Literature Books

this humor in this book is incredibly dry, original and astute. New Yorkers should especially appreciate it but many of the scenes will crack up anyone anywhere...and, to boot, it's all in the interest of a great cause

Cooperative Village is a laugh from cover to cover. Madeson hits the nail on the head, capturing the essence of living in a co-op in New York City, with it's cross section of colorful characters. The adventures she takes you through makes you want to turn the pages as fast as you can, because you won't believe it could get nuttier and it just does...
Can't wait for the next book

Fran Madeson's "Cooperative Village" is a wacky, wonderful, and frequently hysterically funny antidote for whatever George Bush has managed to do to you. I rarely laugh out loud when reading a book and I really did when I read this one. Madeson's imagination and voice are simply unlike other authors out there. It's a story, it's a political commentary, it's a cockeyed look into the world of little old Jewish ladies who rock.

Frances Madeson has a vivid imagination. Working from the real and cultural geography and of an actual New York City housing development, she creates a web of hysterially over-the-top characters whose outrageous behavior seems normal to each other. It is dripping with social and political satire. It is a wonderful, unique and truly funny book.

I enjoyed parts of this book, but it was too scattered (which I think was done by design). I guess this is suppose to be a wacky look at a strange days in the lower east side, with a few negative comments about her old job to make you wonder where she worked and more comments about her mother that makes you wonder about what the mother did.

This is an adorable farm book with a twist- the language is predictable so young children can easily sing/read along. If you have puppets (or a little toy farm)kids love to act out the story too.

This is the cutest book. All the kids just love it, from 1-5 years. You can sing the words to the book to the song "Skip to my lou" There is a cute little white mouse hiding on every page. The kids can't get enough of it!

My two-year-old is CRAZY about this catchy, colorful book. Not only is it populated with silly, misbehaving animals playing tricks on Tom Farmer, and written to the rhythm of a song, but there's a little mouse hiding on every page. It would be appropriate for kids 1 years +.

This is one of my favorite books to read to my preschool class. They learn the book quickly and love to chant along with it. The children also love to search for the mouse on each page.

I've been reading to him since the age of 5 months. he always seems more interested in eating the books than being read to. But with this book, he just keeps handing it back to me over and over when we finish it -- i think that's baby talk for "again."

I first received this book as a gift from my daughters daycare teacher. We read it every night for years. When I came across it again on Amazon, I had to purchase it. Great story and morals - but we love it for the bright colors, catchy phrasing, and of course the memories behind the book. Great price and love the hardback book (as our original was paperback).

This is a great book that my daughter's preschool actually turned into a short play done by the parents. It was too cute. We still read it regularly 2 years later.

A very simple book that demonstrates how we must all get along and accept each other because together we make a better world.

This is a well written book about a very cute idea. My daughter (2 1/2) loves it.

I recieved my book in great condition and within a weeks time. Was great, I have continued to order from Amazon.

Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism, Muhammad Yunus, Public Affairs, 2007

Muhammad Yunus is a hero to those of us who seek to broaden the ownership of business. As a Bangladeshi economics professor, he wanted to do something about the crushing hunger and poverty he saw around him. He gathered 42 borrowers from the village near his campus and lent them a total of $27 from his own pocket. He followed that by guaranteeing bank loans to the poor. In 1983, he started Grameen Bank, which shared with him the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. The results, from his acceptance speech:

"Today, Grameen Bank gives loans to nearly 7.0 million poor people, 97
percent of whom are women, in 73,000 villages in Bangladesh. . . . Since
it opened the bank has given out loans totaling about US $6.0 billion. The repayment rate is 99 percent. Grameen Bank routinely makes a profit. . . .
58 percent of our borrowers have crossed the poverty line."

Grameen Bank has become the model for a worldwide microcredit movement. By 2006, microloans had been extended to 100 million of the world's poorest families.

In this book, Professor Yunus argues for a new structure, the "social business," which is "a business that pays no dividends. It sells products at prices that make it self-sustaining. The owners of the company can get back the amount they've invested in the company over a period of time, but no profit is paid to investors in the form of dividends. Instead, any profit made stays in the business--to finance expansion, to create new products or services, and to do more good for the world."

Governments, charities and "profit-maximizing businesses" are not enough to solve the problems of poverty, disease and environmental degradation, Professor Yunus argues; "we need a new type of business that pursues goals other than making personal profit--a business that is totally dedicated to solving social and environmental problems."

He makes a distinction between social businesses and "socially-responsible" businesses, which are intended to serve a social objective, while making a profit. They have a fatal flaw, according to Professor Yunus, because their executives "will gradually inch toward the profit-maximization goal, no matter how the company's mission is designed."

