wow!

This is the first time I have ordered this type of book as an audio book, but it won't be the last - this audio book is produced like a play, with the use of male and female voices assigned to each character, adding a depth to the storyline. The storyline itself was fantastic! Not only is it the story of the main characters Nicolas & Lara, but we get a follow on to other characters e.g Raven's pregnancy and Shea's baby - I was disappointed with Dark Celebration, but this one does not disappoint!

Fabulous but formulaic

Pillars of the Earth remains one of the best loved books from my late teens, but Follett's more recent books have been increasingly weak, so I had mixed feelings about reading this one.

I'm very pleased to report that World Without End represents something of a return to form.

It contains most of the elements that made Pillars such a success - strong central characters, historical detail, suspense, injustice, outrage, romance and a central building project. In fact, it shares so many elements that had it been written by any other author then it would be condemned as a cheap knock-off. Fortunately, it's pretty well done.

There is a good feel for the historical period, some tremendous characters and a storyline that continues to evolve at a fast enough pace to justify the size of the tome!

Some parts do grate. The end feels slightly rushed (amazingly for such a long novel) and some parts are utterly contrived (Crècy) and I was frankly sick of Follett's habit of recapping the earlier sections of the book when explaining his characters' thought processes. He also tended to explain how his characters were trying to manipulate each other too clearly - it sometimes felt like the novel was aimed only at schoolkids.

Good but not great, at least in comparison to the original.

An unbelievably good book

Ordinarily I don't read books that may glamorise drugs, crime etc but based on the ratings and reviews I had to give this book a go - and what a wise decision.

This is a fantastic read from start to finish. It is autobiography, fast paced thriller, love story and tourist guide all in one. I don't recall a book like it and have no hesitation in recommending this to all my friends, no matter what type of book they may ordinarily read.

Such warmth of characters and such humour - Must read 2008!!

If you have read and loved Charlotte Mosley's wonderful Mitford Letters this will definitely not disappoint!!

Their writing styles, and indeed life styles are markedly different - Paddy's erudite, descriptive, precise and exuberant letters serve to remind us why he is often considered the greatest travel writer of our time. His wonderful descriptions of his adventures bring to life so many different places - from Devon to the Andes to Eastern Europe and back to Derbyshire. He tells stories about upsetting Somerset Maugham with his stammering jokes; about his feat of swimming across the Hellespont aged 69; about rounding up wild horses in Chagford; and about his time building his home Kardamyli with his wife Joan.

DD writes a shrewd description of life as a Duchess restoring Chatsworth. She never fails to raise a smile with her insightful and honest accounts of a whirlwind of social engagements with such a wide variety of well-known twentieth century figures. From Evelyn Waugh, whom on one occasion sends the famously self-professed illiterate DD a proof of his new book, The Life of Robert Knox with the inscription"You won't find a word in this to offend your Protestant sympathies" - the pages were in fact completely blank. She describes he friendship with"The Loved One" (John F Kennedy) and dinners with the characterful Bohemian Iris Tree. Intimate encounters with the Royal Family - including one such"cotton dress" chance meeting with The Queen Mother - who Debo famously refers to as 'Cake' - at the Tate Gallery. Interspersed with these engagements she writes to Paddy with stories of her family - Andrew and her three children and certainly her Sisters and of course, she details her incredible renovation of the beautiful Chatsworth House. Despite leading such an incredible life, she always remains so down to earth - on one occasion Mario Testino arrives at Chatsworth to do a photo shoot for Vogue's 90th birthday. DD is photographed with her granddaughter Stella Tennant, she describes the shoot:

" [Stella's] Hair skewbald/piebald, all colours & stuck up in bits. THEN they produced"shoes" with 6 inch heels. More stilts - she could hardly put one foot in front of the other, wobbling & toppling.
We looked just like that Grandville drawing of a giraffe dancing with a little monkey. I was the monkey."

The truly charming thing, however, about this excellently edited collection, is the genuine love and friendship that is so abundant in these letters. Mosley describes DD and PLF as sharing"youthful high spirits, warmth and generosity". This comes across in the letters so wonderfully. This book is a lovely account of two such different characters who share a marvellous appetite for life and an even greater friendship.

Simply Wonderful

This has to be one of the best books I've ever read. A tragic tale of Tess Durbeyfield, a young woman of pure spirit wronged by society and forced to live in shame, even though she was the victim of a crime (rape). The story ebbed and flowed like a long running soap opera until its tragic end. The author's use of prose was lyrical and magical. I wished I had marked my favorites to quote now. Maybe next time I read this.

Highly highly recommended.

The greatest dytopian novel? Certainly the most influential.

The book that gave us 'Orwellian', 'Room 101' and 'Big Brother', but it gave us so much more.

