Ordinarily I would not have chosen this book. However it’s my book group’s read for August. I’m glad I read it – it started off like regular chick lit but as the reviews on Amazon indicated it then rises above that level. In fact I found that the book gets better and better as you go along. What seem like trivial goals become something that have far greater meaning than first expected, both for the narrator and her family and friends.

Louise Erdrich seems to have an endless supply of stories to share with readers. The time span of this book is from 1911 to the early 1980’s, and takes place in Pluto, a small town right outside an Indian Reservation in North Dakota. By the time you’ve come to the end of Erdrich’s novel you see how the many characters she develops are all connected to each other either by blood, marriage or the momentous and awful event which occurs in the opening pages of the book.

I enjoyed this historical novel about the von Trotta family whose rise and fall parallelled the decline of the Habsburg Empire and Monarchy from the Battle of Solferino up to and during World War I. This is real literature. The Everyman’s Library volume that I read had an excellent introduction by a professor of German Literature who pointed out the symbolism, leit motifs etc. Not dry at all – the focus on Carl Joseph von Trotta the last scion of the family included accounts of both his military and personal life. Highly recommended! Beautifully written and translated.

This should be required reading!

I found this book outdated and after I’d slogged through half of the extremely long “complete novel” I gave up. I’ve read elsewhere that there are other Heinlein books that are more relevant today.

This is a well written and interesting account of the war waged by the British Royal Navy in the North Atlantic during WWII.

What a beautiful story. It was published in 1975 and somehow I missed it. But that’s alright, because although it’s considered a “children’s book” I’m sure my reactions to mortality are far more complex today than they were when I was a child. So, I highly recommend this book. It’s beautifully written and can be read in two or three hours. Enjoy.

While I enjoyed this book there were times I wish I’d gotten the original edited version. This is the same reason I stopped reading Stranger in a Strange Land. It just went on and on….

I had the pleasure of reading this for the first time yesterday. What an astounding book! It happens to be my community’s summer read and still has great relevance today. It was published in 1895 and makes reference to telegraphs and telephones and, surprise… Kodak! The Time Machine has a lot to tell us about the dichotomies of our society and the unfortunate direction in which we may be heading. You can see, too, how it has affected succeeding works of sci-fi. The description of the Morlocks reminded me very much of the underground beings in the recent and very good film, The Descent.

I listened to this book and found it really delightful – a new slant on the normal detective/mystery series. I learned at least as much about Botswana as I did about the main character, Mma Ramotswe. No matter what the case she used good judgment and clever insight to solve it. Sometimes, I laughed out loud, sometimes I shuddered. Wonderful. Highly recommended!