Rating: 
Summary: Light at the end of the tunnel?
Review: My goal of late has been to re-align industry with natural systems - but have been questioning many of my assumptions about the viability of this goal. Ishmael speaks of a critical shift in the story we tell ourselves (& thus enact). I found the book a godsend to help me push through to a new story of how to live as humans in accord with natural law. Some reviews have criticized its presentation. My hope would be rather that more books by other authors would spring up that present a similar change of world view - but in widely varied language - so as to reach a greater audience. However this book spoke clearly to me - and I highly recommend it to everyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Worthless
Review: If it were not required for a humanities class, this book would have found its way to the trash long before I had the misfortune to finish. The book is nothing more than new age fodder for wanna-be hippies and baby boomers looking for answers to how their lives became so empty. I can say that Mr. Quinn needs to get out of whatever commune of self help and get rich quick guru's he's stuck in, and find his way to the real world.
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Summary: Read Ishmael Carefully
Review: I've read several reviews of this book and found that, despite Quinn's careful attempts to get his message across clearly and unequivocally, many readers misunderstand the finer points of Ishmael's arguments and end up praising or condemning Ishmael for the wrong reasons. Here is a short list of common misunderstandings you're likely to encounter in the course of reading reviews of this book:(1) The central message is a hackneyed statement about saving the planet: All we have to do is this or that, treat the earth or each other better, etc.... No, the author has no such message. He is not even concerned with saving the planet. He merely points out that, in the past, there were many ways a human could make a living in the world that did not threaten to render the planet uninhabitable for him and other human beings. As George Carlin once said: "The planet isn't going anywhere. We are!" The author recommends that if we are concerned about our future, then we should find out as much as we can about these other ways of living in the world and what made them sustainable. (2) This is communism. No, this is tribalism, the cultural traits of which have been found to be conducive to sutainable ways of living. Communist countries operate the same unsustainable lifestyle as democratic countries and are just as hierarchical and corrupt. Nothing new, except the academic devaluation of the individual. In democratic countries, the devaluation is not openly professed, only practiced and theoretically implied. Progress means the same thing in both societies: the technological displacement of people. (3) The ape is "omniscient"; skeptics beware. Skeptics always beware. Ishmael is the ultimate skeptic. He takes nothing for granted. He bases his arguments on information available to any human with a library card. You'll remember that when the student entered Ishmael's room, he noticed dozens of books on history and anthropology piled up on the shelf. You don't have to take Ishmael's word for granted. If you're skeptical, go look it up. The ape is not omniscient; he's well informed. (4) The book proclaims: "there is something unnatural about the way we live." I am in complete agreement with this. There is nothing natural about the way we live. But there's nothing natural about the way any human has ever lived. There's never been an all-natural people. We are and have always been all-cultural. Nature supplies us with the urges to satisfy certain life imperatives (i.e. nutritional, procreative, protective, etc...). But culture determines the way we go about responding to these urges; that is to say, there is nothing natural about the way we satisfy these natural desires. We may be at a loss to change nature and the urges we feel, but we are capable of constructing a better, more sustainable way of responding to nature's edicts. (5) Based on the arguments of the book, one could conclude that "we, as a species, are...." Quinn has nothing conclusive to say about humanity or "we as a species," except that every human is culturally dependent and that the bulk of the information that constitutes culture is mythological (see my review "Not Theology, Not Self-Help, Not Edification"). His main concern here is with the general evolution of two distinct ways of living on this planet. One is sustainable, the other is not. We as a species have not messed things up. One culture out of tens of thousands has managed to make a mess of things. By engaging in unsustainable behavior that threatens to destroy the very resources upon which humans everywhere depend (i.e. totalitarian agriculture), we (not as a species, but as a single culture) are precipitating the extinction of our kind.
Rating:
Summary: Eye Opener
Review: First off, don't listen to all the nay-sayers out there. Quinn does a terrific job of presenting the material. History needs to be revisited for the a point to be illustrated. No he doesn't give you a HOW-TO guide of how to change the world. Is he suppose to? Once again humanity shows us how people just want to be lead around and told what to do and think. Now the book. READ IT. I never told anyone to read a book before I read this one. It is fantastic. A journey for your mind. In fact, after reading this you will start to think again. I'm not putting anyone down. I'm just saying that kids are the smartest humans on this planet; however, school narrows our vision and leads us directly into 9 to 5 prison (the preoccupation of the human mind)and the next thing we know we're retired and RVing. Yeah that sounds like a load of fun. NOT! This is a must read. This is a must have. In fact I have bought 5 copies and just sent them out to people and told them to read it, sign it, and pass it on. Every graduation present I ever buy from this day forward will be a used hardcover of this book. Dont read too much about it first though. The journey is YOURS to take. You find the meaning. Yes, you will have to think. That is the point. No spoon feeding allowed! Read it and pass it on. Thats all I ask.
Enjoy
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Summary: Do not wait to read Ishmael
Review: No matter what you may believe about life, the universe and everything, be prepared to be blown out of the water. Daniel Quinn is the most important writer of this age, or any other.
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Summary: A spiritual guidepost
Review: Ishmael came to me via a spiritual journey in which gorillas were dominant. On telling an acquaintance about this journey, she recommended and loaned me her copy of Ishmael. It has been days since I finished reading the book and I still havent reached the depths of its effect on me. This book makes entirely too much sense to me. The last book that affected me this way was Richard Bach's Illusions. That book turned my life around and started me on a spiritual journey. I have a feeling this book will do as much.
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Summary: New thinking
Review: Ishmael will change the way you view the water you drink, air you breath and earth you cultivate. As the sun will rise in the east, everyday I will think about this book. A must read for any human being.
Rating: 
Summary: Brings up some provoking arguments
Review: I found Quinn's "Ishmael" to bring up some interesting arguments about humanity and the problems that we face today. While many of Quinn's ideas were thought provoking, I found many to be inconclusive and without enough explanation. Those who argue that it's unrealistic because a gorilla communicates telepathically should understand that in the story the narrator and the gorilla only serve to present Quinn's philosophy. "Ishmael" was not intended to present a great plot with intruiging characters, it was intended to send a message to the reader about the earth today and how humans take advantage of it.
As for those who call Quinn's novel "hippie, tree-hugging, communist material", these people either obviously did not read the book or are just plain ignorant.
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Summary: One of those books
Review: I find myself particularly drawn to ideas stirred by Ishmael lately. It's one of those books where after you read it you keep thinking "[...]...what do we do now?" My only complaint is that Daniel Quinn writes in such a dense and at times condescending style. I get the feeling from reading a few interviews that he wouldn't be my favorite person in the world...but he is an important person, I'm very glad he wrote this book. In short: not a fun or enteratining read but a very provocative one. I've given almost a dozen copies to friends and not one hasn't been deeply affected by it.
Rating:
Summary: My High School Composition Teacher Would Have Given This a C
Review: I was very disappointed by this book. The insipid dialogue and the pandering nature of the entire book was distracting. Quinn could have made his point in about 20 pages, but he painfully drags it out, beats it death, then beats it some more. The points that this book has to make are quite valuable. It is unfortunate that the presentation is so weak.
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