The social business is intended to make a profit, but not to pay dividends. It would plan to pay back the amount invested over time, which might be from five to 20 years. Shareowners would continue to own the business after they were repaid their investment. The motive of making a profit on the shares would be replaced by pride in achieving a social objective. Many of the investors would be individuals and institutions that make charitable gifts. They would see the benefits from a business that was to return their funds, which they could use to invest in more social businesses. (However, earning enough after-tax profits to cash out investors in five to 20 years is a big hurdle for a new business. It could put the social business at a real competitive disadvantage in pricing its products and services. Most U.S. businesses don't pay any dividends, while many others keep dividends at less than a three percent yield on the shares' market value.)

"Who will invest in a social business?" This question is a section of the book. The answer given is that money will come from people who would otherwise support charities, as well as from charitable foundations and from businesses that fund charitable activities. A tax exemption could provide government support for social businesses. Shares in social businesses would be traded in aftermarkets, with the value determined by "the social benefit produced," rather than profit expectations.

What about capital needs larger than those served by Grameen Bank and the microcredit movement? The book lists some 25 members of the "Grameen Family of Companies," which include social businesses and support organizations. Grameen Fund provides venture capital, taking a 51% equity ownership. Grameen Business Promotion Company guarantees loans from Grameen Bank of up to $10,000 or more. Grameen has recently entered joint ventures with Danone, the world's largest yogurt company, and Intel.
A huge potential project described is "to create world-class port facilities for the growing economies of Bangladesh as well as her neighbors, and to build a network of superhighways to connect those countries with the port facilities." The money would come from "social investors" or donor countries, who would later sell the project to a trust. In turn, the trust would sell "shadow shares" to poor people. These "shadow shares" would not represent ownership of the facilities but would entitle holders to any dividends declared by the trust board. Shares could be purchased on credit, to be paid from dividends. The shares could only be sold back to the trust. (If this project goes forward, perhaps Professor Yunus would consider having the shares be direct ownership, with voting rights, so that the poor families could be part of a community of business owners.)

Grameen Bank's great success flies against some basic economic assumptions, according to Professor Yunus. One is that "all people are motivated purely by the desire to maximize profit." (By "fear and greed," in Wall Street terms.) Another "is the assumption that the solution to poverty lies in creating employment for all." Self-employment is the alternative supported by Grameen Bank. Millions of its borrowers have crossed the poverty line because they now have earnings from both their labor and their invested capital. (The next progression is when individuals have enough income from their capital alone that they don't need to sell their labor. They can be the ones who devote their time, and discretionary investment income, to solving social problems.)

There is a brief section in the book that describes a second kind of social business, one "owned by the poor or disadvantaged" where "the social benefit is derived from the fact that the dividends and equity growth . . . will go to benefit the poor." Grameen Bank itself is "a social business by virtue of its ownership structure," since 94% of its shares are held by its borrowers. In 2006, it earned $20 million and paid dividends to its shareowners.

The error of most programs to alleviate poverty, Professor Yunus writes, is that they assume that providing jobs and job skills is what is needed. "But if you spend enough time living among the poor, you discover that their poverty arises from the fact that they cannot retain the genuine results of their labor. And the reason for this is clear: They have no control over capital. The poor work for the benefit of someone else who controls the capital." (Beyond microcredit could be broadening the ownership of capital so that the formerly poor can become independent of the return on their labor.)

In this excellent, provocative book, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus sets forth his vision for a new kind of enterprise, social business, managed according to businesslike principles but with the uncapitalistic objective of social benefit. This is no untried, pie-in-the-sky proposal. Yunus pioneered this business model when he founded the world-famous microcredit financial institution, Grameen Bank. More recently, working with France's Groupe Danone, he set up a business to produce and market fortified yogurt in Bangladesh. This book tells the story of the author's involvement in social businesses and offers stimulating suggestions for their future evolution. getAbstract recommends it to forward-thinking business leaders and entrepreneurs who want their projects to benefit not just themselves but their societies at large.

The book, somewhat autobiographical, first chronicles the formation of the revolutionary system of microcredit in Bangladesh, and then discusses Yunas's ideas for new "social businesses". Inspiring reading.

I realized close to two years ago, after reading C. K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks), that I wanted to be intelligence officer to the poor instead of to a president, and that I needed to create the field of public intelligence (decision support for everyone at no cost). I strongly recommend that the two books be read together. See my review of that book. See also John Bogle's The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism as well as William Grider's The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy. Natural Capitalism, Capitalism 3.0, Green to Gold, Cradle-to-Cradle, all book titles, are converging with Social Entrepreneurship and Social Business as well as unconventional Global Assemblages.

This book, the last that I read during a power outage lasting most of the day, really rocked me. Apart from the fact that the author has labored anonymously for three decades before being propelled into the public consciousness with his well-served Nobel Peace Prize (a prize that Prahalad should be considered for as well), everything in this book resonates with the path the 24-founders of Earth Intelligence Network have chosen.

