Jeremy Irons Books

Another review, by Glen Ridge, has pointed out how wonderful this CD is, and I certainly agree. How did I find out about this CD? I was driving in my car on my way to what would be for me the best movie of the summer (I probably am not allowed to give you the movie's name, but it is about Greeks and a wedding and you MUST...MUST go see it, and if you can't, then when it comes out in video, you MUST...MUST buy it here at Amazon)....anyway, I was driving along and was listening to my local NPR radio station. The CD was already well over 1/4 of the way through, but that did not take away from the spell-binding experience. I had a long drive to the movie theatre, and so I was able to hear the CD to the end. Though I was pushing my time limit to get to the show on time, I sat in my parked car listening to the last five minutes. But, it was well worth the mad dash to the theatre...besides when I got to the theatre there was a long line (by the time the movie started, it was sold out...again), so I was not late after all. The CD and the movie provided for an unplanned, magical Friday evening. I hope each of you reading this will have a similar experience in your lives. I am buying this CD for my little niece....perhaps I might give it to her ...it truly is a wonderful CD. And, it is with great pleasure that I give my rating....DAYTON SAYS: BUY THIS CD.

I was surprised and delighted today to happen upon a page on Amazon listing the Audie award winners, where I noticed that this recording had won for children's music. We happened several months ago to pick up a copy in a toy store, totally by accident, having read nothing about its release and seen no publicity. It's a beautifully narrated tale of a quest on which two children set out to search for a cure for their mother's illness. They are aided by music, which is baroque and surreally beautiful, introducing young listeners to this musical genre with the light and delicate melodies that transport them as easily off to sleep as to dream of evergreen forests and fairies and unicorns, timid and pure.

I bought the tape on the strength of my respect for Jeremy Irons and my daughter's love for unicorns. At the last minute I exchanged the CD for a tape because I wasn't ready to commit to the difference in price. BOY WAS I WRONG! For weeks I couldn't get my daughter to try it, then one night I put it on to help her sleep and it became her favorite tape for MONTHS! The music is beautiful and the story compelling, yet one ultimately falls asleep without a fight, it brings such a sweet tranquility to the listener.

There are melodies I would love to hear repeated, and the gist of the story is one of children's strength and courage and love for their mother, and for truth. Nonetheless, despite how much I adore this tape, my daughter continues to love it just as much as I do--Now there's some testimonial! We're ready to upgrade to a CD so we'll be able to be sure to keep it for a long, long time. I must admit, I could easily choose to listen to this without children anywhere in the vicinity, and plan to give a copy for Christmas to all of my favorite kids.

This may be my daughter's favorite storytape after years and years of listening to every new tape published. We had to buy the CD after wearing out the audiotape. Jeremy Irons' voice is both soothing and rich, the music is delightful and magical, and the story could fascinate any child between 5 and fifty (or more!!) My daughter particularly loves to listen to this musical tale with the lights out before going to sleep!

I highly recommend this moving tale with its delicate music and musical themes.

A fascinating insight into the methods and influences of this up-and-coming design partnership, introduced by a foreword from actor Jeremy Irons. Her style is free-flowing and organic; his is classically inspired and architectural. Ranges over their complete oeuvre from Allegra's patterned rugs and fabrics to Ashley's jewelry and furniture. With a brief review of historical inspirations (from ancient Pompeii to modern England), fabulous photographs by Bill Batten, and a wealth of practical advice and beautiful images. The text is both down-to-earth and fascinating, with unexpected humorous touches. Thoroughly recommended for any lover of great design.

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--- from book's back cover

This is a wonderful collection of poetry readings by some of the best actors in the world. If you allow yourself only one tape of poetry, I would recommend this one. The rendition of Lawrence's "The Snake" is spellbining, and the reading of Macneil's "A Death in the Family" is quietlly gut-wrenching. And you will be surprised how well Bill Shatner recites about whales. Buy this tape, and you will listen to it again and again.

This book is, well, more than just a little controversial after all these years due to the subject matter. I tried, honestly, honestly tried, to get over what the book is basically about, but I just couldn't. I'm sorry. I truly am. I know for some people this book is a favorite, but it just can't be for me. The reason I gave it three stars is because Nabokov's writing style is beyond wonderful. It was one of the only reasons I was able to get through the book. The man was obviously talented, and I truly respect him for that.

After 444 mostly highly praised reviews of this seminal piece of fiction, I will spare the reader any short-ordered synopsis or frugal summary. Plus, there are quite a lot of surprises to be had for a first-time reader with no knowledge of the book. If you can, distance yourself from too much familiarity with the plot and enjoy this masterly crafted novel with an open-mind.

