Hugh Laurie Books

My son loves this book so much that when it started falling apart, I bought another one! He asks for this book every night. Highly recommend!!

This book is beautifully illustrated. The vibrant colors invited my students to be actively engaged while we were reading it together. The rhyme scheme of the book made my students laugh and learn at the same time. Humor is always a good way to learn. I would reccomend this book to anyone.

This book has been a favorite in our home since we got it over 8 years ago. The pictures are beautiful and fun. The rhymes are great. It is one of the few books that I do not tire of reading over and over and over again to the kiddos.

Only draw-back is that it is permanately stuck in my head. Can't go to the zoo without finding myself saying the rhymes. Oh, who am I kidding, that's not a draw-back...it is kinda fun! hee hee

This book has been loved by all of my children, every one of my children old enough to talk have this book memorized.

This is such a cute book. Bright and colorful pictures to look at, with a story that isn't too repetitive. Readers will not mind reading time and again to children

This is a very handsome book - of great interest for architectural buffs or historians. It pairs two great architects - Robert Venturi and Irving Gill - in a unique, engaging, and informative way. The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (in La Jolla, California)is one of the finest small museums in the country, well worth a visit to see outstanding architecture as well as cutting-edge contemporary art.

This is an outstanding book for anyone interested in the work of two great architects - Robert Venturi and Irving Gill. The combination of their work at the museum in La Jolla is masterful, and this book gives a fascinating look into the museum's history and Venturi's thought processes as he sought to restore the historic "Scripps House" while expanding and modernizing the Museum of Contemporary Art. A great find - makes me want to visit La Jolla and see it for myself!

Buy this book even if you've never been to the La Jolla museum it describes. If you've been to the museum, it's worth buying to give you pause to reflect on what you've seen. This book offers both the history and theory behind Venturi's reshaping of a wonderful museum in an attractive location. Those of us who remember the museum in the old days have got to be impressed with what Venturi has done. Although this text is all too brief, it provides the illumination needed to appreciate more fully this California classic.

Even though Miss Alcott didn't have as much writing experience when she wrote these short stories, they are still a wonderful read. The first two stories are from 'Hospital Sketches'and are wonderful. "A Night" is a gripping acount based on her experience as a Civil War nurse. In the story a nurse is staying up all night with a dying soldier. The story is beautiful. "My Contraband" is a sad tale of how the war and slavery tore apart families. The last two stories are an enjoyable read also. Hey, for 90 cents this book is more than worth the price. If you like Louisa May Alcott, you won't be dissapointed with these stories, so give this book a try.

The Dover Thrift Edition of "Short Stories" by Louisa May Alcott contains 5 pieces: "Obtaining Supplies," "A Night," "My Contraband," "Happy Women," and "How I Went Out to Service." The book includes a brief introductory note on the life and career of Alcott.

The first two stories are from Alcott's "Hospital Sketches"; together with the third story, they deal with protagonists who work as nurses for Civil War soldiers. "My Contraband" has as a key theme the legacy of slavery. "Happy Women" is more of a sketch celebrating single women, and the final piece tells the "serio-comico experience" of a young woman who goes to work as a domestic companion.

I read this book shortly after reading Alcott's novel "The Inheritance," written when she was only 17; that simple but charming work makes for a fascinating contrast with the polished maturity of the pieces in this volume. Overall, this collection shows Alcott's wit, humor, compassion for humanity, attentive eye, and particular concern for women's issues. This short (55 + vii pages) book is a wonderful collection by one of the most remarkable figures in American literature.

Many of these brief but captivating stories are lovely, but one in particular captured my interest, and that was about the secret lives of silverware. There are other nonsensical but entertaining stories in this volume, all of which are perfect to read aloud to young children. The fact that these are lesser known makes it an all the more intriguing addition to your library. Simply enchanting!

Awesome to listen from a perfect voice a great classic like this. A pleasure!!!

