Nova Books

I first read the Guralnick books on Elvis about four years ago (2004) when I was just ready to explore the Elvis World. I'm second-generation (about Lisa Marie's age) but missed all the hoopla, and my parents didn't say much. So when I decided to "research" Elvis for myself, I searched the Amazon.com reviews for guidance.

I have to agree with the heavy, authoritative (but not authoritarian) reviews of other Elvis fans who felt Guralnick's work was "comprehensive and accurate." Once I read the Guralnick books, I felt -- not disillusioned -- but bludgeoned with information. Reading Guralnick's book, the reader almost has no choice but to come out not liking Elvis, not only personally but musically or artistically. It was a bitter pill; I had really liked Elvis before reading Guralnick's work.

Four years later, while I'm still "researching" Elvis, what I have found is most of Guralnick's work is actually a compendium, a "Reader's Digest" if you will (a Brittanica), of nearly all major Elvis publications up to that time. In short, Guralnick's work wasn't so much the decisive definitor of Elvis' composite work, but rather the encyclopedia of combined published information. I hasten to point out that Guralnick was not deceptive in any way, but fans and interested persons may have made the mistake of thinking because Guralnick had the "most" to say about Elvis (in two large books) he may have been the most accurate or comprehensive, and that simply isn't true.

As a fan, and someone who has since come to truly appreciate Elvis in all his humanity, my advice for those who want to know Elvis is to BEGIN with Guralnick, as a map, then read the books Guralnick quoted from (and attributed) and then read the little offbeat books written by people claiming to know Elvis. (Use your discernment to know which may have merit and which are entirely fictitious.) Elvis wouldn't want one author to be the judge of his life.

Guralnick did a great service by collecting and basically annotating the collected written works regarding Elvis up to that point, but I think if you really read between the lines, Guralnick himself does not claim to be an expert, nor does he really draw a conclusion. Guralnick's great service is he opened a door, but he does not claim to define the beginning or end of Elvis Presley. That choice -- like the music -- is up to the individual to decide for him or herself. In short, start with Guralnick, but do not end with him. I think he himself would agree.

Extremely revealing portrait that makes clear that Elvis became a drug addict even before he went into the Army in 1958. This bio leaves out nothing, including all the dreary and the tawdry as well as the musical genius. While Jerry Lee Lewis lost his career for dallying with his 13-year-old cousin, Elvis got clean away with dating a 14-year-old Priscilla. All the bizarre details are here. Guralnick does it again. A must read for anyone who wants to know the story of Elvis.

This second volume, along with the first -- Last Train to Memphis -- are riviting. One of the absolute best biographies I have ever read. A journey through the life, from beginning to end, of one of the world's great entertainers and personalities. Highly recommend.

This book is a detailed account of the second half of Elvis Presley's life. Peter Guralnick has painted a vivid portrait of the man whose life should have been magnificent, but instead was so terribly sad.

After reading Guralnick's first volume (Last Train To Memphis), I ran out immediately to buy this one. While I did devour it, it's a bitter pill to swallow. Many nights, I closed the book and then lay awake, thinking, or trying to stop thinking about Elvis. Why did a life with such promise turn out this way? Why did a man who should have been on top of the world, end up so low? Enormous fame and the death of his mother were major contributing factors. Drugs, prescription and otherwise, killed his spirit, his talent, his health and his relationships. And he was exploited by many, especially Col. Tom Parker who trotted him out on tour, when he should have been hospitalized and certainly long-retired.

When I finished the book, I thought, "Did I really want to know all this about him?" Do you? It's your call. I do now understand many things I never did before. And I will not be so quick to idolize, judge or envy anyone unless I've walked a mile in their shoes.

From cover to cover, this book was absorbing. The quotes were intertwined with the fast-paced narrative. I felt as if I were living life alongside Elvis as a "fly on the wall" so to speak. This is a book every Elvis fan must own. His human flaws only make you love him more and wish we still had him with us. What a dear person he was: An original.

Time and time again I have picked up a Robert Crais book and thought about reading it and deciding that I should wait and start with the first one. I'm glad I finally got around to getting a copy of "The Monkey's Raincoat" in my hands. Though I just realized after reading the book, I have no idea of the significance of the title. This was named one of the centuries top 100 mysteries by the Mystery booksellers association, and that comes as no surprise. I love the sort of mercenary skills of Elvis Cole and his partner Joe Pike. The two of them really kick some [...]. And the greatest thing of all after reading this classic 1st entry to the series is that at the time of this writing, I have 13 more Crais books to get through. That is a true treat.

I bought this because it came so highly recommended off of Amazon. It was ok, but not the best detective novel I have read. I would probably try more in the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike series, but I won't be in a rush to buy the books.

I had heard of Robert Crais for years but never read any of his work. Finally I decided to take the plunge and started with the first in the series "The Monkey's Raincoat".

After blazing through the book I began wondering to myself, why in the heck have I joined the Elvis Cole band wagon so late. The book was really good, and I absolutely love the characters Elvis Cole and Joe Pike.

Robert Crais has a wonderful talent for making great characters that you care about.

I read a statement that Mr. Crais said that he didn't think his first few novels were really up to snuff with his later works. I can tell you right now, I can't imaging him topping this great start, but lucky for us the reader we get to find out.

Immediately after finishing this book I went out and snagged the next in line.

I was happy to find out that there are 12 books in the series and counting. I can't wait to find out what's in store next for "Hound Dog" and Pike.

I know I have hours and hours of reading pleasure ahead of me.

Treat yourself and enjoy this great series.

Happy Reading!

This was a book club selection, and like most of the book club selections, I wasn't overly enamored with it. It was less of a mystery and more of a suspense novel. My biggest problem was, again, not liking the characters. The main character slept with every girl in the book and it just jarred with not only the characters, but the plot. It seemed that the author tried to cram too much into a single storyline, and came out with something jumbled, confused, and messy. It's also a little dated at this point, but that wasn't too bad. I did see shades of Miami Vice in the clothing, though... This book did not make me want to read further in the series, and I probably won't.