The author's Nobel presentation, "Poverty is a Threat to Peace," is at the back of the book, and has since been validated by the UN High-Level Threat Panel in A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility--Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change.

The author not only lent to the poor, he lent to beggars at no interest with no schedule, and proved conclusively that the poor and beggars are "credit worthy" by virtue of "being alive." He also pushed technology to rural areas.

By page xvii I have goosebumps and a glorious feeling that good stuff is happening faster and bigger than most realize.

The author notes early on that unfettered capitalism creates sccial problems rather than solving them. He suggests most compellingly that social business fills a gap left by government, foundations, and multilateral institutions.

While the book is missing a sense of shared information and a global Range of Gifts Table that anyone, from individual to foundation, can use to make precision contributions and interventions, it is very easy to see how this book and Yochai Benkler's book, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom as well as How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition and all come together with Prahalad's vision and my own of public intelligence in the public interest.

The author recognizes, as Alvin Toffler and others have pointed out, that all of our institutions are failing. I recommend books I have listed and reviewed on how complex societies collapse. I would venture to say that the US Government, with 27 secessionist movements, is collapsing from a mix of political and economic corruption compounded by cultural arrogance, but most importantly, because the government is stuck in the top down elite driven secret information Weberian model, and the government has failed to empower all local communities and all individuals with bottom up resilient adaptable information sharing capabilities.

The bookm draws a stark contrast between the World Bank which measures loans given out, and the Grameen Bank, which measures outcomes at multiple levels including kids staying in school.

As I read about a social business, I envision every village as its own business.

The author addresses and dismisses Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as insufficient. He calls for proactive collaborative engagement with potential customers in the five billion poor, and I am instantly reminded of the Business Week cover story of 20 June 2005, on the power of mass volunteer collaboration.

The author focuses on women, mothers, and their children. This tallies with Michael O'Hanlon and Ralph Peters, both of whom regard the education of women as the single best investment bar none.

The author took several steps beyond his pioneering micros-cash loans. He created social networks of those being helped, and he froze payments or interst and did whatever necessary to get defaulters back on track without penalty. This guy is the Mother Teresa of micro-economics!

Today self-help groups of around 20 can apply to the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development for group loans.

His integrity is without peer. Interest over the life of the loan would never exceed the loan itself.

He prefers social business to charity because charity encourages corruption (in my own experience, 50% of every AID or contractor dollar goes toward corruption or fraud).

He observes that social business does not have conventional metrics, but it provides meaning and opportunity, and I observe in my own note, it lowers the "true costs" of virtually everything it touches.

Featured in this book, the middle half, is the French company Danone, and the joint venture to create a yogurt for the poor children, ultimately being delivered in a bio-degradable cup that converts into fertilizer.

The last chapter is on information technology for the poor. I personally envision free cell phones for each village, then for each neighborhood, and finally for each household, monetizing the transactions and the real-time knowledge.

The author concludes that we need new social value metrics and even a Social Dow Jones Index. This is the opposite of what I have been thinking about ever since Paul Hawkins taught me about "true costs." Now that Scanback allows a person at the point of sale to photograph a bar code and send it to Amazon to get their price, the channel is open to send back water content (4000 liters in a designer shirt from Bangladesh cotton), fuel content, child labor hours, and tax avoidance status).

The last note is one I want to present to a Fortune 50 Assets Management firm. Danone is to be admired and respected for committing to a sccial business, and it found a solution that permitted it to engage without letting down its investors: it created a new fund explicitly advertised as 90% traditional and 10% social business, and it was over-subscribed instantly.

On page 25 are listed 25 distinct Gameen companies. On pages 58-59 are Sixteen Decisions that alone warrant the Nobel Peace Prize. What these sixteen decisions do for the beneficiaries of micro-cash loans is nothing less than a socially-inspired form of the Ten Commandments, focused on creating health people in a healthy family within a healthy community.

A few other exceptional books:
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People

I am increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that all the books I am reading and reviewing are in English. I have read a few in English stemming out of India and elsewhere, and I am beginning to feel a very deep vacuum that needs to be filled. I envision 100 million volunteers using Telelanguage.com to educate the poor one cell call at a time, but I now also see an urgent need to translate and make available non-fiction literature in other languages, easily retrievable in micro-text for micro-cash.

Have you ever pondered why the raw capitalism prescribed by Adam Smith that became successful in raising the standard of living at the early stages of its development, lost it's steam after a certain phase? Why it leads to staggering inequality of income, destruction of the environment and social injustice?

In this book, Nobel Laureate Dr. Yunus suggests the reason is in the basic flaw in the assumption of Adam Smith, that man is a one dimensional being, his only motive in the world is to maximize the profit. If profit maximization is the only yardstick of the success of a business, why should the corporations care about other factors like social responsibility, sustainability or social justice?

