Rating: 
Summary: Truth or Consequences
Review: O'Brien's book transports the reader into a magical place of surreal, ethereal caricatures. The put upon 'hero' deals with his conscience , the local constabulary and the consequences of brutally chopping up old Mathers for his lost box of cash. It is a funny, lyrical and thought provoking allegory. The type of book that tricks you into thinking you're reading a little ditty of a murder mystery when you're really reading a small masterpiece of modern literature.
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Summary: ...And what colour is the sky in your world?
Review: There can be few more chilling discoveries in life than to be rambling around Amazon.com and find that there are 311 reviews of The Celestine Prophecy and only one, ONE!, of Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman. This book, along with Gravity's Rainbow, The Recognitions, Auto da Fe, The Burn, and a small handful of others, is a masterpiece of the 20th century - a book people will be reading while they pilot their spaceships toward a hard day's work on Venus or some such thing a kajillion years into the future. It is also one of the few satire's that doesn't succeed by denigrating us and one of the few post-modern works that does succeed by making us howl with laughter. I dare anyone to read the first line and then put this book down. Undoubtedly the best first line in English literature (though Garcia Marquez's first line in 100 Years of Solitude is probably the best first line in all of literature). I won't go on about plot twists - only urge fans of literature that expands understanding while entertaining to pick up this book by the greatest of Irish writers (you read right, THE greatest).
Rating: 
Summary: Well written, but not funny
Review: This 'comic masterpiece' is subtle, complex, ingenious perhaps, but it's not funny. At least not to this 21st century American male under 40. I think the humor was meant for another continent and another time. Be warned, the introduction gives away the good plot twist (er . . revelation) at the end, as do the notes at the rear of the book. This book is a small challenge, a whetstone for your sense of irony perhaps. Funny, it's not.
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Summary: Is it about a bicycle?
Review: This book defies, denies, and refuses to be classified. It is partly a horror story, partly a humour story, partly science fiction and partly fantasy. You are partly a bicycle.
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Summary: Bicycle Lovers, Unite! Beware!
Review: This book features as its protagonist a lifelong scholar of the eminant theoritician, de Selby (who believed night came on due to the accretion of coal dust), it takes place in hell, there's a thief, a murderer, and several policemen, all with their own absurd theories on the sentience of bicycles and the danger bicycles pose to their riders, there's an underground chamber where, out of air, one can manufacturer any substance -- gold, whiskey -- and by the end, the whole book is set up to take place again. Let me tell you, this book won't twist your mind, it will rearrange it
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Summary: Another tour de force
Review: This book makes the French Surrealists look like amateurs. The most mundane domestic objects take on the effects of hideous monstrosities, and the mundane itself is used to create a hell of diseased logic. It is a magical, lyrical, deeply insidious mindtrip. In one scene, a character opens a box and removes a smaller replica of that box, then opens that smaller box and removes an even smaller replica, etc., etc. I know, it sounds dull, but somehow O'Brien's version is more horrifying and hideous than anything in Stephen King. It scares me just to think about it. The footnotes are amazing too.
Rating: 
Summary: man and bicycle--forever joined
Review: this book was very well written. it was bizarre and funny. maybe too much so in parts. to say it is about bicycles is much too limiting. so, what is it about? um, it is the story of one man's life following his murdering a man for a box of money and his subsequent journey--mostly descent--to recover that box after he hides it with his accomplice. he travels to a police station where he meets some strange officers, who tell him about omnium, which is, in short, everything, and show him the way to eternity, which is just down the road. a philosopher named de selby also figures into the book as many of his theories and the critiques of those theories by other philosophers are discussed. yeah, so it's a good little book. it's very interesting. ok, i'll end it here. i don't want you to sit in that chair too long. afterall, we don't want that chair being more human than you.
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Summary: 'Is it about a bicycle?'
Review: This century has seen two comic novels rejected by publishers when they were first written, only to be hailed as masterpieces decades later. These are are 'A Confederacy of Dunces' by Kennedy O'Toole and 'The Third Policeman' by Flann O'Brien. Sadly, rejection led to their author's (respective) suicide and alcoholism, and recognition came only after both writers had died. There isn't room here to explain why I love 'The Third Policeman' so much. It is by far the funniest book I have ever read, yet it is also one of the most chilling, and ultimately one of the most mind-bending. 'Is it about a bicycle?'............ read it and find out!
Rating:
Summary: Magic and Bicycles
Review: This is a surreally plotted, magically written novel. Fans of Laurence Sterne will be amused to see Tristram Shandy's theory of hobby-horses revived and applied to bicycles.
Rating:
Summary: Difficult to read, but very, very worth it.
Review: This is my favorite book in the world. I have given it to many friends, some of whom have declared it unreadable. But it is brilliant. Read it once, and you will be pleased by its poetic verbal wit, and surprised by its conclusion. Read it again (and again), and it might just change your whole outlook. It's funny, verbally brilliant, and meaningful, all at the same time. (And you'll never write another footnote without thinking of it!) A truly great book. (Plus - it has a positive contemporary review from none other than James Joyce printed right on the cover! Who could ask for anything more?)
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