Rating: 
Summary: Who wrote this?
Review: Just like the guy below, Women (ok it was Tales of ordinary madness also) was my first Buk book i ever read! What makes it more interesting it was in Yugoslavia in 1984. It wasn't his best work but it is my favorite book! It brought the reality of the life in US (by real people), opposite of the Hollywood version of "Disnyland on every corner". I was curious, at that time, what kind of person would write so honestly? But now i am wondering who brought this book to my attention? They must knew something...?
Rating:
Summary: A drunk old man handed me a tatterd copy...
Review: I was recomended this book by a pretty crazy (regularly) drunk guy who was very much into the Residents, Sun-Ra, Captain Beefheart and Howlin Wolf. So at first, I was indeed hesitant...But hesitant I was not when I started reading. I loved the raw style and real language used by Bukowski. Like other reviewers said, it will probably offend you. It probably will if you believe in the ideal American life and stereotypical gender roles. But if you're a man, you probably won't be offended, you'll love the truth. If you just gasped at that last sentence in disgust, you're one of the ones who will be offended at this (and Bukowski's others) and should just go to your local dirty old man for a quick 5-minute version.
Lessons Learned: Be your disgusting burping and farting self and you can get that woman younger than you. Being secretly "wealthy" and "famous writer" (chicks always love writers, all so sensitive) can also help you get that poon.
Rating:
Summary: Really f-ing funny
Review: I read most of "Women" poolside in Vegas and it was a blast. While it's mostly a string of anecdotes about womanizing and drinking, Bukowski's character does go throught a bit of personal development which adds to the story. Good, smart entertainment and well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Zen master Bukowski
Review: Bukowski at his best: totally flowing, laid-back, unpretentious, REAL. The genius of this man is the almost Zen-like ability to simply BE: to LET things happen to him, to LET women come in and out of his life, to LET his emotions and lusts and irrational and poetic and absurd and beautiful and ugly sides just come and go, ebb and flow. His prose is simple, unadorned, sometimes crude and unpolished, but always very real, raw, unfiltered. There is none of the self-conscious posing, pedantry and pretension that most writers with a capital "W" suffer from. Bukowski is the literary version of Popeye, whose every page rings with "I yam what I yam!" Did he actually sleep with all those women? Does it matter? What's more interesting is how he goes through them, just like he goes from one bottle of alcohol to the next, from one from one to another, every time with the same sense of openness, zest and enjoyment from moment to moment. This book is no manual on Relationships, and as long as you approach it in the same way that Bukowski approached his life---head-on, up-front, no illusions or expectations or preconceptions or preconditions---you may well enjoy the ride just as much as he did!
Rating:
Summary: Guys really can change
Review: I enjoyed this book for how it reminded me or my younger days...perhaps of course only in my dreams. But what REALLY struck me about this book were the insights he suddenly obtained into his relationships with women. Been there, done that. Anyway, I was secretly racing through the book for its loose attitudes toward sex and women, then toward the end of the book a true denouement started to take place. I suddenly started underlining the book like crazy. I saw what he saw. He started to question why he was hurting so many people, and why he couldn't focus. Then he changed. He gained capacity to relate. I remember thinking the same things. I was glad to see him change. This is a book I will always keep.
Rating:
Summary: Bukowski is the everyman
Review: The first Bukowski book I read was Pulp which was his last novel. Reading that book gave me the feeling that there was "something" to Bukowski's work that could be picked up better by reading one of his earlier novels. This "something" is definitely realized in Woman. Bukowski is the everyman. In Woman Bukowski's semi-autobiographical character Henry Chinaski drifts through life getting by writing poetry, doing poetry readings, drinking, doing drugs, going to the race track, and taking advantage of his cult status as a poet to seduce women. Chinaski is a dirty old man (the character is in his mid-fifties just like Bukowski at the time this book was written), who by his own word prefers drinking to sex. Despite saying this Bukowski focuses in on Chinaski's (his own) many affairs and love/hate relationship with the opposite sex. He jumps from drunken, drug addicted, crazy woman to the next occasionally mixing in a successful and well adjusted woman. The most interesting female character in the book is Lydia, who is by far the craziest woman in the book (She dominants Chinaski's social life for much of the first half of the book). I dont want to give anything away about her but her exploits are just as hilarious as they are disturbing.
As much as Woman is an entertaining read its also a disturbing peak into a tortured soul. Chinaski's many affairs are nothing more than a way to boost the self-esteem of a beaten man, and his constant drinking is a never ending escape from a life he so hates. Chinaski is a man with no direction or drive, he simply exists.