Dr. Yunus, in this book, proposes another model of business, which he calls Social Business. In this business model, the goal is not profit maximization, but a specific social benefit, for example, providing nutrition among the population. The social business is not a charity, because, it returns the original investment back to the investor. But, it reinvests the profits back to the business to maximize its social goal. Dr.Yunus is not an ivory tower economist, but a very down-to-earth pragmatist, who has founded a score of Social Businesses in his own country Bangladesh and other underdeveloped parts of the world. As a result of his work, millions of people have come out of poverty.

In this book, he also explains the concept of micro-finance, a small amount of money, usually less than hundred dollars lent to the poor people, who can then use this money for running a small business. This generates income and help them rise above the poverty level. According to Dr. Yunus, the poor people always pay back the money. After reading the book, I have become interested in investing some money in micro-finance. If you like the idea check out [...]or similar micro-finance sites. A small amount of your money may make a huge difference in people's lives and you get your original money back.

Dr. Yunus writes in simple, lucid language. The book will engage you and definitely enrich your world view. If you have time to read just one book this year, I would suggest this one.

Easy to read and understand. Well-written. An excellent idea. The views of this textbook, though are very skewed in favor of Marxism and Communism. This is not a balanced book.

Lois Tyson's book is indeed a "user-friendly guide" which is especially helpful for teachers whose formal education pre-dates some of the critical theories which it addresses. By applying each interpretive strategy to one specific work, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Tyson makes the abstract concrete and demonstrates how readers may enrich their appreciation of works of literature.

It was in the condition I expected it in and it arrived quickly..and the price was right.

I teach an undergraduate course in critical theory. Tyson's is the single most useful introduction to that subject that I have encountered -- and I've looked at many, many introductions to theory. Tyson's book is clear and practical, setting forth the principles of each critical theory and then applying those principles in analyzing F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, "The Great Gatsby." If I could, I would not merely give this book five stars, but also "flag" it for teachers and students searching Amazon for the best introduction to literary theory: this is the one that you should buy.

Literary theory is one of the more challenging college courses even for graduate students. Typically, the instructor will assign a complex tome as the primary source and when that happens, the often bemused student needs a supplemental text. CRITICAL THEORY TODAY by Lois Tyson fills this void better than nearly every other choice. The problem with most critical theory books is that the authors assume that if the subject matter is heavy going in both matter and style, then any explanatory book must be similarly constructed. Lois Tyson stands out as one of a handful of writers who remembers to write first as a student-friendly professor than a jargon-heavy theorist.

In her introduction, Tyson issues a stern warning that critical theory is an evolving and very nearly living and breathing field that involves a series of "overlapping, competing, quarrelling visions of the world rather than as tidy categories." (page 9) Tyson introduces each school of critical theory in roughly historical chronology, beginning with Psychoanalytic criticism, and following with Marxist, Feminist, New Critical, Reader-Response, Structuralist, Deconstructionist, New Historicist, Queer theory, African-American, and finishing with Post-Colonialist. In each case, Tyson provides an historical context, which leads into a close analysis of that particular school's underlying premises. Tyson "fleshes out" each school with a close reading of THE GREAT GATSBY, a novel which invites a spectrum of divergent analyses. She also includes a helpful list of questions that one might ask to connect that specific theory to a designated text. This list has potential for the interested student to practice writing his or her own analyses of standard literary works that invite interpretation under that critical lens.

There is a warning of my own that I wish to issue. There are a number of theories that are based on gender-race-class bases, all of which assume a basic hostility with and animus toward conventional Western-based attitudes of perceived patriarchy, economic dislocation, and victim ideology. Tyson is squarely in this camp of viewing pre-Deconstructionist literature as desperately needing to expose the hidden victims who, in her opinion, have been silenced by the stifling hand of that collective patriarchy. Still, despite this at times annoying bias, Tyson's text is solid and reliable and ought to occupy a space on the shelf of those who seek to use literature as a lens to shed light on why those who read a book or those who are in that book act the way they do.

Only an author as talented as Gabriel Garcia Marques is able to write a novel which its name tells you the end and you still can't stop reading it. Fantastic!

First things first. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a NOBEL price winner. He is a highly recognized writer. Honestly, I might not be qualified to critique his caliber.

Some of his writings are not easy to read. This one is short, but an atypical masterpiece. It is used in College as an example of a novel that does not follows the traditional introduction - climax - resolution path. Instead the writer returns back in time in every chapter and "retell" the story from a different character point of view. The main character is killed in every one of the chapters! And the poor soul was not guilty!

By the way, do give you a little extra time to figure out what is going on. This piece is not hard to read, the Spanish used is more contemporary and concised. But if you feel a little lost at the begining, it is OK. You are not really at the beginning of the story. You are at one of its many climax-ending points.