Orwell's final and greatest novel is a wonderful combination of important ideas expressed in simple language. It is an easy read and can be read in a short time, but will remain with you long afterwards. It challenges you to review how you interact with society and most importantly the state.

One of the major themes that is often overlooked is that which examines why we are good or bad. Is it because we want to be good or is it that we are afraid of punishment if we are bad.

Another interesting theme is the use and abuse of language, Orwell believed that the very language one uses influences how one thinks. He examines how, by the restriction of language, the state can restrict ideas.

Of course Orwell wrote the novel as an examination of one possible future and it is both fun and frightening to compare his predictions with the course history has taken. Indeed, whole passages can leave you thinking"My God, he was right."

Nightmarish post-apocalyptic vision- demands to be read

Not for the faint-hearted this is an excellent book describing one man and his son's journey south though a post-apocalyptic American landscape. It is several years since"it" happened and the land is scorched, the sun is invisible though the blanket of ash and corpses lay burned into the tarmac. Nothing grows and the few survivors have become savage cannibals. The man and boy exist as the other's reason for continuing their hopeless struggle for survival and it is their humanity that redeems the book and their world. McCarthy's stripped down, deconstructed style has been criticised but I think it works perfectly here. I know it wasn't the authors intention but I think the book could have been longer with more details on the nature of the holocaust (we are never told) and how society and mankind had degenerated to the extent it had. Try to read this one sitting if you can to experience it full emotional impact but beware - you may not sleep too well...

A really unusual story

I selected this book from the reviews on Amazon so was really looking forward to it. I found it took a long time to get into it, then suddenly I was hooked. I have never really read anything so near to science fiction and it really made me think about the future and the past and if we can alter it and what would we do if we had our time again or the chance to see those who have already departed. The story was very deep with 2 characters; Clare and Henry as the main focus. Some parts I had to really concentrate on and recheck the dates to understand what was happening. Very clever story telling and I became so involved in the story I did not want it to end.

Review of The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society

Review by my Mother for whom I applied for this book.

Who could resist reading a book with the title `The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society'

It's an easy read as the story is made up of a series of letters between a writer and a mix of characters who lived in Guernsey when it was occupied by the Germans in WW2. They build into a tale of people who come together in the face of adversity and through their love of books support each other through the hardships of that time in the war. First one and then another begin to correspond with the writer, Juliet, until she can no longer hold onto her curiosity and visits the island to meet her literary friends.

I found that such small pieces of the story, as they are in short letters, took too long to build into a full story and I like a book that sustains me for many pages. It was difficult to remember who was who at times as there were quite a number of people who turned up in some of the letters but it was then a while before they surfaced again. However, it all came together for a happy ending. It was rather unsatisfying and didn't grab me but was nonetheless an amiable, amusing and quick book suitable for a holiday or leisurely, relaxing read.

Loved it.

I simply adore this book, I purchased it with To Kill a Mockingbird, as I thought it's always on lists of those books to read before you die, so why not I thought to myself. And of course, I'm not male and just out of my teen years, but I did relate. I disagree with the critical commets that some customers have said like the main character Holden 'should get over himself', I think most teenagers at Holdens age are slightly self obsessed and have the me againat the world attitude, even if they would care not to admit it, I definitely did have that attitude. And for a book that was written in the 1940's it certainly has aged well, it feels quite modern actually. The book doesn't really have a plot and it doesn't need it either, written in the first person narrative, Holden tells us the events set over only a few days, which occured a year ago. This is definielt a book worth re-reading, and this is from a person who really doesn't return to a book once it has been read.

Touching

This is the first Steinbeck book I have read.
I look forward to reading many more.
A simple and touching study of loneliness and all it entails.

American Kundera

I got this yesterday afternoon, I finished it this morning at four. It's simply great. It is, as the title of another review has it, a novel about"the way one's most banal, incidental, even comical choices achieve the most disproportionate result." In this respect it resembles Milan Kundera's best novels. But it also is a novel about a bunch of complex, realistic characters, and about an important piece of History of the 20th century, and even more about the sincere, intelligent, passionate, and yet frustrated efforts of the protagonist to understand all that: History, people, and the way our choices can influence them.

is he or isn't he?

A slight book and as a result easy to get through in one go and the style makes it a quick read too. if you ever wondered how it must have felt to be a Muslim in America after 9:11 then this begins to paint a picture of what must happen when mass hysteria sets in. It is not a sensationalist book by any means but it draws you step by step into a plausible account of one man's fall from grace in the Promised Land that is America as the scales drop from his eyes and he sees how others see his home country (Pakistan) and how far he has travelled from his roots. The ending keeps you guessing up to and beyond the last sentence.

Charming, different and easy to read

I love this book. It is different from anything else I've read. Easy to read, engaging and charming. An almost perfect book.
Even if you don't normally like reading books it is worth giving this a go.
"A Spot Of Bother" was a bit of a disappointment after this.

