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Summary: my thought
Review: i dont have very much to say exept i dont read books. this book is inspiring me to read more. it is interesting and orignal. If you want to get up and open your eyes to the world not through your eyes but through the ones who live it, pass the coffee and read this book. it is going to make smarter, more experience, and definetly more keen to all that the naked eyey can see.
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Summary: Telling it like it is
Review: As soon as I read the first references to this book, I knew I had to read it. I too lost both my parents before I was 21 and have long felt that the effects of losing your home, your ceiling and your floor, just when you are poised to take flight, has never been examined in literature or psychology. It is exhilarating; you are free to do whatever you want, but the floor has dropped from under you, and free fall is just as possible as soaring flight. You could be Eggers or you could be John or you could alternate between them and much in the memoir/novel suggests that John, at least in part, is Eggers. And you do think you are marked and special and are owed, but no one thinks as you do. My hands still sweat when anyone asks me where home is or if I am going home for Christmas. What do you say? Eggers captures all this staggeringly well. I feel as if I have found my voice and I feel liberated. What makes the work so good is its structure which owes quite a lot, as I see it, to Laurence Sterne. Characters from time to time morph into Eggers himself as he tries to deal with the objections to his exposing his bleeding heart. His answer is that he is both feeding on others so he can feed them; and that he is trying to create a lattice or snowshoe by which together we can rule the world, walking over the deep snow which would otherwise bury us. My thanks to Mr. Eggers. I hope he is able to construct his lattice.
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Summary: Breaking the Heart of My Ingeniously Staggered Egg
Review: This is a useful novella for travellers... it epitomizes Kerouac's vision of all books "quoting my book, ON THE ROAD." The author's tone of terse yet supple teacher covers such a plethora of topics, including coping with civil suits, the CHEERS&JEERS section of TV GUIDE, and the effect ecstasy may or MAY NOT have on the spinal chord fluid. As commanded in William Strunk's "THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE," Eggers 'omits needless words! Rule Seventeen, omit needless words!' No need for simply vulgarities here, either. Brevity is the truncated spice of life. This one is steaming, with paprika and everything!The author does so much and does it oh-so-beautifully, in a book I read in about ten minutes while at the chiropractor's office, no less. Pick it up at a medical practitioner's office near you.
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Summary: wordless, herdless and out of breath
Review: I was wary of this book due to the praise being poured on it and, for lack of a better term, hype surrounding it. It is an amazing book. It deserves every accolade it receives and then some. I'm afraid to say anything about this book for fear of defacing it. His style is so impressive I actually visualized the events he is describing, although I could personally relate only to the midwest location. Any faults you may find are destroyed by the fact that he has already found them first and let you know. Every emotion you are capable of having is touched yet at the same time it is never forced or pulled from you. I'm afraid I've already said too much of the wrong thing.
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Summary: AHWOSG anything but HOGWASH
Review: I have been teaching the first edition of this book in my Sociology in Pedophilic America class at Dubuque Tech since the fall semester of 1968. I am thrilled to see that it has been updated by the author, with a new introduction by Burke Ramsey.... I've found that the Eggers philosophy is a bit hard to swallow among the 21st-century co-eds at DT. But for those of us still willing to venture into the esoteric, Eggers is worth all the mimeograph ink in the supply closet.
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Summary: Funniest man alive
Review: Rosie O'Donnel convinced me to buy this book I'd never heard of. And I read the whole introduction out loud to my husband. He's hilarious! The book, alternately tender but realistic, and ranting, shows the workings of a man I can imagine having a great long late laughing night with. Highly recommend this one--have already suggested it to everyone I know, without reservation.
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Summary: A Good Egg[ers]!
Review: Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have written, "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence." Be that as it may, the foregoing quotation does nothing to explain this breathtakingly brilliant new book by David Eggers. I was listening to NPR a few weeks ago when I first heard this book described. I knew at once I would have to rush right out and buy it and boy am I glad that I did! It has gotten nothing but rave reviews ever since, even from such usual curmodgeons as The Onion, which I typically rely on for all of my news and reviews. My parents used to say if you want to be a leader, go find a crowd and then stand in front of them and act important. I well expect this book to confirm for me the truth of their wisdom.
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Summary: Simply Staggering
Review: This book is excellent for young adults ages 13-18, or concievably over that, but not under. I carpool with a younger girl, she only in the third grade, and I picked this to listen to on audio cassette. Bad choice: I loved it but it is full of not only teenage emotions that she could not yet understand but also a small amount of mild swearing. But a teenager would enjoy this book a great deal.
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Summary: It's a good book, yes. To buy, or not to buy, though?
Review: Should this book be a purchase or a library pick-up? The prose flies and is funny and compelling - so this is a quick read: head to the library unless you're a fan or a student of memoir writing.
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Summary: Genius, heartbreak? Not really. Narcissism? In abundance.
Review: Some parts of this book are quite moving; others are shallowand trivial. Large swatches of the book read like the world's mostelaborate personal Web page - the kind with lengthy accounts of unremarkable weekend road trips and long reminiscences about high school girlfriends. Is there heartbreak in the book? Yes, and some of it is quite well rendered. But more often, the sad events of Eggers' life seem to be playing a secondary role; what remains in the foreground is the narrative voice of the author - insistent, yammering, demanding to be loved, admired, recognized as a genius and a saint (or at least as a person whose flaws must be tolerated because he has endured great sadness). Some characters criticize the author, but in words that sound like the author's own thoughts - a device for preempting criticism that should be familiar to anyone who's seen a Woody Allen movie. Near the end of the book, Eggers tells one such character, "I am allowed" and "I am owed." It's a response to a specific criticism, but it comes off as a philosophy of life, and it's what's wrong with the book...however much he's suffered, others have suffered as much or more... END
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