YOU WILL LIKE IT. YOU WILL NOT FORGET IT.

I have been learning Spanish for 4 years now, and I have had my share at reading very boring and not very well written books in Spanish, and fortunately, some but very few good ones. One is Lazarillo de Tormes, and another is Cronica de Una Muerte Anunciada de Garcia Marquez. I have to say that even if i didn't know that Garcia Marquez was the man that made the literature of Columbia more noticed all over the world, and won the Nobel Prize for this work, and was most well known and famous for One Hundred Years of Solitude (which i hope to read in Spanish as well), i would have still been enamored into his style and what he represents in his works. Obviously, he's speaking for the culture and heritage of the people, and does it very well that from this book alone we learn a lot about it. At times i wish that in Spanish classes we could read books such as these that represent people in Spanish speaking countries in a better light. In other words, i wish we could read Spanish literature like this. I was surprised in how easily i followed this book without constantly relying on my Spanish dictionary. I highly recommend this book.

Don't be fooled by a cute cover and cheap price. The binding for this edition of the book is terrible. I have gone through three books (and I take good care) because all the pages have fallen out just from bending the book back and forth.

I love Garcia Marquez and he is somebody you will want to read again. But this paperback edition won't allow it - the book will break first!!!

Thanks.

En otras palabras, este edicion del libro es de calidad terrible. Ya han roto tres copias del mismo libro en un mes de estudiarlo, que mucho que trato no romperlo.

Escoga otra edicion si quiere comprar este novela fantastica.

Es increible conocer el final de un libro y aun así estar tan intrigado por como sucede o como se llega al final del libro. García Marquez titula claramente su obra Crónica de una Muerte Anunciada porque desde el primer par de hojas ya sabemos que Santiago Nassar va a ser asesinado. Increiblemente las dudas de como? porque? donde? y quien? empiezan a resolverse a lo largo de las páginas. Al final, armamos el rompecabezas, y todo parece caer en su lugar. Definitivamente es una de las mejores obras descriptivas de lengua española, y definitivamente una historia que se debe leer y que se va a recordar.

I bought this as a gift for my mom, and she loved it. It is a great book that keeps you interested, you won't want to put it down.

No te arrepentiràs, me encantan todos los cuentos de este libro, so tan originales y tan fuera de lo común, que te transportan a otro mundo en tu imaginación!!

Cuentos de Eva Luna arrived rapidly. I am reading it for pleasure and I'm not being disappointed. The book is well bound for a paperback, comfortable to hold, easy to read for a student of a second language.

A friend introduced me to this collection this summer. It's a relatively easy read for anyone with a college education in Spanish. Allende uses modern stylistic devices and vocabulary.

The frame is a Scheherazade set up... a series of stories about love relationships.

Some stories are a bit schematic and unsatisfying but when she hits paydirt, it's killer. I especially liked the stories 'Si me tocaras el corazon' and 'Walimai.' These felt almost like deep folk/ fairytales.

If you enjoyed A.S. Byatt's "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye," you'll like this one too.

What a collection of characters! An illiterate woman who sells words. A man obsessed with a little girl. A woman whose marriage was based on letters written by the wrong man. A woman who spends her life waiting for revenge. A rich man who keeps a girl prisoner. Rascals trying to break into society. A lonely dictator. Invisible Indians. Every character is flawed in some terrible way, and yet, somehow appealing. Somehow you become attached to each of the characters and you want to hear their stories. There is something absolutely magical about these stories by Isabel Allende, stories you can't put down.

What is her secret? I don't know. I think she writes with magic ink. But, there is something else, too. Her characters never give up. No matter how bad, how flawed, how actually depraved they may be, they keep struggling toward the light. And so, each of us, with our own struggle to escape from darkness, can relate to these people and their stories.

These are some of the finest stories I have ever read. I recommend the collection most highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

The brilliant and controversial writer Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon" may be looked upon as an incisive diatribe against Soviet Communism under Stalin, but it was influenced by Koestler's own experience as a prisoner during the Spanish Civil War. That experience gives Rubashov's incarceration the ring of authenticity and we read about his plight with confidence in it's truth. This veracity is what gives the novel it's strength. You also have the feeling that although it is written in 3rd person narrative, it could have been based on a written diary or journal of an actual prominent victim of the Stalinist purges.

Rubashov is a victim, but not an innocent victim. He was an architect of the repressive regime that has turned to devouring it's creators and enablers. His own ruthlessness and duplicity in support of the Communist ideal has destroyed any sympathy we can have for him, but what Koestler is aiming for is understanding, not sympathy. We can empathize with Rubashov without feeling pity. We are not shown monsters, but people whose morals and ethics are weakened by fear and ambition, and who make critical decisions at the intersection of hopeful idealism and grim reality.

