Booker Books

I have never thrown a book away after I read it until this one. I read the book with one eye open...I was drawn in like a bad tabloid story. I felt guilty the whole time I was reading it and when I finished, I tossed it in the trash. The book just feels like it is shrouded in evil. It is an interesting read, especially the whole pro-wrestling thing but by the end, I felt like I needed a bath. Sick pathetic criminal that really doesn't deserve to have her story told although the author did a good job painting Ellen Boehm as a fat, ugly, delusional loser. By the way, if you read it, pay close attention to the Paula Sims references and get the book on her, Precious Victims, because THAT is an AWESOME read!

In SLEEP, MY CHILD, FOREVER (SMCF) John Coston presents the story of Ellen Boehm, a St. Louis, MO, mother who smothered her two sons to death and made a failed attempt to electrocute her daughter in the bathtub. Coston does not delve deeply into Boehm's psychology, but he does provide sufficient information about her childhood and early married life for the reader to understand what subsequently happened in her life.
Boehm was overweight, unattractive, and - after her husband left her shortly before the birth of her third child - financially strapped, emotionally distressed, worn out by the day to day demands of being a single working mother, and lonely. Ellen was also a WWF groupie who traveled around the Midwest following the pro-wrestling circuit and fantasizing that the wrestlers were sexually interested in her. There is a lot of interesting narrative about Ellen's interactions with her friends and with men in this part of the book.
Losing control of herself, Ellen unintentionally killed her youngest son, David, in a fit of exhaustion and despair. But after she received a small insurance settlement from her job, she began taking out absurdly large policies on her other two kids, and ended up intentionally killing her middle child, Steven. The remainder of the book deals mainly with the efforts of a St. Louis PD homocide team which, two years after the second murder, arrested Ellen.

Coston does not write particularly well, but neither is his writing actively irritating or over the top. Except for his semi hero-worship of Det. Sergeant Joe Burgoon, his style is basically journalistic. Coston avoids melodrama, bias, and he has attempted here to write a decent book. For the most part he succeeds. The book does contain some rather strange errors though. Coston seems to have had an inordinate problem dealing with St. Louis geography. He refers to Interstate 55 as "The Ozark Expressway". It has never been called that and in fact goes nowhere near the Ozarks. He has Ellen driving south on Meramec St. and north on Market St. Had Ellen actually done this, she would have driven into buildings, since both streets run east and west. And, amazingly to me, Coston refers to the St. Louis Gateway Arch, a national monument, as the Busch Arch. I have lived in St. Louis for 40 years; it is not named that; and I have NEVER heard anyone call it that. These things might not make too much difference to someone who is not from the area, but they are also things which are VERY easily checked. I found these errors irritating and feel that they call into some question the veracity of the rest of the book.
Additionally, there is a detective named Daryl Cordia whose picture clearly shows him to be of the male persuasion, but Coston refers to Cordia sometimes as "he" and sometimes as "she" randomly throughout the book. I don't think I've ever seen that before and can only say, "Nice editing."

But In spite of these complaints, I enjoyed reading SMCF. While it is mostly plot driven, lacking any in depth character study, which I would have preferred, the story is fast moving and, except for a 25 page section quoting word for word Boehm's videotaped confession, I was not bored once over the 300 pages. In fact the plot, which is given a thorough treatment, is engrossing enough that I finished this book in two days. True crime aficianados who are looking for a quick and fun read will enjoy SLEEP,MY CHILD, FOREVER.

The book is good, but the crime was so sick and demented that I had to quit reading it.

I have to admit that this is not the most well-written book, but I was still drawn into the story. Being a parent, it made me sick to think of somebody doing those things to their own children.
It also makes me proud of my father. He was the lead detective on this case, and I am thankful to Mr. Coston for giving him the recognition he greatly deserves.

This book tells the story of Ellen Boehm, a St. Louis, Missouri divorced mother of three, who, within a two year time frame, cold-bloodedly snuffed out the life of her two little boys and botched an attempt on the life of her daughter. The demise of these two otherwise healthy children, who were alleged to have simply stopped breathing, left medical doctors puzzled as to the cause of their deaths.

Unfortunately for Ellen, she was unable to exhibit any of the usual sign of grief, and her demeanor struck many of those who knew her as odd. Yet, there was no tangible forensic evidence linking her to the deaths of her children. Still, there was one person who was convinced of her guilt, a St. Louis homicide detective who began looking into the matter and made certain startling discoveries. Like a dog with a bone, he was not about to close out the case without bringing Ellen Boehm to justice.

The book details Ellen's life and the events that led to her cool commission of the crimes, as well as her eventual apprehension for the murders. It also includes eight pages of black and white photographs. The book itself is not particularly well-written and contains little depth or analysis. Still, the story is sufficiently compelling that it will appeal to those who have an appreciation for the true crime genre.

La mentalidad, disciplina y la constancia que los trader requieren son los elementos que Rob nos trata de transmitir en sus libros.

El enfoque de las diferentes etapas y procesos son esenciales para un excelente trading.

Gracias Rob

This booklet is about "be disciplined" and take away emotions, from the beginning to the end.

