Book Description
"Softly he brushed my cheek, then held my face between his marble hands. 'Be very still,' he whispered, as if I wasn't already frozen. Slowly, never moving his eyes from mine, he leaned toward me. Then abruptly, but very gently, he rested his cold cheek against the hollow at the base of my throat." As Shakespeare knew, love burns high when thwarted by obstacles. In Twilight, an exquisite fantasy by Stephenie Meyer, readers discover a pair of lovers who are supremely star-crossed. Bella adores beautiful Edward, and he returns her love. But Edward is having a hard time controlling the blood lust she arouses in him, because--he's a vampire. At any moment, the intensity of their passion could drive him to kill her, and he agonizes over the danger. But, Bella would rather be dead than part from Edward, so she risks her life to stay near him, and the novel burns with the erotic tension of their dangerous and necessarily chaste relationship.Meyer has achieved quite a feat by making this scenario completely human and believable. She begins with a familiar YA premise (the new kid in school), and lulls us into thinking this will be just another realistic young adult novel. Bella has come to the small town of Forks on the gloomy Olympic Peninsula to be with her father. At school, she wonders about a group of five remarkably beautiful teens, who sit together in the cafeteria but never eat. As she grows to know, and then love, Edward, she learns their secret. They are all rescued vampires, part of a family headed by saintly Carlisle, who has inspired them to renounce human prey. For Edward's sake they welcome Bella, but when a roving group of tracker vampires fixates on her, the family is drawn into a desperate pursuit to protect the fragile human in their midst.The precision and delicacy of Meyer's writing lifts this wonderful novel beyond the limitations of the horror genre to a place among the best of YA fiction.(Ages 12 and up) --Patty Campbell 10 Second Interview: A Few Words with Stephenie Meyer Q: Were you a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Angel? What are you watching now that those shows are off the air? A: I have never seen an entire episode of Buffy or Angel. While I was writing Twilight, I let my older sister read along chapter by chapter. She's a huge Buffy fan and she kept trying to get me to watch, but I was afraid it would mess up my vision of the vampire world so I never did. I don't have a ton of time for TV, and my kids get rowdy when I have on "mommy shows," but I do have a secret fondness for reality shows (the good ones, at least in my opinion). I always TiVo Survivor, The Amazing Race, and America's Next Top Model. Q: What inspired you to write Twilight? Is this the beginning of a series? Why write for teens? A: Twilight was inspired by a very vivid dream, which is fairly faithfully transcribed as chapter thirteen of the book. There are sequels on the way--I'm hard at work editing book two (tentatively titled New Moon) right now, and book three is waiting in line for its turn. I didn't mean to write for teens--I didn't mean to write for anyone but myself, so I had an audience of one twenty-nine year old (and later one thirty-one year old when my sister started reading). I think the reason that I ended up with a book for teens is because high school is such a compelling time period--it gives you some of your worst scars and some of your most exhilarating memories. It's a fascinating place: old enough to feel truly adult, old enough to make decisions that affect the rest of your life, old enough to fall in love, yet, at the same time too young (in most cases) to be free to make a lot of those decisions without someone else's approval. There's a lot of scope for a novel in that. Q: What is your favorite vampire story? Fave vampire movie? A: I guess my favorite vampire story would be The Vampire Lestat, by Anne Rice, simply because it's one of the only ones I've ever read. I keep meaning to pick up Bram Stoker's Dracula, because I get asked this question so often and I should probably start with the classics, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Again, I'm afraid to read other vampire books now, for fear of finding things either too similar, or too different from my own vampire world. Ack! I can't even answer the movie question. I can't remember ever seeing a single vampire movie, outside of clips from Bela Lugosi movies on TV. I don't like true horror movies--my favorite scary movies are all Hitchcock's. Q: What other young adult authors do you read? A: My favorite young adult author is L.M. Montgomery I also enjoyJ.K. Rowling (but who doesn't?), and Ann Brashares. As a teen, I skipped straight to adult books (lots of sci-fi and Jane Austen), so I'm rediscovering the world of teen literature now. Stephenie Meyer's List of Books You Should Read Anne of Green GablesRomeo and JulietDragonflightTo Kill a Mockingbird The Princess BrideSee more recommendations from Stephenie Meyer Amazon.com's Significant SevenStephenie Meyer graciously agreed to answer the questions we like to ask every author: the Amazon.com Significant Seven. Q: What book has had the most significant impact on your life?A: The book with the most significant impact on my life is The Book of Mormon. The book with the most significant impact on my life as a writer is probably Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card, with Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier coming in as a close second.Q: You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD--what are they?A: The CD is easy: Absolution by Muse, hands down. It's harder to give myself just one movie, but the one I watch most frequently is Sense and Sensibility--the one with the screenplay by Emma Thompson. One book is impossible. I'd have to have Pride and Prejudice, but I couldn't live without something by Orson Scott Card and a nice, thick Maeve Binchy, too.Q: What is the worst lie you've ever told?A: My lies are all very, very boring: "No, you really look great in hot pink!" "My children only watch one hour of TV a day." "I didn't eat the last Swiss Cake Roll--it must have been one of the kids." That's the best I've got.Q: Describe the perfect writing environment.A: It's late at night and the house is silent, but I'm still (miraculously) full of energy. I have my headphones in and I'm listened to a mix of Muse, Coldplay, Travis, My Chemical Romance, and The All-American Rejects. Beside me is a fabulous, and yet mysteriously low in calorie, cheesecake....Q: If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?A: I'd like it to say that I really tried at the important things.I was never perfect at any of them, but I honestly tried to be a great mom, a loving wife, a good daughter, and a true friend. Under that, I'd want a list of my favorite Simpsons quotes.Q: Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?A: I'd love to have a chance to talk to Orson Scott Card--I have a million questions for him. Mostly things like, "How do you come up with this stuff?!" But, if he wasn't available, I'd settle for Matthew Bellamy (lead singer of Muse).Q: If you could have one superpower, what would it be?A: I'd want something offensive, rather than defensive. Like shooting fireballs from my hands. That way, you're really open to going either way--hero or villain. I like to have choices.