After reading this sobering book, you can almost understand why this great mind (Koestler), who observed first hand, the atrocities perpetrated by regimes under Hitler and Stalin, would take a decidedly dark and pessimistic view of society, especially in it's political concerns, and would turn to metaphysics and parapsychology to find a reason for prospective hope in the human condition.

The phrase Orwellian only deserves to be classified as a derivative of the work of Koestler whose slightly-earlier reflections are a telling reflection on the spirit of Marxism with greater poignancy since they come from one who formerly professed Marxism as a positive doctrine. While some of the narrative aspects of Darkness at Noon are slow-moving, they add to the ponderous nature of the subject at hand as the character of Rubashov questions his adherence to an ideology which has seemingly stripped the skin off humanity without the ability to graft a glorious replacement on the exposed internal organs. The doubts of a noble, high-minded reformer are poignant to any reader who has ever considered the interplay between the individual and the whole of society.

This perennially question of all philosophy, the question of the One and the Many touches the core of our questing for the Truth and easily makes one sympathetic to the trials of the reformer who desires both to enact the noble goals of the revolution but also realizes that so much has been lost on the way that it is quite possible to question the result. In the face of cold, hard, systematic logic which easily leads one to believe with certainty in the questionable fate of the future, Rubashov quavers both against his own questioning as well as against his own self-assured innocence in the face of charges against his devotion to the Party's cause. Such a duality of confidence is naturally found in all of humanity and retains a poignancy for all readers who have considered the noble weight of the Truth against the dangers of liberty-destroying force. The story of a confused Marxist is not that different from the story of any person, even the most devout of Christians who desires for adherence to the Truth of Faith while dually acknowledging the necessity of freedom, an acknowledgement which leads to difficult choices and seemingly-insurmountable contradictions. For this reason, Darkness at Noon is a read of great importance today, even for those who are furthest from the philosophical social materialism of Marxism.

I first read Koestler's Darkness at Noon in high school, close to 30 years ago. Although I cannot recall my earlier reaction to the book, I am certain that I was not prepared, as a 17-year old, to appreciate either the literary beeauty or socio-political importance of Koestler's masterpiece. Now that I've read it again I think I can begin to understand the praise that has been heaped on it since its publication.

It is, perhaps, either a sad testament to human nature, or an indicia of the power of great literature, that the story of the fate of one (fictional) man, Rubashov, can feel more compelling than the narrative descriptions found in history texts such as Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsarand Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him of the fate of millions during the purges.

Further, whereas these works go a long way towards explaining what happened and how it happened, Rubashov's self-crticial analysis, and his dialogues with Ivanov and then Gletkin in Darkness at Noon go a long way toward explaining why the purges happened. It helps explain the mindset of those many, like Rubashov, who confessed their non-existent sins before their ineveitable demise. It also goes a long way to explaining why so many millions of people actively participated in the denunciations that accompanied the purges and show trials.

During the height of the proceedings against him during his Presidency, former President Clinton compared himself to Rubashov. Clinton's comparison to Rubashov is rich with unintended irony. Perhaps Clinton, like me, had not read the book since high school, and felt that Rubashov was the purely innocent victim of a prosecutorial system run amok. However, Koestler makes it clear that Rubashov was not merely a vicitim of Stalin, or Stalin's henchmen, but of the system that Rubashov (a hero of the revolution) himself played an important role in creating. Rubashov spent a life filled with deceit, manipulation, and even murder, on behalf of his party and its "core values". The doctrine of the end justifying the means was a cornersone of Rubashov's philosphy and morality. Whatever "core values" existed at the beginning of his revolutionary life with the party had long since withered to nothingness by the time of his imprisonment. Consequently, if President Clinton's comparison of himself to Rubashov was based upon the idea that Rubashov was a purely innocent victim, he is just wrong. To the extent Clinton was aware that Rubashov was in no small way responsible for creating the milieu under which this despicable actvity takes place - then he is more self-aware than I had previously given him credit for.

Finally, the book is just darn well-written. Of particular beauty and impact are Rubashov's dialogues with his interrogators.

Pick up this book and read it.

I'm afraid to read anything else by Arthur Koestler.

"Darkness at Noon," his excellent novel about an aging revolutionary awaiting a show-trial and execution in Stalin's Soviet Union, is so thoroughly compelling and readable, alive with ideas and general brilliance, and so widely recognized as Koestler's masterpiece, that I fear his other books will be disappointing by comparison.

This, on the other hand, may well be my favorite book. Ever. Despite the fact that my "to-read" pile is a paper stalagmite that grows faster than I can chip away at it, I ripped through this one twice in under six months, and if I were somehow locked in the bathroom with only this on the toilet tank, and forced to start it a third time--I can't imagine this actually happening, but bear with me here--I can't say I'd be all that disappointed.