Of course it is brilliant. Lolita is perhaps the most aesthetically pleasant pieces of art I have ever encountered. Humbert Humbert's prose is lively, erudite, stirring, beautiful, hilarious, tender, self-conscious, and any other like-minded adjective. Yet he is a monstrous villain. A likable one, but a villain, nonetheless -- one that we never truly sympathize with. Instead we pity him as we admire his gift for prose. But how can we reconcile admiring such a despicable man? Because he is brilliant, funny, and above all, human? By making the protagonist of the novel so morally corrupt yet so charming, as readers, we find ourselves with contradictory feelings. I think this is precisely the point Nabokov was trying to make. I believe he was attempting to question the very value of art itself, not, as some have said, what we value as a society. Society, in the end, doesn't really have anything to do with it. I believe Nabokov chose such a taboo subject to drive home this point even deeper than if old Humbert Humbert was merely a murderer. And Nabokov is not asking us to condone his actions. I think he is saying that art should be appreciated for what it is, only existing in and of itself. We have learned nothing as readers by the end of it, nor has left us with any impressionable message. And if the novel had taught us anything, should we trust it? It can only be appreciated for what it is. All we are left with is an excellently crafted story. In this sense, art is valuable no matter what lies beneath. If it is beautifully written, nothing should be able to take away from it, even if it is coming from a predatory animal. We should only enjoy art with its aesthetic merit in mind. He does, however, allow himself some sentimental recourse, however, which is what gives the novel so much weight.

In the end, I think it is important to read this novel with absolutely no bias and read it for what it is - a magnificent piece of art.

"Lolita" was hugely controversial when first published in 1955. It was banned for a time in both Britain and France, although (rather surprisingly, given the often hysterical moral climate during the Eisenhower years) not in the United States. Today the most common reaction to many books (as well as films and popular songs) which fell foul either of the censors or of conservative public opinion during that era is "what was all the fuss about?", but "Lolita" retains its power to shock even today.

The reason is that the central character, Humbert Humbert, is not only a murderer but also a paedophile. Humbert, a French-born academic resident in America, is obsessed by what he calls 'nymphets', sexually desirable girls between the ages of nine and fourteen. This obsession appears to be the result of his tragic, and unconsummated, affair with his childhood sweetheart, Annabel, who died at the age of thirteen. In 1947 Humbert, then aged in his mid-thirties, moves to Ramsdale, a small New England town, where he becomes infatuated with Dolores ("Lolita"), the twelve-year-old daughter of his widowed landlady, Charlotte Haze. In order to remain close to Lolita, Humbert agrees to a proposal of marriage from Charlotte, who has fallen in love with him, although he has no sexual interest in her, or indeed in any adult woman. He eventually seduces Lolita after her mother's death in a road accident.

The book is divided into two parts, and I have often thought that Part I (which deals with Humbert's early life and his stay in Ramsdale and ends at the point where he and Lolita become lovers) would have made a superb novel, or perhaps more accurately novella, in its own right if Nabokov had published it on its own without any Part II. It is a brilliant psychological study, exploring the mind of a man who is despicable yet at the same time fascinating, at times almost sympathetic.

There was, of course, a good reason why the book could not end with Part I. A hundred years earlier Flaubert could only get "Madame Bovary" published by persuading a court that his heroine's suicide in the book's final chapters was a just punishment for her sins that would dissuade other Frenchwomen from cuckolding their husbands. In some respects little had changed between the 1850s and 1950s; there was still a moralistic convention that fictional criminals, just as much as real-life ones, had to be punished for their crimes, the main difference being that the novelist had a rather larger range of punishments available to him than the criminal courts. Nabokov could have concluded "Lolita" with Humbert in jail on a charge of statutory rape, but evidently rejected this option, possibly because it was too obvious. Instead he provided a nemesis in the shape of playwright Clare Quilty, Humbert's fellow-paedophile and his rival for Lolita's affections. (Despite his feminine-sounding Christian name, Quilty is male).

After Charlotte's death, Humbert takes Lolita out of school and takes her on a car journey around America, staying in motels. Much of the second part of the book is taken up with a description of their travels round America, during the latter part of which they are pursued by Quilty, who is determined to seduce Lolita away from Humbert. Unfortunately, I have never regarded Part II of the novel as altogether satisfactory- the plot seems to get lost and the story of their long journey becomes tedious and repetitive. For most of the book Quilty is a vague, shadowy presence, and when he finally appears near the end he emerges as a bizarre and eccentric character whom I found it difficult to believe in.

