A Fine and Private Place

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Summary: Peter S Beagle has made a cemetery feel like an orchard.
Review: Being in a cemetery used to scare me. Now they feel like old friends and family. "A Fine and Private Place" Nothing could describe it better.

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Summary: Get lost in the magical world Beagle has created
Review: Get lost in the magical world Beagle has created in A Fine and Private Place. This is an easy read, but it is elegant in its simplicity. Beagle makes his magical graveyard characters seem believable and certainly just as alive as those who survived them. The story is an interesting and beautiful tale of what life after death may be like. You will fall in love and feel at home with the characters. You'll see yourself in them. Most importantly, this is the sort of novel you'll be glad that you read, and you'll recommend it to those you cherish.

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Summary: An odd and beautiful little book
Review: I bought this book because I fell in love with Beagle's "The Last Unicorn" and was curious to see if he could hold my attention again. I was pleasently surprised. This is a thoughtful, satisfying book that is thoroughly convincing. The thing I love about Beagle is his ability to let the reader walk away having learned something about themselves but unable to pin-point exactly what. I believe that if I were to go back and read it thirty years later I would get a completley different experience. If you have never read one of his books I suggest you do so immediatley. He has a wonderful gift.

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Summary: My Bad Habit
Review: I have a bad habit of giving away books I love when I find others who love them. When I gave away my copy of A Fine and Private Place, I found I could not replace it. What a joy to know it is available again. I found The Last Unicorn to be a big disappointment in comparison.

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Summary: My Bad Habit
Review: I have a bad habit of giving away books I love when I find others who love them. When I gave away my copy of A Fine and Private Place, I found I could not replace it. What a joy to know it is available again. I found The Last Unicorn to be a big disappointment in comparison.

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Summary: I've searched for this book for over ten years!
Review: I have been searching for this book for the past ten years or so, remembering it from my early teens in the sixties, and yet forgetting the author. It was a library book and I couldn't relate the author to subsequent works. This book has "stayed with me" all this time and I have never entered a cemetary without a nostalgic, almost reverential memory of the love story involved. I don't know if I will find the same "connection" to the story that I did as a young woman, but I can hardly wait to read it one more time. There is something very special about a book read over thiry years ago that still stirs the emotions of a much older reader. How pleased I am to have finally found it! This ought to be a recommendation for almost anyone!

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Summary: I remember it--well?
Review: I read this book 30 years ago, when I was a student at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Reviewing it now is a little funny--I know if I went back and read it again--or just paged through it--I'd likely feel a letdown. That's how it usually works with books you read in your college days. But on the other hand I carry certain images around with me from this book. If someone asked me now, tell me about this book, I could remember a few things. The one moment that stands out most is when the two lovers try to touch one another and can't. It dawns on you, that's right, they're ghosts--ghosts can't touch each other. Why did this make such an impression and still stays with me? Something bigger, a reverberation, I think. For one thing, there is a level at which you can take this book which has to do with touching ghosts and you are not the ghost--the ghost is someone you love who has died. Or the ghost is you in the past, in a place and time, and that is out of reach--you can't touch it. Remember the film Blowup? early-mid 60's. All that deep funereal green grass hid ghosts. Ghosts are with us. Peter, if you read this, send me a note or e-mail if you feel like it- Ed Brooks

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Summary: Beagle brings the dead to life and does it in style.
Review: I'm in the process of reading A Fine & Private Place and so far it's good. I can't keep myself from reading it. It's amazing how he could take one line "The grave's a fine and private place, but none do there embrace" and make a book out of it. I commend Beagle and I hope to read another one of his books. And I thank my teacher for having us read this, Beagle is his hero.

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Summary: Take that, Andrew Marvell!
Review: No, it's not "The Last Unicorn", but you can't recreate the best book in the world, so who cares? "A Fine and Private Place" is incredibly winning, philosophical, funny, and poignant. It's about two ghosts who find the love they've been looking for all their lives...after their lives have ended. They're befriended by Mr. Rebeck, the old recluse living in the cemetary, a wise-cracking raven, and a strong-willed widow. It's Beagle's trademark to combine incredibly real, well-rounded, however eccentric, characters with incredibly beautiful, insightful prose. This book is no exception!

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Summary: The Night of the Loving Dead
Review: Okay, that sounds a little corny, but it's probably what I will forever call last Tuesday when I went to the library to get a Beagle book or two. I'd read "The Last Unicorn," loved it, and had decided to see what else this man could do. I picked up "A Fine and Private Place," and another book by him, "Tasmin." I started AFAPP as soon as I got home, and finished it around 3:15 that morning. From the first sentence, I was hooked. Speaking of the first sentence, I had to read this one a few times to make sure I had it. "The baloney weighed the raven down..." Yes, that's it! AFAPP is a deeply touching story about a recluse living in a cemetery, a brash raven with an attitude, and two lost ghosts. What really makes this book special though, is the writing style. Beagle seamlessly weaves together beautiful, almost lyrical, words with a timeless tale of love and discovery. Just be sure to begin reading it in the morning, because you may not be able to put it down!