Customer Reviews:
Draws you in completely........2007-10-04
Love this book! Great characters and storyline - imaginative and fun, as well as completely romantic. My favorite book of all.
Great book, drags on in a few spots.......2007-10-04
It is a must read. Just a few pages that i felt i skimmed through.
Is this book acceptable for 11-yr old boys?.......2007-10-04
I've heard from friends this is the best book ever. My question is - can I read it with my almost 11-yr old son?
Please advise.
Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1).......2007-10-03
[Fun: 5/5] [Learning: 3/5] [Suitable: 4/5]
Wow! This has to be the most addicting series I've read in a long time. It is something of a typical teen romance, but with the twist of a dark gothic feel leant to it by the vampire characters. The writing surprised me, as I expected a hastily written feel to the book, without a lot of skill. It turned out to be rather well-written, though, hooking the reader with a developed sense of style from the first page. The story is about a high-school girl, Bella, who falls in love with a vampire, and the problems that you can probably imagine that it causes. Though Edward and his "family" are sort of "vegetarian" vampires (refusing to prey on humans, but instead trying to help them), Bella herself attracts more trouble than a group of mythical monsters. Edward is forever trying to conquer his instincts and protect his love. This book is full of action and suspense, and a good book for those who like a bit of a dark side (though not necessarily an evilness) to their reading. It is surprisingly lacking in gore and other objectionable content usually found in teen romances. Simply the fact that Edward is a vampire keeps a healthy distance between the two teens. However, I would react in the same way as Bella's father to some of the behavior exhibited in the story--for example, Edward (as vampires don't sleep) spends nights in Bella's room--quite innocently, but still, not behavior I would allow in my own house. Also, the level of attatchment that Bella has with Edward is very strong. Again, something to think about with teens. There is a somewhat scary vampire attack in the end, as well as references to an attempted rape, and the reader is exposed to Edward's violent vampire thoughts. All in all, however, I've read the series and would recommend it for teens over 16, and would encourage parents to be very aware of content and available to discuss some of the issues.
Audience:
* Teen Readers (16 and up)
Positive Themes:
* Conquering temptations in order to do what's right
* Enjoyable read
Objectionable Content:
* Some questionable romantic behavior
* Disobedience of authority figures
* Suspenseful vampire attack
* Attempted rape
My Recommendations:
The other books in the Twilight series, which are currently New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn, to be released in the fall of 2008, along with Midnight Sun, which has no publishing date yet. Readers may also enjoy A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels by Libba Bray.
[...]
A nice spin on Vampire romance!.......2007-10-02
There was Blade and then there was Buffy. Two loves in totally different styles! One of my favorite authors of all times is LA Banks of the Vampire Huntress Series. If I had to make a comparison, and the only reason that I am is because I am trying to compare this work with some of the other outstanding authors in the paranormal romance genre. Meyer is unlike other paranormal romance writers (like Handeland, Armstrong and Banks) in that her work is campy and light, and would kind of remind you of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, without the slaying! Handeland, Armstrong and Banks' works are more like Blade or Underworld, full of fights, a little sex, a lot of action and adventure (for a more mature audience). However, although I am in my late 30's, I found that "Twilight" to be a wonderful story with a lot of future potential, so much so that I am driven to read the others.
Briefly, the plot: Bella moves to Forks to live with her father, Charlie (who I would love to see really more involved in the storyline in future novels). The clumsy, insecure and awkward teenager enters a new high school and finds that while she was a small fish in a big ocean (in the City), here in Forks she seems exciting to the locals (lots of boys interested). However, while several boys find Bella interesting, there is only one that catches her eye, Edward Cullen. Edward, who initially seems to dislike Bella, proves to be a puzzle to her. He is mysterious, extremely handsome and doesn't come to school when the sun is shining (Forks is normally rainy and cloudy). As she sets out to solve the mystery of Edward, she begins to discover that the Cullen family is not what they seem. Besides being all extremely beautiful, they appear to have a lot of secrets.