When I first began reading this book,I wasn't quite certain I was going to enjoy it, as the English prose wasn't quite my type. However, after the first few chapters, I became an ardent fan of this spellbinding novel! What an incredible love story it is...and it's not one of those books that you read once, and then put back on the shelf, never to be taken down again, either. It is one which you can read again and again, and each time you do, it is as new as when you FIRST read it. It is one of those few novels that retain innocent romantic dialog, and yet it is intriguingly poetic and beautiful beyond words.
Everyone I've recommended this story to, agrees with me that it is well worth reading. The story of Percy and Marguerite, quickly becomes every girl's dream love story!

It is most unfortunate that I must disagree with the vast majority of the reviewers of this book, as I had high hopes for it after hearing it compared to the work of Dumas. I was rather disappointed with The Scarlet Pimpernel, however, as I found it to be of rather mediocre quality. It was rather unpolished compared to Dumas, which is surprising considering the haste with which Dumas penned his numerous volumes. The Scarlet Pimpernel is simply not nearly as fun and exciting as either Dumas, Stevenson, Shellabarger, or Sabatini (the other swashbuckling authors). What I found most unappealing about it was Orczy's apparent underestimation of the reader. The first three quarters of the book is obviously supossed to leave the reader guessing as to the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel, but it was rather easy to guess who it was early on in the book, and by the half-way point it was so blatantly obvious that no one could conceivably be surprised by the much-hyped discovery of the hero towards the end of the book. Add to this the over-the-top melodrama and frequently cheesy dialogue and you have the makings of an average adventure novel.

Some may think that I have been harsh with this book. That may be so, but if it is it is because I am so shocked that others dare favorably compare this to the masterpieces of Dumas, or to the great Zorro writings of McCulley. Orczy is not a terrible writer, but it is rather outrageous to compare her to the great swashbuckler authors. She is almost entirely missing the raw spirit of adventure present in others, and this spirit is at the very heart of the adventures of those like Dumas. For me there was no point in this book where I was entheusiastically turning the pages, eager to find out what would happen to the main character, following with glee each turn of events. This is not at all because the main character is female. It is because the main character is not the hero, and is not even adventuresome. To be quite frank, she is rather boring until toward the very end of the book, and even then she does not endear herself to the reader in the manner of a D'Artagnan or an Edmond Dantes. There are no supporting characters worthy of comparison to Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. Even the villains are rather boring (not to mention wooden), leaving us with little to really care about in this book. I think author's intended "hook" was supossed to be the mystery about who the Scarlet Pimpernel is, but this was entirely lost by the half-way point, so I found the last half of the book rather unremarkable.

The most redeeming merit of this book is not its enjoyability, but its historical significance. The dual persona of the hero was the inspiration for further variations on the theme, beginning with McCulley's Zorro in the early 20th century and subsequent rise of superheros. It is hard to imagine that such a motif is so recent, but we really do have Orczy to thank for that, and I am truly grateful, for The Mark of Zorro is one of my favorite books. Beyond that, however, my advice is to stick to Dumas, Stevenson, Shellabarger, and Sabatini. They are all far better than this.

Overall grade: C+

This book was thoroughly enjoyable. It almost seems way ahead of it's time as an 1800s version of the modern thriller novel. This book is a great adventure and a spy thriller set in the time of the bloody French Revolution. It has romance, action, espionage, twists and turns, and fun characters. At times the plot is fairly predictable, but it still manages to keep you on the edge of your seat. This book is a fun and entertaining read if not deep. Definitely recommended as a light summer read and an alternative to much of today's popular novels.

The book is a great read with one of the best heroes ever created in fiction. The love story is also maybe a bit fantastical, but so amazing. Guys and girls alike should both love it.

My wife and I had watched the movie "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and immediately wanted to read the original book.
Amazon.com was easy to use to find the book and order from. The book was everything we hoped and we thank Amazon.com for their prompt professonal service in making the book available to us.
The book was every bit as exciting to read as the movie was to watch.
THANK YOU AMAZON.COM!

This book is amazing, I've been a fan of the genre since I was about 8 and raided my grandfather's book collection, I read Eye of the Needle, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Key to Rebecca among others, and Hugh Laurie's narrative in this book has impressed me deeply, he uses language as an expert and for the first time in my life I loved descriptions and narrative in books which was something I normally don't have much interest in as opposed to dialogue, which is also wonderfully done in the Gun Seller. I really hope he has some spare time to finish the sequel.

