Descriptive and very helpful, a little dry reading but still very helpful.

The book was very informative, but I wouldn't suggest that a person without a strong working knowledge of training dogs reads this book untill they become more familar with dog training and the sport of Schutzhund.

Ivan's and Karen's book was extremely helpful and is a must have. It gives you some problem solving techniques and advices you how to approach most common problems. I especially liked the suggestions on overcoming distraction issues. The different methods described really teach you how to think like the animal, and use it's innate abilities to your advantage. In the end you get a wonderful, obedient world competitor that is happy to do everything you ask.

Given the other reviews, this seems a dissenting opinion, but Mishima's "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" was a pretty laborious read. I read the entire book out loud to an audience and found myself wishing it would come to an end.

All apologies to those who liked this book. I respect that, but the problem for me came in the amount of endless introspection that overflows the pages of "The Golden Pavilion." I don't mind some philosophical pandering in my literature and thoroughly enjoy it when it's done with the uniqueness of Don DeLillo or Milan Kundera. But here, Mishima takes whatever plot is involved in this tale of a temple student gone awry in the face of foreign influence, loss of values, poverty, and psychosis and sucks the life blood right out the marrow of it. This leaves the book with no skeletal structure, no bones, just a big lethargic mushy mass of meandering thoughts and not even well-worded or unique ones at that.

Here's what I mean, we get no less than 5 pages of a bee landing on a Chrysanthemum...somebody help me please. We get laboriously repetitive words (not sure if that's the translators fault or Mishima's) with a mention of the character's Kashiwagi's clubfoot about every other sentence. We get 7 counts of the use of the word, "adumbration" in one paragraph...7 mind you. Who uses the word "adumbration", much less 7 times in a paragraph, 3 in one sentence? Don't get me started.

Not a detail goes by without Mishima turning it over in the character's mind endlessly until we are no longer remotely interested. It's your typical boy loves temple, temple is too beautiful, boy must destroy temple sort of story. And where the plot starts moving along towards the end, Mishima interjects some inane meandering ethereal philosophy that seems to lead nowhere, just to kill the momentum.

On page 255 there's the line, "I was overcome by intense weariness." So true, so true. That's how this book grabbed me through and through.

I reckon The Temple of the Golden Pavilion to be one of the best novels of Mishima. This book is therefore quite something since Mishima in my opinion is one of the best writers of the 20th century. The protagonist is Mizoguchi a shy boy with a speaking problem(or has he problem speaking?). Mizoguchi is mentally and phisically overwhelmed by the building of the Golden Pavilion to such an extent, that it leads to disastrous consequences. If you want to read a great book by one of Japanese finest writers try this one.

The Temple of the Golden Pavilion is a book that stayed with me since I first read it, and in particular certain lines by Mizoguchi and Kashiwagi, two of the principal characters, are often so perfect in describing the events of life that I am again filled with admiration for Mishima's incredible philospohical and literary skills. The thing about Mishima, though, is that his protagonist will almost invariably be a young, introspective male - of course, this is a mirror image of Mishima himelf. I am reading "Confessions of a Mask", his "coming-out" autobiography right now, and it brought me back to thinking about the "Temple"; "Confessions" was one of his earliest books and it certainly set the stage for a work like "Temple" to come. It's clear from the autobiography that the themes of beauty (in particular masculine beauty), death, and war are Mishima's obsessions. Of the four Mishima novels i've read (Sound of Waves, Thirst for Love, Spring Snow, and the TOFTGP), some of these themes are always present. In every novel, too, he is using a different approach to them; in the Golden Temple, there is a heightened awareness of sprirituality and beauty of divine origin, i.e. the Golden Temple itself, the object of the acolyte Mizoguchi's obsession, which progressively takes over his life. ("Did I possess the Golden Temple, or was I possessed by it?")
It is hard to imagine Mishima's characters - like the stuttering teenage acolyte Mizoguchi of The Temple, with his keen aestheticism or his crippled friend Kashiwagi with his brilliant philospophical insights - in real life, whether it be Japan or any other country. Mishima's works, even his autobiography, are all surreal in nature. The "Temple" very effectively built up such an aura around the actual Golden Templein Kyoto that when I later saw a picture of it (it has been rebuilt since its destruction described in the book) I was very disappointed by its real image. It is certainly a beautiful building, but to me is not mysterious or hypnotic like it is to Mizoguchi. It is not alive, and certainly doesn't look like it can manipulate the hearts and minds of people, as it did with Mizoguchi. In general, Mishima's works, as was he - seem otherworldly. If this appeals to you, then his books, and this one in particular, will be unforgettable. Mishima's gift for beautiful, descriptive prose and powerful analogies shines through Ivan Morris's excellent translation. If you have never read a Mishima book, and are looking forward to a hypnotic/intellectual journey, "The Temple" is a great book to start with.
Also, the Everyman's Libraby edition is very good, with historical notes, an introduction by Donald Keene, thick paper and a built-in bookmark. Get it over the others.