A Darker Domain

Nearly finished it, and completely engrossed. Val McDermid occupies quite a large space in my bookcases, and all her books are brilliant.

Its a classic for a reason

I really enjoyed this far more then I thought it would. Its lovely to step back into the world of Austen and see what love can be like at its most innocent. Beautifully written with comedy throughout, a must for all romance fans! I only wish I had read this sooner

Exercise your reading muscles. And your book-holding-up muscles as well.

Let me start with a warning: DO NOT read this book if you have loads of work on. It is completely addictive and seriously difficult to put down. You find yourself longing to know what happens next. And before you know it, your hand is creeping involuntarily back towards that bright blue cover...

The Northern Clemency deals with two families who live on opposite sides of the street in Sheffield, running from 1974 to about 1998 I think, going from Formica storage units and Why Don't You? to Clerkenwell gastropubs via the Battle of Orgreave during the miners' strike. I particularly loved the details of the story: the removal men who bring the Sellars family's possessions up from London, and their strange"standards" about other people's stuff; Jane's minute observations of her mother's hopeless, unsilenceable crush on a work colleague.

However, I didn't like the book as much as Nina, reviewing above, who wanted to give it seven stars. She was a big fan of the sparse writing style, but for me it was just too plain, I longed for some real flights of the imagination. The book's been compared in reviews to great Russian literature but I thought that was inaccurate and that the plainness of style meant it was much more like 19th century English writing such as Mrs Gaskell.

The book contained many conversations where I was like"could I not have had a teeeny weeny bit less of this conversation, and still understood what was going on?". I also had trouble because I have never had a book where I had such trouble remembering who the characters were: and I found"Mardy", the first section, had such a dramatic and brilliant denoument, that the book never achieved that greatness again. Finally the last pages created for me many questions, and an odd sensation of having been left in the lurch.

For me, a good read, but not five stars because that aesthetic thing about the plain style just didn't quite do it for me. However for other readers that simplicity of story-telling might be just what they are looking for. The story certainly doesn't mess about, plunging you into those lives and those moments in time.

A last caveat to end on: for those with weak wrists- wait for the paperback. It's 738 pages and it weighs a ton. My wrist is aching, after the compulsive reading bender I've just been on to get to the finale.

A Typical Modern Brooks Weak Ending

"The Gypsy Morph" epitomises what Terry Brooks has consistently done with his last few Shannara series' - they always end poorly, and do not match up to the promise they showed in the earlier books.

The Gypsy Morph is just frightfully dull. We never genuinely get the feeling that this is the end of the world we're dealing with here, and there isn't a single action sequence in the book with any real drive or sense of drama. Brooks has forgotten how to write a good battle scene - the last good ones he wrote were in"First King of Shannara", which was published twelve years ago. These days, he thinks he can write a battle which is three pages long and described only in passing detail and get away with it. Well, he can't.

He also introduces his customary Sucky Assassin Villain. This is the obligatory bad guy he must have who is billed as the most dangerous killer in existence who has never failed at their job - but mysteriously is completely inept once they come into the story. In the"Heritage of Shannara" series it was Pe Ell. In the"High Druid" trilogy it was Aphasia Wye. This time it's the Klee, which was built up in the first two books of this trilogy as an unstoppable killing machine. When we encounter it, it's just useless and bizarrely has to resort to sly tricks when it's supposed to be a lethal brute, and then gets pawned without having done anything befitting its label of the"most dangerous thing ever".

Findo Gask was also a very poor villain. The man does nothing except send others to do his bidding, and scheme and scheme and scheme with no apparent purpose or long-term goal in sight. Brooks or his Internet mouthpiece, Shawn Speakman, would no doubt defend this by suggesting that it represents real"bad guys", such as bin Laden, who sits in a cave and gets others to do his dirty work for him. And that's just great. But it makes for a dreary fantasy story.

If all this sounds pretty harsh for a three-star review, it wouldn't be a surprise. I have great respect for Terry Brooks. I have met him and he's a really nice guy. And it was his books that got me into reading in the first place. And so I always have great hesitation to really slate one of his books. But in my opinion the"Genesis of Shannara" series has not been worth the time he took to write it and the time I took to read it, and this book was a particularly poor representation of a man with much greater talents.

Listen and enjoy ( and remember Animal Magic!)

I'd always enjoyed being read and later reading myself the Just So Stories. With children of my own I started them on these stories and having a cd of them means we can enjoy them on the move. The joy of hearing Jonnie Morris' super animal voice characterisations just adds to the enjoyment - takes me back to watching Animal Magic - deep joy!
Four year old daughter enjoys listening to the stories but my nine year old son has become a great fan - this now regularly is on his cd player in his room.
Buy this and you'll all be able to listen together and enjoy.