Page turner??? Yeah, just to get it over with.
I agree with Harmoni. First I thought it was too unbelievable that a detective would risk his life and go all out for a client without getting paid. Second, because of his too sarcastic (I guess he's supposed to be funny) antagonizing wit, puts law inforcement on the defensive. Pike who is supposed to be "a fearful fellow" gets shot just when Elvis needs him the most, so he does it alone against the mob and tough guys, duh! Yeah right! And last, having sex with the two women (especailly Ellen who is painted as an introverted motherly type) was ridiculous and not necessary to a plot that was drawn out.
Shame on you Robt Crais.

This was my second Reacher novel. The first being The Persuader. While action starts well over 100 pages into it, the first 100 pages are neither fluff nor boring. They set the story line well. The characters are very believable & like-able. Mr. Child keeps the reader in suspense from beginning to end; and does it well. There are twists & turns which lead to dead ends. In turn, other avenues need to be explored. The reason for the assassination attempts is strange, but provides a good twist. I'll not reveal any part of the story. However, once you pick this up, you'll have a difficult time putting it down. It's an excellent thriller

I like the Jack Reacher series, but this one is pretty average at best. It grabbed my attention at first , but thereafter it was decent but not very gripping. The whodunit was revealed about halfway through, so the rest of the book was just sort of killing time until the Big Showdown between Reacher and the baddies. The book did finally build to a modestly exciting finale.

I've been reading this series in order, and along with Running Blind, this is probably the weakest entry. The first one, Killing Floor, is still the best, and Echo Burning was also very good.

This was recommended by a book club, and never having read anything by the author, decided to give it a try.
What a great story...suspenseful, technically intriguing with interesting characters! Jack Reacher is the mysterious hero, with savvy and smarts, defying all stereotypes. The plot builds slowly until about 3 quarters through, then the mystery resolves, but the action and suspense intensifies. At the end, the villains' motives and the time they have to do all this may be a bit of a stretch, but still plausible. A great read and look forward to reading more of Child's stories.

This is another outstanding Jack Reacher novel. One of my favorite characters and authors. I have read every one and would recommend it highly. Very interesting and well thought out.

Lee Child's Jack Reacher stories came to me highly recommended from a respected source. I tried The Enemy (Jack Reacher Novels) and decided that was not the place to start (it tells Reacher's back story). Without Fail, on the other hand, is simply a great bit of fun reading. Some violence, some sex, some conspiracy, some mystery. Excellent pacing.

Reacher is brought in to test the Secret Service's security for VP-elect. He finds holes, but, hey protecting the VP is a tough job. And then, of course, he is told there is more going on behind the scenes and he really gets to work. You'll need to suspend disbelief now and again, but you'll get over it.

Without Fail will entertain without putting a strain on your brain. Lee Child is not John Le Carre, but this is a great airport/beach read. A real blast.

It has been over two hundred and fifty years since the first humans arrived on Pern. The original colonists had been, for the most part at least, dedicated to the idea of establishing a human society that was not dependent on technology, that would go back to a simpler way of life than the war torn world they had left behind. What they had not realized until it was too late to turn back or call for outside help was that their new, idyllic world had it's own problems. Every two hundred years an errant planet brought an invading lifeform to Pern. This lifeform, which the colonists named Thread, devoured organic matter in a matter of seconds. The colonists had been able to survive by relying on their technology but knew that they would not be able to maintain or replace their machines and so had genetically engineered dragons to help fight the invading Thread.

As DRAGONSEYE opens it has been two hundred years since Thread had last fallen on Pern, the colonists had prospered, the population had grown, Pernese culture and society had become established and the dragons had increased in both size and number in anticipation of the upcoming Threadfall. Unfortunately there were also problems, much of the remaining technology from the original settlers had either broken down or was in danger of doing so soon. With each passing generation more was lost of both the advanced machinery, materials and the knowledge needed to preserve them. Pern was entering a Dark Age and desperately needed to adapt to these new circumstances even if that meant abandoning the past.

DRAGONSEYE covers various subplots, including a young journeyman painter who sees both the best and worst that Pernese society has to offer. Also we are shown much about the workings of Pernese government, and life inside a Weyr. Overshadowing everything is the steady approach of Pern's own special enemy, the Red Star with it's accompanying fall of Thread.

As always with series books in general those who are fans will anxiously await the next installment to discover what has happened next. The Pern series is no exception to this even though many of the books skip forward many generations resulting in entirely new casts of characters. McCaffrey manages to tread the fine line of making each novel more or less independent of the previous book and so enabling the reader to read them in any order, without endlessly rehashing old material for the benefit of new readers and the boredom of fans. One bit of recycling that does occur though is that certain incidents seem to reappear in different novels, sometimes to the point of making the reader wonder if they hadn't read this particular book before. This may just be a case of a writer repeating herself over the course of a long series or of making the point that those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.

Overall though, this is an excellent entry into a wonderful series, one that has this reader on the lookout for the next installment, or an earlier one that has been missed.

Enjoyed the story; Wondered in previous books about how the dragon riders knew when thread was due. This story answered my question.

Probably my favorite Pern book although it is in compitition with The Skies of Pern. However I would recomend reading the original Dragonriders of Pern trilogy first, it will give you a better understanding of the other Pern novels. I hope to see another book about Iantine and Debera. This book seemed to be written with at least one sequel in mind, but none have been published. I admit to being homophobic so it is understandable that I prefer female green riders. But considering the link between dragon and rider I wondered in the first Dragonrider novels why green(female) dragons were impressed by men when it would make much better since for them to be impressed by women.

The Pern series of books from Anne McCaffery are great. Better if you read them in order, (look online at her website for recommendations). This is futuristic science fiction, but if you liked Aregon, you would probably like this series too

Another winner!!!!! I love finally knowing how and why Pern has developed the way it has!

Very little character development. I didn't like the "heroine" most of the time because she was incredibly stupid. I hoped to see her "grow" but was disappointed throughout the story as she never really developed. The overall plot of the book was good, but the poor writing ruined it. I flipped to the end to find out what happened and let it go at that.