If you consider the meaning of death, you come to the question of Life After Death. But if you put that aside, for now, you have still to consider your own relation to upcoming death, from day to day, irrespective of whether there is immortality or not. Ivan of this tale has a sense of his death because physically he is dying. The philosopher Gurdjieff remarked that man ought to know when he dies: what day, what time, and how. This way, we can live authentically.

Heidegger said that man is a being toward death. His treatment of death is well handled, and Tolstoy's account is the only parallel in literature.

By reading this, you may wake up to your own sense of death. Let's face it: almost none of us realize that we are going to leave this world. We had better come to terms with it, now. And if we knew, as Ivan does, that we will die, we will have an awareness of death in which life gains new "shades of meaning."
But the point is this: you don't need a fatal illnes to have an awareness of death.

Commonly regarded as Tolstoy's third greatest work, "The Death of Ivan Ilych," if not his most famous work is, at the very least, one of the most poignant and powerful short stories ever written. For those who are interested in taking their first leap into the Tolstoy ouvre, perhaps it is better to start with a shorter work. I would suggest this one, because despite its brevity, it packs as powerful a wallop as anything else he wrote.

Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Illych is a short novella, especially in comparison to his magnus opus, War and Peace (or, arguably, Anna Karenina), but far from simple. Complex thoughts and themes are interwoven in the space of time the book covers. It centres around the sudden contemplations of a man doomed to die soon who had never before given death a second thought. At the peak of this dark, existential soliloquy, I felt as if I were on my deathbed, and began to wonder myself...

In a technical sense, this is not a great book. The plot is not really anything new, the book is full of cliches and the dialog is sometimes extremely stilted. The characters often say things that seem utterly contrived, sentences put there just to fill space and the descriptive passages are sometimes less than stellar. At one point, the hero beheads a bad guy and we are treated to this thrilling description: "Pop. Splish." The love story is transparent and predictable, the action is pretty standard Bruce Willis/Ah-nold/Dolf stuff and the book has a thousand little flaws that make it seem amateurish at times.

Now, ready for the weird part? I couldn't put this book down.

I read this book last night in one sitting. The first thirty pages or so are slow, but after that I was hooked. The pace of the book is just right, with the plot development, action and love aspects meshing pretty well. While the story is not all that original, it is told well and with an enjoyable tempo. For every bad thing I mentioned above, there is something about the book to balance it out and, on the whole, the good outweighs the bad.

One of the major checks in the plus column for this book is the introduction of an extremely likeable character (Nis) from an extremely likeable race of aliens. The Fuzzies are sort of an intergalactic everyman. Intelligent, kind, friendly and eager but stopped short of their full potential by forces outside their control. They do their best from day to day but there is always that invisible something holding them back. This is definitely a group of creatures that a lot of us can identify with. I found myself liking and caring about Nis more than I have any book character in quite some time.

The evil aliens in this book are also quite impressive. Powerful, driven and remorseless. An intelligent, technologically-advanced race with only one thing on their mind: conquest. They share (a few too many) characteristics with the Borg of Star Trek fame, but they stand up well on their own merits.

One thing I would like to have seen is a lot more exploration of both alien races. They are introduced and set up very well. We learn enough to really become interested in their motivations and personalities but then they are sort of left out to dry. It's almost as if the author said, "OK, I have created interesting, provocative characters that people will care about but I don't feel like spending any more time on them." After the initial introductions, they become mere plot pieces. The Fuzzies are, however, fleshed out better than the Regnant.