This reads like "1984," but it preceded Orwell's book, and presumably greatly influenced it. More importantly, although the real 1984 eventually rolled around to make Orwell's dystopia seem at least somewhat absurd (in execution, if not idea and desire), this still feels incredibly realistic.

And scarily, this is more relevant to today's America. While our level of freedom and political discourse may be completely different than that of Stalin's Soviet Union, the methods they used would not be unfamiliar in Guantanamo or Abu Grahib--or in some police precincts. Not the shrill and scary tactics of "1984," but the soft and simple: psychological games, sleep deprivation, and the like. Sleep deprivation may seem downright kind in the pantheon of torture, and I'm sure it starts off relatively innocuously--"They're terrorists, they're criminals, so why should we coddle them? Why should they get a good night's sleep?"--but any tactic whereby one compels the body to betray the mind is torture. And the sad thing is that torture doesn't work. Forget all the crazy ticking time-bomb scenarios, the fact is simple. Torture. Doesn't. Work. It does not provide reliable information or accurate confessions. And this book shows why. Rubashov, kept up for days on end, becomes willing to say or do anything for a few blessed moments of sleep. He will sell himself out. He will say anything. He will lie.

The strange peculiarity of Soviet Russia is that the victim and the torturers both know these lies are lies. But he says them, and they listen, because they both have their roles to play. The show trial is not really a trial. It is only a show.

But the great thing about "Darkness at Noon" is that it isn't just a polemic about tactics or a lesson about history; it is a powerful meditation on good and evil, and the extent to which we allow the latter in the short term because we believe it will somehow help us get the former in the long term. One reads this and feels sympathy not just for Rubashov, but for his interrogators, because they grapple with a timeless question: can we, and should we, make today difficult and imperfect and unjust for the sake of a better tomorrow?

This is a weighty question, and the book abounds with such meditations: like Dostoyevsky's works--to which it is clearly in debt--it is a philosophical novel with true weight and depth. In "The Grand Inquisitor", one of the most famous chapters in literature, Dostoyevsky concocts a prison scene in which the head of the Spanish Inquisition discourses to Jesus on why the Church felt it necessary to behave in ways contrary to Jesus' teachings. And this book feels like "The Grand Inquisitor" writ large. Though it revolves around ideology instead of religion, the effect is similar--disciples explaining to the master why they needed to stray, why they needed to corrupt and pervert their beliefs in order to save them from external enemies, why they needed to destroy the movement in order to save it.

On this and many other issues, Rubashov ponders but--importantly--does not always come up with clear answers. "How can one change the world if one identifies oneself with everybody?" he muses early on, then asks, "How else can one change it? He who understands and forgives--where would he find a motive to act? Where would he not?" I don't think Koestler wants to give us answers. Like the best artists, he's not so much interested in telling us what to think as he is in making us think. It's not always about finding answers; it's about remembering to ask questions. And that's something we need to remember today.

Set during the Stalinist purges and show trials, `Darkness at Noon' presents a fictionalized account of the interrogation and breaking of a (former) communist leader `Rubashov'. Under Stalin, 'former communists' were limited to those persons about to be executed, already executed, or waiting to be uncovered. As an original Bolshevik, a leader of the 1917 revolution, Rubashov's disillusionment was simply inadmissible to Number One (as Stalin is referred to by Koestler).

Koestler explores the journey of Rubashov from the knock at the door through the final denouement. The reader observes Rubashov, who plays the role of narrator, as he undergoes the psychological change from a determination to resist to nearly total capitulation. Rubashov manages to hold to some crumbs of self-respect, but yields to the logic of the revolution as more important than any individual even when the accusations are complete fabrications.

`Darkness at Noon' is precisely imagined with its details of Rubashov pacing the floor of his small isolation cell, the coded tapping between adjacent cells, and the deprivation of physical comforts that make the subsequent small graces, such as limited outdoor exercise, become precious by comparison. This much of the tale was informed by Rubashov's experiences as a prisoner during the Spanish Civil War. Koestler's examination of the psychological destruction of the prisoner is fascinating, although at times it briefly lapses into stultifying disquisitions on the distorted Stalinist political philosophy.

Koestler himself was a German communist through much of the 1930's before immigrating to Britain, leaving the party and becoming an influential ex-communist. George Orwell's excellent essay about Koestler is readily available on the Internet (google `arthur koestler orwell').

Darkness at Noon was the middle book of an unusual trilogy of loosely related subjects: Gladiators and Arrival and Departure (20th Century Classics). Readers may also wish examine Victor's Serge's The Case of Comrade Tulayev (New York Review Books Classics).

Highly recommended for anyone interested in the era of communism in its Stalinist form or more broadly in the perverse ability of humans to place greater meaning in abstract and abstruse ideology than in the actual lives of other humans.

