Rating: 
Summary: better than sleeping pills!
Review: My dad encouraged me to read this book, and he had a free copy so I thought what the hell. I had a job at a coffee shop at the time and during down time I would read a few pages. Man, everyone has heard of this book. You don't know how many people came into the store and saw it sitting there and mentioned what a great book it was, I asked everyone of them if they personally read it and I can remember them all saying "Uh, well I heard it was good from a friend". Anyway, save your hard earned cash and buy a motorcycle manual or something this is the most boring book I've ever read. There's not a hint of inspired writing or insight here, then again I should have known better my dad reads books on playing chess.
Rating: 
Summary: An exposition of the false values of our society
Review: This book follows the story of Pheadrus (Pirsig himself) through a disillusionment with the constraints of Wetern Philosophy and Science. In page after page of this "Chotoqua", Pirsig reveals how our culture is wreck of valueless, empty rationalism with no concern for Quality. He doesn't however, leave it there. He then goes onto explain ways of injecting Quality into one's life throught the metaphor of a motorcycle.To be read at least once a year, ideally around the Winter Solstice.
Rating:
Summary: Hard for me to get through, but well worth it
Review: I heard of this book 14 or 15 years ago and finally got around to reading it earlier this year. I found it a little too challenging and then shelved it until a couple of weeks ago. This is a deep, deep book, and it took a lot of effort to understand what the author was trying to say. I blame this more on me than the author, and would just like to tell the casual reader to stick with it. I found that towards the end everything came together really well and finally made a lot of sense. I wanted to start over now that I know where it's going, and apparently (judging by the end notes in the book) a lot of other readers feel the same way. So I'd say stick with it, and you'll find it's really a great, great book.
Rating:
Summary: An inspration to ride a motorcycle
Review: I first read this book over 30 years ago and it still has a tremendous appeal to me. The author decribes perfectly the connection between a rider,his motorcycle and their surroundings. I thought his discussion about the "Gumption Trap" and his decription of a sloppy vehicle repair facility to be particularly good. I loved the book because I am a motorcyclist not a philosopher.
Rating:
Summary: "ZZZZZZZZZZZZ........."
Review: I am listening to this book on audio tape, and I am surprised that given the "classic" status of the book, how it is so incredibly boring. The "philosophy" is not particularly interesting, as is the motorcycle trip itself. Every time I have put the book on to listen to, I have fallen asleep.
Rating:
Summary: The Art of Boredom Maintenance
Review: It is a brave reviewer who wades into the flood of praise that has been heaped upon this book over the years with a skeptical note to sound. (Sorry about mixing all those metaphors, but if you like this book you probably won't mind.) A friend of mine recommended this book to me some years ago, telling me that the book was, for him, genuinely inspirational, a feeling that many other reviewers here appear to share. I read it carefully precisely because I care for my friend and wanted to understand him better. But I have to say, in all honesty, that this is one of the worst books I have ever read. It is not merely that it's pretentious and outlandish--plenty of "philosophical" books fall into those categories--but it is also monumentally boring. It achieves a degree of boringness that remains unmatched by any other book I have read, and I think that if I can honestly boast about anything, I can boast about the number and variety of books I have read. I've read long books, short books, scholarly books, schlocky books, comic books, cookbooks, mystery novels, fantasy novels--you name it, this beats them all in the boredom category. After reading page after interminable page about a meaningless motorcycle drive across Montana and God knows how many other interminable states, interspersed with prurient glimpses into a decaying psyche that winds up imploding in a most anti-climactic way, one begins to count the pages to the end with every page turn. As a teacher of philosophy I was dismayed to find that many people who claim to be interested in philosophy found this book to be an effective introduction to the topic. It is perhaps no accident that the people who tell me that this was the first "philosophy" book they read, and that it was foundational for them, turn out to be among the least philosophical people I know. Indeed, many of them appear to be ineducable in the subject, a property that I ascribe to having used this book as their introduction to the subject. I appear to be in the minority in this view, however. I suppose that I must be some sort of philistine or something, but I can find nothing of value here, either philosophically, spiritually, or psychologically. And I still know nothing about maintaining a motorcycle.