I really enjoyed this book. It is easy reading and did not take me long to finish the book. Typical of Fern Michaels. I truly love her books and have not been disappointed ever.

Fern Michaels is a pseudonym for Mary Kuczkir and Roberta Anderson. If you notice, a lot of the reviews on Amazon are by Mary Kuczkir. No wonder this book has an average of 4 stars. I would have given it zero stars but the scale wouldn't allow for that.

This book was amazing. The plots kept coming and I couldn't put it down. It was a little bit long, and repetive, but her overall style is personally appealling to me. I felt like I knew Kristene and when I was finished, I felt almost sad, that it was over, and I wouldn't be able to read more about her. The ending was great, and I really enjoyed it.

This is the second novel by Fern Michaels that I have read and I definitely agree that while I get hooked by the book jackets, she tends to go on far too long. This book could have been about 150 pages less and been much better. While I enjoyed the story for the most part, I found myself groaning that anyone could be so stupid as Kristine and let her swindling husband back in her life after he cheated her out of her money and left her high and dry. While some might view it as compassion, I think it was just a little far fetched. Woodie was a little too complacent for me and the fact that he just sat around and waited and then got drunk anytime Kristine left him hanging was a little unbelievable. Logan was evil and fun to hate and the other characters were interesting although kind of flat. Some of the plot twists to connect everything together were a little silly - how small a world can this be for heaven's sake? But overall, not too bad.

Jo Ellen, a reknown photographer has returned to her home after recieving several photos that contained the image of her missing mother. Determined to center herself, Jo has returned to the one place where she feels safe, Sanctuary. While returning to her roots makes her reflect on one of the most painful times in her life (her mother's disappearance) she finds love, in a childhood friend, Nathan. Surrounded by her siblings, a brother who has turned to cooking and a sister, who wants to be an actress and a father, who is extremely bitter, Jo realizes that she is being stalked and that her mother's disappearance may not be what it initially seemed and that her new love, Nathan may have information that will destroy her world. I enjoyed this novel, although I don't think you will be surprised by the ending, and would recommend that you read it if you like traditional Nora Roberts (romance, suspense and mystery).

I used to enjoy Nora Roberts' books for their wry humor, interesting characters, and snappy dialog. But her plots have been growing more and more formulaic: Tough, gorgeous heroine with a successful professional life and a ton of baggage obstructing her relationships is stalked by a serial killer whose acts become more and more savage as the book continues, often to the point of being ridiculously over the top. The heroine's friends and family are slowly killed off before she finally realizes what is going on, leading to a surprisingly anticlimatic finale. For me to truly consider a book a mystery, it must be a challenge to deduce the culprit. I have been able to deduce the killer's identity so early on in these books that I'm just left to focus on the romance, and though Roberts still can write one heck of a steamy passage it gels uneasily with scenes of stomach-churning brutality. As in "Blue Smoke", I found the murder scenes in "Sanctuary" to be overdone to the point of tastelessness (and Roberts seems to have an off-putting fascination with rape and quasi-rape throughout this book). I'm also not one easily satisfied with the "he was crazy, that was why he did what he did, there's no logical reason" hook that these works hang on.

It seems as if Roberts is trying to write for the broadest market possible; she is losing me as a fan in the process.

What a Sanctuary!!!Where damaged people live and rape and murder going on. I had started this book and had the TV on Lifetime and lo and behold the Lifetime movie was Sanctuary. Okay so I watched it and not impressed but decided to finish the book. The book is tons better than the movie. However I had to skim the murder/rape scenes. Okay so I'm sqimmish! I'm wondering how many books can have this same scenario of the damaged people because their parents didn't show them love and etc, so they can't love and they shove people away from them. I have read several Nora Roberts books lately with this scenario. I'm reading Hidden Riches at the moment and same scenario. I think that is why I liked her newest book "High Noon" because she got away from that formula and had 2 strong people come together. The hero could have been damaged because of his childhood but didn't let it. I like this formula much better. Getting back to Sanctuary, it's an okay read but probably not one I would read again. Yesterday Lifetime showed all of Nora Roberts movies based on her books and there was not one as good as the book. Even the actors playing the parts weren't right to me after reading the books. I wouldn't have pictured them as the movie does. The one playing Nathan in Sanctuary didn't even come close to what I pictured reading the book. There were characters left out and the Mother was murdered by Nathan's father not his brother. Well as they say, it's based on the book;that's about all!Anyway, if you have seen the movie, read the book; it's better.

We all seek sanctuary at one time or another, from family problems, childhood fears, career woes, personal nightmares all tempt us to run away and hide. J. E.'s mother had disappeared when she was only seven years old; something she could never forgive the most important person in her young life. My mother died when I was seven, so I can relate. But there was no sanctuary for me. It was just life, and I could never forgive her for leaving me behind like Jo. She grew up feeling that she had been abandoned. Only after her dream twenty years later of returning to the empty family inn named Sanctuary on the island of Desire in Georgia, and seeing herself on the other side, did she realize that her mother was dead.

Enter the stalker in her life with the pictures to prove he sometimes was close enough to touch her elbow. One photo in particular shows her long-lost mother naked and dead. Who took that picture and when? She returns "home" seeking answers to this quandry only to discover that he had followed her there. Growing up, I'd always been told I looked like my father as I had his dark brown eyes. But, at the funeral of my maternal grandmother after I was married with three children, my kinfolk all raved about how I was the spitting image of Lettie's photo which hung over her mother's bed. Even though she had beautiful, sad blue eyes and a lighter brown hair than my dark brown, I was about the same age then as she before the cancer took her away from us. I tried for years in vain to obtain that 5X7 photo.

Jo was the image of her dead mother and she was in danger as Brian closed in for the kill. Thank God, Nathan was there to protect and save her from the evils lurking in the Sanctuary. Nora Roberts was the first writer to be inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. Her stories keep one riveted to the page more than the mystery thrillers do.