This book is sweet and educational. It is one of our favorites to read.

An absolute treasure! Emily is adorable and Simon James perfectly captures childhood innocence and love for a special friend.

This is an all time favorite in our preschool. Had trouble finding it until now. Great service. Good book.

Wow! This book serves a plethora of functions... From the very young they will be enchanted with the beautifully jewel toned colours on the pages... If your child likes ocean animals they will learn all about whales in this beautifully told tale of the growing bond between a young student and her teacher as Mr. Blueberry teaches and corrects her misconceptions of whales habits and habitats. It is a great vehicle to use in the classroom to teach letter writing, writing notebook, and several other writing workshop minilessons. Great literacy selection... My son who is 6 as well as my class of aged 10 and 11 year olds adore this book on many different levels... ;)

I've been using this book with my kindergarten and first grade to introduce text illustration. They absolutely love it. I get applause every time I read it.

The illustrations are beautiful watercolors inspired by Emily's view of what is going on in her back yard.

My favorite part of the book is that readers are not told conclusively whether there was actually a whale in Emily's pond. It preserves a bit of the magic of believing that Arthur the whale was real.

A wonderful book for boys and girls.

This is the fourth Fandorin story to be translated (with kudos to Andrew Bromfield for a great job) of the eleven stories that Akunin has written. It would be great if the publishers could get moving and get more than one book translated each year. Much of this book is a continuation of the story line from the "Winter Queen" and the conflict between Erast and the assassin Achimas.

The book itself has an inventive structure. The first part (which is divided into chapters) deals with Erast and the 'Death of Achilles' (aka General Sobelev) who was a hero to most of Russia. We learn that the General was planning a 'coup d'etat' and that he planned to set himself up as Tsar. He dies though, inflagarante and this is just the beginning of the story. Erast is certain that the General was murdered but he is not sure why, how or on whose orders. As he works his way through the maze of misinformation, double and triple agents, just as he is about to confront Achimas, the first part ends.

The second part (where chapters are headlined by names) is the biography or history of Achimas. How he came to be an assassin for hire and his training and background. We even see how he first encounters Erast. In the end we follow him through the murder of Sobelev and fill in some of the information left out in the first part. Again this section ends as he is about to be confronted by Erast.

The third part is the short (only twenty pages, two chapters) where the two antagonists square off and we learn the identity of the man who has ordered the 'Death of Achilles' and why.

Though I would have preferred to read more about the six years that Erast spent in Japan (I assume there will be flashbacks in future novels) the background on Achimas is entertaining reading.

Fandorin is back in Russia from Japan with Masa, his manservant, and immediately encounters the mysterious death of General Sobolev, his colleague from "Turkish Gambit". Other reviews have detailed the plot, so I won't elaborate, but as someone once said "the beauty is in the details"; they are in abundance in this book. One of Akunin's strengths is that he creates villains as interesting and complex as his hero Fandorin, and this book contains a very worth match for the intrepid Erast Petrovich. The last third of the book elaborates upon the life of this villain and his motives, essential to the plot and evoking details from "The Winter Queen, aka Azazel", my second favorite Fandorin novel. As usual, Akunin includes well-drawn, intelligent and beautiful femme fatales to add some spice to the mix.

This book would translate nicely to the screen. I have read that Azazel will be refilmed in 2008 by an American director. Perhaps then Fandorin will have a larger, well-deserved world-wide audience.

Strongly recommend to all lovers of mystery who enjoy an occasional mental exercise :)

A remarkable series to say the least , with an incredible backdrop of Russia towards the end of the period of the Tsars. The one thought which crossed my mind when I put down the novel was , just where was Boris Akunin all this while. Erast Fandorin , a 24 carat hero, is one of the best sleuths that you will encounter in literature.
The setting is 19th century Russia flirting with enlightenment , with significant tension simmering with imperial neighbors. The nation is rocked with the death of its favourite general in rather suspicious circumstances, conveniently in the same hotel where Erast Fandorin is lodged. What follows is a remarkable story of unravelling layers of intrigue .Every murder seems to indicate an acceptable closure to the mystery , but a never say die pursuit by the detective takes you deeper into the darker forces involved. Fandorin has a remarkable Japanese man friday which tends to deviate from the usual diet of dumb counterfoils to brilliant detectives. Fandorin is Holmes with Zen nay a Bond with restraint. There's much more than just Fandorin to savor here. The rather brutal rural Russian setting gives rise to a diabolical assassin who almost proves too much for out hero.
Its a great commentary on Russian society during the 19th century, much as the pipe smoking Holmes characterises Britain. Never a dull moment , this is a book to savor.

The Death of Achilles is a return to form for Akunin, with keenly drawn characters more reminiscent of Winter Palace than his later books. Not high art, but a fun summer read.