So, while Bella works on solving the mystery to her mysterious boyfriend and his family, she is also dealing with the normal perils of teenage life: boys, relationships, dances, proms, divorced parents and clumsiness (she gets hurt all the time).
What I liked about the novel was the tension between her desire to be with Edward forever, and his reluctance to make sure that she remains human. While he has lived 80 years, she is only 17 or 18. (OK, that could bring on a totally different conversation.) He feels that stealing her soul, would amount to fighting all that he and his family have been working for (they have given up human blood and only hunt animals) for the past few decades. Who will ultimately win this battle of wills is what we will have to stay tuned in to see?I can't wait to read New Moon, hopefully it will live up to my expectations.
Book Description
"I am so pleased to have written my first children's book and to have my dear friend Wendell Minor illustrate it. I thought it would be a daunting project, but with six grandchildren and eleven stepgrandchildren, I've been telling stories to children for a long time."
-- Mary Higgins Clark
Thomas loved his summer visits to his grandmother's on Cape Cod. He spent hours wondering about the sailing ships of the past and imagining their stories. He dreamed of being on a sailing ship himself. One afternoon after a night of terrible thunderstorms, Thomas finds, deep in the sand, a weathered, old-fashioned belt buckle. When he picks it up, a boy his own age, Silas Rich, who was a cabin boy on a ship called the Monomoy that sailed almost 250 years ago, appears. Suddenly the world of sailing ships is very near as Silas tells his tale.
Beloved and bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark tells a story of mystery and adventure that will transport readers to a time and place beyond their imaginings in her first book for children. Wendell Minor's inspired paintings make a time long ago very real.
Customer Reviews:
Ghost Ship by Mary Higgins Clark.......2007-07-05
My children enjoyed me reading this story to them. The illustrations are beautiful. I had to explain some of the terms in a little more detail, but the story held their attention. It is nice when you find books that also actually introduce a "real" history of what it was like many years ago.
Another hit for Mary Higgins Clark!.......2007-05-22
Mary Higgins Clark is a wonderful storyteller and it is very evident with this children's book. Being an avid fan, I purchased the book to pass on to my granddaughter when she gets a little older. The illustrations are beautiful too. It will be a pleasure to introduce my granddaughter to Mary Higgins Clark, through her children's books!!
First rate for MHC's First Children's Book.......2007-05-14
I have been a fan of MHC for years. I was delighted with her first children's book especially since it took place where I spent many of my summers over the years. Am passing this book on to younger readers.
Awesome Children's book.......2007-05-12
I have be a fan of this author for years. This book surpassed all my expectations. What superb fiction for young readers! As always she uses her talent to spark the imagination without all the violence and gunplay of the modern world. I look forward to sharing the next with my children, too!
No younger than 4 year olds for this one.......2007-05-12
I read this book to my 4 year old granddaughter, who loves books and is beginning to read now. The book held her interest well, and I loved the illustrations! It was great to be reading her a book that had an actually story, instead of the standard children's books. She loved the story, and in fact, after we read it, she wanted to start playing out her own version of the story...."Grandma! Pretend that you find a belt buckle in the sand, and I appear as the ghost of the boy who was given it to." She really got into being on a ship back in the days of big sailing ships, and had so much fun with it!
I love Mary Higgins Clark's books for myself, and loved being able to read my granddaughter one of her books that was written for children. I hope she'll write more.
Average customer rating:
- Powerful
- One of the best books I've ever read
- A different view.
- Spartan Ethos Alive Again
- 300 Awesome
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Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae
Steven Pressfield
Manufacturer: Bantam
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Thermopylae: The Battle for the West
ASIN: 0553580531
Release Date: 1999-08-31 |
Amazon.com
Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.
Thus reads an ancient stone at Thermopylae in northern Greece, the site of one of the world's greatest battles for freedom. Here, in 480 B.C., on a narrow mountain pass above the crystalline Aegean, 300 Spartan knights and their allies faced the massive forces of Xerxes, King of Persia. From the start, there was no question but that the Spartans would perish. In Gates of Fire, however, Steven Pressfield makes their courageous defense--and eventual extinction--unbearably suspenseful.
In the tradition of Mary Renault, this historical novel unfolds in flashback. Xeo, the sole Spartan survivor of Thermopylae, has been captured by the Persians, and Xerxes himself presses his young captive to reveal how his tiny cohort kept more than 100,000 Persians at bay for a week. Xeo, however, begins at the beginning, when his childhood home in northern Greece was overrun and he escaped to Sparta. There he is drafted into the elite Spartan guard and rigorously schooled in the art of war--an education brutal enough to destroy half the students, but (oddly enough) not without humor: "The more miserable the conditions, the more convulsing the jokes became, or at least that's how it seems," Xeo recalls. His companions in arms are Alexandros, a gentle boy who turns out to be the most courageous of all, and Rooster, an angry, half-Messenian youth.