Another thing I should mention about this book is the author's extraordinary prose style, particularly remarkable in view of the fact that he was not a native-born English speaker. It is a record of his love-affair with his adopted language, a mixture of puns, word-games, literary allusions, recondite words and jokes. For example, Annabel's surname is Leigh, an obvious allusion to Poe's "Annabel Lee", a poem to which Nabokov makes reference several times in the early chapters. (He even considered naming the book "The Kingdom by the Sea"). Nabokov's word-games are often bilingual; at one point he uses the French sentence "Qu'il t'y mene" (literally "That he leads you there") for no other reason than that it spells out the surname of Humbert's enemy.

I said above that Humbert seems almost sympathetic, yet he never quite wins the reader's sympathy, and his attempts at self-justification never ring true, if only because the reader remains all too well aware that he is a fallible narrator. (The story is narrated by him in the first person and takes the form of a confession written by him shortly before he dies in prison while awaiting trial for Quilty's murder). By Humbert's account Lolita seduces him rather than vice-versa, but this may well be a fabrication designed to portray his victim as a sexually precocious temptress. (He also claims that she was sexually active with both boys and girls by the age of eleven). He claims to love her, but this is difficult to take at face value when one considers how he treats her. Quite apart from the question of underage sex, he disrupts her education, drugs her with intent to commit rape, plots to murder her mother and plans to abandon her when she turns fifteen, that being the age at which girls cease to interest him sexually. If that is how Humbert behaves towards someone he loves, I dread to think how he might have treated Lolita if he had hated her. At the end of his life, however, he does have a moment of enlightenment when he realises that he has deeply wronged the girl he claimed to love. Contrary to what some have claimed, Nabokov never intended this book to justify or glorify child molesters. It can be seen as a pervert's progress in which the central character condemns himself out of his own mouth.

Definitely literature, reading this book clears up a number of cultural references. Exciting and fast paced, for the most part, Nobokov artfully addresses the dual perspectives on pedophilia while refraining from the vulgar. The exploration of a troubled mind is reminiscent of Dostoyevsky's "Idiot" and "Crime and Punishment", but set in the familiar culture of America.

Wow. Beautiful, witty, clever, perfect. A masterpiece (or "un chef d'oeuvre" as Humbert would undoubtedly say). Any book that makes me laugh and cry with my whole belly, face, and heart repeatedly throughout the book (though most of the crying came at the end) and within the same ten minutes has accomplished an amazing feat. I found this on the shelf of our family library, and when my mother tried to discourage me, her not-really-that-innocent seventeen-year-old daughter from reading it, I knew it must be good. Of course it's disturbing, but people who dwell on it excessively are missing out on quite an experience. It's one of those books that must be read again and again because there are so many allusions, puns, etc. that are easy to miss the first time. Next time I'll be reading an annotated version, but I enjoyed trying to pick up on everything myself the first time around. I recommend doing the same thing.

I can't say enough good things about this book. My kids & I just love it. The chapters are short, which makes it a bit easier for the kids to read, and the story is so engaging it has all all on the edge of our seats, waiting to hear what will happen next. Such a fun book!

I bought this for my 5-year old son 3 weeks ago and we haven't stopped listening to it. Roald Dahl has a beautifully warped view of the world, with parents killed tragically, evil aunts and innocent, precocious children. James is a wonderful example. Jeremy Irons brings real range to the interpretation of the characters, so we all - parents and child - find ourselves chuckling as we drive and listen (and will do for a long time to come). A treat for children (and their sainted parents also).

Ever been in a giant flying peach? James and the giant peach by Roald Dahl tells about a boy who's parents get eaten by a giant rhino, goes to live with his evil aunts, then rolls away in a giant peach. To begin, His parents take him to the London Zoo when only to encounter a loose rhinoceros. The rhino eats James' parents to leave him on the streets. Then, he goes to live with his evil aunts, Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge. They treat him very badly and don't let him play with other kids. Finally, an old man comes and gives James some magic crystals. Then a giant peach grows, James crawls in the peach to find some unusually large insects. They then roll away in a giant peach in hope of finding a better place.
Read this book to find out what happens to James and the giant peach

James and the Giant Peach is the best book I have ever read! It is about a boy named James whose parents were killed by a rhinoceros who escaped from the London Zoo. Because he no longer had parents, James was forced to live with his two aunts who were very mean to him.

One day when he was working, an old man gave James some magic green beans. If James swallowed the green beans, nothing bad would ever happen to him. James accidently dropped the green beans in the dirt and they disappeared into the earth.