Rating:
Summary: Three Years Later, New Perspective, Same Feeling
Review: A few years ago, I wrote a review of this book. I share the opinion of many others that this book is a foundational work. Maybe not to all of western culture, as some detractors try and mistakenly claim about its praises, but foundational to some of the individuals that read it. At that time, I was a single teacher/coach and was convinced that I pretty much knew everything that I was ever going to need to know. I read the book to my AP Calculus classes for what I thought would be important to them as they went on about their lives after high school. Now, I am married and will be having twins in May 2001. I am still teaching and coaching, and I am still reading this book to my classes. But now, its to show them what it has done for this one individual, and leave it up to them to find out if it is really something that can help. Zen has now impacted over 10 years of students. During my decade in the classroom, Pirsig's dialouges on the workings of our understanding have given focus to my teaching in a way that no class or mentor ever has. His ability to write about ideas that were so precious to him, and still put it in a way that allows a reader to think for themselves, evaluate for themselves even ENCOURAGE a reader to do so; may be the most valuable lesson that I could ever teach. For me it was a must read. I happened upon it during my own little journey, in a bookstore in the NYC subway system. Right under the Citibank building. I had heard it had something to do with Montana(I was born and raised there) so I picked it up. Over the next 350 miles of bicycle touring, it moved me in such a way that I can barely explain. I'll put it this way. I'm going to start reading it to my twins in December. They are not due until May.
Rating: 
Summary: A Readable and Enchanting Novel Invoking Philosophical Ideas
Review: A Japanese biologist wrote about this book in a Japanese magazine asfollows: Many years ago when she was studying in England and going tobuy a motorcycle, one of her colleagues recommended her to read thisbook, but it was not really a book on motorcycle maintenance but abook that taught philosophy in a simple manner. She liked this bookand read it repeatedly.Reading this story and finding that thetwenty-fifth anniversary edition of this book was published inpaperback, I bought a copy and began to read it by expecting to learnsomething about philosophy or the history of philosophy. To someextent, this expectation made me read the book quickly in an effort toget to possible chapters where the teaching of philosophy might befully given. Even without such a motivation, however, one could readthis book speedily, because the story magically enchants the readerand because the style of Pirsig's writing is very readable even to thenon-native speaker of English who, like me, has read only a smallnumber of novels in English.Surely, descriptions of classicalphilosophies and contemporary philosophical problems are given inparallel with the story of motorcycle traveling, I have found thatthis is essentially a novel, which invokes ideas about thereunification of art and technology and about the quality of life. Thegreat point of the book is that it can also be enjoyed as a bookon philosophy, though descriptions of ancient Greek philosophies inlater chapters are not very understandable. In the last chapters thestory of a relation between a father and his son reaches a movingclimax.
Rating:
Summary: Just two words for you : READ IT!
Review: If you like to read more profound work that is going to make you think, go ahead and read this book. I first bought it when I bought my motorcycle and had no clue what the book was about. All I knew was that it was a famous book. As a theology/religion/philosophy junkie I was pleasantly surprised to read this great work. If you have any doubts about the book, just think about it: it was written 25 years ago and it is still a best seller! That should tell you something. Read it, no, more than that, savor it!
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Summary: Subjective Inspiration
Review: I find it really hard to be objective about this book. Let me explain: I read "Zen..." when I was 22. It was time in my life when I needed new ideas, even a new way of thinking, if you like. And that is what I loved about this book. For me, it is the story of someone brave enough to follow their own thoughts and actually do something NEW! It contains what, for me, was a wealth of new ideas and the connection of many thoughts I had already had into a broader, deeper picture. Ideas old, new, Eastern and Western all find there place here.Before reading this, my impression of philosophy was a lot of old men arguing about the exact definitions of words. After reading, I became aware of what philosophy should be - the quest to advance human knowledge! For me, this book manages to impart some of the great excitement and adventure of this quest. But then there is the down side. I still believe that philosophy is strange subject, that to study it is a contradiction in terms. Someone who is involved in the discovery of new ideas is what I would call a 'philosopher', rather than those who generally go by that name. But this is not a philosophy text book. The conclusions drawn are probably not very profound or useful for developing a better world. But it is a very good read, on several levels, and very well written. I found it inspiring and thought provoking, even if you do not necessarily agree with the conclusions. This is where I am being subjective. I just found it so exciting that there are people out there chasing new ideas and challenging old ones, that the actual central argument of the book, on the role of quality in life, seemed almost secondary. Still, it has been three years since the first reading. I feel this review has not, and indeed could not express the profound effect this book had on me at the time. Maybe now I should return and be inspired once more!
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