"Strategies for forex success" is written on the front cover. "Be disciplined", avoid fear, greed etc. must be the strategies in question.

The so-called strategy 10 just means: take 10 pips profit and run! How great! In total, there is 1 technical strategy involving classic moving averages.

If you trade on emotions or are completely new to trading in general, then this book may help, but many books already do include these "be disciplined" and other comments.

The book is also an advertisement for the author's websites.

One star to balance the other 5 stars reviews.

I am very happy to have purchased, read and applied the techniques given in this book. It has saved my forex trading career.

This book or booklet is a valuable guide if you are on your first steps in learning how to become a Foreigh Exchange or currency trader. Note this book won't teach you the in depth way to trade but will guide you so that your expectations are realistic, you won't get discouraged, and hopefully inspire you to "paper trade" initially until you have developed your own trading system that consistently is profitable for you. I would suggest reading the author's other book...Adventures of a Currency Trader. That was a good light read and probably mimics what a lot of people initially do when they decide they want to currency trade.

you will get lots of joks and little wisdom, but nothing more. what he call "strategy" is very poor but if you want more, go to his website and subscrib; this is his message. I hope you can find something more and if you do, please write it here to us. go to the internet and watch him talking and joking; if this is what you are looking for, go ahead and buy the book and even subscribe to his "service". I will never read for him any more. good luck

I believe that this book is a good example of how a supposed "saint" can disgrace the names of his deceased friends. Making his friends seem like the worst people in the world and making himself seem like a saint who did not participate in the same actions. May God forgive him for betraying his friends in such a manner.

Larry Booker's first person account of his life growing up through childhood into his teenage years is a story of hope. Larry was a talented but tormented youth trapped in the hippie scene with drugs, alcohol, trouble with the law, and brokenhearted parents with seemingly no avenue of escape. Time and time again his vain attempts to rescue himself from his pit of failure and the despair of what he had become was met only with short lived success before slinking farther back into the drug scene. Career a failure (selling Kirby vacuums). Education a failure (college drop-out). Failure to his parents...

The reader will find hope as they see the life changing power of God that worked in this young man's life. You will tingle with excitement as you witness the miraculous and realize that God's hand had been on him even in the pit of sin. Discover that in Jesus Christ even the losers win.

This book is remarkable! The love and mercy that God showed to Pastor Larry Booker passes all understanding. Booker reveals the depths that God will go to in order to save a soul. No matter what your situation in life is, God has an awesome plan for you, if you are willing to obey His word and repent of your sins (Acts 2:38). This book will change your life!

It takes some time before the main plot of the book really gets into its stride. The story is told by Vivien, the daughter of Ervin and Bertha Kovacs, Jews who had fled to London from the antisemitism in pre-war Hungary. They are timid people, desperate not to get into any further trouble, and they have been so traumatized by their past that they never talk about it. For example, Vivien has been told nothing about her grandparents, though she does know that Ervin has an elder brother, Sándor, who is the black sheep of the family and who arrived in England only after 1956. When Vivien was ten, she had once caught a glimpse of Sándor, who turned up at their front door, only to be driven away by his brother, who would not explain to Vivien why he hated his brother so and who forbade any mention of him in the house; but soon afterwards there were reports on television about his arrest, and then books and newspaper articles programmes appear about Sándor, who, for his crimes as a particularly notorious and vicious rack landlord, had been sent to prison for fourteen years.

In 1977 Vivien, aged 24 and out of a job, accidentally sits next to him on a park bench: she recognizes him, but does not tell him who she is, though we are told fairly early on that he did realize who she was. Both of them will for a long time keep up the pretence that she is someone called Miranda. The old man is looking for someone to tape-record and then write up the story of his life, and Vivien takes on the job. In the course of it she learns about the past of which her parents had never spoken - it covers the years from 1916 to the Hungarian uprising of 1956. And she also learns what events had turned her father into such an anxious and timid creature, while Sándor, who had had an infinitely worse time in Hungary during the war, had learnt from them that only the tough, ruthless and selfish survive. But Vivien gradually begins to realize that even a `monster' has a human side. The first climax comes about two thirds through the book in which, well described as it is, her collusion is to me frankly unbelievable. The second climax, near the end and involving the novel's secondary plot of Vivien's relationship with one of her uncle's tenants, also strikes me as somewhat forced.

The story is set against the time when racist thugs of the National Front were very active and intimidating in certain London neighbourhoods, and that of course was a frightening reminder to the generation of refugees.

One theme of the book is that Vivien, partly because she had been kept in such ignorance of her roots, does not really know who she is. As a young woman and wanting to escape from the stifling atmosphere of her home, she goes through various styles of living, each of which involves its own way of dressing up. The clothes of all the characters are described in detail throughout the book, and are symbolic of their owners' lives. `The clothes you wear are a metamorphosis. They change you from the outside in' is Vivien's rather odd generalization near the end - true perhaps of the clothes Vivien is given, less so surely of those she has chosen.

Some things in this book ring very true; others less so; but it is a good read; and when you have finished the book, you will want to read the first chapter, set in 2006, again.