I had high expectations for this novel. First, it is written by my favorite author, Nora Roberts and was given a four-star rating by Amazon reviewers, and second I discovered there had been a TV movie made based on this book. All this being said, I was looking forward to indulging in an excellent novel. I was gravely mistaken and very much disappointed. The story revolves around Sanctuary, a beautiful old Southern mansion (bed and breakfast) on the grounds of Little Desire Island off the coast of Georgia. Cottages inhabited by vacationers surround the main house on the island with its beautiful gardens, beaches and wooded areas. The Hathaway family own and run Sanctuary. Brian and Lexy are the resident owners, along with the help of their mother's cousin, Kate and father Sam. Jo Ellen Hathaway left the family business to make a name as a renowned photographer but as the story opens, she is getting photographs from an undisclosed source of her dead mother who disappeared some 20 years ago and the family never even thought she could have been murdered. They figured this loving wife and mother of three just walked out on them and stood by this belief, resenting and revolting in her memory. This method of guilty until proven otherwise was the first element that really didn't play right for me. Jo Ellen needs to get back to Sanctuary (after she suffers a breakdown as a result of the stalker and his photos) to try to find comfort and resolution with her family although none of them have ever been able to bond since the disappearance of their mother. The story goes on and on describing the secondary characters, Kirby Fitzsimmons (resident island doctor), Nathan Delaney (gifted architect, revisiting the island after spending one summer's childhood vacation), and Giff Verdon (island handyman) and really leads to very little action. I found that a big part of the excitement for the characters was drinking multiple cups of coffee morning, noon and night, smoking their cigarettes and relieving frustration with random sex. Two events posing undefined logic were the disappearance of everyone's fun-loving, great-to-be-with friend, Ginny - never really expounded upon and somewhat just left out on the line to dry and the reference to the questionable disappearance/death of Kyle Delaney, Nathan's brother. In this instance, Nathan and Jo Ellen start discussing the fact that possibly he could be alive and then the story drops. Even the ending didn't satisfy my need for that Nora Roberts thrill I am accustomed to enjoying. Being an avid Nora fan and knowing what great work she is capable of, I would not recommend this novel. Sanctuary could very likely turn the reader off to the extremely talented works of author, Nora Roberts, a/k/a J.D. Robb. Stories like "The Villa" and "Honest Illusions" are definitely worth reading as well as all of the J.D. Robb "In Death" series. Go out and get her latest in the series, "Innocent in Death," for a true taste of her talent.

I thought this was one of the most intelligent and honest books about the Korean American experience I have ever read. Other books, with memoir style perspectives, have explored the generational conflict and cultural and geographic displacement a Korean American may feel, but Lee does not seem comfortable speaking in the existing dialogue about immigrant experience, but instead includes that particular voice as a part of his inner dialogue--this discomfort is why the use of the espionage genre works so well.

This book is about a man who in the end does not seem to exist, but not in the "quiet Asian man" way we typically hear about in Asian American discussion; also, the main character's subversive behavior is not a reaction to feelings of frustration stemming from marginalization.

The man does not exist because he cannot face his other faces.

As a character whose occupation is to act as a spy, he finds his job natural, but also problematic. The problem is that he does not feel strongly connected to any one identity; at least, not one with a face--he crosses from hating his father as a symbol of all that is old and prideful to admiring an up and coming Korean American politician as a symbol of a "Korean Man" he would like to meet, or perhaps, become. The problem reaches its climax when both men merge and are in the end, elusive to their supposed symbols.

Native Speaker struck me as honest because it came out and said what it had to say: I cannot relate to any discussion about Korean American identity, because I believe the search for identity in these terms is futile.

I do not walk by Lee's side on this point, but I believe he's on to something, and also, that he is brave for expressing it so passionately.

Chang-Rae Lee wrote his first novel, "Native Speaker", which describes the experience of a young Korean man in New York City at the age of 28. The protagonist, Henry Park, is the son of immigrants. His mother died while Henry was young and Henry's father has risen to wealth through difficult work in the ownership of small groceries in the poorer sections of New York City. The family is Christian but of a Confucian background. Henry throughout has much more difficulty expressing emotions and feelings than most Westerners. Henry marries a well-to-do and beautiful white woman, Leila. They have a son, Mitt, who tragically dies. Henry and Leila have difficulty in their marriage arising from, among other things, different cultural expectations, Henry's job, and the death of their son.

Henry, the prototypical outsider, works as a spy for a private investigative agency whose clients or missions are never fully defined in the novel. Henry seems to get over-involved with the people whose lives he infiltrates. He became close to a Phillipino psychiatrist who offered Henry, through friendship and therapy, insights into Henry's life. But most of the novel involves Henry's relationship with another individual on whom he spies: a Korean New York City politician named John Kwang who has aspirations to run for mayor.

The book describes the life of Korean immigrants and the difficult culture shock of living in a new land. Lee also describes well the vibrant and continuously varied life of New York City, with its diversity, as seen by his protagonist. I thought the overriding metaphor of the book, the immigrant as outsider and spy, was pat and unconvincing. It was too deriviative of Elison's "Invisible Man" and Lee never convincingly explains how Henry becomes a spy or why his experience as a spy should, somehow, be regarded as representative of the Korean immigrant experience. The book includes some lovely lyrically written passages, some perceptive scenes (those involving the psychiatrist, for example) and some chilling scenes of the modus operandi of the spying operation. But much of this novel is padded and written in a routine prose. I frequently grew impatient with it.

The book aptly describes the travails of immigrants new to the United States, particularly those from Korea. But the immigrant experience has, in general, been described more convincingly in many other novels. In some ways the book seemed to me a not fully successful amalgamation of Ellison's "Invisible Man" as it described the African-American experience and Henry Roth's "Call it Sleep" as itlyrically described the early Jewish immigrant experience through the eyes of a young boy.