Pressfield's descriptions of war are breathtaking in their immediacy. They are also meticulously assembled out of physical detail and crisp, uncluttered metaphor:
The forerank of the enemy collapsed immediately as the first shock hit it; the body-length shields seemed to implode rearward, their anchoring spikes rooted slinging from the earth like tent pins in a gale. The forerank archers were literally bowled off their feet, their wall-like shields caving in upon them like fortress redoubts under the assault of the ram.... The valor of the individual Medes was beyond question, but their light hacking blades were harmless as toys; against the massed wall of Spartan armor, they might as well have been defending themselves with reeds or fennel stalks.
Alas, even this human barrier was bound to collapse, as we knew all along it would. "War is work, not mystery," Xeo laments. But Pressfield's epic seems to make the opposite argument: courage on this scale is not merely inspiring but ultimately mysterious. --Marianne Painter
Book Description
The national bestseller!
At Thermopylae, a rocky mountain pass in northern Greece, the feared and admired Spartan soldiers stood three hundred strong. Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against the invading millions of the mighty Persian army.
Day after bloody day they withstood the terrible onslaught, buying time for the Greeks to rally their forces. Born into a cult of spiritual courage, physical endurance, and unmatched battle skill, the Spartans would be remembered for the greatest military stand in history--one that would not end until the rocks were awash with blood, leaving only one gravely injured Spartan squire to tell the tale....
Customer Reviews:
Powerful.......2007-10-01
I don't read much fiction, but a friend of mine bought this book for me. I read it and was impressed by how well written this historical fiction is. Anyone interested in warfare, modern or ancient, should look into this book. Pressfield gives such an authentic account of how Spartans would have acted on a day-to-day basis.
One of the best books I've ever read.......2007-09-25
This book is absolutely amazing. One of the best reads ever. Not only does it describe the battle but it also details the life of a Spartan. I wish 300 was based on the story presented here
A different view........2007-09-21
The story of the 300 is generally limited in scope. "The Spartans had 300 guys who fought to the death to keep the Persians out."
Pressfield gives us the background. He tells us about the politics, the geopolitics, the war, the characters such as Leonidas and his wife. He has vignettes in the words of Spartan warriors.
With Pressfield, we can see the stand of the 300 in its place. I was reminded of something the aviator/writer Wolfgang Langweische said half a century ago. Boulder Dam, he said, is enormous. But when you fly over it, it's in its proper place, like a child jamming a pebble in the narrowest part of a trickle of water. Which, when you think about it, is what is supposed to happen.
Circumstances conspired to put 300 Spartans and several hundred of their tough allies in a tiny mountain pass. They were the pebble, but instead of blocking a trickle, they were trying to hold back a torrent.
Pressfield has Leonidas say that the performance of the Spartans in killing Persians should be such that, although victorious, the Persians will quail at seeing a battle line containing not 300 Spartan shields, but six thousand.
Pressfield gives us glimpses of training new soldiers and the field work of the experienced soldiers. His characters refer to the more or less normal fights between the city states, with enough detail and immediacy to put the reader into the fight.
We learn a lot about classical Greek combat.
It's a fabulous story. The stand of the 300 was very likely one of the few battles which could be said to have preserved the West, matched with Tours and Lepanto.
And yet. And yet. Pressfield has the Spartans nearly as philosopher kings. See, instead, Hanson's "Soul of Battle". The Spartan society was a vicious, fascist slave empire. It was as if a couple of Waffen SS divisions had found themselves a big, fertile valley in the Ukraine someplace and missed the end of WW II, being left untouched and unknown by the outside world.
The demands of war and the bonding of the combat units, in addition to the classical Greek view of man-love, required the distortion of the family and the degradation of women. The necessity of keeping the helots in thrall required routine terror and, indeed, the young Spartan was used to execute those serfs whose deaths might be a salutary lesson, just in case, as a way of blooding the youth for combat.
Vlad the Impaler fought the Turks in Southeast Europe and to him, unfortunately, we owe a bit of our existence. The same is true for the Spartans. It's too bad we couldn't get this lesson of courage and honor from, say, the democracy of Athens. It appears that some of the doomed allies of the Spartans who stood with them, and died alike, came from somewhat more acceptable polities. But they didn't get the ink.
Nevertheless, it's a fascinating book which actually is one of those examples of the cliche about not being able to put it down.
Spartan Ethos Alive Again.......2007-09-17
This is one of the best historical fictions I have ever encountered--certainly one of the best evocations of ancient warfare. Without the benefit of personal experience of either subject, ancient warfare or warfare of any kind, I would also guess that this novel is one of the most insightful anaylses of the psychology of combat. This book is an impressive achievement of the imagination. Steven Pressfield has re-discovered or re-created the Spartan ethos in terms of what it surely was in its time--a spiritual force. And he does it without disguising it origins in a slave revolt and a deliberate policy to crush the resistance of its Helot population. From those ugly and life-denying origins, a way of life--an ethic of sorts and a vision of essentials--emerged and took on a life of its own. Appropriately, this novel is about personal transformations under the aegis of that way of life.