OK, this is a lot more wordy than I intended to be. Let's just say that if you are looking for high literature, this isn't it. If you are looking for a well-paced action/thriller with some good characters, go ahead and read The Eyes of Light and Darkness.

SpaceAce

After receiving the book from Amazon, I found myself well engrossed in it and read the first 17 chapters the first day. It took a little over a week before I could get back to it, but found the plot, action and character emotions easy enough to get back into again as though I hadn't put it down at all. I highly recommend this book for any lover of science fiction, adventure and/or combat stories. When the first of Ivan's "mazes" come up, I thought that he was falling into the standard trap of many adventure writers by padding the action with nearly impossible mazes to add excitement and confusion. However, I soon realized that the innards of the sleeper ship and space station were deliberately written as they were to give the reader the EXACT same sense of fear, loss, confusion and solution as the characters. My problem with being able to envision the layout and structure of the ships was INTENDED to put me in the same frame of mind as the characters. I still have difficulty envisioning the malevolent aliens except as horrible looking critters that only Computer Generated Graphics with a good Morph program would be able to create if a movie was made of the book. That thought led to a clue as to where the author probably got the idea of one of his mazes. I think the Botanical Garden on the station was borrowed from an old computer game I played on an Apple II plus back in the early 80's. Even if it wasn't, it made me feel sort of at home and gave an excellent contrast to the steel and rock passageways and compartments of the rest of the station. A very nicely done touch, indeed. I was also pleased that the author knows something about firearms. Many other authors do not take time to research some of the tools and weapons they use in their stories and gross errors spoil it for the reader. Now, if I were collaberating with Ivan on this matter, I would have picked different calibers for his weapons than he did. But the difference would have been insignificant to the non-firearm oriented person. Ivan's selections and potential uses were very well done though such guns do not exist, YET. His vision of future possible development is well within feasible engineering limits. But then, that would just be a personal choice on my part. Possible only because I am not a "Fuzzie". Richard A. Landgraff

This book is an excellent representation of two species, one human, one alien. The plot, with its continual twists and turns and revelations of the alien culture, with some insights into humans as a species, kept me guessing. I am an inveterate end-of-the-book reader, and was delighted when, not only could I not figure out the plot, but the ending itself was tantalizing enough to draw me forward. This is not a typical space opera; there are few shades of black and white, mainly gray. The interaction between the the main human and alien characters is fascinating, and sometimes tragic (I think - I'm still trying to get a handle on the ending). There are a few stereotype characters, but they are usually minor characters who impinge little on the story. The engine driving the plot are intriguing and sometimes thought-provoking. Early in the book, I was afraid I might have a plot somewhat like the movie "Alien" but was relieved to find it was not so. I continue to ponder the ending and plan on re-reading it to find the many parts I am sure I missed. I look forward to their next book.

Leo Tolstoy is brilliant at expressing and delving to the core of human emotions, his insight into both males and females emotions is exceptional. The different stages of love and the beauty of death. Written in the 1800's and still prevalent today.

I found the stories to linger too long on emotions as the pace grew slower and slower, almost to an irritating halt.

An interesting read, although for the reader with a bit of patience.

This story begins with the death of Ivan Ilych, a well-respected member of the Court of Justice in the late 1800s. The story follows this event by going into flashback, and exposing the significant events that lead up to his death. Ivan Ilych's unsatisfying life primarily consisted of drowning himself into his work, putting up with married life, hosting social dinners, and playing bridge with his friends and colleagues. One of the most crucial events pertains to Ivan Ilych being diagnosed with an illness. This forces him to analyze his way lof living. I really appreciated this specific short story, because it expressed how much a society's views and beliefs can effect an individual's way of life. I highly reccommend this book to everyone.

This is my first Tolstoy book. Excellent, breathtaking, and strinkingly similiar to some people. I read this book as a final assignment in my Medical Ethics class-the reading is short but full of mind tickling content. If you brain is hungry, read this. I now look forward to other Tolstoy greats.

Funny as it sounds, I had no idea of a "Moor" until I saw "Black Knight" with Martin Lawrence. I was wondering why they constantly kept calling him "Moor", was this the equivalent of "Nigger"???