Just long-listed for a Booker!

This book by Orange-Prize winner Linda Grant takes on several very complex questions. I think it gets ahead of all of them while building suspense about the characters. One big question dominates: what is a good person and what is an evil one? Not easy, but the choice of characters works well for it. The now-middle-aged narrator describes her father, mother, and uncle, whose different experiences with the Holocaust made them into very different people. But then, we see, they were different before that as well. So many issues of race and identity and self-discovery -- so little time! But as the earlier reviewer says, it all adds up to a good read.

This is a new edition of the authors' 2003 classic history of the European Union from its origins immediately after the First World War to the present.

They show that the EU is not about sharing or cooperation between sovereign governments. It is not inter-governmental, but supranational. The dividing line is the veto: where there are vetoes, there is still inter-governmentalism, still independent, sovereign nations; with vetoes gone, there is only a new, supranational form of government beyond all democratic control. Governments and parliaments are left in place, but are subordinated to the EU.

The EU's founder Jean Monnet described the EU's method: "Europe's nations should be guided towards a super state without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation." The single currency was the most important of these steps: as Monnet said, "Via money Europe could become political in five years."

Giuliano Amato, Vice-President of the Convention that drew up the EU Constitution, said, "In Europe one needs to act `as if' - as if what was wanted was little, in order to obtain much, as if States were to remain sovereign to convince them to concede sovereignty ... The Commission in Brussels, for example, should act as if it were a technical instrument, in order to be able to be treated as a government. And so on by disguise and subterfuge."

How has EU membership affected Britain? Our industries have become expendable. For example, when we entered the EEC, a senior civil servant in the Scottish fisheries department advised ministers not to go into any detail on the damage caused to the fishing industry: "The more one is drawn into such explanations, the more difficult it is to avoid exposing the weaknesses of the inshore fisheries position, the only answer to which may be that in the wider context they must be regarded as expendable."

We do not need the EU. The National Institute for Economic and Social Research found that withdrawing from the EU would not lose us jobs. The Independent reported this as, `8 million jobs could be lost if Britain quits EU' (18 February 2000). The NIESR's director, Dr Martin Weale, described the report as "absurd ... pure Goebbels. In many years of academic research I cannot recall such a wilful distortion of the facts." Subsequently, Gordon Brown claimed, "750,000 British companies export from Britain to Europe": the government's own figure was 18,000.

The EU has created a system of agencies, over-ministries, which are already directing national governments and civil servants: Europol, Eurojust, the European Human Rights Agency, the European Fisheries Agency, the European Railways Agency, the European Chemicals Agency, the European Aviation Safety Agency, the European Maritime Safety Agency, the European Environment Agency, the European Food Safety Authority, the European Health Protection Agency, the European Health and Safety Agency and the European Defence Agency.

The EU Constitution was designed to give these bodies legal authority, but the EU carries on regardless of the French and Dutch peoples' rejection of the Constitution. A leading military journal, DefenceNews, said, "voters cannot so easily put the brakes on destiny." The head of the European Parliament's defence sub-committee, Karl von Wogau, said, "I am not discouraged for the European Security and Defence Policy because it has its own fixed agenda and that will move ahead even if the constitution is not in place." As Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Council, said, "If it's a Yes we will say `on we go', and if it's a No we will say `we continue.'"

The authors tell us about the EU-wide network of academics who propagandise against their nations, on behalf of the EU, the 491 Jean Monnet professors, 102 in British universities. The `Jean Monnet Project' co-finances 2,319 teaching schemes in universities to `promote European integration'.

The British working class's resolute hostility to the euro defeated that EU attack. The EU's rulers and their quislings still want to impose their Constitution. We must respond by demanding that we leave the EU, to save all the EU member nations' national interests, our democracy, and our sovereign independence, our right to govern ourselves.

A 600+ page, heavily footnoted polemic against the European Union, and particularly Britain's EU membership.

While I share the authors' general view about the EU, I found the book ultimately unconvincing. Part of the problem is just that there's too much of the negative here. The way the authors tell it, there are seemingly no benefits whatsoever to Britain being part of the EU - and that's just not credible. Britain must be getting something out of it (even if not enough, on balance) otherwise why would each of the major political parties support its continued membership? The authors could present the evidence on both sides and then argue why the negative outweighs the positive, but they don't, and the end result is that I wonder what they left out and why.

And there are other reasons to question their credibility. On the few occasions they have to mention the Balkan Wars, their references are almost comically one-sided. They offer an out-and-out falsehood to explain why the Irish people ultimately supported the Nice Treaty. And they refer to an avowedly anti-immigration pressure group merely as a "specialist thinktank" when citing a rather apocalyptic prediction it makes about Britain being flooded by migrants.

Amusingly, for all the authors' expressions of distaste for "supranationalism", it never seems to click with them that the country they feel so passionately about is itself a supranational state ... and nor, of course, does the irony even occur to them that they are so fiercely defending the sovereignty of a country which has denied the same to so many others.

The EU deserves criticism and the European people need books written from this perspective. Pity this isn't a better one.