There were eight beans and seven insects suddenly became very large after they ate the beans. James was wondering what happened to the eighth bean. It hit an old peach tree and a giant peach grew on the tree.

James and the insects became friends and they lived in the giant peach together for a day. They all realized that they had to escape from the James' horrible aunts. They cut the peach off the tree and it went rolling away with James and his friends. It rolled off a cliff and landed in the ocean.

After this point, James had many adventures inside the peach with his insect friends. They find a way to escape from sharks, they escape from "cloud men" who throw rocks at them, and finally, they make a way to land safely in busy New York City.

Enjoy all these exciting advenutres yourself by reading this great book!

James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl

Have you ever wanted to fly in a giant peach with insects. The book I read was James bad a giant peach. This is about a rich kid with nice parents living next to kids in a beach. Until his parents get killed. So James has to maove with his two creepy aunts. The aunts are mean abd make James do all the chores. UntilOne day a guy gives James majic worms abd told James that they make things grow or grant a wish. So James tries to wish to bring his parents back so he could go home. But the worms escape and go into this little peach tree and it starts to grow. The next day he wakes up and sees the peach big and go's over there. He starts to make a hole and crawls inside and turns cartoonish and falls to see insects insideand become best friends.Jamesis on his way home NY. Here comes James and the Giant Peach. I like this book because it is adventures one. It was an easy book to connect to the characters. I understand how people feell and see things in the book. There were a lot of cliff hangers. I didn't like about this book is that it had no horror. If you like adventures book, then you should read this book.

The purchase of Brideshead Revisited is one of sure investments in your library. You will revisit it very often because it is one of the books that keep you in their thrall forever. Actually, I have a copy in my desk in the office and pick it up to read a few pages when my students are late for meeting.
This is a book which can be read in many ways - most of which open up a new perspective on its contents and some of which may help you understand yourself and those you choose to share it with. It may be read as a Christian treatise (Waugh took this quite seriously) and a memoir of studies at Oxford in the 1920s. A story of a misplaced homosexual affection and story of decline of British aristocracy. Whichever way you choose you will not be disappointed.

After an unpleasant chance first encounter, protagonist and narrator Charles Ryder, a student at an unnamed Oxford University college (though critics have suggested Waugh used Hertford College as his model; in the television series Charles Ryder wears a St Edmund Hall tie), and Lord Sebastian Flyte, the younger son of an aristocratic family and himself an undergraduate at Christ Church, become friends. Sebastian takes Charles to his family's palatial home, Brideshead Castle, where Charles eventually meets the rest of the Flyte family, including Sebastian's sister, Lady Julia Flyte.

During the holiday Charles returns home, where he lives with his father. Scenes between Charles and his father Ned (Edward) provide some of the best-known comic scenes in the novel. During the holiday he is called back to Brideshead after Sebastian incurs a minor injury. Sebastian and Charles spend the remainder of the summer together.

Sebastian's family is Catholic, but only first generation: Lord Marchmain, an Anglican, converted to his wife's religion, Roman Catholicism. Religious considerations arise frequently among the family, and Catholicism influences their lives as well as the content of their conversations, all of which surprises Charles, who had always assumed Christianity to be "without substance or merit." Charles is also put off religion by Lady Marchmain, Sebastian's mother, a devout Catholic who tries to control others through guilt and manipulation. Sebastian, in some ways a troubled young man, learns to find greater solace in alcohol than in religion, and descends into that habit, drifting away from the family over a two-year period, which occasions Charles' own estrangement from the Flytes. Yet Charles is fated to re-encounter the Flyte family over the years, and eventually forms a relationship with Julia, who by that time is married but separated from the wealthy but uncouth Canadian entrepreneur, Rex Mottram.

Charles plans to divorce his own wife -- who has been unfaithful -- so he and Julia can marry. However, motivated by a comment by her brother and by her father's deathbed return to the faith, Julia decides that she can no longer live in sin, and for that reason can no longer contemplate marriage to Charles. Lord Marchmain's reception of the sacrament of Extreme Unction also influences Charles, who had been "in search of love in those days" when he first met Sebastian, "that low door in the wall...which opened on an enclosed and enchanted garden," a metaphor that informs the work on a number of levels.¹ Waugh desired that the book should be about the "operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters."

During the Second World War, Ryder, now an army officer after establishing a career as an architectural artist, is billeted at Brideshead, once home to many of his affections. It occurs to him that builders' efforts were not in vain, even when their purposes may appear, for a time, to be frustrated.

