

Of Men and Crabs

1 review
Josue De Castro

Vanguard Pr, 1970

Easy to read, but affecting
I have to admit I picked this book out of a collection I bought simply because it had crabs on the cover, but I was pleasantly surprised to find a moderately affecting call to arms for the hungry Brazilian working class wrapped in a pastoral account of a young boy's life and death. The crab metaphor is a nice one, with the people surviving, like the crabs they chase, by turning the waste of their ...

Wonderland

11 reviews
Joyce Carol Oates

Vanguard Pr, 1971

Oates' Best - A World of Constant Battles
I originally read Wonderland when I was a teenager and remembered only a little of it, so it was a revelation when I read it again a few weeks ago. This is a study of one human being and the torments he endures at the hands of others as he grows up, and how it damages his personality. However, Jesse seemingly prevails, and by the novel's end shows us that the human spirit is never completely ...

Night-Side: 18 Tales

1 review
Joyce Carol Oates

Vanguard Pr, 1977

Intricate Psychological Tales
Oates' darkest collection and probably her best. These stories range in setting from 1880's Cambridge, Massachusetts, to 1970's California and are concerned with the "night side" of human cogitation. What are we all truthfully deep down inside? DO we know ourselves? Is the side we think we live in day after day, the conscious side, truly our dominant hemisphere? Not one bad story here and several ...

Halfway to Heaven: The Hidden Life of the Sublime Carthusians

5 reviews
Robin Bruce Lockhart

Vanguard Pr, 1986

A Rare Book on A Rarefied Subject
As the Carthusians have traditionally kept as much out of the public eye as possible, it can be difficult to find information on such basic issues as where they are located, how they select candidates, and the particulars of their daily lives. This book, though not as detailed as one would like, provides a good introduction to the Carthusian Order and the people who join it. I hope that the ...

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