This is not a comic novel, though certainly witty; nor by any means is it well characterized as a "clever romp." There is no mystery, no real surprise, and the end is entirely in the beginning. Perhaps in no other fine recent English-language fiction is this so much the case. We're given a remarkably successful modern-dress tragedy of hubris and its reward. No strongly empathetic characters capture our sympathy or distract us from the theme; indeed the one character (Molly) who might turn the novel away from its inexorable descent is presented only posthumously, and then only in the impressions of fatally flawed protagonists Vernon and Clive. I'm certainly reminded of Lawrence, especially "Women in Love", which is a thorny read in much the same way. For all its brevity and clarity, this is a very difficult novel, and truly unique. The aficionados of certain conventional patterns in fiction (genre crime story, sentimental novel, and such) will probably dislike it. I suspect strongly that the novel's structure is intended to mirror the protagonist Clive's "Millenium Symphony", even including the too-predictable conclusion that seems to be missing that last bang-up variation sure to make it a "success". That's brave novelistic technique indeed, even for a "novel of ideas." "Amsterdam" is brilliant but distancing: a work to respect, not really to love. I'd recommend it to careful readers who seek something quite unlike the usual good read.

There are some truly ridiculous reviews here. The one which takes McEwan to task for misrepresenting Dutch law and medicine seems to have gained overwhelming approval. Would that reviewer expect an accurate and sympathetic portrayal of Athenian society from Euripides? Would he expect to learn English political history from the "histories" of Shakespeare?

I mostly read novels written more than forty years ago, but occasionally I look into contemporary authors with reputations as good writers. Amsterdam was a foray into Ian McEwan's work, and this is a good book to read if you want to convince yourself that you're not missing out.

McEwan writes well, and has interesting thoughts which find their way into the book. Unfortunately, by the end you realize that these thoughts are merely peripheral. They seem to be inserted to make this, as another reviewer puts is, "the sort of novel that wins awards". But how this book won the Booker prize is beyond me.

What's impressive is how McEwan manages to ruin the book in the last 50 pages. Imagine Virginia Woolf had decided that, at the end of "To The Lighthouse", the Ramsey family would go to the lighthouse during a storm, only have the lighthouse topple over and crush them. That's the ending to "Amsterdam", an ending which makes you wonder what to make of the rest of the book.

Other reviewers have mentioned some other flaws in "Amsterdam", but I think they could be overlooked were the novel not so poorly conceived. I'm sure some of McEwan's other works are better, and I'd advise newcomers like myself to try those instead.

There is something almost infuriating about how well Ian McEwan writes. In many ways, there was something very machine-like about reading Amsterdam because of how smoothly the prose and shifts in perspective worked so effortlessly. When reading most fiction, even good and great fiction, you often find yourself seeing passages that don't work as well or the actual seams connecting plot points the author is trying to move through. But here, there is none of that, and McEwan, with arguably a more deft touch than he exhibited in Atonement, outlines the relationships of his characters so wonderfully that it is hard to see what happens until the very end where you feel chilled to the bone.

The novel opens at a cremation for a popular woman who died of a degenerative disease. Present are at least three former lovers and a husband whom they all mocked. Clive, a celebrated composer, and Vernon, the editor for the Judge, a British daily, meet and rekindle their friendship. Both have fond memories of the deceased, who really stands as the woman who brought these two men together. From that point on, the two men find themselves yearning for one another's company until a series of events leads to the dissolution of their friendship, and ultimately, their dooms.

Some have criticized the book for its melodrama and overt ethical condemnations, but I see no problems with it whatsoever. One could criticize Dickens, Tolstoy, and Nabokov for the same reasons. The debates that McEwan presents are an integral part of the story, something that only adds texture to the lives of his characters.

This novel surely deserves the Booker Prize and your attention.

Some great quotes:

"A great man, Clive Linley. To air differences and remain friends, the essence of civilized existence, don't you think?"

"He knew from long experience that a letter sent in fury merely put a weapon into the hands of your enemy. Poison, in preserved form, to be used against you long into the future."

McEwan has written some good books - but unfortunately this is not one of them.
The plot is somewhat overblown and pretentious, and the book itself is so brief that there isn't enough substance to enable a suspension of disbelief. In fact this feels like a fleshed-out sketch for a book that the author couldn't be bothered to write properly. I couldn't believe the praise it received compared to much better books of his. A big disappointment.

I was a fan, but after reading this poor effort it was some time before I was able to read another of his books.

This is my favorite book by McEwan and in my opinion it's much better than Atonement. Amsterdam is tricky and clever. It has the tone of a tough-minded English novel of the fifties but the brilliantly funny, ingeniously constructed plot of a P.G. Wodehouse book. One problem, and maybe this is an English thing, there aren't really any likable or admirable characters to identify with here, so McEwan sometimes comes off as aloof and sneering a little bit at the character flaws of his own creations. The end of this book, which I won't give away, is so darkly humorous that any faults in the book as a whole are easy to forgive. Stick with this one to the end. It's worth it.