So naturally I went to my Encylopedia (sooo dated by the way) and looked up the term "Moor". Some truth was in their descriptions of Moorish Spain but of course there were lies. One of the most shocking was "Moors were NOT black. Moors come from a European stock".

tsk tsk

Wouldn't you say that's a tad bit misleading? Well I used common sense and didn't take this seriously, and started looking elsewhere. Eslewhere you also hear "Moors were not Black, they were Arab" or "Moors were of a mixed Arab & European race"...pretty much anything besides Black.

I'm guessing if you perpetuate such nonsense it WILL stick.

Dr Ivan Sertima is trully a force in Academia. This book is a perfect example of that authority. This is my 2nd book by the world reknowned scholar & I must say he's outdone himself again. Since a Historian like Dr. Ivan van Sertima is practically forced to emphasize skin color in his work, a Historian with such drive shall prevail.

I'm very tempted to long hand certain commentary from this book but that wouldn't be fair to the Doctor or future readers.

What we call Eurocentric Academia, I feel, has left a gigantic void in World History. This allows Historians like Ivan van Sertima to easily destroy accepted rhetoric in Academia. With the help of Runoko Rashidi, James E. Brunson, Scobie & others, they cover every angle from language to Shakespeare to Spanish Music. Along with convicing photos & credible sources, Arab/African/European, I would say Moors shouldn't be a mystery to anybody, especially what race they were in this time period.

Anybody trully interested in History should own this book, as well as any Ivan van Sertima book you could get your hands on.

To the usa reader who made the poor comment about the moroccans not identifying with sub sahara descent, yes this would be true of the berbers (the mulattos) who were a mixed breed of caucazoid nomadics and black africans (moors), who were the original indigineous ppl of north africa and through out the continent. The berbers and other caucazoid mixed ppl do not identify with their so called negroid roots because they were trained to be bigots about what they stole and took from the original ppl of the land. It is physically impossible for the caucazoids to have develop in north africa with the type of physical features and skin texture that is designed as it devlops in a cold icy region such as europe which is were these ppl came from as invaders ( the lost mutated black ppl). It would help in the future that when one who disagrees with ones views of historical events, provide something other than emotional baggage, evidence would be nice which is what Mr. Sertima presented and so should not be overlooked or taken out of context because you cannot handle the truth. For more evidence study the correlation between anthropology and physics and be forever humbled disturbed one, the oldest anthropological finding of human remains possessed 99.9 percent melanin in the recovered minute tissue remains and they also found tools which showed that these early humans were civilized beings, being that they had agricultural understanding. Show me what caucazoid has 99.9 percent melanin pigmentation, such a person does not exist and so this can only be what is described about black ppl(african moors) of our so called negroid features inwhich white scientist did admit to this( see discover magazine or the site )................... So please no more out crys from charlatans who cannot give evidence for evidence, hmmmmm very dishonest and immature. Also stop using the lame excuse of afrocentricity being some restoration of black pride, no pride was ever lost, for the blacks had no reason to iniate invasion upon others like the caucasions( the transformed blacks), so how is that for pride?! On your part, foolish pride for overlooking and trying to find a way around the laws of physical science especially in the area of how melinin develops on the pigmentation level, tsk tsk to your foolish pride! The original humans went through three physiological changes as it pertains to nature/nurture 1. development duration 2. climatical influence 3. human nurture influence. But anyway i give The Golden age of the Moors 5 stars for what it supports ( EVIDENCE ) not empty speculation which is what the cowardly usa reader cryed about with no detailed reference of his or her supposably more inclined authors.