300 Awesome.......2007-09-10
I saw the movie first. I didn't know what it was, but the movie rocked in a non plot having, CGI heavy metal, yelling and fighting sort of way. I longed for more and after searching Amazon and reading the reviews of the movie and the comic book it was based on I discovered the Gates of Fire. I could hardly put the book down. It is very detailed and it takes its sweet time setting the stage. The actual battle itself is probably by far the shortest portion of the entire book, but once you get to the battle you understand so much about the Spartan Culture, Warrior Ethos, History and more. I highly reccomend this book and after reading it almost wish it were made into a movie, but the movie would have to be about three hours long and I don't think the world needs anymore three hour long movies!
Average customer rating:
- One side of the American Dream
- A great book that is hard to stomach, but pass the salt
- Too explicit for my tastes, that's saying something.
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the 80's
- Gross outs from a flat dimension
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American Psycho
Bret Easton Ellis
Manufacturer: Vintage
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0679735771
Release Date: 1991-03-06 |
Book Description
Now a major motion picture from Lion's Gate Films starring Christian Bale (
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In
American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis imaginatively explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other. Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.
Customer Reviews:
One side of the American Dream.......2007-09-22
American Psycho is easily the most graphic and disturbing novel I've ever read, not to mention a brilliant satirical romp.
The beauty of this novel is how Ellis immerses the reader into the setting, a business-frenzied Manhattan of the 1980's. This is a character study that elucidates the shallow and incorporeal existence of an elite New York businessman, Patrick Bateman, who attempts to fill this void by surrounding himself with expensive wears, eating at only the best restaurants, and killing people; mostly women. The latter was the catalyzing factor (aside from the lack of satirical imagination in Feminists) of why American Psycho was met with such strident criticism. Given the idea that the first murder does not take place until well after the first 100 pages should have been ample evidence to Feminists and Humanitarians that the book is not just a catalog of arbitrary violence.
From the get-go, the story follows Pat Bateman as he vaults from one high-class social situation to another, getting air-kisses from his almost equally shallow fiancé and checking his perfect hair and chiseled features in any reflective material available. One thing that I found repetitious, but ultimately essential to the plot, was Bateman's scrutiny of his peer's clothing; a Valentino Couture suit here, a Matsuda blouse there. Another aspect of Bateman's character (in the book and the movie), one that I find to be the most hilarious, is the way he panics when some external and completely trivial situation poses a threat to his inherent perfection: "I am certain that we will not have a good table, but we do... relief washes over me in an awesome wave."
It's apparent that Ellis wanted to exemplify the degree of apathy held by these so-called 'Masters of the Universe.' Women are referred to as 'hardbodies,' the style of business card font and color is indicative of class and ranking, and reservations at the most exclusive of restaurants are seen as the same. One subtlety that is picked up on with a close reading is how all of these New York elites are clones of one another. Not one character can remember who Jack is from Sam. This story also harbors one of my favorite quotes: "Where do you Summer?" A hilarious dichotomy occurs during an extravagant dinner (complete with sorbet, never ice cream) when these Free-Market Capitalists are conversing about massacres in Sri Lanka and how social concern needs to stand against racial bigotry, all the while the word 'nigger' is used liberally by the same characters.
As the plot progresses, Patrick slips further and further into insanity. This is creatively articulated with monologs that comprise half if not most of the book. Bateman is the type of guy whose anger can be set off by anything. The murder scenes, unlike the ones in the movie, are easily x-rated and were hard for even me to stomach. I think Ellis found this imperative in this, his most relentless attack against rich, unsympathetic yuppies.
Between the book and the movie, I found that both have their strengths and their weaknesses. The music reviews (Phil Collins, Huey Luis, etc.) that Bateman meticulously narrates are character-driven and often funny, but hold not a candle to the amount of hilarity and style as that of Christian Bale articulating to a pair of escort girls; or Paul Allen. Where the book is more descriptive and transcendental, the movie is more goofy and amusing. I think Ellis spent a little too much time and effort stressing how completely callous the rich can be at times and could have cut a number of paragraphs out of the book. That said, this is definitely a story that needed to be told.
A great book that is hard to stomach, but pass the salt.......2007-09-07
"American Psycho" is a savage vivisection of society and relationships as portrayed through the depraved exploits of Patrick Bateman. Bateman flourishes in the yuppie-driven mores of the 80's. His wealth and intelligence are the facilities of his deranged obsessions and evil compulsions. Rather than satisfy the blood-lust, Bateman's oblivious victims stoke and embolden his psychotic frenzy.