Like "reading" a slow train wreck - achingly dull and painful at the same time. There is no effort to make the reader care about any of the characters - do you really want to feel only alternating disdain and pity all the way through any book? Surely that could not have been the writer's intention?

I find it hard to believe that this book won awards. There was way too much detail and not enough of anything else. It was kind of a stream of consiousness style, but it wasn't the character's minds we were inside of, it was the author-and she talks too much about nothing. I thought it would be interesting because of the setting and historical period which I was anxious to learn about, but I still don't know anything. I never even knew what year it was until chapter 42-and that was only the year for one of the generational stories that is told. It jumped around way too much. The lines across the page that generally indicate a skip in time or place were used totally arbitrarily. I don't know why they were even there. I found the book annoying and difficult to read. I gave 2 stars because there were places that the detailed, descriptive writing resonated with me and evoked an emotional response, but mostly I found the characters not filled out enough to relate to. I never read a more hopeless book in my life and I guess why I gave the stars because I was left with the feeling of hopelessness of a colonial society that aspires to be like someone else and can't be itself.

Heartbreaking. What's gone wrong? Winner, amomg others, of the Man Booker prize and the National Book Critics Circle award. What are these boys and girls reading? What criteria do they use to award prizes? Oh, I'm sorry. The authos is woman, young, and Indian (and cute), so she MUST be good. and her book is about the evils of colonialism and the sufferings of migrants, so it is good by decree. Sorry, I know I'm going to get lots of negative votes, but literary prizes nowadays are only politics. Aesthetic merit, in this case literary, is totally absent from judges' decisions. It is not how the book is written, it is who the author is and his or her politics or background. This lazy piece of politics is about a young Indian orphan who lives with her mean grandfather and the cook, right at the feet of the Himalayas. The other plot is about the experiences as illegal migrant to the US of the cook's son. According to the back cover, the sordid and commonplace adventures of this guy "Illuminate on the consequences of Colonialism". Really. Miss Novelist writes as if she were about to send a telegram, because she has little talent. The characters are shallow as shallow can be, and extremely unlikable and uninteresting. Ms. Desai is obsessed with phaeces, vomit, and other bodily fluids. I confess I couldn't finish it. I have no time for politically correct garbage when there are so mnay works of genius out there.

I've read some really good books that were given the Booker Prize, but this one I just don't get. I initially got it ONLY because of the cover with the golden medallion showing it as a Booker Prize winner. This book was so hard to read. I feel guilty for not finishing it. Maybe I shouldn't write a review until I finish it, but I started it months ago and tried to bargain myself to just read 10 pages a day, and I can't even commit to that.

The jumping around, the lack of a captivating story, the complicated overly written writing style, and undeveloped characters who you don't feel much for all make me wonder if the Booker Prize was given more out of literary hype and pedigree than quality of writing, in this case. I will try to finish the book, but the fact that this is more of a chore (because I don't want to give up and I want to figure out if I'm missing out on something), rather than a treat makes my one star rating understandable. Perhaps, once finished (though I don't know how long it'll take me, honestly), I'll have a different view of this book. Right now, I just don't get it.

One of the most beautifully authentic books I've ever read, Desai's THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS is also one of the grimmest. It reminds me very much of a luscious nightmare, one which you awake from remembering not stories or events, but a strange, unshakable tone or hue. You couldn't say, upon waking, what has you so disturbed, but you can say that it is heartbreaking -- even distressing -- in the way of all truly gorgeous things.

Desai has not written a story here. Not at all. Instead, she has shaped and colored four perfect lights. One light shines on Jemubhai Patel, a retired Indian judge steeped in a borrowed British heritage, his closest friend a dog named Mutt. Another light illuminates Sai, Patel's granddaughter, an orphaned transplant from the muddy half-world that exists at the borders between culture and indoctrination. The final two lights spread the hem of their glow around the judge's twitchy, superstitious cook, and Biju, the cook's son, now scrabbling through the grimy microcosm that (just barely) houses America's lowest working class.

These lights have fuzzy edges, and where they overlap, the colors are almost indescribable. The connections between these four people aren't quite so remarkable as the way they are described. The novel's larger themes -- colonialism, cultural disaffection, the clockwork precision of tyranny, unrest, and rebellion -- are treated with a plain-faced simplicity, Desai's real talents aimed more at the individuals who must learn how to deal with the sometimes invisible ripples of politics and passion.

Chapter Twenty-Eight begins, "The judge was thinking of his hate." For many, this will be a novel of hate, a book of tiresome gloom, and I won't say that's not true on more than one level. Life (and literature even more so) is about, if anything, conflict and entropy. The second law of thermodynamics just as easily applies to hearts and souls as it does to kinetic energy, and Desai's book deals with all of those things with a prose that is both dark and crystalline.

Because Desai is more concerned with a tableau than with a plot, because her lights illuminate a stage and not a story, many might find the book to be a gorgeous but meandering mess. And with "stories" of this type, it's difficult to find an ending that is anything but abortive. It took Desai seven years to write this novel, and that's just as evident in her fluid narrative technique as it is in her denoument. Like a child releasing a helium-filled balloon, this novel doesn't so much end as just drift away. A fittingly torturous finale to a book of so much hubris and humanity, it may not be as satisfying as the rest of the book, but it is at least as touching, and certainly as brilliant.

