The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao222 reviews Junot Díaz Riverhead Hardcover, 2007 Not So Brief, But Just As Wondrous + One of the best bad novels or one of the worst good ones? + Joys, suffering, fears and passions + The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao             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, ...             The Echo Maker: A Novel102 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 ...             A Tale of Two Cities (Penguin Classics)54 reviews Charles Dickens Penguin Classics, 2003 `It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...' + Rewarding + A Tale for our time...if you have the patience. + Long. Boring.             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             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 ...             The Last Novel5 reviews David Markson Shoemaker & Hoard, 2007 THE GODLIKE POWER OF DAVID MARKSON + cult to mainstream + Postmodern Gem + A NEW SEMINONFICTIONAL SEMIFICTION             The River Why, Twentieth-Anniversary Edition92 reviews David James Duncan Sierra Club Books, 2002 Wise Like A Fish + A Great Read + This is some story! + Brilliant             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, ...             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 ...             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 ...             Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Penguin Popular Classics)128 reviews Julio Verne Penguin Books, 1998 Recommended as a faithful translation + Enjoyable + No Hollywood Spam + Journey to the Center review             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 ...             Daisy Miller (Penguin Classics)1 review Henry James Penguin Classics, 2007 "They are very common...They are the sort of Americans that one does one's duty by not - not accepting." One of Henry James's earliest novellas, Daisy Miller (1878) follows the activities of a wealthy, and brashly confident, young American woman as she audaciously challenges European society in Vevey, Switzerland, and in Rome, having fun, doing what pleases her, leaving staid European society gasping ...             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             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 ...             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             Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure94 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 ...             CivilWarLand in Bad Decline47 reviews George Saunders Riverhead Trade, 1997 A Message to America + A GREAT COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES + Stories with a twisted, dark, and tragicomic american vision + Thank You, Mr. Saunders             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 ...