"American Psycho" is extraordinarily graphic. Sex and violence imagery explode from the pages with Bateman-like fury. However, it is the duality of the character that is truly unnerving. Bateman can be charming, can be ruthless, can be generous, can be vicious, can be insightful, can be shallow, can be elegant, can be disgusting. Bateman's character attracts you with his panache and repulses you with his horrific offensives. It is an emotionally disturbing journey where sanity has no compass.
Ultimately it is clear this Bret Ellis novel transcends time and place. It is an expose of the human condition and how it can be exploited, deceived and imperiled.
Too explicit for my tastes, that's saying something........2007-09-06
I came to this book after thoroughly enjoying the movie adaptation; fantastic movie. In this case I found the book to be a little tedius and quite explicit, at times. I like to consider myself just as decensitized to violence as any North American in the 21st century, but the amount of gruesome detail Mr. Ellis goes into, is too much for tastes.
2.5 STARS
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the 80's.......2007-09-03
I know this is a satire.
I know this is supposed to be making a point.
I know that the main character is as sad, yuppie who lives for working out, getting laid, having the best stereo system and, oh yeah, one other thing, killing people in the most sick and sadistic ways.
That being said, I really liked the character but I disliked the style.
Patrick Bateman, our lead, is a homicidal maniac who is a day trader by day and by night he is a coke sniffing, club hopping, music lover who gets off on sleeping around and killing people. To top it all off, this all happens at ground zero of the yuppie era, New York City. This alone would make the book interesting, but Ellis takes it one step further in writing the book in an almost stream of consciousness style. Not only do you know what Patrick is thinking about during conversations with his victims, but you also get a sense of who he is and what makes him tick and what makes him explode.
The character is so well written that he could be real. He is supposed to be the stereotypical yuppie, but it goes beyond that. We get a sense of Patrick with all of his weaknesses, his likes, his intelligence and his lack there of. I literally found myself laughing at some of the things he said and thought and agreeing with him at other times. That is how good the character is written.
That all said, I found the writing style difficult to follow and that is why I gave it only 3 stars. The fact that 1 1/2 pages per chapter at times would be dedicated to what everyone was wearing made for tiresome reading. I know that we are looking into the mind of someone who could stand to take some real strong medication (stronger than what was available in the 80's) but I found that it took away from some of my enjoyment.
If you are a fan of books like Fight Club you should like this book.
Gross outs from a flat dimension.......2007-08-25
I would be willing to accept the defense that Ellis's quickie squib is in fact a satire of consumerism, a literary bit of photo realism if there was compelling art here. There isn't, however, and the defense falls apart. Ellis writes as if he had to submit this against a deadline, and he'd wasted his considerable lead time by living off his hefty advance. Ellis does a good job of diagnosing the narcissism of the eighties, but that by itself does nothing for either our understanding or empathy.
Amazon.com
Had The Blair Witch Project been a book instead of a film, and had it been written by, say, Nabokov at his most playful, revised by Stephen King at his most cerebral, and typeset by the futurist editors of Blast at their most avant-garde, the result might have been something like House of Leaves. Mark Z. Danielewski's first novel has a lot going on: notably the discovery of a pseudoacademic monograph called The Navidson Record, written by a blind man named Zampanò, about a nonexistent documentary film--which itself is about a photojournalist who finds a house that has supernatural, surreal qualities. (The inner dimensions, for example, are measurably larger than the outer ones.) In addition to this Russian-doll layering of narrators, Danielewski packs in poems, scientific lists, collages, Polaroids, appendices of fake correspondence and "various quotes," single lines of prose placed any which way on the page, crossed-out passages, and so on.
Now that we've reached the post-postmodern era, presumably there's nobody left who needs liberating from the strictures of conventional fiction. So apart from its narrative high jinks, what does House of Leaves have to offer? According to Johnny Truant, the tattoo-shop apprentice who discovers Zampanò's work, once you read The Navidson Record,
For some reason, you will no longer be the person you believed you once were. You'll detect slow and subtle shifts going on all around you, more importantly shifts in you. Worse, you'll realize it's always been shifting, like a shimmer of sorts, a vast shimmer, only dark like a room. But you won't understand why or how.
We'll have to take his word for it, however. As it's presented here, the description of the spooky film isn't continuous enough to have much scare power. Instead, we're pulled back into Johnny Truant's world through his footnotes, which he uses to discharge everything in his head, including the discovery of the manuscript, his encounters with people who knew Zampanò, and his own battles with drugs, sex, ennui, and a vague evil force. If The Navidson Record is a mad professor lecturing on the supernatural with rational-seeming conviction, Truant's footnotes are the manic student in the back of the auditorium, wigged out and furiously scribbling whoa-dude notes about life.
Despite his flaws, Truant is an appealingly earnest amateur editor--finding translators, tracking down sources, pointing out incongruities. Danielewski takes an academic's--or ex-academic's--glee in footnotes (the similarity to David Foster Wallace is almost too obvious to mention), as well as other bogus ivory-tower trappings such as interviews with celebrity scholars like Camille Paglia and Harold Bloom. And he stuffs highbrow and pop-culture references (and parodies) into the novel with the enthusiasm of an anarchist filling a pipe bomb with bits of junk metal. House of Leaves may not be the prettiest or most coherent collection, but if you're trying to blow stuff up, who cares? --John Ponyicsanyi
Book Description
Years ago, when
House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.
Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices.
The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.
Customer Reviews:
Don't get drawn in by the hyped up reviews.......2007-09-29
I really wanted to like this novel. I paid about $20 for it. To the author's credit, it's certainly an ambitious novel, perhaps the most ambitious novel I've read for this decade. Perhaps part of the problem comes from Danielewski trying way too hard to come up with something creative and unique.
However, footnotes and the unusual way the words are actually arranged on the paper hardly make it beautifully written or even literary (it just wastes about a hundred pages of paper per printed copy, and that means that ultimately you're not paying an extra five dollars for more words, just black spaces). The fact that it is incoherent doesn't make it artistic.
While the story begins with an interesting concept, the storytelling (and I use that term somewhat loosely) is so detached that I don't really care who lives or dies. In fact, about halfway through the book I'm actually hoping that Danielewski will finish some of the characters off, just to get them out of the way (and maybe cut the book down some 200 pages). The entire book is very dreary without being intellectual, which leaves one feeling depressed but not frightened, and the book's portrayal of a spiral into madness isn't believable or engrossing.
The awed reviews this novel reeled in did not prepare me for 700 pages of wasted ink and paper. Maybe at the hands of a different writer this book might have something else. As it is, this might just be the most awful book I've ever read.
My favorite book!.......2007-09-23
Eeek! I love this book soooo much! It's splendidly artistic...literarially and visually. It is a labyrinth of a read, but it is so worth it. I feel like this is a great book for avid readers, but also for people who don't read as well. By that, I mean that I think it is good for people who like crazy movies like Vanilla Sky or any David Fincher films....if you read it, you'll know what I mean.
I love this book.......2007-09-10
Really, I love this book. It is not the scariest book I've ever read because I was broken as a child of the habit of being scared by movies and books and such. I watched and read too much so I can't judge the scariness. All I know is that I love this book. No monsters, ghosts, ghouls, murderers, none of that, just a house. Thats all. For those of you who do scare I imagine that what is contained in this book might scare you. This is an innovative horror tale. I love it.
A Book of Many Distortions.......2007-08-12
Have you ever held a vial of mercury? Do you remember your surprise that first time? Your surprise to find the weight your eyes had told your hands to expect was a lie? This is the experience that often comes to mind when finding myself again holding this book... each time I find myself tempted to once again wander the halls within the House of Leaves.
This book is heavy, much more physically weighty than eyes say it should be. Whether this was intentionally crafted by the creators, or if this is only a residual psychosomatic phenomenon as a result of having read the book, I couldn't say. Both are plausible. Because of how much work was put into distorting this book, I suspect the former cause.
If so, this is only the first of a great many intended distortions. "House of Leaves" is a work of art that appears to be a book, and draws heavily from the genre of literature. It then adds from much more experimental fields to create a specific effect, while simultaneously telling multiple stories. The end result (at first glance) could be mistaken as "just some book." This sensory illusion quickly falls apart shortly into the reading.
Mercury. The reason such a small quantity is so heavy, of course, is due to density. There is simply more matter contained in the occupied space than past experiences have prepared your mind to expect. This darkness, density and weight is the intended effect behind "House of Leaves." The family at the core of this story, trained by experience to expect time and space to operate in only one way, first meet with this darkness upon the discovery that their house is larger on the inside than outside of it.
To briefly cover the introduction, the days following this discovery were barely captured, and only on some home video footage and notes. Zampano, who pieced this all together with tape, ink and every available writing surface, called this "The Navidson Record." Johnny Truant, who took the dead Zampano's notes from the apartment of the deceased, claims that this record is a lie. Both, however, realize that the truth or falsity of this record does not affect the story's telling.
What follows is The Navidson Record, detailing these last days, with footnotes from Zampano, Johnny Truant and The Editors. As previously stated, it is not long until... well... things fall apart. The family, the minds of those who passed on the notes, and the book itself.
If you've not yet read "House of Leaves," something inside me wants to tell you "this book is for you" and "put aside everything else 'til you've read it." The more honest part of me--the part that's been stirred to raw emotions at only the thought of this book, and can open to nearly any page to feel my eyes tear up--wants to let you know that, should you finish it, this book will not leave you as the same person you were before entering the House of Leaves; that, here, there is no forgiveness, no salvation, nor yellow-brick road; that, within these pages is a creature of shadow, and that this darkness adapts to you--the reader--the more you read.
To those readers strong in spirit, who seek that rare strength found only in facing an even stronger fear: "Seek ye, in the House of Leaves, a forge to form or break your spirit." To all else: "Seek ye, elsewhere, your salvation."
who now, here, ~ has walked the halls ~ that wind within ~ the House of Leaves?