Although I am one of the ones that discovered his works through House M.D., I say unfortunately because I'm deeply, deeply ashamed of that fact. Simply because my life would have been far better by seeing his other works earlier, Blackadder, Jeeves and Wooster, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, etc, not because I don't like the show, which I do.

So I feel that this book should be judged by its own merit, Hugh Laurie even said he wanted to publish it under a pseudonym so that his career wouldn't influence on how the book would be received and I have to say that he should not worry about it, the book is wonderful and excellent and everyone who likes this genre will love this book, he deserves all the merit he can get as a very accomplished writer.

I had to stop reading "The Gun Seller" around 1am, halfway through it, and believe me, the ONLY thing stopping me from reading to the end was an unfortunate dearth of eyelids propper-uppers, a la "A Clockwork Orange."

It is LITERALLY laugh-out-loud funny. Adam (spousal unit) couldn't concentrate on his computer war game, so often did I punctuate the living room's usual silence with raucous laughter and stifled snorts.

But it is ALSO one helluva spy tale. He wrote it in 1996 and I can't for the life of me figure out why he hasn't written more -- except for maybe that little sideline of his in the thespian arena. Apparently it was immediately optioned as a screenplay; that never went anywhere, but I bet you dollars to doughnuts (WHAT does that phrase MEAN???) he could not only get it made today, but nab the leading role to boot (and what does THAT phrase mean?).

It's confirmed. Hugh Laurie is both a brilliant actor and a brilliant writer. Fans of spy thrillers and Brit-humor alike will love "The Gun Seller." The book works as both a straight spy/political intrigue story and as a send-up of the genre. Laurie's anti-hero Tom Lang reminds me of the self-deprecating but ultimately "I'll do it if I must" protagonists of Dick Francis' novels. More than a little of George McDonald Fraser's Harry Flashman is detectable too, although Tom is not nearly as self-serving and has quite a few more scruples. The action is fast-paced, and it's easy to see Laurie's familiarity with film and TV - you can almost see the fades and scene changes. However fast-paced, I recommend that you read at least slowly enough to appreciate the witty and sharp prose that tells the story. Laurie's personal penchant for the writings of P. G. Wodehouse is clear in his clever word-play and amusing turns of phrase. I laughed out loud at least three times per chapter, and had to read the book twice to really catch all the little nuances I missed the first time in the excitement of the story-line. I highly recommend this book and only wish I could personally congratulate Hugh Laurie (albeit over ten years late) and beg him to write another.

He could write the phone book and I would buy it. The story is a spy story...the real value is his word play.
Buy it for that!

Snappy writing, plot twists that keep you wondering who's the good guy and who's the bad, and a character that I think every guy wants to be.

And I'm not a guy.

I don't read spy novels in general, but I picked this one up because I'm a fan of Hugh Laurie. Read the first page in B&N. Then the second. Until I read the first chapter. It made it on my Christmas list because I giggled. Out loud. In the little Starbucks area of B&N.

I got the book and laughed more and found myself reading when I should be doing everything else.

Laurie spits out these deadpan one liners throughout. I think writers would appreciate his wit with things like "She turned towards me and narrowed her eyes...Narrowed them horizontally, not vertically." He loves to play with cliches.

And how can you not laugh at gems such as, "I lit a cigarette with Solomon's dashboard. I say the dashboard, because most of it came away with the cigarette lighter when I pulled, and it took a moment to put the whole thing back together."

Come on, now, you're laughing, right?

It's a shame Hugh Laurie's gotten so much into this acting thing because I wish he'd write more books.

Or make this book into a movie. It reads like a movie. The guy from Layer Cake would be my first choice in casting, but he's the new James Bond, so there goes that idea. Possible Jason Statham, but I think Clive Owen really would make this role.

If anyone's asking.

When it comes down to it, if you like spy novels, you'll like this book.

If you don't like spy novels, you'll like this book.

