The Prize

Rating:
Summary: Don't Bother
Review: I should have read the appendix to "Writing One Novel"; what a waste of time. The whole mishmosh is, for something that took 16 years to conceive and write, cheesy, needlessly complex, and oversexed. The aforementioned tome gives many of the juicy Nobel Prize digs without having to sit through the other 1,000 pages.

Be glad it's out of print, but be sure to catch "Writing One Novel" if you ever even dreamed of being a writer.

Rating:
Summary: excellent !!
Review: It was a fascinating and thrilling experience to read this book. Wallace certainly had great insights and a wealth of knowledge. My impression after reading this book is that Nobel prize winners are not saints not super human beings but just like you and me with hopes fears and human problems but somehow, by luck, their achievements had turned out to be unique and acclaimed.

Rating:
Summary: A hardspun ball of facts and fiction that may knock you down
Review: On the cover IW tells us that the book has taken over 15 years and at least one trip to sweden to accomplish. You just simply have to admire the ambition to tell us such a complete story. In this ambition he takes on the herritage of older storytelling (and also educating) authors. The plot is simple; we follow the nobelwinners of one year from the time they are chosen too the time they leave Stockholm with their checks. In the time inbetwen we get an indepth analysis of the minds and psychological functions of people who are alcoholics, suffer from low self esteem and so om. Also in his pick of personalities IW demonstrates that the goal is to educate the readers, this time moraly. the book is well woth reading both for its facts on the nobel prize, the gossip around the nobel prize and its analysis of different aspects of the meaning of life and how to do it.