Modern "Moby Dick".......2007-08-08
I'll begin by trying to expose what this book is "about". A family moves in to a house in Virginia. Because the father of this family is a photographer and film-maker, he decides to put cameras everywhere for a real-life experience sort of thing. Then strange things happen. The house is apparently bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Then there's even a new door opening on the sheer unknown. I'll say no more on this, but eventually, Navidson, the father, edits all this into a movie. Later on, a man named Zamapanò writes "House of Leaves" which is about this documentary-film made by Navidson. Then, that document is found by Johnny Truant, who introduces the book and writes notes for it. And much more.
So basically what you get is 2 stories: the Navidson story with the house and its numinous mystery, and the Johnny Truant autobiographical parts. Of course, all of these are characters, and don't be fooled by the book description in the jacket or by the "second edition" because both of these are part of the story, not of our "reality".
For most of the book, I really thought it was incredibly good. There's a lot of good "horror" styled elements, and as an academic, I found it quite amusing all the play on footnotes and references to both real and bogus books and authors. If you're a lit student, you'll get some fun from those parts.
I personally preferred the Navidson story per se than the Truant stuff, though that is good too; but I just found myself sighing every time one of his giant footnotes came up. It's hard to give a well-balanced opinion on this novel. It's definitely an intriguing read and there are excellent things by the tonload, but you do get confused in some parts, namely the Truant stuff, where you don't really know what's happening, which I guess is intentional and part of the whole "going crazy in meaninglessness" deal.
It's greatly written, though, and it's certainly thought-provoking in more ways than one. At first I was afraid this novel would be nonsense upon nonsense, but it wasn't so. Be unafraid, it's absolutely readable; yet there are parts which are trickier, but you won't fail to note they were meant to be so. Up until page 500 or beyond, I forget, I thought that this was genius work, and I still think that it is. My only negative feedback is the following.
I think it was a daunting task to give that novel a proper ending, and in some ways, I think it didn't work here. In fact, and that may save the novel in my eyes, there's not really an ending. I mean, there definitely IS, don't get me wrong, there is an ending, but it's not all that satisfying, and I don't mean to say too much about it. There are many ends to this, I guess, and like a labyrinth, which it is written to look like, there's not really an end ever.
"House of Leaves" is probably this century's - or the past one's - "Moby Dick". It has the same experimental taste, albeit a century and a half later, and it seeks the impossible White Whale too. I can't say "numinous" enough when talking about this, or that, novel. And if you don't know that word "get thee to your OED" because that's one important word.
So, to sum up, this is an excellent book and certainly something you've never quite experienced before.
Average customer rating:
- Graphic SF Reader
- I love zombies!!!
- wow
- good quick read
- Zombies + Marvel Guys = Fun
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Marvel Zombies
Robert Kirkman
Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover Comic
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Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness
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Civil War (Marvel Comics)
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ASIN: 078512277X |
Book Description
Torn from the pages of Ultimate Fantastic Four! On an Earth shockingly similar to the Marvel Universe's, an alien virus has mutated all of the world's greatest super heroes into flesh-eating monsters! It took them only hours to destroy life as we know it - but what happens when they run out of humans to eat?! Follow their search for more food, and witness the arrival of the Silver Surfer! Collects Marvel Zombies #1-5.
Customer Reviews:
Graphic SF Reader.......2007-09-25
This is a completely ludicrous story, but, still fun. Turn all the heroes in the Marvel Universe into zombies, and have them go down and track down and eat the few holdouts, survivors, and others, including people like Magneto.
Then, once they have eaten everyone, maybe they can find some other really big otherworldly food sources.
The title itself, is, of course, self-parody.
I love zombies!!!.......2007-09-22
This is one of the best graphic novels I've read in a long time!Robert Kirkman was born to write zombie stories.I dont think this is as good as the walking dead but it still a wonderful read.My only complaint is that I thought this story should've been a little longer.I bet i finished this book in a half an hour tops.The art is pretty solid and stay with the story I have to give marvel credit for not holding back on the gore!
wow.......2007-09-21
This is great stuff. If you liked it, too, you'll love The Zen of Zombie, which just came out. Great illustrations and hilarious text.
good quick read.......2007-09-14
this book being a comic collect, was fast and fun, but i cant help be feel that more of the story from before the time line of this book should have been included... if you like zombie stuff, or super heros, (and who doesnt?) this will be a good read... oh, and the art is great too!!
Zombies + Marvel Guys = Fun.......2007-08-18
Just a bit of silliness really. A must have for zombie lovers and marvel fans.
I can't wait for the rest of the "Zombies" books to come out in hardback.
Average customer rating:
- Couldn't put it down
- 5 stars
- Much better then Glass Houses
- 4.5 stars. Leaves a lot of threads dangling.
- Vampires Rule
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The Dead Girls' Dance (The Morganville Vampires, Book 2)
Rachel Caine
Manufacturer: Signet
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Binding: Paperback
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Q: Were you a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Angel? What are you watching now that those shows are off the air?