I have absolutely no clue as to what when on in this award winning??book. As hard as I tried I couldn't even finish it. All I can say is the Booker Award judge must have owed the author a favor. It was like sitting through an awful movie waiting for it to get better (and it never does) and then kicking yourself for wasting 2 hours of your life. Read something else.

I'm not surprised that this book won the Booker Prize. Enright has a superior command of the language. She creates fluid yet surprising prose, moving between real and imagined events, past and present with astounding grace and skill. This book is a surreal meditation on family--mother love, sister love, craziness, memory, and in particular the way one generation impacts the next.

The Gathering tells the story of Veronica Hegarty, lost in the secrecy of her brother Liam's sudden suicide. As a result of her brother's death, she's forced to deal with the issues of her very large Irish family, her many issues with men and sex, her past, and her future. In the wake of Liam's death she explores her complicated relationship with her late brother by diving into her family's past. Reading the exposing portrayal I felt like an intruder. It seemed that Veronica's self reflective journey through three generations of her family was not meant to be read by others.

Her journey reveals that she is the only living member of the dwindling Hegarty clan to know her brother's secret, and she carries that burden. You can see it in the way she runs away instead of facing her problems. To me that felt cowardly. However in the end I think Veronica needed to run away from her marriage, her children, and her dysfunctional family in order to truly appreciate what she had and as the cliché goes "she needed to find herself".

Veronica's exploration was so internal that I had a difficult time deciphering the source of dysfunction in her family and in her life. The first half of the novel left me wondering what was so screwed up about the Hegarty clan. It could have been the absent and always reproducing mother. Or Veronica's hatred of men and shocking portrayal of sex led me to believe she was molested as a child. Nevertheless, nothing was apparent on the surface. What was supposed to be "on the surface" was the relationship between her grandmother and Lambert Nugent. Until Liam's secret was revealed, the relationship had no purpose to the reader. After Veronica's disclosure of Liam's secret, the reader finally knows that Nugent was inadvertently responsible for Liam's suicide.

While the words written by Anne Enright were pleasurable to read, the story jumps between past and present in a confusing manner. It made Veronica's journey truly difficult to follow. What made the novel more complex was the unreliability of the narrator. Veronica admitted to being an unreliable narrator, so I was never sure whether she was retelling true events or retelling works of the imagination of her eight year self.

What do you do with a book about a dysfunctional family and the penumbra of bizarre characters surrounding it, when the narrator concludes that all men are bookies and all women are whores? I thought about putting it down, but I kept reading. All the way to the dysfunctional ending. From the narrator, a middle-aged woman with an obsession concerning male genitalia, to the fastidious grandmother (a former whore) whose prim order captures the narrator's imagination as a child, to the grandmother's rejected suitor whose predatory response almost consumes the family, I found the characters to be thin and unconvincing. Inoculated by a fixation on church ceremony, none of them have any connection with God. And it shows. Basically, all of these people hate each other and themselves. In spite of this emptiness, I found the book to be a strangely compelling read. Put it down to Enright's gifted prose writing. I will probably even keep the book (usually I resell stuff like this). If you are looking for inspiration, look elsewhere. If you are looking for the writing craft elevated to a high level, you might like this book.

My mother gave me this book a few months ago.

*Mom: I can't believe I'm giving this book to my DAUGHTER, but I'm interested to see what you'll think of it.
Me: Why wouldn't you give it to me?
Mom: It's uh... There's a lot of uh... Well, just read it and you'll see.

I took this to mean it has a lot of sex in it.

So, it sat on my shelf for a while, because I had a few other books in the queue. Honestly, I love a good sprawling family novel, but the description on the back just didn't grab me for some reason.

We went on vacation last week and I threw it in the suitcase since I knew I'd be finishing the book I was currently reading. I picked it up on the drive back and noticed for the first time that it won the Booker Award. "Well, that has to be a good sign", I thought. It wasn't.

I don't usually read the reviews here before reading a book, because I like to form my own opinions first. I didn't read the reviews here in this case either, and it's funny that as I read this book the words "tedious and self-indulgent" kept going through my head. I see that mentioned quite a few times here on the reviews, and I think it's interesting that these were the exact descriptions I came up with as well. Let me also say that I very rarely dislike a book enough to write a negative review of it. As a matter of fact, this is the first negative book review I have submitted to Amazon.

Much of what I could say about the book has already been said very well by other reviewers. I won't give a synopsis of the "plot" since that has already been done numerous times and I don't have anything more interesting to contribute about that, especially since I'm not even sure what the plot was.

As many have mentioned, the writing style is disjointed. This is not something I am generally opposed to in a book. I happen to adore The Time Traveler's Wife and Water for Elephants, which I think both incorporated a brilliant use of this technique. It's very effective if done well and for a reason. In The Gathering, there is certainly a reason to use the technique. The author is trying to convey the main character's disjointed and uncertain memories of her and her families' past. One would think this style would suit quite nicely, but it falls disappointingly short, making the book difficult to read and tiresome. A difficult book is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case there seems to be no reward for slogging through the jumbled and, maybe (or maybe not) imagined scenes of the past.

