Rating: 
Summary: Better Than Any Motivational Speaker or Self-Help Book
Review: An inspiring story of how following one's own curiosity or passion can profoundly affect your own -- and perhaps other's -- life. Proof you don't need to be overtly qualified to make a difference in this world. Just committed.
Rating: 
Summary: A writer raves about READER
Review: I first read about Stone Reader in the newspaper, right after it had won Best Feature film at the Slamdance Festival. I couldn't imagine how someone might make a documentary about a book he'd read as a teenager, so out of sheer curiosity, I went to my local bookstore and bought the DVD.
Every book-lover should see this film-and in particular, everyone who has ever written a book should see this film. Stone Reader, which follows director Mark Moskowitz on his geographically diverse, emotionally persistent journey to find the long-lost author of a 1972 novel, is a compelling ode to literature. The novel, THE STONES OF SUMMER, by Dow Mossman, met with some critical acclaim when it was published, but never saw a second printing and was quickly forgotten. But not, happily, by Moskowitz, whose beautiful film gave me a glimpse into the emotional price of giftedness and underscored the uncertainties that are inevitable in every writer's life.
I have seen other films about books and those who write them, but it's Moskowitz's integrity as a book-lover, his tenacious search for the reclusive author of one that changed his life, which made this film a rare and wonderful experience. As a writer about to have her first novel published, the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Mossman was eerie and yet, sadly, believable. All writers, to some degree, must traffic between two worlds-the real one and the imaginary one-and yet there remains an invisible chasm wherein many of the more gifted novelists and poets seem to fall. Moskowitz, out of a pure love for one man's lyric imagination, has resurrected a single casualty and I, for one, have been enriched.Jen Bryant-poet, children's author
Uwchland, PA
Rating: 
Summary: A romantic fantasy for mature souls.
Review: A director deals with his gay feelings for a writer in a repressive social/class system. This warm, wonderful film taps into the universal emotional drives for family, longing and a place to call home.
Rating:
Summary: like 'the odyssey" for a lost classic book
Review: I've read every review and if provoking passion is a true test of art, then stone reader surely has its merits. director mark moscowitz embarks in search of a one and done shooting star of an author who has vanished, but winds up using his odyssey as an allegory for man's search for direction and meaning. Stone Reader takes us into the fact -is -stranger-than-fiction world of publishing and introduces us to fascinating characters surrounding the book trade of the seventies. the lost author, dow mossman, remains a fictive ghost throughout the film as character after character reveal their love for literature as well as their ignorance of the brilliant book that spawned the director's amazing journey. the director's mother turns in an oscar-caliber performance as the voice of reason in the zany world of author-sleuthing.
if you ever loved a book, from harold and the purple crayon to the great gatsby, you must see this film. and the dvd is loaded with great extras (3 discs!).
Rating: 
Summary: * for the film, ** for the book
Review: Caught the programme on this book on BBC4 in Dalkey, sentimental rubbish, to be sure. Director /narrator, a speed reader, acted as if books are personal trophies. Most of us rush along while we read, eager to turn the page, conditioned to move in life as relentlessly as factory workers with a drone ethic. But the best readers are not stone readers. The best readers are the slowest. Speed reading, an American invention, turns out to be skimming, which is not reading at all. The book turns out to be unreadable rubbish. I give it two *s because it makes a great doorstop.
Rating:
Summary: Reminds me of Patricia Highsmith
Review: I am grateful for the insights of the reviewer from Concord, Mass.. I too was struck by the subtle gay subplot. Director Mark Moskowitz did a fantastic job of disguising this and not making it subsume the film.
Rating:
Summary: Ingenious Tracking of a Genius
Review: Stones of Summer has become a part of my understanding of the past as well as the present. I stayed up late to finish the book, but the next morning I was searching the internet to find out about the author. Fortunately, someone else had already been there and done that. This is his story. The journey to find Dow Mossman is intriguing, for it is a story in itself: the story of what happens to a great book, or what doesn't happen in this case. It is a fitting tribute to a brilliant young man who gave everything he had to interpret the senselessness of living.
Rating:
Summary: This is the best ...
Review: This is the best personal documentary about the mysterious art of writing that I have ever seen. Movies always have a hard time with this subject. They usually do something like Omar Sharif does in "Doctor Zhivago" -- take a sheet of paper, look mistily out a window and write down a copy perfect poem, never to be revised. "Stone Reader" goes through all the twists and turns and talks to an incredible range of people -- from critics to teachers and colleagues at the Iowa Writers Workshop and finally to the reclusive writer himself. I'd highly recommend it.
Jon Anderson
Chicago Tribune
Rating:
Summary: Stone Reader special edition review
Review: This film is a must see for any fan of literature or of film. Not only did Mark Moskowitz manage to pull off an absolutely fantastic first documentary film, he also managed to dig up and help re-establish a lost American literary genius - Dow Mossman. Buy the movie and buy the book.
Rating:
Summary: see it
Review: this is one of my favorite movies, wonderful, moving, made me want to read again
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