Henry Park has a torn, ambivalent attitude towards the United States based upon the difficulties of his life. What stayed with me in the book was the speaker's love for this country, frequently expressed lyrically. For example:

"Americans, one of them would say, are a wonderful and exuberant people. They dance, they play-fight, they puff up their lips and blow out their chests. they enjoy using their hands. They seem to live always at a football match". p. 340

"Still I love it here. I love these streets lined with big American sedans and livery cars and vans. I love the early morning storefronts opening up one by one, shopkeepers talking as they crank their awnings down. ... I follow the strolling Saturday families of brightly wrapped Hindus and then the black-clad Hasidim, and step into all the old churches that were once German and then Korean and are now Vietnamese. And I love the brief Queens sunlight at the end of the day, the warm lamp always reaching though the westward tops of that magnificent city." p.346

"Native Speaker" is a good book. It takes a hard look at the difficulties young Asians may face in the United States. The most moving and compelling part of the story remains, for me, the hope and love it expresses for our country and its promise.

Robin Friedman

For a long time I have resisted reading Chang Rae Lee's "Native Speaker", even though it's been recommended to me by others on numerous occasions. I suppose that resistance is due to my reluctance to embrace fully the work of Asian-American writers, when I see myself as someone who is an American who just happens to be of East Asian descent, and thus, interested in reading what I believe is great American literature. Happily, I have read finally "Native Speaker", which I regard as an auspicious literary debut by a great American writer of fiction. Without question this was among the most memorable novels published by an American author in the 1990s, worthy of comparison to Richard Wright's "Native Speaker" and Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy".

Chang Rae Lee uses the metaphor of espionage to explore the emotional and intellectual complexity of his protagonist Henry Park. We meet Park as he is struggling to cope with his dissolving marriage to an attractive young White American woman, and his rather stoic reaction to the recent unexpected, tragic death of their young son. He finds solace by undertaking undercover work on behalf of a shadowy organization, infiltrating the staff of a popular Korean-American New York City councilman from Queens. Soon he finds himself completely immersed in the politician's corrupt, almost Byzantine, political universe, becoming an active participant in the politician's relationship with his Korean-American community. Lee accomplishes his admirable literary feat of fine writing with a crisp ear for dialogue and splendid, almost lyrical, prose, creating compelling characters like Henry Park and his estranged wife.

I read this book for a 2xx literature course on race and sexuality. The book started slow, laid out many unconnected ideas, and had several vague "what the hell does this have to do with the story" parts, and then WHAM! The few peices of the puzzle come together, the story takes on this all so important meaning (when to begin with I thought there was little importance --just story) and just ends up being a gre --no, really great story. I almost hate to give this book 5 stars, but it is so deserving that I must.

Chang-Rae Lee's prose is magnificent. Different somehow, slow and methodic and meaningful.

Appearantly this book won many awards. However, I would imagine the secrets this book holds will be interpreted differently by each of us, making it much more so the treasure it is.

I'd like to give this novel more than 3 stars, but the unfortunate decision to have the main character be a Secret Agent/Native Informant guy really ruined it for me. Some reviewers claim that to make this criticism is to reveal oneself as a white person who just doesn't get it (I am indeed a white reviewer)--eg, the Secret Agent plot element is a metaphor for the invisibility that Asian-Americans feel as a minority group in the US. But before we explore metaphorical value and cultural commentary, let's ask, more plainly: does the espionage element work in terms of character and plot? I think it doesn't, and that this leads to a further weakness in the book's politics and mode of cultural criticism.

Where character is concerned, I can compare Native Speaker with another cerebral political/espionage novel, Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men. Warren does a good job of having a first-person narrator who is a slimeball in a lot of ways, who's lost his moral bearings. By contrast, Chang-Rae Lee has a main character who is so sensitive, so highly moral, and so completely sympathetic that you never, ever believe that he would have the venal job he has. In fact, much of Native Speaker reads like a straightforward memoir, especially the account of Henry Park's childhood. In this case, Lee has set up a perfect paradox, in that the more the reader engages with the narrator in the "memoir" passages, the more competely unbelievable the espionage plot becomes.

I also think the espionage element muddles the book plotwise, and in fact causes Lee to mishandle one of his most important themes, that of white power over and prejudice toward immigrants. Briefly, the "memoir" parts of the book concern Henry's relationship with his father, who is wealthy but lives a privatized, conformist life. As an adult Henry meets a father-surrogate, the politician John Kwang. Now, this story could have been told without the secret agent stuff. In fact, it could have been quite straightforward: a disillusioned young man, who's experienced marital troubles and has bitter memories of his father's social powerlessness, is drawn to a brilliant politician, who must defy the prejudice of mainstream white society. But again, the idea of an all-purpose spy organization that makes life hard for immigrants, and especially Asian-Americans, messes everything up. For example, perhaps Kwang's major way of establishing rapport with his constituents is to take the Korean-American tradition of the "ggeh"--where immigrants pool their money and withdraw from the fund as needed--and make it broader and multiracial, so that people can borrow money to send their kids to college, etc. I won't give away any "spoilers," but let's just say that the doings of the spy network, and the Queens, NY-based ggeh, end up being intertwined. At this point, I thought that Lee was juggling too many balls as an author: I wanted to hear more about John Kwang, and I was getting tired of annoying characters like Jack and Dennis Hoagland (the white spies).

But, even more importantly, instead of NS making me more sympathetic to the troubles of immigrants, I ended up being somewhat disturbed by the book's politics. One gets the feeling that Kwang's neighborhood association would have done just fine, if it wasn't for the interference of a shadowy racist organization with links to the IRS, INS, and so on. Now, here's my question: doesn't the ggeh represent a multicultural version of libertarianism, which sees society as the sum of individual choices and voluntary associations and wishes to limit state action? Insofar as Henry Park (and, arguably, Lee himself) valorize the ggeh, how is this political outlook any different from that of white people in the midwest who argue that they've never really owed anything to the government, that they've done just fine with hard work and the help of their neighbors? In a way, Lee has written a politically reactionary book, which has a paranoid attitude toward government. Now, you might respond that "Lee is describing, not endorsing; the spy network represents the racist forces that people of color must deal with if they want to enter the public sphere." But the point is that Lee could have handled these racist forces differently. The spy network strikes me as a very heavy-handed, "conspiracy-theory" way of thinking about oppression, and the ggeh a very privatized, anti-statist model of social action. In any case, I think the book's politics are muddled, and that NS would have been sharper in terms of character, better-organized in terms of plot, and clearer in its political outlook without the espionage element.

