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1.The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by: Junot Díaz September 02, 2008
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $14.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $8.40 You Save: $5.60 (40%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $7.50
Junot Diaz hammered the nail right on the Dominican head in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. A curse that was born out of love and fear, that follows a family for generations, and ends with tragedy kept me glued to this book (and away from my homework unfortunately). For those who don't like to read subtext (as there are a lot in this book) I'd recommend that you read through it anyways, as the author adds a lot to the background story. Overall, it was well worth the 3 days of reading.

2.Then We Came to the End: A Novel by: Joshua Ferris February 26, 2008
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $13.99 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $11.19 You Save: $2.80 (20%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $2.89
Very rarely does a book inspire me to laugh out loud, much less gasp or start tearing up. This book did all of that (which led to some embarrassing moments on the train) and more. I read it several months ago and still think about it at least once a day - although I do work in an office in Chicago that is facing layoffs, so the parallels are undeniable. But I don't want to sell Ferris short - the book would be brilliant even if it didn't resonate with my real life. The book's real triumph for me (and perhaps the reason some people are so put off by it) is that so much happens by inference, subtext, and implication. With the single (startling, unexpected, heartbreaking) exception, we never really get inside the perspective of the characters. We see their actions, listen to their words, ... Read More

3.The Savage Detectives: A Novel by: Roberto Bolano March 04, 2008
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $15.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $10.20 You Save: $4.80 (32%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $8.85
The book is very well written, but I just kept asking myself what was the point of 500+ well-written pages about characters that I found to be fairly cliche, and not a lot happens. In other words, I found the overall book to be just self indulgent: "here - look how well I can write about nothing in particular!". Full disclosure: I grew up in Brazil and mostly studied there, so the characters in this book felt a lot like the middle class marxists that I met in high school and college. Maybe if you're meeting these characters for the first time through the book they'll be more interesting.

4.Out Stealing Horses: A Novel by: Per Petterson April 29, 2008
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $14.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $11.20 You Save: $2.80 (20%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $7.71
I don't read as much as I would like and that is usually my fault. Sometimes it is the book's fault for not pulling me in. This one had no trouble and the sparse prose is perfectly descriptive of the state of mind of both the man and boy in this novel. I felt I could almost smell the air in the book with barely a word to describe it, but somehow it comes across. The writing is simple yet leaves you touched by this character's experience. It is like wandering into a room you used to inhabit as a child. You can pinpoint the exact smell but something pulls a flood of emotion back into your consciousness that has been lost somewhere. This book feels like that throughout and is one of the best books I have read since "East of Eden". Like life, it is neither happy nor sad, but simply is what we make of it.

5.The Gathering (Man Booker Prize) by: Anne Enright September 10, 2007
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $14.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $11.20 You Save: $2.80 (20%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $1.84
`The Gathering' happens because Liam Hegarty dies suddenly. Through the words of his beloved sister Veronica who collects his body and organizes the funeral, we learn the tale of the Hegarty family and a terrible secret from the distant past which she shares with Liam. Collecting her thoughts, feelings and memories hopping through three generations I suppose reflects an intrinsic quality, a certain originality in this novel, but it still did not satisfy me. The display of thoughts and situations that flow and scatter chasing each other in almost every page is often too disjointed for my liking. This probably conveys Veronica's pain and state of mind in an authentic way -facing the irreversible past and struggling with grief, seeking redemption- but I found that past and present interchanging ... Read More

6.Bridge of Sighs: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries) by: Richard Russo August 12, 2008
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $14.95 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $10.17 You Save: $4.78 (32%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $5.98
As a Richard Russo fan (I've read everything he's written), I was dumbfounded by this book at times. Unlike Empire Falls, the Bridge of Sighs takes long, rambling detours through story and emotion. I found myself at times saying, "Okay, already. Get on with it." I also found myself absolutely intrigued by Russo's descriptions of the characters' interior lives and his incisive connections between the seemingly disconnected and mundane goings on in everyone's lives. I finished the book a week ago but I'm still haunted. An amazing book. Russo keeps the reader on his toes by going from first-person present tense, first-person past tense, third-person present tense, and third-person past tense. And he intertwines them closely enough at times that I had to stop and think about ... Read More

7.Man Gone Down: A Novel by: Michael Thomas December 07, 2006
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $14.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $6.49 You Save: $7.51 (54%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $4.65
I started "Man Gone Down" with high hopes. The plot sounded interesting. The book started off good, but went downhill. Boring. There were moments here and there where things seemed like they would pick up, but didn't. As a whole, this book did not hold my interest.

8.The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by: Jeffrey Toobin September 09, 2008
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $15.95 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $10.85 You Save: $5.10 (32%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $9.24
As only Jeffrey Toobin can do, he paints a deep and rich picture of the inner sanctum of the Supreme Court.

9.Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by: Tim Weiner May 20, 2008
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $16.95 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $11.53 You Save: $5.42 (32%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $9.99
Well having an interest history and how we held the soviets back I bought the book and audio cd of Legacy OF Ashes. I though listened and read carefully and after taking in the entire book I am left with a bad taste.....the book really gives very little positive's to the fellows who really had little or no idea how to be spys etc. other than the fact that they were brave enough to give it go! The book really attacks them all as being fools who couldn't shoot straight and so on and frankly that is not correct. My suggestion would be to read some of the other books out there on the CIA and really see how hard it was to foil the soviets as they were brutal and vilolent and we as Americans really didnt know how to deal with what we know now and they new then as EVIL!!!! The agents for Russia stopped ... Read More

10.The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by: Alex Ross October 14, 2008
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $18.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $12.24 You Save: $5.76 (32%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $11.37
If you have to write a paper on this so-called music, this book might be useful, but other than that the author tries to find meaning when there is nothing there to find. The "music" he writes about is painful to the ears, the book is painful to the eyes.

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