This is a wonderful, well-written book, about nostalgia for a time that was rapidly disappearing, thrust aside for a much more harsher and more modern existence.
The book itself is a beautiful edition, and a lovely experience to read.

The DVD, novel and audiobook of Brideshead Revisited go together so beautifully--wow. If you haven't seen the miniseries, you are in for a treat--buy or rent the DVD. Once you've seen the miniseries and read the book, it is wonderful to get the chance to hear Jeremy Irons read it. Irons is the central character and narrator of the film, so he is a natural choice to do the narration. He may be the best reader in English on the planet! Highly recommended.

If you love the BBC TV mini-series based on Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited", it's not an option not to own this book! While the script and dialogue almost follow line by line from the novel, it is an immense pleasure to read the actual novel and savour Waugh's witty and delightful writing style. His education at Lancing and Hertford College at Oxford, comes through vividly in the book about the friendship between Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte who met at the Oxford University and their choices and journeys in life. This edition with Evelyn Waugh's photo on the front cover is my favourite.

The first two-thirds of "Brideshead Revisited" is classic Evelyn Waugh, filled with wit and humor, fascinating characters and provocative scenes, and (above all) evocative description and meticulous prose. Waugh continues his tradition of skewering the pretensions and foibles of the aristocracy--although it's true the Oxford scenes are not as over-the-top as in "Decline and Fall" (Frank Kermode's introduction notes Waugh's acknowledgment of the 'mood of sentimental delusion' which pervades the work).

I have the same reservations, however, about the third part of the book as did many of Waugh's contemporaries, including Edmund Wilson and Conor Cruise O'Brien. While the prose never falters and the "plot" is fascinating to the end, the satire is set aside for a moral, and your appreciation of the book may very well depend on whether you agree with its underlying religious message. To be sure, I really admire this book and continue to recommend it to everyone, but a second reading showcased what for me are shortcomings--flaws that make the work seem slightly less aesthetically pleasing than Waugh's earlier comic novels (particularly "Decline and Fall" and "Handful of Dust").

Like, say, Flannery O'Connor or Graham Greene, who present their theology in the complexities of the characters' actions and motives, Waugh famously declared that he intended to show the "operation of divine grace on a group of diverse but closely connected characters." Yet, where O'Connor and Greene use their stories to illustrate the subtleties of grace, Waugh seems to be making a case for it--but there are many passages that more convincingly show the operation of authorial, rather than divine, grace. And when he details conversations and debates on secular values and Catholic faith, Waugh can be a little heavy-handed--bordering on didactic. Throughout the dialogue the deck is loaded to demonstrate, for example, that Charles's milquetoast agnosticism pales in comparison to the richness of Catholicism.

In fact, the problem with fiction as a vehicle for theological principles is that it can never truly show anything like "divine grace"; it's necessarily the author who determines what happens to the characters--and why it happens. While Lady Marchmain declares halfway through the book that "we must make a Catholic of Charles," and while Julia's near-apostasy and Sebastian's alcoholism interfere with their spiritual salvation, it is ultimately Waugh--not God--who decides their various outcomes. (This dilemma is clearest during a deathbed conversion scene, which tell us everything about the author's hopes and "proves" nothing about faith. And this episode is based on a real-life occurrence in which, aside from the presence of God, Waugh himself played a coercive role.)

This is not to say, however, that Waugh portrays his Catholic characters as saints or their actions as exemplary. Indeed, what saves the novel from becoming a catechism is that Charles, Julia, and Sebastian all are deeply flawed, at times disagreeable people. And, not ironically, the character who (in my mind) is the most lively and lifelike of the bunch is the irrepressible and unapologetic Anthony Blanche. In fact, one might even argue that Blanche's scene-stealing charm is "secular grace" working its inexorable way on Waugh himself.

My comments here focus on only one theme--albeit a central one--in the novel. Most of the book, fortunately, is a comic excursion through a lost age and an elegiac ode to lost youth, as well as a thesis on divine grace. In the final analysis, it's impossible to ignore the beauty of the writing or underestimate the ability of this novel to make one ponder one's own secular or religious beliefs.

Despite the hyperbolic praise on the back cover--best war novel of the twentieth century!!!--I found this Ballard offering so tedious and unpleasant that I gave up on it just thirty or so pages before the end. My main problem was with Jim; he's basically the only character and he's so unlikable that after a while you just don't feel like spending any more time with him. In Jim you also see the germ of the fascist leanings so evident in the main characters of the truly execrable--but at least readable--Ballard novels __Cocaine Nights__ and __Super-Cannes__.

