Rating: 
Summary: A Pulitzer Prize Winner?
Review: I can hardly believe this book could win a pulitzer prize, yet alone be made into a movie!Our book discussion book really didn't know where to begin our discussion regarding this book. Everyone had the same opinion "Was there a purpose to this book - None whatsoever."
Rating: 
Summary: Touching story of a man trying to regain his life
Review: "The Shipping News" is the story of Quoyle, a simple middle-aged man, who moves to Newfoundland after his runaround wife dies in a car accident. After arriving at his ancestral home, Quoyle gets a job with the Gammy Bird, the local news/tabloid paper. His duties at the paper entail writing about and photographing car accidents and writing the shipping news, the mundane information about which ships arrived in port, which left and where they went/came from. It's the characters that he meets at work and on the island that make the book a classic. Men and women who strive just to make it at their dull and/or dangerous jobs. Jack Buggit, the owner of the Gammy Bird, who instinctively knows when someone is in danger and can somehow locate them. Alvin Yark, the local boat maker, who sings the same song about shipwrecks repeatedly. There are many others, but I'd rather you meet them on your own.
Rating:
Summary: a bleak story with a happy ending
Review: A nice tale of love and healing in the Great White North. Innovative use of terse broken sentences. Clue is found in first chapter. Partridge tells Quoyle to use 'short sentences' to breathe life into his stories. Shipping News is one long newspaper column. Clever. But the real magic is how such a bleak story isn't shipwrecked by the many tales of deaths at sea that flood almost every chapter of this book. It's a testament to the strength of Proulx's characters that Quoyle finds happiness and love without pain and misery in the frozen seas of Newfoundland.
Rating:
Summary: Basically a fantasy
Review: The shipping news was a critically successful and popular book. Its main character is a man who in the early part of the book lacks self confidence and an ability to assert himself. He gets in a relationship which fails and his wife leaves him with the car of the children of the marriage. He moves to Newfoundland with an aunt and rebuilds his life. The book is a very gentle one and it describes the hero's slow progress as he starts to find anchors in the world. A job which gives him some notion of self worth, a place to live and a strange environment to discover. The book is all pastel tones, meaningful looks and stilted conversations. The basic problem is that the book is little more than a fable. The job that the hero gets is to write a small column on shipping movements in a town newspaper. Now the reality is that there would never be such a job. A town newspaper would employ one or two people to write all of its copy. They would have to answer the phones, arrange the printing and do a range of stories. There could never be a situation in which a paper would pay someone a wage to write a small information column. The lack of the reality about the job is only one problem. The main character is a person who seems to be completely without passion or feeling except a slight feeling of awkwardness. Real people live in worlds of sharply defined feelings. They have feelings about their social status, they think about possessions, relationships but the main character is this book is largely a bundle of nothingness. The narrative is in fact more of a fairy story. Never the less hundreds of thousands of people have loved the book and it has now been made into a film.
Rating: 
Summary: Written by Jethro!
Review: Do you remember the Beverly Hillbilly episode, when jethro threw a bunch of paint on to a canvase. All the art critics proclaimed it was a masterpiece...he was an undiscovered genius. This Author wrote her first book at 50 with little writting experiance. Don't beleive me check out her web site. This book would be a grade "D" by my high school english teacher. It is so poorly written that it actually sound good, in fact great, but makes no sence...but the critics are ashamed to admit it...so the award it?
Rating:
Summary: High Hopes Squashed
Review: I have a 100 page rule. If a book does not engage me in 100 pages, out it goes. I broke my rule for this book and kept on and on. I kept thinking it had to get better soon, after all it won all those awards. I just kept struggling through the entire book. And then the ending - the ultimate disappointment. I checked out this site after the fact, just to see if I was crazy. I'm glad to see I'm not alone. It looks like many of you were disappointed too!
Rating: 
Summary: No plot = A Chore
Review: The Shipping News is one of those books which I could never see made into a movie...but it was, so...anyway...The main complaint I have about this book is that there is no freakin' plot. There are books out there with no clear plot that manage to keep you interested (Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. Great Read, I reccomend everyone read it) because the characters are odd, interesting, and a bit eccentric. The Shipping News brags ont he back cover that a cast of eccentric local characters help Quoyle....blah blah blah. The most eccentric character in this book was dead before page One Hundred. The other characters just kind of fell into place and were used where Annie Proulx decided they should be used. When I started to read The Shipping News, I liked it. The relationship between Quoyle and Petal bear was interesting. Why couldn't she have written a story about the six years he was married to her?! Right there, a worthwhile plot. But then she sends him off to Newfoundland to do nothing. To live his life. Was starts out as an interesting read steadily becomes more of a chore. I was looking at other books I wanted to read after getting to page 250 like a homeless man looks at gourmet cuisine. But when you've made a commitment and your this close, you press on. From the time Newfoundland comes into view to Nutbeems party at his trailer, the book is as dull as a knife used everyday to cut everything that has never been sharpened. Yeah... Now, another complaint is that Proulx seems to want to educate on Newfoundland more than the characters. If she wanted to do that, she should have written a non-fiction work on Newfoundland. the characters constantly talk about boats, places in Newfoundland...it's just boring. I felt like I could go to Newfoundland and never get lost after reading this book. ...
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I simply bought the book a few years back because of the Pulitzer prize. The book starts off with interesting, non-ordinary points. However, it gets boring, what with the uncommon, if existing, words. After some chapters, it was abandoned because it was no longer appealing to me. I only continue reading it because of the upcoming movie. Of course I would hate it if I see the movie without finishing the book.
Maybe the expectation is raised because of the award, so it suffers the disappointment. Her sentences are unique, OK, but it's not fair for people who do not expect such complex prose-writing in the first place.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written tale
Review: Proulx creates superbly-crafted, quirky characters -- a fisherman turned newspaper editor, an African-American woman trucker, a maiden aunt who upholsters yachts for a living and names her dog after her dead lover -- and shows us their eccentricities without letting them become caricatures of themselves. Her people and places are sketched with a graceful economy; she has a knack for finding a few perfect details that set the scene or define the person immediately. She uses language in unique ways and describes familiar scenes without cliches, and unfamiliar scenes so well you grasp them immediately. The story itself is pleasing, a good stew of secrets to be revealed, challenges to be overcome, with a satisfying balance between sadness and light. The human dramas play well against the stark natural backdrop of Newfoundland. One caveat: If you have a hard time reading small print, stay away from the hardcover. The version I got is about the size of a little pocket bible, with type to match.
Rating:
Summary: An extremely well-written but morose story
Review: The Shipping News is an extremely well-written, albeit morose story whose cast of 'poor souls' is brightened by succinct, appropriate descriptions that shift scale flawlessly to reflect both individual and global observations about both the character's natural and human environment.
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