Rating: 
Summary: painfully necessary
Review: This book is a deeply moving story of one man's struggle with mental illness. It's more than a "why things are" tale; one of the few that answers the question "so?" Pirsig teaches us a calm acceptance of taking things one day at a time. I recommend reading this book every couple of years. Modern-day Hesse but more realistic.
Rating:
Summary: America in its most attractive form
Review: First I realized more than ever before travelling through America like Pirsig did,is really attractive.(I'm a European: Belgium) Then I got that terrible motor-cycling passion. And finally I discovered the astonishing quest of a man desperately searching for foundations in life. This book tells different stories. A trip trough America that comes so much more.
Rating: 
Summary: An invitation to an opening mind
Review: My favorite excerpts available at Z.M.M. is a deep and impressive work which has sold millions of copies and stayed in print in many languages for over twenty years. I recently read it for the first time. It was good to wait until I was ready for it. I am not sure I can recommend the book, but I am glad I experienced it. Mr. Pirsig presents the story of his search for the roots of deep philosophical views and his exploration of the branches of those views, from which branches hang all of the results Western civilization, not the least of which are universities, motorcycles, and mental hospitals. The philosophic system he proposes is to my knowledge unique and original, as well as marvelously free of endorsements or adherents. I am very interested in exploring how the models or paradigms in which all of us live lead to action. I did not explore Z.M.M. with a purpose of determining whether his system is true or even useful. I just like to know what the world looks like inside other people's heads. The world from inside his head looks wondrously intricate and interconnected, a world in which a man's motorcycle maintenance methods are determined by the intellectual in-fighting of ancient Greek philosophers. He is generous in the detail with which he shares pieces of his fertile and facile mind. The life he describes strikes me as sad and lonely, filled with failure and lacking in purpose. Measuring it against the three tenets of MayoGenuine (be genuine, be learning, be transitive) is illuminating. His great strength is his genuineness. He is also an intense learner in the traditional sense of accumulating knowledge and building systems, yet this information never seems to support him in taking the actions that would give him a satisfying life. His behavior does not alter, so learning in the sense in which I use the word does not occur. Most tragically, he seems highly isolated from human relationships, preferring the role of sage observer to participant or leader. He seems entirely ignorant of the meaning and fulfillment available form implementing Transitive Structures. Without these structures, his increasing insight not only fails to support his expression, it ultimately undermines his very survival. Luckily, his insight is available for others who may read this book and re-direct their own lives.
Rating:
Summary: if you don't want to think, don't read this, but otherwise..
Review: i had to read this book for my sociology class and it was the first assigned book i ever finished... got an a on the test too :) even as a 19 yearold, the book was very stimulating and really made me question the way we think and the way we are taught to think. definately need to read it again.
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Summary: Think you understand the world around you? Think again.
Review: I'm sure that in any one persons life time an event occures that in some way makes them view the world differently. For me this book was one of those events. It is easy to get excited when reviewing a book that you particularly liked so colouring your review of it with overemphasised "rhetoric" which other people generally take with-a-pinch-of-salt anyway. The facts are that this was very good book. I didn't open the book looking for what other people had told me was there. I wasn't looking to agree or disagree with Persig I just 'listened'. His words were not so much a guide (as some people say) but more a key which unlocked a way of thinking clouded by modern society. Everybody has questions. I think the problem that alot of people have with this book is that they expect to be handed the answers by Persig. All I can say is read with an open mind and let this book be the catalyst to your own journey.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but not impressive
Review: I found the premise of this book interesting. But did not obtain the sense of satisfaction many other readers have. Frankly, I'm puzzled by the devotional, almost fanatical following this book has. I would categorize it as one of the first 'New Age' psychobabble texts which have filled bookshelfs of the past several years.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth it if you put in the effort
Review: I'm only 14 years old, yet I still made it through the whole book, not that I would recomend it to other 14 year olds. I actually thought the book was kind of slow and boring at times, but I had faith in Pirsig (I had previously read "Lila" which I liked even better) and at the end, I was glad I'd read it. The whole quality thing boggles the mind and leaves your mind full of questions, which is what I like out of a book, as long as they are not questions on what the book was trying to say. If you're thinking about reading this, I would recomend reading it slowly and with lots of patience, because it is worth it.
Rating:
Summary: difficult, challenging, stunning, heavy, powerful
Review: I think that ideally this book should be read on a long, important and challenging journey. It is stunning, in the sense that certain parts of it cause such a sudden reorganisation of ideas and beliefs that you cannot keep reading but have to go off wandering for a while while the brain digests all the repurcussions. It will make your journey deeper, and the combination of the two will change your life.
Rating: 
Summary: "actually, Water is not perfect"
Review: this book tries so blatantly to be metaphorical that it really ends up being quite shallow. The ironic thing is that if one has this opinion, dissenters simply say "you merely don't understand it". This angers me. I have spent much time studying Zen, and can find no correlations between this book and actual Zen tenents. If you disagree, please email me with your comments
Rating: 
Summary: Intellectuals love it, the rest of us just struggle.
Review: Every 'professional' review of this book that I have read has been incredibly favorable. Just see the synopses given here. But for myself, I found this book very hard to read, very pretentious ("I opened up the throttle and Pheadrus said 'What is truth?'") and really, really boring. I find that books in which the author revels in his intellectual superiority to me leave me cold. Of course, there are lots of people who profess to liking this book because it it seems to coat them with a veneer of intellectuality. My mother calls that 'putting on airs'. And of course as we all know, a veneer is only on the surface.
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