In my opinion, if you want to read the semi-autobiographical adventures of a boy in an occupied country, you're better off with __The Painted Bird__. If you prefer books about life in prison camps, try __If This Is a Man__ or __The Truce__ by Primo Levi. You'll find in his books the humanity so glaringly absent in Ballard's.

This book is a true story about a boy named Jim. It is extremely depressing and dark in it's tone. It is also very beautiful "like Road to Perdition?" The movie was better than the book, "thanks to John Williams rich score."

This is an awesome book, buy the soundtrack too, it will give you the complete experience.

J.G. Ballard's very unique, and especially trying, childhood is detailed in this autobiographical novel that offers powerful insights into war and history. Ballard, represented by "Jim" here, was a pre-teen living with his British expatriate parents in Shanghai on the eve of World War II. When war reached the city, Jim was separated from his parents and spent the next three years in a Japanese internment camp, learning to fend for himself under the most brutal conditions. Thus Ballard's distinct life experience leads to one of the most fascinating and terrifying stories you are likely to find on the horrors and miseries of war. Jim is so preoccupied with survival that he describes the most outlandish horrors with bland matter-of-fact understatement, including multitudes of corpses floating in rivers, scores of his fellow prisoners dying of starvation and disease, public executions, and even watching human bones being made into concrete. Along the way, the human psychological factors of war are revealed as Jim grows apart from his parents, loses affinity for his own countrymen, identifies with his oppressors, and wishes for the war to continue so he doesn't have to face the unknown future. Through Ballard's powerful writing, we can see exactly why Jim (and the young Ballard in real life) would reach these states of mind. This story also offers many intuitions on the futile nature of war itself, as shifting loyalties and factionalism blur the lines between friend and foe, and post-war anarchy becomes even more dangerous than the actual war. These are all hugely enlightening insights into war from a man who experienced it himself in a very distinct way. [~doomsdayer520~]

A most incredible book... It holds the reader glued to every page, not unlike the grip of death which encased Shangai after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941.

The story, based on J.G. Ballard's actual experiences, is about a young British teenager who lives with his parents in Shangai at the eve of Pearl Harbor and is then interned by the Japanese from 1942-1945 in the Lunghua prison camp near Shanghai. It is truly mesmerizing, in the negative sense unfortunately, because of the countless moments of inherent evil that arose as a result of war. The places-airfield runways made of bones of dead Chinese, a make-shift cemetery full of corpses with extremities sticking out, canals full of dead bodies, floating flower coffins with Chinese babies-the people-an opportunistic American soldier who profits from death, Japanese soldiers bent on brutality, an American doctor who does everything to save the sick and dying, the indifference of a British woman to a sick boy-and events-the killing of a Chinese coolie, the never-ending deaths of sick prisoners, the death march to Nantao-exemplify that evil and are described with such incredible detail and clarity as to be almost permanently engraved in the mind of the reader.

Through all the death and destruction, of which almost every chapter of the book is filled with, lives a young British teenager (the author himself, but written in 3rd person) who has an incredible will to survive. The question of his morality is ever-present if we judge his thoughts and actions solely; yet in the face of starvation and omnipresent death, his story is one of a smart young boy who is trying his best to survive. When viewed under those circumstances and compared to the actions of others in the book, his story can be perceived in a more positive yet still overwhelmingly sad light. Indeed, it is the author's reconstruction of his thoughts in particular that divulge the horror of the events he experienced. One of the most memorable concerns the death march to Nantao:

"Dr. Ransome had recruited a human chain from the men sitting on the embankment below the trucks, and they passed pails of water up to the patients.

Jim shook his head, puzzled by all this effort. Obviously they were being taken up-country so that the Japanese could kill them without being seen by the American pilots. Jim listened to the Shell man's wife crying in the yellow grass. The sunlight charged the air above the canal, an intense aura of hunger that stung his retinas and remind him of the halo formed by the exploding Mustang. The burning body of the American pilot had quickened the dead land. It would be for the best if they all died; it would bring their lives to an end that had been implicit ever since the Idzumo had sunk the Petrel and the British hand surrendered at Singapore without a fight.

Perhaps they were already dead. Jim lay back and tried to count the motes of light. This simple truth was known to every Chinese from birth. Once the British internees had accepted it, they would no longer fear their journey to the killing ground...."