Oh yeah i forgot to say how i felt about the book. This is one of the top 5 books i have read in my 22 years of life. If you like this try Louis-Ferdinand D. Celine, Knut Hamsun, or Henry Miller.
Rating: 
Summary: raw language
Review: This is my first Buk book so consequently I feel a bit reserved about saying anything. I can't compare this to his other work because I haven't read any of it yet. Also the subject matter can really only be commented on as a matter of taste. As you can probably guess from the other reviews, this is a very vulgar book. The subject matter could easily be found offensive by a great many people, and if you are easily offended then it is likely that you will have a hard time getting past the subject matter and appreciating the language.
I wasn't offended by the subject matter but I don't think it is what made this a good book either. What struck me was the simple matter of fact language used. Very little is unnecessary. It is a little like reading a police report but told in the first person. And much like a police report, very little emotion is conveyed. Hank can be talking about getting dumped and he says he is devasted and crying or he doesn't know why he is such a jerk to women and he feels suicidal, but I don't believe he's sincere because it sounds so succinct and emotionless. Or if I do believe him it sounds more like he's relating events of 10 yrs ago and remembers what it felt like but only wants to tell us, not make us feel it.
The advantage to this simple plain language on the other hand is that nothing can hide on the page. If there are lies in the text they stand out. What I found throughout this book however that brought me to a screeching halt each time forcing me to back up and admire it before going on, like a woman walking on the sidewalk in her underwear, were short, non-poetic but therefore more clear, statements that rang true. That's it just little truths. And it isn't hidden behind flowery prose, but it's also not carved into a stone tablet that is used to beat you to death. It's just there and I think it's the saving grace that makes this book more than just a long letter to Penthouse.
Rating: 
Summary: Hank Chinaski at his best
Review: Hank Chinaski at his finest--inebriated (s)exploits of an alcoholic writer who's lucky enough to sell his mediocre work, get paid to travel and give poetry readings, and fall a(ss) backward between the legs of numerous women, young and old. For the wannabe writer, who's failed at peddling his stuff, yet is convinced that he's a genious waiting to be discovered, Chinaski is an inspiration and the posterchild for successfully snubbing convention and living an unorthodox lifestyle that's about as stable as the prize bull at the rodeo. For the conformist, Chinaski is an escape--a crazy roller coaster ride--from a brick and mortar life offering a glimpse into a world so outrageous and unbelievable that you won't be able to stop reading. You might not be the same person at work... Although many claim this to be one of Bukowski's finest, I prefer HAM ON RYE, which deals with multiple themes rather than just wallowing in the realm of ... (Perhaps this an oversimplification, but in the end, that's all that there really is). I've often said that Bukowski's work is toilet reading because it belongs in the bathroom, resting on top of the Playboys. And just like your Playboys once you start you won't be able stop until you've turned every darn page. WOMEN, on the other hand, pushes the envelope of vulgarity, and therefore merits its sandwiching between two Hustler mag's, so be forewarned, this ain't junior's pop-up book, and you won't be chatting about it with mother. But for all of you who like to take a vicarious if not real frolic in the dark underbelly of society, pour yourself a drink and flip the pages, because this book definitely delivers a barrel of drunken monkeys.
Rating: 
Summary: Yuck
Review: I guess it's some sort of accomplishment for Bukowski to have "written" something this idiotic. This 300-page excrescence is akin to the high-school ugly lying to everyone about how he just bagged the homecoming queen. Worse. Take that story times 100, and you have "Women". This piece... is Chinaski/Bukowski blowing smoke about how he beds every woman he meets. EVERYONE. And then every woman falls in love with him, just to find out what a boring creep he actually is. Every woman in this book is a dirtbag. Every sex scene -- and there's nothing but sex scenes --, reads the same: Chinaski/Bukowski mauls the woman, she resists, then she realizes her true sexuality... Also, we get endless amounts of women telling us how beautiful are Chinaski/Bukowski's legs. Some of Bukowski's other books are amusing..., but "Women" is CB in his Serious Novelist mode and all it does is expose him as a very minor writer indeed. Repetitive, humorless, narcissistic -- yuck.
Rating:
Summary: u god demn bukowski
Review: women is the first i read of bukowski and sure the best one.
besides easy reading,humor in dialogues, he supported my ideas about women;good women want your soul so i wanted inferiors...
Also he helped me to understand the women althought he says he
himself couldn't, i know he is the best kind a woman can ever
meet but never can OWN!
thank u god demn old TRAMP!
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