We are never sure if Victoria is remembering or imagining what happened as a child. We are also unclear about her telling of the story of her grandmother Ada. There is no way she could know the story of Ada, so we can be fairly sure these stories are meant to be read as fabricated. As a result, this part of the story has to be telling us more about Victoria's character than Ada's, but what is the purpose? Both of these devices are so confusing and ineffective that we just don't care after a while. Eventually it seems that we are just being beat over the head with them. Yes! I get it that she's not sure of her childhood memories, she has an imagined life for her grandmother. I GET IT! Enough already!

I'm not generally opposed to graphic sex scenes either, but the ones in this book are again, confusing, disjointed, and well... seemingly pointless. Sex is painted with an angry brush, and we are never quite sure where this anger is coming from. What is its purpose and what does it lend to the story? How can we figure it out when we're not even sure what really happened? I'm still not sure, but it makes for a very dark read. I found myself comparing this aspect of the story to The Crimson Petal and the White, which also had abundant and dark sex scenes. In that case however, they were an integral part of the story. The story could not have been told without them. They made sense. In The Gathering, they just don't make sense. I feel the author must have had a reason, but that reason is lost in the (often) awkward prose, disjointed narrative, and dreary and confused "soul searching" of the main character.

I'm not going to say much about the portrayal of the characters. I will say that I found them mostly incomprehensible and unlikable.

About halfway through the book (after what seemed like a year of reading) the "secret" is revealed. That in itself was disappointing because (yawn), it is so trite and expected. At that point I did have a glimmer of hope though. Maybe the plot would turn around. Maybe something would now happen and the seemingly pointless ramblings would coalesce into a well defined, or at least a somewhat recognizable theme. Unfortunately this never happened (or hasn't so far, as I'm not done yet). The story wanders around some more and culminates into the wake of brother Liam, again finding no purpose or redemption.

I have, maybe, 50 pages left to go in the book, but I relented on my self imposed "rule" and decided to check the reviews here to see if there was any compelling reason to finish the book. I probably will, just because I find it hard to abandon a book, but I now have no hope that anything will redeem the book in my eyes.

I called my mom to tell her my opinions so far.

Me: Hey, remember that book you gave me to read?
Mom: No, which one?
Me: The Gathering
Mom: I don't remember it.
Me: It's about a woman whose brother dies, I guess...
Mom: That's not ringing a bell for me.
Me: Let me read the back to you. [I read the description on the back]
Mom: I still don't remember it. Are you sure it was me who gave it to you?
Me: Yeah, you said it had a lot of sex in it.
Mom: Oh yeah, that one. I remember it had a lot of sex, but don't remember what it was about.
Me: It wasn't about anything really.
Mom: Oh, okay.

*I feel I should note, in the spirit of the book, that I may not be remembering these conversations accurately.

BTW- if anyone would like this book I'll send it to you for the cost of shipping only. I usually give my old books to friends or relatives, but I can't fathom recommending this book to anyone. If you have read the reviews and would still like to give it a read, let me know. :o)

There are some beautiful moments in this, but to me they were very very very scarce. The whole book just make Smith seem like she's trying too hard to be poetic and write "beautifully" but writing beautifully isn't always successful, and even if it is, sometimes it's just not what you want in the context. Sometimes her strange formatting choices seem completely unnecessary other than just to further accentuate the characters quirkiness, which, trust me, she accentuates enough.

I felt like I just kept reading and reading expecting something better to happen (it didn't). When the characters were introduced, I had hope. I liked the kids, hated the adults, but was pretty sure I was supposed to (I *was* supposed to hate the adults, right? Please tell me she didn't expect people to like them...). But the meandering story seemed to lose any semblance of a plot, and characters' revelations (as well as resolutions, for that matter), were vague. Just as much, her characters became so unbelievable that it irked me. (And yes, I know that it's fiction, but unbelievable characters, if utilized, need a story with better execution than this one to be able to hold them up).

In any case, if you want it summed up nice and clean and easy for you: The Accidental is just plain boring.