I own this book and it is one of the greatest pieces of literature that I have read. Ivan van Sertima tells it like it is. The Moors were African people who hailed from the northwestern part of Africa. No other people would come out of that continent but BLACK people. They were many, many years ahead of their time and everybody else's time, too. An advanced, superior civilization of Africans that was the center of culture, education, and arts/crafts to the entire world made their presence felt. And when it came to war with France and England, even the greatest of warriors from those places couldn't stand up to the powerful onslaught of these people. Many intelligent African/Arabic/Ethiopic men were a huge part of this era (i.e. Abd-er-Rahman II-III, Ibn-Aby-Amir). These rulers were very powerful and not even the biggest of Christian rebellions led by extreme, hypocritical bigots could put a dent in Morrocan rule. From the Abbisade to the Ummeyyad, Almoravide, and Almohade dynasties everything is covered from the Moors superior knowledge of irrigation and astrology to their lavish lifestyles. The Europeans sat at the feet of African Moorish scientists and teachers (both men and women) and learned everything there was to learn. That's why I look at the Renaissance Period as a time frame when Europeans finally learned to think and do for themselves. Something that African-Morrocan descendents like myself have been doing for eons. This information is the last thing America wants its black citizens to know about as a whole. It's the reason why big, strong, and intelligent black men like me are easily intimidating to whites. This book is a must for all African-Americans nationwide. Pick up this book and KNOW THYSELF. Peace.

Oblomov, the main character of Ivan Goncharov's novel, is widely regarded as one of the finest literary examples of the backward-looking landed gentry of mid-nineteenth century Russia. His name has even entered the Russian language in the term "oblomovshchina", meaning backwardness, inertia. The unheroic hero Oblomov is also a very fine literary creation of a fully-fledged human being. He is a melancholy idealist, a dreamer whose temperament is such that he never begins to put his dreams into action. His tragedy is that he weighs the possible obstacles to his endeavors for such a long time that, finally, he never even starts to act.

Ivan Goncharov is at his best when he describes the mental processes of Oblomov that lead to his bumbling life. There is no better description of how the mind of a pessimistic person manipulates the perception of reality than in this book.

"The Saint of Sloth" is the title of a review written by the critic V.S. Pritchett for the New York Review of Books. It captures nicely the two main aspects of Oblomov's character. On the one hand, Oblomov is lazy, irresponsible, pessimistic, paralyzed, complacent, slothful; but on the other hand he is idealistic, true to himself, honest, child-like, innocent, saintly. He is ultimately a lovable human being. He does not lack wisdom, he lacks resolve.

As can be expected, Goncharov's book is not an action-packed thriller. On the first 50 or so pages, Oblomov barely manages to get out of his bed. A patient reader who keeps reading, however, is rewarded with a wonderfully realistic love story (including all the ups and downs), and many wise comments by the bachelor Goncharov on life, love, passion, duty and marriage.

Tolstoy hailed Oblomov as a sublime work. Dostoevsky panned it as the work of a charlatan. Goncharov created one of the most intriguing characters in Russian literature. You might say Oblomov is the ultimate nihilist, but he doesn't know it. This is a man who has never grown up, until one day he meets a fine Russian beauty, and attempts to direct his life for the first time. The opening part of this book is first rate. Goncharov sets up his characters beautifully. "Oblomov's dream" is one of the finest pieces in Russian literature. But, like Oblomov himself, this book doesn't hold up well over the long haul. Goncharov's literary powers begin to diminish and the story becomes more diffuse without really illucidating the reader as to the lack of motivation in the character.

Fortunately, Oblomov is not without humor. The amusing relation between the protaganist and his manservant, Zahar, can be side-splitting at times. It is also quite poignant. As much as Oblomov seems to loathe his manservant, he can't bear to be without him. Zahar is the only link Oblomov has left to the family estate.

Oblomov does not stack up to the greats in Russian literature, but it is worthy of the second tier. However, it has been a book that has influenced later generations of writers, including Samuel Beckett, and has been made into a feature length movie by Nikita Mikhalkov.

What a fascinating novel. It's not totally unrelated to today's world, as it seems at a first glance... And there are so many connections between the author's life and the character of the story! It makes it even more interesting.

Turgenev creates prose so spare, yet so elegant you find yourself rereading entire paragraphs just to try to net some hidden agenda behind the simplicity. Turgenev's influence on Hemingway was probably never more brilliantly expressed than in these understated words from A Moveable Feast: "I had read all of Turgenev...(of Dostoevsky) frailty and madnesss...were there to know as you knew the landscapes and roads in Turgenev..."