I certainly don't mean to say this is a bad book, and in fact it's become so canonical that people will go on buying it no matter what this-or-that reviewer thinks. All well and good. But I will say that if you're a fan of "intellectual" espionage in the vein of Warren's King's Men, Graham Greene, or John Le Carre, and you're drawn to this book because you've heard it creatively reworks the genre, be aware that the espionage element is *not* the book's strength. The descriptions of a Korean-American boyhood and adult New York life are excellent, but the "thriller" element almost kills the novel.

Bear has written some really great science fiction, but this book is a bit stale. I just realized it won the Nebula, and aren't I surprised. The thing I like most about the novel was the 'quantum descriptor' stuff. The part I like least was; well, the title really does sum up the story. The reader has so suspense or feeling of surprise. The entire novel comes off as just a vehicle to get to the end and, you guessed it, move Mars.

Found the SF parts of the story - especially the Quantum Logic thinkers part - truly amazing. I found the entire concept - that of a young Mars finding its own voice - really well conceived and well written. Perhaps the only shortcoming (for me) was the first somewhat 250 pages before Bear gets to the real meaty SF stuff. It wasn't excruciatingly slow - but the first half wasn't a page turner. The second half was!

New colony gets a transportation industry leg-up on the old bastiches on Earth.


The inhabitants of Mars have to deal with trying to build a society how they want, and not in the old way that has been done before. This requires a lot of politicking and brainstorming.

They also have to deal with the usual greedy types that covet their resources and technology back where they came from.

There are two halves to this book: the boring, political half followed by the adventurous plot in the second half. One would expect the interlude to be between chapters or to over the course of a chapter. However, the shift from the halves was brought upon on one single page - like, "WHAM! here's the other part of the book you wanted to read but I made you read all the character background and political dialouge first. Haha!" Jarring would be a good word for the interlude.

Because half the book is boring (character building, political dialouge, etc) the entire book doesn't get 5 stars. The author is lucky he made a darn good last half of the book... but even then I deemed it a bit ridiculous and over the top. The ultimate ending seemed extreme (a bit ridiculous, but mostly impressive and original).

Moving Mars is a high-quality story of imagination, science, and good characters. Greg Bear imagines a Mars set nearly two centuries in the future inhabited by fossils of the wet past of Mars and humans who dream of independence from Earthly overlords. The main character, Casseia Majumdar, is a budding politician who sees the world strictly through human terms. Her counterpart, Charles Franklin, is a scientist who sees the world in terms of epochs, physics, and technology. Together, they struggle through a budding Earth/Mars war and find the means to save their homeworld Mars by bending space to move their planet out of harm's way.

Kozol's Amazing Grace is a true eye-opener. After reading it, I feel that I had nothing close to an accurate image of the conditions of poverty that people still live in in some of the inner city neighborhoods. The reality Kozol awakens us to shatters the illusion America holds of "equal opportunity for all," and the book is an indictment of a far-too-unaware society run by politicians who must think about quick fixes (prisons, tax cuts) that try to please voters or address problem symptoms rather than causes (terrible schools, decrepit surroundings, congestion of the homeless, and the not-always subtle discrimination that continues in society). A truly important book, which will challenge any readers who are supportive of Rudy Giuliani to defend his startling insensitivity to the issue, displayed by his cutting of funding of public services that are so crucial to many people Kozol writes of.

I ordered a series of books for my daughter. Excellent email response, timely receipt and accurate updates of the order. More than what I expected. The materials were in good condition on arrival. Very satisfied with the service.

It is a book about children. Children who live in Mott Haven, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the South Bronx. I have almost never read anything that has moved me and at the same time disturbed me as this book has. Jonathan Kozol has with great care and sensitivity interviewed children living in this place that's both crime ridden and run down. Most of these kids start off as being trusting and innocent but grow into becoming more and more disillusioned about their surroundings and hope for survival. The HIV and AIDS virus has really hit hard in these places and this is connected to the large amount of the population that abuse heroin. The heroin has such self-mocking names as "Jungle Fever", "Black Sabbath", "DOA"(dead on arrival), and "True Power". Many of the children are born to addicted mothers, some of who are in jail, already contracting the disease in utero. First time mothers have an average age between 16 and 17, while grandmothers can be in their late thirties and great great grandmothers in their late 50s.







Its incredible how close Jonathan Kozol manages to come to these kids. They really take him in and open up their hearts. They share with him their stories. These stories are full of horrible and painful things that are so far from the realities that we experience here in modern day big city Stockholm. The segregation in these South Bronx neighborhoods is total, whether it's the schools, hospitals, or prisons. And almost always the kids receive the short end of the stick. Children tell of how they see murders on the street, get attacked by rats, how some are killed or burned from household fires, how some eat cold oatmeal out of the box for dinner, many of the kids live with chronic asthma due to anxiety, others live with mothers dying of AIDS, and often have classrooms that are decrepit and completely rundown. There are less qualified doctors and teachers here than anywhere else in the state of New York. There have been major tax cuts in the city that have hit these citizens hardest. Like cuts in sanitation that has resulted in mountains of garbage lining up inside buildings drawing hordes of rats. Cuts in maintenance of buildings that leave elevators broken, often resulting in playing kids falling down the elevator shafts and dying. The police refer to some of the housing projects to as "death camps" because so many drug dealers and addicts dominate them. The tax cuts have also led to many social workers losing their jobs as well as closing of several youth centers that allow kids safe places to be while their parents work. Prostitution is also common among the women. Mostly serving the truck drivers who drive through the neighborhood to deliver goods to the Hunts Point market that is close. They turn tricks for 3 to 5 dollars that go to feeding their addictions. This happens all hours of the day and night, even when the children can see. Many times when the children or adults are asked how they manage to survive they mention their faith in god and heaven. That the place that they are in now is more reminiscent of hell, but this is not where they will end up.







