HOLOGRAM FOR A KING (07/14/2012)

                                    

Goodreads is a free website for readers and book lovers. You can read reviews, get book ratings, see what friends are reading and actually organize your books into virtual bookshelves

Barbara A, a friend on Goodreads wrote this review of HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING, a new book by by Dave Eggers. I thought it was worth posting.



Barbara wrote:

First things first: I love Dave Eggers's work and admire all that he has done as a writer, publisher, public intellectual, social commentator, brother, savior, and believer in the the power of books.

I also loved the physical book itself. Holding the beautifully textured linen cover of 'Hologram' was great. Incised and dusted with gold, its feel was a tactile pleasure not often found in today's reading universe, and it was a marvelously apt visual image for the story within.

To Order Click on Amazon Search Box

Ah, but the story within: an admixture of Scherazade ; Waiting for Godot; Death of a Salesman; Lost Horizon; Moby Dick; and the biblical stories of Jonah and Job---with a little Emerson, Thoreau and Michael Moore thrown in just to round things out. Dizzy yet?

Maybe it's the endless heat of Saudi Arabia, maybe it's the spinning of Eggers's endlessly creative mind, or maybe it's just too much. For much, much better Eggers, read anything, and everything, else he has written.

About the Author

Dave Eggers is the bestselling author of Zeltouin, winner of the American Book Award and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He was born in Boston, Ma. and is the author of the memoir A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS. Eggers is known for his most recent work as a screenwriter. He currently lives in San Francisco.


The Book Review Section of the New York Times on Sunday, July 15th features an interesting Q and A with Eggers.
Also check out the review in the July 22nd edition.






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MUST READ LIST/ NO MORE ANGST! 1/16/2012

   ENOUGH DIVERSION...ENTERING THE UNKNOWN

I need a break! I've endured The Grief of Others and am looking for A Sense of an Ending. I'm approaching A State of Wonder and am ready for the Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgiveness.

In other words, the following recommendations are definitly going to be humorous fiction bestsellers. The reviews have been outstanding, the authors are well loved and it's time for some fun...or rum....whatever....

Hope: a Tragedy by Shalom Auslander

I  usually trust NPR and their review of this book leads me to believe they are totally off base or absolutely on target. Hope makes light of genocide and is a novel with a Jewish theme (See what i mean?) One of my readers called it "side-splitingly funny and irreverant." I personally like irreverance and being a Woody Allen fan, I can relate to Jewish guilt and would find meeting a foul mouthed Anne Frank a great adventure!

She's in this book...what a trip!!!


Lunatics by Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel

I always appreciate a Pulitzer Prize winning humorist and have been a follower of Dave Barry for years. His humor never fails to amuse. Alan Zweibel is one of the original Saturday Night Live writers and the winner of multiple emmys and literary prizes.

Lunatics is a comic novel, a collaboration between humorists dealing with ordinary characters placed in implausible but not impossible situations. Reviewers have labeled the humor explicit, sometimes crude, sometimes outlandish, sometimes a little sophomoric, but always great fun.

Thinking Spring...

A blog reader from Albany New York recommended this handsome, lavishly illustrated book published by the American Horticultural Society aptly titled A to Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants.

This is more than just a plant guide, it's a reference for the novice gardener as well as the  more experienced. Included are sections about basic gardening techniques, mulching, pruning and an unsurpassed wealth of botanical and practical information.

Not a gardener? Enhance your coffee table!

I HAVE INVITED GUEST REVIEWER AC, A STEPHEN KING FAN, AND

INTREPID READER TO REVIEW  11/22/63, KING'S LATEST TOME.

AC, LIVES IN BOSTON AND IS A LONG TIME KING FAN. AC IS ALSO

A TALENTED WRITER, SO ENJOY HIS REVIEW BELOW.

Being an adrenaline junkie helps as I am almost always on the scariest roller coaster ride when reading a King novel like “Full Dark, No Stars” but it is the ease with which Stephen King develops characters and plot that I so highly recommend 11/22/63. I was interested in the characters from the moment of their introduction, wondering how they were connected to the plot of thwarting the assignation of President Kennedy.  11/22/63 could easily have been some hokey, sci-fi account of what modern America would be like if Kennedy had lived but instead, King delivers a fact-filled read, a journey that I hoped wouldn’t end.  I could have stayed with King’s characters in early 1960’s Texas and been perfectly content.  I thought the ending was beautifully done.  Fasten your seat belt and read 11/22/63.