A family on holiday in a rural county northeast of London is so self-absorbed that they don't realize that they've let a complete stranger into their home. This is the premise of Ali Smith's 2005 novel, The Accidental. The first chapter begins in the first person voice of Amber MacDonald, the stranger; she is the only first person voice in the story. Each of the three sections of the book allows the voice of Amber and each of the four people in the family a stream-of-consciousness narration of their thoughts during a stretch of time. The family: Astrid Smart, the twelve year-old daughter who strives to record all of her life on a camcorder; Magnus Smart, the seventeen year-old son haunted by the suicide of a classmate; Eve Smart, the mother and egotistical author of bad fiction; and Dr. Michael Smart, the step-father and philandering professor; relate their lives in a polyglossic net of third person, present tense episodes. The book moves through time completely within the thoughts of these characters; a modern use of language and structure elements creates a striking, vivid picture of each of their personal crises.
At first look, the characters seem flat, almost stock characters, floating around, too self-centered to notice each other. Astrid's prepubescent musings are whimsical but hardly philosophical; Magnus's depressive, obsessive repetitions are tiresome. Enter Amber. Almost immediately, she saves Magnus from bathroom suicide, becomes the singular obsession of Michael, and gains the trust of Astrid. Amber is the center of conflict in the novel, and the catalyst for the change of each of the family members. While she drives the conflict, however, it would be difficult to say that she is the book's main character--each of the characters brings their own unraveling story to the book, and amazingly, Smith does justice to each of them. Michael, the cliché of the philandering professor, even seems to become self-aware--losing his egoism in the realization that his life is a stereotype. In the only break from stream-of-consciousness style writing in the text, this realization is related in sonnet, free verse, aabb and abab poetry form in the words of Michael.
Because the narration is almost exclusively the stream-of-consciousness presentation of the thoughts of each individual character, the narration does little for exposition beyond what is apparent to the characters. When the characters return home from their vacation at the end of the novel, their house has been stripped entirely empty of everything except the answering machine. It is never discovered what actually transpired to cause this, but Eve suspects that it is Amber's doing. This and other intentional ambiguities add to the mystery of the novel. As epiphanies are reached and characters change their perspectives, the reader must choose which perspective to take on the turn of events, based on the different realities of each of the characters.
One of my favorite elements of the text is the relation of current events to the lives of the characters. At one point, toward the end of the book, Eve is reflecting on some disturbing images recently released from Abu Gharib prison in Baghdad. The picture is a familiar one to the minds of most contemporary Americans, and the description of her reflection on the pictures is probably similar to a fairly recent experience many readers have had. It remains to be told whether this will simply make the book seem outdated in later years, but having snippets of what is still a current situation throughout the text creates a solid sense of a modern setting.
Conventions of devices and structure exist to promote unity and harmony in a text. The Accidental lacks the conventions of dialogue, capitalization, sentence structure, character structure (antagonist vs. protagonist), exposition, punctuation, and use of a single narrator. All these things aside, however, the book still exists as a unified text. The ending of the book is (without being a spoiler) very satisfactory, the text seems harmonized and even one further--believable. There is very little extraneous material, sans one piece: the first person musings of Amber. Amber seems to ramble about little connected with the action of the novel, and her first person narration is completely false. Amber claims to be everything she isn't, and gives absolutely no insight into her character. This is not to say that the book would be any better if the reader knew what Amber was thinking; in fact, it would definitely detract from the intended ambiguity and mystery of the text. However, her parts were rambling, nonsensical, and the author might have done us one better by simply leaving them out. Fortunately, Amber's input is short and the development of the other characters makes up for her extraneous babble.
The unconventional style of Smith's novel is quite successful in telling the story of a pivotal year in the life of the Smart family. The modern structure creates ease of understanding of the characters and their surroundings, and allows the author, in a relatively short text, to relate not one, but four complete stories.

i loved this novel of a mysterious woman who arrives at the vacation house of a british academic family and with ingenuity and bravery challenges and heals the broken life of each of her dysfunctional hosts. the book is loosely based on the pier paolo pasolini's 1968 film "teorama"; but where pasolini is allegoric, over-stated, almost exploitative in his sexuality, smith seems to have learned complexity and subtlety from the 4 decades since pasolini filmed. she is phenomenological, heartfelt, caring. less sex and more eros. whereas pasolini alludes to jesus, smith paints a samurai vision of taking charge of one's life and acting to help those around you. i am reminded of "ghost dog" and "zatoichi."

The Accidental is not an easy read, despite what everyone else says. To follow it, one needs to transcend the traditional style of 'he said, she said' and descend into the minds of the characters. Despite the perception of choppiness, at a higher level the writing is connected and it follows the logical progression of human thought (if we can give human thought progressive properties).

The story takes place over the course of several months and explores the relationships of four member family with a fifth character that 'accidentally' joins them at their vacation home. As each of the four adapts to this new character, the author dives deeper into constructing their emotional and mental states , the perceptions behind their past and present experiences and the result is a very challenging, yet utterly satisfying read.

You'll need patience, humility and open mind to absorb this novel, but in the end, you'll feel like you've accomplished something grand. And it will feel good.
I promise.

If you like this book, try Jane Austin's 'A Room Of One's Own'.

by Simon Cleveland

More of a technically impressive book than an enjoyable one. The characters are with quirks that are fun to write -- the hyperintellectual daughter always using "i.e" in her monologues, the son experiencing the world as a math equation -- but that make them feel more like vessels for glitzy prose than actual individuals. The story is weighed down by the writing, and I found myself scanning whole pages to get to the next graf where something, anything, would actually happen.

This book briefly touches on the power of suggestion. The concept is that by holding a certain suggestive thought and then projecting it at another they will feel it. In many of the books I have read on the paranormal this is a suggested exercise. I was looking for a lot more detail or more of the science or technique behind this energy projection. I gave it three stars because it gets you thinking that it is possible and from my own experince I knew someone who could do it.