As a atudent of theology I cannot help but see this book as a strong wake up call. The gospels of the New Testament took the part of the poor, saying the last shall be first and the first shall be last. In the Christian nation of America that prints "In god we trust" on their coins-this is how they treat the poor. One priest who works in the South Bronx took a little kid with him when he had to drive to Queens to do some errands. There he took him to Burger King to eat. The kid had never been outside of the Bronx before. The priest later learned from the kid's teacher that he wrote an essay in school about their lunch called "My trip to Burger King"-the same way a rich kid might write about a trip he made to Florida. Most of these kids never get any Christmas or birthday presents. They don't even have their own rooms. Sleeping on sofas or on mattresses on the floor. One child says, " it feels like I'm hidden", and this is a good observation. Nobody wants to be reminded of what these children are going through. Therefore their stories are seldom, if ever, heard. This is why Jonathan Kozols book is so important. Only a short distance away just across 96th street lies the park avenue apartments that houses some of the wealthiest people in the nation, households with an average income of 300,000 dollars a year. Toward the end of the book the author talks to an old poet living in the Bronx and the start to discuss the Nazi holocaust and the concentration camps. How there are certain disturbing parallels to what happened then and whats happening now. How the outcasts and those human beings viewed as being "superfluous" are quarantined. "Its not the same" he says, "but there are some similarities. There is the feeling of eclipse. There is the likelihood of death for many. There is a sense of people watching from the outside but seeming paralyzed and doing nothing. And then there are the miracles."

Jonathan Kozol's 1995 book, "Amazing Grace," is intriguing, yet infuriating. While I was drawn to the subject, a study of the children of New York City's South Bronx neighborhood, I was put off by the "Note to the Reader" at the front of the book, which warns that some names have been changed (I can live with that) but also that "conversations have been condensed" and "some events have been resequenced," which leaves me wondering what parts of which conversations with whom have been resequenced (a word that Microsoft Word 2003 does not even recognize) and when? Because the book is presented in a chronological order, one would assume a natural progression: as a general rule, time goes by, seasons change, and children mature. In real life we don't get the chance to resequence.

The book is basically a series of conversations, with Kozol playing the unbiased questioner, who lets his characters, excuse me, interviewees, write his book for him. Very rarely is his voice heard; he only allows some sadness, and some delight, filter through. Statements are made, facts are reported, but one must keep referring to the Notes at the back of the book to substantiate the facts, and check the dates, because we just never can be sure what has been resequenced. It would almost have been more efficient to include the notes in the body of the book, so one does not have to continually flip back and forth from the text to the notes.

The children in the book are lovely, and it is their amazing grace shining through the constant sorrow that gives this book its title. Although it is true that we are all equal, in truth we are all different, and Mr. Kozol's skin color, clothing, speech and demeanor mark him as a stranger in this strange land called the Bronx. (The villain of the piece is actually New York's master builder, Robert Moses, who cut a deep swathe, the "Cross Bronx Expressway," through the heart of the neighborhood and created a slum where there had once been a thriving community.) And because Mr. Kozol is a foreigner, indeed he wears the skin and clothing of The Powers That Be, one must wonder if his conversations with the children and parents are indicative of their true feelings, or are they just telling him what they think he wants to hear?

Mothers and grandmothers are the true heroes of the piece; guiding their precious children (including one, here called, "Precious," although who knows if that name has been changed) through a drug- and crime-infested hell, while fathers, sons and daughters bounce from hospitals to prisons to the cemetery. HIV-infection is a very real force here, although since the book is now 12 years old I do not know what effect the disease has on the community today.

The book's structure is flawed, but the story is inspiring, and makes the reader question how the children can be saved. Is it the obligation of the City government, which seems to have done a fine job relocating its "problem children" from their visibility in homeless shelters in Manhattan to the far, far away, out-of-sight, out-of-mind Bronx? Is it to be solved by mentoring, one-on-one, as 13-year-old "Anthony" is guided in his education by an older gentleman, a writer and poet? Should Kozol have just picked up Precious and adopted her into his Massachusetts family life, thus rescuing her from her certain tragic fate?

And those of us who are teachers, what is our role? Kozol seems to leave us in despair, as if there is nothing that a human being can do to turn this tide. We have to hope that the influence of an inspired teacher could make a dent in the defenses that these children have built up, like a shield, to guard them from the hard knocks of their hard lives. Maybe a teacher can, because if we didn't believe that such a thing was possible, we might as well turn in our chalk and go home.

Jonathan Kozol has dedicated his work on bringing light to the inequalities that exist within our nation. These inequalities are best seen, unfortunately but not unexpectedly, along racial lines. "Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation" is a book with a lot of questions, a lot of shocking information, but not a lot of answers; if only because the answers may not exist. It is a stunning look at the deep disparity between rich and poor within our nation.

Kozol focuses on the South Bronx ghetto of Mott Haven, the poorest borough in New York, clearly segregated from the middle and upper classes, where two-thirds of the population are Hispanic and one-third African-American. Through interviews with school children, teachers, ministers, and community members, Kozol paints a bleak picture of the equally bleak lives led by those who live in this area. He recounts stories of buildings where wires have been eaten through by rats that are the size of squirrels, of drugs being bought and sold openly on the streets (although the drug dealers have enough respect to break when school lets out), and of families too numerous to count who are being killed off one by one by AIDS. The way these children see the world is frightenly dead-on; they know when they're not wanted because it's proven to them everyday in the way they have to live.

"Amazing Grace" is not an easy read due to its topic matter. Kozol's style is matter-of-fact, made up of usually uninterrupted comments by those he's interviewed, sometimes with his questions thrown in, and his own comments and hypotheses as to how this can go on. But Kozol doesn't necessarily have answers or even blame. Surely, some blame has to go to a system that keeps the poorest people with the least chance for success segregated from others, a separation of the haves and have nots to the greatest degree. And certainly others would place the blame on the poor people themselves. Perhaps it's a combination of a lot of factors, not one or the other, but what is certain is that too little is being done (or maybe can be done) to make a difference before it is too late.

Well written and interesting book about a family's difficult life - but certainly not something you want to read to lift your spirits or give you any inspiration. One bad thing after another and the only message for the reader is "life is tough" and then you die......

