Tag: 5 stars
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The Devil in the White City
Review: Excellent, entertaining from cover to cover. Three narrative threads are woven together: The book offers a unique glimpse into 19th century Chicago life. The stench, the crime, all the way to the glory of the world’s fair and the starry-eyed visions of the future it embodied. Will have to see what else this author… Read more
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The Moor’s Last Sigh
Review: A masterpiece. Sometimes poetic, sometimes profane. A dark journey through four generations of a remarkable family. A glimpse inside the world outside the tourist brochures of India, the world at the top of the skyscrapers and the world at the bottom of the streets. The prose is masterful and elegant, from the gutterspeak to… Read more
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Slaughterhouse Five
Review: A brilliantly executed and skillfully written book. An anti-war manifesto if ever there was one. Funny, sad, disturbing, and throughout the book is a consistent moral statement. Most of the time we look at war as an historical event but forget the deeply disturbing personal stories that make it up. I award this book… Read more
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The Flowers of Evil / Les Fleurs de Mal
Review: Brilliant. A dark, disturbing masterpiece. I wish to hold sway overYour life and youth by fear,As others do by tenderness. Remember, time is a greedy playerWho wins without cheating, every round. Eggplant emoji. I will re-read these for the rest of my life, they’re simply beautiful. I award this the coveted 5 stars. This… Read more
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Son at the Front
Review: A powerful, moving, intensely captivating piece of Whartonian brilliance. This one is not one of her noted masterworks, but it really should be. Mobilization and the Great War seen through the lens of Paris from 1914-1918, and seen through the experience of Americans before they joined the war. Fascinating. It emphasized to me how… Read more
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The Toughest Show on Earth
Review: 5 stars throughout. Could not put this down. I love, love, love opera but there is no way I could do any of the jobs involved in pulling one off. The story of a man married to his Metropolitan. So much more than a book of anecdotes (although it does not lack for those).… Read more
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Waiting for Godot
Review: An extraordinary piece of literature. Challenging, touching, depths of meaning and yet still humorous and readable. Reading the study guide was helpful in supplying context about the play, the author, the background. Wouldn’t add or change a single word. Brilliant This book made me want to: read or see other works by this remarkable… Read more
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Watership Down
Review: A wonderful adventure tale. Could not put it down at times. Long, but not needlessly so. A lot of good sensible material mixed in with the adventure yarn. Charming, with glorious descriptions of the English countryside. 5 stars and earned every one of them. This book made me want to: eat rabbit Overall rating:… Read more
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Great Expectations
Review: The life and adventures of Pip the Orphan. It made me feel like it was always raining. Always grey, and dismal as can be imagined. Magwitch, Miss Havisham, Mr. Jaggers, Wemmick the Clerk, Pumplechook, the characters are so engaging, all slightly tragic and flawed. Loved this book. Would never read it in the summertime.… Read more
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Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Review: Brilliant in every sense. This book sparkled from cover to cover. If I had read this first I would have been a little less confused when reading Ulysses. Which I will read again at some point. Ireland, politics, religion, alcohol, and the glorious countryside. Youth, education, and the ways of young men. A boy… Read more