Rating: 
Summary: A Fair World's Fair
Review: Like a great painting, Doctorow choses his words carefully, depicting the 30s as the dark, mournful era that it was. Written well with the usual description that Doctorow is famous for, I have to say that the synopsis made the book sound more exciting.
The book details the experience that the protagonist and his family have while at the World's Fair in New York City. From the oddities to the fun, Doctorow did his research and what was there. Unlike his other books like Loon Lake or Welcome to Hard Times, I did not feel I was there, at the fair.
Displaying the 30s like it was, this book proves and depicts how far we have come since then. In the primitive times of tea-line-legged nylons and T&A was unheard of, historians and fans of Doctorow will be pleased. I applaud him for his historical essence and truthfulness . . . the excitement factor just was not there.
Rating: 
Summary: Was sad when ended, like I was losing a friend.
Review: Mr Doctorow blew me away with Ragtime, which instantly became a favourite book and one of the best books i've ever read.
I had heard that his style changed quite a bit from book to book, so what was the chance, i wondered, of finding another Doctorow book which was as good?
But i underestimated the great Mr Doctorow.
His World's Fair is the first book since Roald Dahl's BFG, reading it as a boy about the age of Doctorow in this semi-autobiographical novel, that i genuinely was sad near the end, that it should soon be over. Just like with the BFG, and never since among the many novels i've read, from Dickens, Tolstoy, DH Lawrence, Henry James, name your giant, have i felt as i neared the book's end as if i were losing a friend.
To evoke this kind of impression with no-nonsense sentences is Doctorow's gift. Every sentence is a masterpiece of declarative communication which Hemingway would have been proud of. The amount of detail in the novel is astonishing - the little things no human could possibly remember, the impressions so vividly evoked, are why we have novelists like Doctorow.
I am grateful to Doctorow for inserting me so viscerally into his childhood - so that i almost felt I had experienced it myself. It felt, at the end, that it was my own father i was seeing for the last time.
Rating:
Summary: Mature and insightful
Review: My dad is the same age as E.L. Doctorow, and although he did not grow up in NYC (visited there at times) he says that this novel is a close description of his own experience. It is about a very peculiar ethnic sub-group, New York jews who are not particularly religious and having "modern" ideas and lifestyle. To me Doctorow's book is one well-preserved verbal photograph after another. Somehow he conveys the scenes in a pre-Ektrachrome feeling, where bright colors are rendered in endlessly subtle shades of grey.I hope that when I am Doctorow's age I will be able to summon up the wealth of memory detail he does. The images are authentically pressed from a the mind of a child not yet 12 years old. There are things that a child notices that an adult would not, such as how he likes how a particular door latch works or details from favorite comic books. From there the narrative effortlessly moves to other characters in the story, written in the form of letters to the author. Everything is in place, and all of it wonderful to read. This should be standard reading for any high school.
Rating:
Summary: Mature and insightful
Review: My dad is the same age as E.L. Doctorow, and although he did not grow up in NYC (visited there at times) he says that this novel is a close description of his own experience. It is about a very peculiar ethnic sub-group, New York jews who are not particularly religious and having "modern" ideas and lifestyle. To me Doctorow's book is one well-preserved verbal photograph after another. Somehow he conveys the scenes in a pre-Ektrachrome feeling, where bright colors are rendered in endlessly subtle shades of grey. I hope that when I am Doctorow's age I will be able to summon up the wealth of memory detail he does. The images are authentically pressed from a the mind of a child not yet 12 years old. There are things that a child notices that an adult would not, such as how he likes how a particular door latch works or details from favorite comic books. From there the narrative effortlessly moves to other characters in the story, written in the form of letters to the author. Everything is in place, and all of it wonderful to read. This should be standard reading for any high school.
Rating:
Summary: Masterful. Every word was carefully chosen.
Review: This book was like a great painting. Sentences are like brush strokes. Each one creating light, texture and in totality, portraying a beautiful moment in time.Doctorow is a master. His research of New York around the time period when the World's Fair came through town is painstakingly accurate. He describes it all with such beauty, through a young boy's eyes. I hesitate to say much more other than I strongly urge anyone to pick this one up
Rating:
Summary: Such innocence!
Review: This book was very hard to put down once I stared to read it. It's a simple story about a boy growing up in Depression era NYC. There's no real excitement or climax (well, maybe Edgar finally going to the World's Fair) but it is simply a story about a boy and the time he lived in. Wonderfully written.
Rating:
Summary: Such innocence!
Review: This book was very hard to put down once I stared to read it. It's a simple story about a boy growing up in Depression era NYC. There's no real excitement or climax (well, maybe Edgar finally going to the World's Fair) but it is simply a story about a boy and the time he lived in. Wonderfully written.
Rating:
Summary: pleasant yet very tame
Review: This is a nice enough book. The time and the place are recreated miticulously, from throw-away references to popular items and ideas of the day, to sprawling detail of monuments and individuals. All this is fine and good and it's very well written. But the plot is just so damn tame. It's all too gushy and feel-goody and nostalgia for the "good ole days" that were obviously hell, the depression looming, war on the horoizon, people with nothing to do and nowhere to go and we're given this teary-eyed, Spielbergian child's eye view of the world. Again, it's wrapped up neatly and told pretty vividly, but I just wish there were some real sort of conflict, not just 'what will mother think?' Doctorow was much better in The Book of Daniel and Ragtime. Read this only if you're a fan, and you've run out of his better works, or have some strage attachment to the 1939 World's Fair.
Rating:
Summary: great book
Review: this is a sensually stimulating book. the glories of the times were expertly portrayed.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written but slow moving
Review: This novel was extremely boring yet it portrayed the era of the 1930s extremely well. The characters were very bland and I felt no emotional connection to them whatsoever. The author doesn't reveal enough about the characters real, inner feelings for the reader to love and care about the welfare of these people. In other novels I have read taking place in this era, the novel did move slowly like this story but you felt such connection and compassion toward the characters that you HAD to keep reading. Although the characters were dull, the author did give the reader a good sense of the technology and attitudes at the time. The radio, for example, was shown in its true importance as the main form of entertainment and knowledge, and the rides and structures at the Worlds Fair today would seem timid and lame but back then were seen as impressive and inspirational for the future. Hitler, Nazism, and fascism were also shown well, not only as bad and awful but as something that many people didn't have that strong of feelings toward. Based on just the blandness of the characters I would have given this novel a "C" but because the era itself was shown realistically I give this novel a "B-".
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