The MacDonald clan may have arrived in Cape Breton more than two centuries ago but their hearts are still firmly anchored in the Scotland from which they came. Their family history has been so religiously passed from one generation to the next that Calum MacDonald, who brought his family to Canada in 1779, seems as alive to its members as the brother or cousin sitting next to them at the dinner table.

For more than two hundred years the MacDonalds have made their livings with their hands and their backs, working as farmers, lumberjacks, lighthouse caretakers, and uranium miners, never afraid to take on the toughest or most dangerous jobs available to them. But no matter how difficult life at times got for some of them, the family always took care of its own and none of them ever forgot that they were part of the MacDonald clan. Their family loyalty was a fierce one and it was never questioned.

No Great Mischief is largely told in flashback form by its narrator, Alexander MacDonald, a successful orthodontist who as the book begins is in Toronto checking on his alcoholic brother, Calum, who seems to be slowly drinking himself to death. Alexander's visits to Toronto involve sharing old memories with his brother and leaving a little cash and alcohol behind to help Calum make it through the rest of his week. How Calum has reached his dreadful condition is a long, sad story but it is only one part of the MacDonald family saga.

No Great Mischief is a combination of historical fiction and family saga and it is a bit unusual in the sense that it focuses only on the MacDonalds who originally came to Canada and on those living there at the moment, with very little being told of the generations connecting them. But what a story it is because Alistair MacLeod has filled it with characters and incidents that will be long remembered by his readers.

The present day MacDonalds are held together by the narrator's grandparents, two grandfathers and a grandmother, three people who despite their differences share a deep and loving respect for each other. The grandfathers could hardly be more different, one being an earthy man who loves his beer and his wife, the other living alone with his books and historical research. It is these three who get the next two generations of MacDonalds through the tragedy of sudden death that comes their way over the decades.

The MacDonalds are not a family that will be easily forgotten but the highlight of the book is perhaps MacLeod's vivid recreation of life in the uranium mining camps of the 1960s. That unique, dangerous and insulated little world was a revelation to me, one of those places I am happy to have visited in a book and missed in the real world.

But for one flaw, I would have rated this book higher than the 4.0 rating I settled on - some of the long conversations between the narrator and his twin sister have a staged quality to them. They are packed with so much historical detail, and read more as recitation than conversation, that the reader cannot help but feel a distracting switch in tone. Luckily, this does not happen often and can be easily enough overlooked.

To me personaly this is one of the most beautifully written, moving novels ever written. As I fnished it, I thought i had never read anything better. A set of three-year old twins lose their parents and one older brother; they are raised by their grandparents and never recover from the sense of loss. Their three much older brothers grow up half-wild and become uranium miners in the North of Canada.

After college, the boy twin, one of many Alexanders in the family, join the brothers in the mines one summer, basically out of guilt for never having shared their rough lives. Tragedy ensues and the oldest brother, the leader of the clan, ends up in jail.

Yes, there is a lot of stuff about Scottish history here and a family that seems doomed to repeat the tragedies of the past, a theme not congenial to my American students who want to think they are in charge of their own destiny. But as we read, we see that the oldest brother Calum is an old-fashioned tragic hero. Self-reliant and resourceful to a fault, the kind of guy you would want at your side to get out alive of Iraq, he is ultimately brought down by his refusal to live by the codes of modern polite society. The triumph of this novel is that by the end the reader has come to care deeply for a character who in real life most of us would probably cross the street to avoid. I truly felt enlarged by this novel and its generous and noble vision of some people who haven't quite caught up with the modern world. Beautifully written too.

I picked up Alistair MacLeod's No Great Mischief on the advice of one of my reading buddies (and you can never have enough of those!). I have never heard of MacLeod and when looking for more of his work, I was surprised to find that this Canadian is one of his country's most distinguished writers, although he has only two collections of short stories to his credit.

Weaving the past and the present, No Great Mischief is a tale of family. There are three plot lines in this intricate, yet highly readable novel. In current day, Alexander MacDonald is a successful orthodontist who often has trouble with why people pay him so much to make them pretty. He is trying to care for his oldest brother, Calum, a dying alcoholic who fascinates and repels him.

The second plot line is about Alexander's childhood. Taking place in Cape Breton, Alexander and his twin sister are raised by their paternal grandparents when their parents and one of their older brothers, Colin, falls through the ice as they make their way from the Cape to the lighthouse island where they live. Their three older brothers, now on their own, become loggers and miners in places around the world. They always go together and work side-by-side until one of them is sent to jail for murder.

And the predominate, yet most subtle, plot line is the coming of the MacDonalds to Canada. From the Scottish Highlands, the Calum Rudah (the red-haired clan) weathers a nasty and ill-fated trip across the ocean.

The story is almost, but miraculously not, confusing as different generations of MacDonalds are named "Alexander." However, that is one of the strengths of MacLeod's writing. It has the ability to weave in and out and flash back and forth, all the while never losing the reader.

At the heart of this novel, is family and loyalty. When the Calum Rudah leave Scotland, they try to leave their dog behind, but the dogs swims behind them until they can no longer risk her drowning and pull her into the boat. That image ignites the heart of the novel, as one of the dog's descendants waits for Alexander's parents to return to the lighthouse island in a show of loyalty.

Armchair Interview says: A 5-star offering from Alistair MacLeod.

Alastair MacLeod's book is an stunningly well crafted and beautiful novel.

For me, the book that starts out confusing--why the characters are doing what they are today? and ends with a deep comprehension of bonds that form during a life.

This is definitely not a book for someone wanting a breezy travelogue about the pretty vacationland on Canada's East Coast. MacLeod's novel has nothing to do with the tourist experience. Instead, it is about a harsh and demanding land that shapes the characters and their relationships much as the waves carve the shore.

I'm not from Cape Breton, although I have been there 9 times and grown to love the place. The locals see MacLeod's writing as being very true to their heritage, and treasure it. His stories are often dark and quite sad. In particular his short stories (see "The Island") often leave me in tears.
This is the story of some lives, tough lives in remarkable places from Cape Breton to western Canadian mines. In the end, if you are like me (and several of my friends), you will understand the brothers' bond, and applaud the extraordinary skill and beauty with which the author has told this story.