Steven Spielberg's adaptation of the book in the 1986 movie of the same name is insufficient at best. While the cinematography and acting are good, the crux of the story-the cruelty and horrors of post-Pearl Harbor Shangai-is conveniently glossed over. It's as if Spielberg decided to change the script from an "R" to a "G". The problem is that the latter version of the movie no longer resembles the former and effectively does injustice to the thousands of people (and millions more not included in the scope of the book)-including the author himself-who suffered and/or died in Lunghua prison and Shangai from 1942-1945 at the hands of the Japanese.

A beautiful and terrible book, Empire of the Sun has become one of mine preferred. After the attack to Pearl Harbour, the Japanese invaded South-Est Asia. Thousands of European civilians, women and children, couldn't escape and were interned by Japanese. A lot of them died from disease and starvation. James Ballard, the author, was one of those children. Living in Shanghai with his family, eleven years old, he was interned till the end of the war in the Lunghua camp. Jim, the protagonist of the novel, is the `alter ego' of the writer, so the story is quite autobiographic.
Shanghai is seized by Japanese and in an apocalyptic try to escape, Jim, born in a rich British family, become separated from his parents and must fight alone to survive. He will be soon prisoner of Japanese and will be interned till the end of the war, spending the years from childhood to adolescence in the internment camp. The war, that overwhelms everything and everybody, is reported from the point of view of the boy in a raw and shocking way, nothing is saved from the corruption caused by war.
Shanghai is a hell's city, where thousands Chinese people lead a life without hope, oppressed first by Europeans and then by Japanese. Jim spends a life of absolute loneliness, not able to have a true relationship with other people. Obsessed by the primordial necessity of food, he become a `disgusting boy' ready to do everything to survive, even to steal the food from other European prisoners, or to become the slave of a small criminal without scruples. Jim looks with a corrosive eye and black umor at the life of the European prisoners. With their body destroyed by disease and starvation, they loose any hope and lead a life made of baseness and small egoism. Leave alone to cope with the ruin of his life, Jim will find a refuge in a world of dreams, populated by the myth of Japanese aviators. Jim feels himself close to the Japanese kamikazes for their bravery, but especially for their loneliness and sadness. His dreams will allow him to survive till the end of the war. At the end the only life that he knows will be the life in the camp, and when this will end also his world of dreams will collapse marking the end of his childhood. By now an adolescent without any hope, Jim will wander an apocalyptic landscape, almost crazy from starvation, welcoming the death as liberation, but he will survive. The death is an obsessive presence in every page of the book, bodies, devastated by flies, are every where and the air is saturated by smell of decomposition. In my opinion this story is one of the most important documents about the atrocity of wars in the twentieth century. For its strong and shocking message against the war this is a book without time and I think that will be read also by future generations.

I bought this as a present for my daughter, who loved the book.

This is story is so beautiful! It's about destiny, courage, following your heart, and forging your own path. It makes an excellent gift.

I like the audio version in particular because the narration is excellent. I listen to audiobooks when doing exercise and mundane tasks and audiobooks like this are so engaging that I'm finished with the task before I realize any time has passed. This audiobook is good for people of all ages and educational backgrounds.

I hightly recommend anyone to listen to this CD. It tells a story about Divination, reading omens and following your personal legend.

I not that great with literature, but I love The Alchemist. The way the story was told was very mystical.

"The Alchemist" is a lighthearted, subtle, sensitive, and eloquent story that will take the reader into a journey of self-discovery and wisdom.
This is not a material for spiritual midgets!
"The Alchemist will provide the reader with inspiring and enlightening moments....

This purchase was an impulse buy from a bookstore before I drove 5-1/2 hours to Houston. The CD came highly recommended by the clerk selling me some books. I thought, why not, I love Jeremy Irons' voice. This CD was indeed the best audio book I've ever heard and I've listened to almost 30. I had just recently finished "His Excellency" about George Washington, which is very long (13 cd's) and extremely good. Although I'd never heard of Paulo Coelho, who is internationally famous, I know and love Jeremy Irons as an actor, and he should win an award for performing the characters in this book. I finished it the following day driving to Austin and thoroughly enjoyed the deeper meaning behind the story. Since Santiago's adventures reminded me of my son and how he met his wife, I gave this audio book to him for his birthday. He is very well-read and this book, he tells me, is his new favorite.

To coincide with Adrian Lyne's masterful film version of Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita," Jeremy Irons recorded the unabridged text for Random House. Irons has become the patron saint of the morally ambiguous on screen-- with his work in "M. Butterfly," "Lolita," and scores of other films. He brings his very fine baritone to an excellent reading of "Lolita." He brings the rich eccentricities of Nabokov's language to the audio, which is not easy considering what is remarkable about "Lolita" is literary and not performance-oriented.