After living in Finland for a while, I decided to read the Moomin series of books. The first one seems "Moomins and the Great Flood" does not seem to be on Amazon but is available (in English) at least from the Moomin store in Helsinki-Vantaa airport.

Anyways, Finn Family Moomintroll is a great children's book. It starts when Moomintroll wakes up and, together with Snufkin finds the Hobgoblins hat. There is something strange with the hat and most of the story is somewhat centered around it. I won't ruin the whole story, but the rest include boats, fish, wooden ladies, hattifratters, big rubies, fish.

The book is well written and I do recommend it for children or moomin fanatics. It also clearly has Finnish cultural influences, which are nice to recognize. So, why just three stars? It's a good book, it's not a great book (for example, not comparable to Alice in Wonderland). Also, it's not a book I would recommend to most adults.

For me this book was a mess - disjointed, self indulgent, and self important, with so many characters it left my, and my childs head in a spin. Finally managed to struggle through it, but in hind-sight, the book had little that was coherent about it, and left me wishing we had read something else. Reading all these reviews makes me wonder who is writing them - the authors or the publishers?

Its complete tripe.

This is a part of a series written by Tove Jansson, I believe a Finish author, but in this case, transcribed into English. It is delightful, not only for children but also for adults. The book arrived in excellent shape, well wrapped, and quickly received. I'm looking forward to completing the collection of Moomintroll books. Thank you.

Short, stumpy, silly looking troll things are fun.


If those guys aren't odd enough, they have a bunch of friends that are other strange looking creatures. This book is basically about the hijinks they get up to after finding a magic hat, that pretty much looks like what you would expect your garden variety stage magician to be wearing.

However, this particularly piece of millinery actual is the real deal, though, not a stage prop.

A little to my surprise my seven year old son loves these moomin books - To me they seem from another age [I remember them from my childhood] The moomin world is full of gentle humour and a cast of sweetly strange characters romping through the long summer days in a Finnish forest. Good for imaginative kids who like to imagine other worlds. My son loves Anime and films like "My Neighbour Totoro" and these books have that kind of sensibility

We had so much fun listening to this book on our trip from Carmel to San Francisco ...and back! Thi is a fun and entertaining story. Suggest it for all those light hearted and fun filled trips and travelers! A great traveling companion!

McCall Smith's character The Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld is up to his shameless behavior once again! McCall Smith's books are always fun and entertaining reads.

The title story is amusing enough, but after that, the "adventures" of Professor von Igelfeld are pretty tedious.

After having read all of McCall's Ladies Detective Agency books, I was definitely not disappointed in "Sausage Dogs". There are moments when you can't help laughing out loud. While being somewhat frivolous, it still manages to present the vulnerable side of human nature. A quick and most enjoyable read. I look forward to reading more of this series.

This book was my introduction to the wry, dry humour of Alexander McCall Smith. Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld of the Institute of Romance Philology is perhaps an acquired taste. Some readers will appreciate the humour, others will not enjoy it and some will not recognise it for humour at all.

Of the three books in this trilogy, I enjoyed this one the best. For me, this was 'laugh out loud' humour and I expect those around me were grateful when I resumed more serious lunchtime reading.

A recommended light-hearted read.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

read everything you can get your hands on, he is hard to find in the states too. his writing is witty and deep at the same time. brilliant.

This is a really good book. IMHO really good authors aren't only funny or only serious, but both because that's how real life is. Both Sam and Lucy are, in a way, caricatures - Lucy the former career girl panicked about her waning fertility, Sam the bewildered male who can't see what all the fuss is about - but they seem real and endearing through the "diary" format of the narrative.

Without giving away any real spoilers, I'll say that I love the character development in this book - how Sam comes to share Lucy's desire to have a child, how both characters come to be more sympathetic to each other through the process, and of course the ending that illustrates that real love and forgiveness are possible.

But good heavens, I really hope that if I ever want to have kids I'll prove fertile - this book really shows you all the hoops that reproductive technologies make couples jump through!

Being infertile can be hell ! However, a sense of humour can help you cope better, and this book provides that. Even more importantly, it will help you communicate better with your spouse, because you'll be able to understand each other's perspective much better !

