Rating: 
Summary:
Listen to Lidie Newton - Unabridged
Review: "Even 19 hours of `Lidie Newton' aren't enough. It's a rare audiobook that can hold your interest for 19 hours and still make you want more. And in an audiobook of any length, it's even more unusual when you can easily pick up the plot days later. This is one of those audiobooks. Reader Anna Fields superbly evokes a woman of that time and place. This is one for the permanent collection, an audiobook you may want to listen to again and again." -Associated Press
Rating: 
Summary: GREAT! "Little House on The Praire" for Grown-Ups
Review: Another great read by Jane Smiley! I first heard about this novel after an Austrian friend's daughter told me how much she liked it - and that she was writing a book report on this novel for her American history class! I read this while down with a bad flu and enjoyed every page. Some of the comments about the book mention the slow pace of the novel. I thought that this was perfectly appropriate for the time - Smiley's talent brings you back and lets you imagine what it would be like for us to live 150 years ago; daily life was so much more physically difficult and repetitive. Still the people in her novels will remind you of people you know while you learn about another time and place from a woman's point of view. Great book!
One comment must be made about the so-called review by "SC" of November 5, 2004. It's fine, SC, if you don't agree with Smiley's opinion piece/political analysis of the red state/blue state divide **PUBLISHED IN SLATE.com, NOT THIS BOOK!** but criticizing THIS book for a political opinion published elsewhere is ridiculous. It is completely inappropriate of SC to leave this sort of negative and completely irrelevant comment about Smiley's OTHER WRITINGS when SC is supposed to be reviewing THIS BOOK!
For example, in my opinion (and in my dad's, as well!) William F. Buckley has contemptible political opinions. Nevertheless, my dad loved his books and would never mix his dislike of Buckley's politics with his criticism or praise of Buckley's fiction.
SC has posted this "thought-police" comment for EACH AND EVERY ONE of Smiley's books. SC's review has no place here - it is clearly contrary to the intent of the rating program.
Rating:
Summary: Superb work that deserves a Pulitzer.
Review: As a historian of both antislavery and Southern history, I found this novel one of the most impressive on the sectional conflict written in this century. Jane Smiley's understanding of the moral complexities of that great division in American society and the ways that "the goose question" (that is, the slavery issue) became uppermost in antebellum popular opinion is remarkable. She fully grasps the distinctions between North and South, and especially between New Englanders and the fervid proslaveryites and Border Ruffians. I recommend the novelto all those teaching Civil War History as a supplementary text for students to read. It is as fascinating in its way as Shaara's Killer Angels. Bertram Wyatt-Brown, National Humanities Center
Rating: 
Summary: 'Bleeding Kansas' brought to life.
Review: As someone living in eastern Kansas, the locale of the book, and who has studied the period in question, I brought more than the usual curiosity to this book. It is filled with accurate details, but this never gets in the way of a cracking good story. Some of the twists and turns of the plot are a bit far-fetched - you could say that about writers from Solzhenitsyn to Faulkner, couldn't you? - but Smiley makes you care for the title character, a plucky lass who marries young, moves to Kansas Territory, has a child, is widowed and has to try to make her way back to her family in Illinois. The story peters out a bit towards the end. There are also good descriptions of 1850s St. Louis and Mississippi River life.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Having devoured other good reads by Jane Smiley I really looked forward to this book. Historical fiction is a favorite of mine, especially about the American West but I found this book very boring and depressing. Lydie never succeeds at a single thing - she loses her home, her husband, her horse, her baby. She fails at her attempt to resettle in K.T., she fails to rescue a slave, she alienates her friends, family and those that try to help her. You end the book thinking her life was a waste. I was also disappointed at the factual detail ad nauseum of the conflict between the abolitionists and the Missourians. The story became completely mired down in this conflict without proving a thing. If I hadn't been so determined to finish it (hoping for it to get better) I would have quit before part two. Ms. Smiley does write beautifully, hence the three stars but I honestly wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, unless they needed help getting to sleep.
Rating:
Summary: An All-True Adventure For You
Review: I began reading this book while on vacation in Pawley's Island, North Carolina. The book came with the house (Nichols). I was unable to finish it before our vacation came to an end and was tempted to take the book for myself. I resisted temptation and resolved to purchase a copy for myself as soon as I returned home. Waiting for the book to arrive from Amazon.com was torturous. From the beginning Jane Smiley draws you into the story with her imagery. I could see myself right along side of Lidie through the entire "adventure". If her heart was broken so was mine. If she laughed so did I. I finished with a sense of actually having visited another time and a sense of having intelligence about the history and mindset of that time. A truly fabulous read! Thanks Jane ~ for the adventure. I'll never forget it.
Rating: 
Summary: Very boring.
Review: I can almost always finish a book, but I couldn't finish this one. Very tedious and boring. That surprised me, because I've loved her other books, especially "A Thousand Acres."
Rating:
Summary: absolutely deadly
Review: I couldn't even finish it! And I loved Moo and 1000 Acres! Too treatise-like, not novel-ly enough; the characters held no interest for me. Ah, well....
Rating:
Summary: Arduous reading, but worth the effort
Review: I do not ordinarily read historial fiction, but chose this book on the author's name. She wrote faithfully to the style of the period, using some archaic words. I was inspired to look up some of the "real" characters in the book and learn more. I thought Ms. Smiley skillfully illustrated the righteousness and fingerpointing (on both sides) that allows political situations to escalate and people to commit atrocities in the name of virtue. Well done, Ms. Smiley!
Rating:
Summary: this novel is a fascinating read
Review: I found this story riveting from the beginning to the end. Jane Smiley is a master novelist and I would have been happy to read another 400 pages about Lidie.
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