Jeremy Irons is the perfect choice to read this Audiobook of the "infamous" Lolita. Iron's reading is a perfect pairing with Nabokov's writing, the richness of the language comes through even though you are not settled into your easy chair by a crackling fire with a decent vintage opened at your side.

It is pairings such as this that gives one hope that more Audio books will be prepared with equal care, unabridged, and enriching the listener's experience.

"LOLITA---LIGHT OF MY LIFE- FIRE OF MY LOINS---MY SIN, MY SOUL.
LOOO---LEEE---TAAA.
The tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps.
LOOO--LEEE--TAAA" -Hubert Hubert-

Humbert Humbert is an intellectual, a teacher, fluidly articulate, a lover of books, a poet, and good looking. One could say he has it all. But there's one little problem, Hubert Hubert happens to be a pedaphile.

Nabokov is so brilliant, the reader will empathize with Hubert Hubert in some strange way, because he
will make them...justifying why Hubert Hubert does the things he does. And the reader will try to justify his perversion, too.

Hubert Hubert is a child molester, a monster, a pervert, a stalker, evil, and sick. And he is appalled, even by himself. This is the reason Nabokov has named him Hubert Hubert (One is good-one is evil).

"IF ONLY SHE SAW THE MONSTERS BEHIND THE EYES,
I AM THE DEVIL'S PLAY THING" Hubert Hubert

Hubert Hubert is obsessed with young girls (Nymphets) as he so elequently calls them. He is sexually attracted to Lolita most of all, and married her mother to get close to her. (Naughty boy).

His thoughts are written so beautifully and deliciously the way he feels for Lolita, that the reader neglects, at times, to see his perversion and sins. Hubert Hubert describes Lolita's knees, her legs, her skin, her hair, how it
drapes over her apple fresh cheeks. How lovely. How pretty. How wicked.

Hubert Hubert descibes Lolita's mother (his wife)like this: "Being with her was like thrashing inside a decaying forest"

Shame on you, Hubert. She's only 35 years old! You dirty, dirty old man.

Hubert Hubert speaks in third person through several parts of the book...because Hubert Hubert cannot even bear himself--for he is a demoralizing, warped, sick individual. And the reader will still fill empathy for him

"I am the Devil's Plaything. I am a Monster."

Hubert Hubert trys desperately to become the doting step-father, giving Lolita what she wants, getting involved in school activites, protecting her from the big bad world.

But he forgets one thing....

Hubert Hubert does not protect her from Hubert Hubert.

Vladimir Nabokov is a genius, and Lolita has so many levels of beauty, metaphor, and lushness, one cannot find any inmperfection within it.

Lolita will horrify the reader and delight the reader at the same time. How the heck to Nabokov do that?

Nobody could have read this book as Irons did--the sexuality rolls of his tongue like a kind of poison.

***Not too many books can compare to this Lolita. A true, unbelievable classic.

the scariest thing about this book is that you don't see it coming. you pick up the book thinking you're going to be repulsed by the whole thing. it's pedophilia! but instead you find yourself nodding along, agreeing, sympathizing with humbert's totally horrible viewpoints. you find yourself wanting to be more like lolita so someone will love you like that. you find yourself laughing when the narrator wants you to laugh, feeling sorry for him when dolores finally escapes. it's utterly convincing to anyone who's ever been obsessed with anything... like diving into another world.



it's incredibly well written, but i don't think i would recommend this book to anyone. i think instead that it's the first book i've read that should carry a warning label. "listening to this book will seduce you."

I had read Lolita many years ago in my college student garret and was entertained, a bit appalled, thought I was able to "get" HH, but mainly I was amazed by the language. I can remember rereading sentences just to feel the commas. BUT, hearing it read by Jeremy Irons is a whole different thing. He is an absolutely amazing actor. It is CREEPY and the incredible language becomes his own completely, rather than feeling in any way, like Nabokov's intellectual exercise. Just describing Iron's speech, his sibillant esses, makes me shudder. I had to stop around CD 5 (near Salina, Kansas, as I drove from SF to the East Coast with Tyler the dog) because the person and the story were now so sordid and disturbing.
Then, staying with my cousin in Bethesda, I was in a room with the usual suspect college student books (Camus, Pynchon, Vonnegut, a used copy of Introduction to the Principles of Earwax) and sure enough, there was Lolita. It was ~benign and fascinating once again, until I pushed myself to imagine Iron's voice. Then I put it back on the shelf and washed my hands.