I agree with the other posters who thought this book was hilarious--up to a point. Where it all went south for me was when the husband started acting like a total jerk by writing a screenplay about their experiences, selling it, and starting filming on the project. I won't spoil the rest, but by the end I was so disgusted with the husband, the wife, and their situation, that I wanted my money back. I'm so glad I bought this used instead of new.

Also, maybe this shows the male point of view on infertility well, but not the female one. There's so little detail on what the woman actually goes through in a trying to conceive cycle--it's laughable.

If you get it, enjoy the beginning, and don't feel bad about skimming the second half. The shift in tone and characterization is jarring; too bad the author spoiled such a good beginning.

Ben Elton's style has been got under a bit of control since the heady early days of Stark. He still takes the occasional potshot at incidental targets, but he no longer fires a scattergun in every direction as he did then. As often, he picks a topic that might seem to call for the utmost delicacy and tact and treats it with the utmost frankness and even ribaldry. The topic in question is human infertility, although there is a very entertainingly-handled sub-plot of life within the BBC in addition. His style of comedy has always been to highlight the grotesque side of things, and so it remains here. This doesn't show any lack of human sympathy on his part - indeed very much the reverse I should say - but he is not for the shy or the oversensitive much less for the solemn or the pompous.

The processes of human sexuality verge on the absurd at the best of times whatever else can be said about them. When we factor in the exceptional manoeuvres increasingly demanded by a desperate mid-30's childless wife from her less committed husband, culminating in the lurid rituals of IVF, I think it's fair to say that it takes a certain type of writer to deal with such a theme successfully. Ben Elton handles it brilliantly. We are not spared the most graphic or intimate physical and anatomical details, but the comic style Elton adopts really masks a true delicacy of perception. Indeed I'm inclined to say that nobody with less of a sense of humour than the two protagonists show in this book would have been able to see the whole gruesome process through. The humour is very English humour, and I think I know what it's modelled on to a great extent. During the years of the Thatcher Terror, there used to be a hilarious column in the magazine Private Eye purporting to consist of letters from her husband to a friend named Bill. These were written in a very public-school idiom, probably derived basically from P G Wodehouse but influenced by minor literature such as the Molesworth books, familiar also from Oxford common-rooms and similar places of association, and updated more recently into the dialogue of the chattering classes in Islington and similar parts of London, the form in which we find it here. This idiom can take the heaviness out of the most serious situations without trivialising them, and whether or not I'm right about its precise origin in this book that is the way its author tries to use it, and tries very successfully in my own opinion.

The author never speaks to us directly throughout the whole book, using instead the device of diaries written by the husband and wife, much as is done in Julian Barnes's Talking it Over. The device works very well here. Ben Elton is an observer and critic with a particularly acute eye for human behaviour and attitudes, and it helps if he steps back a little from the narrative for that very reason. The incidents in the story are often Rabelaisian and hilarious, but the dilemmas and worse that the characters face are touched in with no little sympathy as well as perceptiveness. The style of writing has even gained a little (dare I say this?) refinement, to its and our general benefit I'd say. The ending is genuinely touching, so on balance 5 stars.

Some of the "882 1/2 answers" are split up from the same overall fact. But still informative, and a great read.

If you want to know everything about the Titanic, this is the book for you! It is very imformative starting from the builing of the ship to the very end. It's full of information and interesting facts.

This book is perfect for younger children that want to learn about the Titanic.My son who is [...]was learning about the Titanic in school.His teacher was very impressed with this book.It is bold print and easy for children to read with great pictures.A most have book for young Titanic explorers.

This book has lots of informative and interesting facts about the Titanic. Whatever your interest level, this book probably has something in it you didn't know.

For Titanic aficionados, this is a great reference book.

This is easily the best book on the TITANIC I have found so far, and I have been looking for info on the TITANIC for several months now. It is chock-full of infromation, paintings, and photos of this famous ship. Once I said to my friend, "Ask me any question about the TITANIC, and bet I can answer it with this book." And I was, infact abel to answer most every question he asked me!!! This wonderfuly descriptive, informative, and colorful book is 882 1/2 percent AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!