This book is more than a simple love story between a young man and an older woman, though the idea of the shortness and depthlessness of young love is an important theme. There are also such themes as the dissolution and fall into poverty of the Russian nobility as seen in Zinaida and her mother, a former princess; the idea of 19th century Russia shrugging off the chains of serfdom and royal dominance is also explored in the vastly superior Fathers and Sons. Another noteworthy theme is alienation from parents and society in general; Vladimir Petrovich is dominated utterly by his menacing father and carking, gossipy mother. He grows to become a bachelor, rehashing his tragic story before a fireplace in an inn. Towards the end of the book, when Vladimir's father, who shares with Vladimir a strong affection for Zinaida, flogs the young girls arm with a riding crop, as well as the threat the father gives to one of Zinaida's numerous suitors, we are made to wonder exactly what part romantic relationships have in the alleviation or exacerbation of violent mental illness, or at least a violent and cold mindset.

This book, however deep and lovingly crafted, is a cipher next to Fathers and Sons. It's also a lot shorter; first time Turgenev readers might want to start here.

An old man reflects on his most dearest love in his life: his first love at 16 for a girl of 21.
His love is not requited for a truly astounding reason.

This short novel is a masterful evocation of an adolescent love, pure and without interest, but dramatic and cruel (whipping).

An unforgettable masterpiece.

Turgenev's brief novel, "First Love" is about growing older and lossing innocence. Vladimir, the central character who tells the story, makes a large memory excersice to remember, to write and to communicate his unusual first love experience when he was sixteen. He does that in beautiful prose, realistic and lyric simultaneusly.

Love in this novel for Vladimir is mainly an emotional experience, not physichal. There is no sex and, more important, not explicit sexual desire. This could be considered old fashioned or artificial by contemporary readers but somehow Turgenev manages to make it credible and moving.

The translation by Isaiah Berlin is excellent, at least much better that the one I've read into Spanish.

I had to start this book four times, but once I did I couldn't put it down. Doig has a very unique style of writing, this novel being one in the first person. Angus and Rob are two characters the reader feels for; the novel does a wonderful job of engaging us in their lives. For Montana history and landscape, this book cannot be beat; Doig's descriptions of the land makes one feel like they are standing there at the time. This is a very beautiful historical account of a much-forgotten piece of American history.

A relative loaned me "Dancing at the Rascal Fair" during summer vacation, and I at first gave it part of an afternoon. "Hmmm. Not bad." Then I picked it up again at bedtime, got hooked, and read far too late into the night. "This guy can write!" Before long, Doig and his Scots characters had invaded my vacation, seduced my complete interest, and dominated my attention. Three things I particularly admired: First, the power of the story. As with the best of literature, Doig's story swept me into it, so that I dreamed the dreams, wondered how life would fare, and rode the tumbling buckboard of existence with the characters. Second, Montana as Doig painted it, played a major role in the interest. There's something "Westerning" about most of us, I feel, and Doig's Montana grips our collective subconscience. And third, Doig's use of language pleased me like the delight of Christmas fudge. The sheer intelligence and artistry of his writing made reading an aesthetic pleasure. Words ought to go

"Rascal Fair" narrates the story of two Scottish immigrants, their friends, and their families in the demanding Montana foothills around the turn of the last century. Doig is technically masterful and each page was a delight -- I wound up underlining and making marginal notes (things I rarely do in a book read for pleasure). He gives us an almost first-hand impression of the stark Montana winters and the renewal of spring, the small but intense triumphs of the ranchers, the poignancy as good old friends succumb to age and poor fortune, and so forth.

Doig's major triumph, though, is relating Angus McCaskill's pursuit of "the love of his life," Anna Ramsay. Doig skillfully describes the personal and social destructiveness caused by blindly (and greedily) pursuing one's selfish perceptions and dreams while ignoring (and losing) the far more beautiful gifts which grace our lives. I wished I could have jumped into the pages and shaken some sense into him, but I eventually realized this is how we, too, frequently order our lives.

I first read this book ten years ago, and it still seems like a story told by a dear and respected friend or mentor.

This is a very good coming of age novel - historical novel. Set in rural Montana on the eve of World War II, English Creek describes the summer experiences of an intelligent 15 year old. Written by a Montana native who has done a good deal of historical research, English Creek is not only a Bildungsroman but also a detailed portrait of life in rural Montana. Told with humor and considerable insight, English Creek is a sweet but not saccharine book about a more innocent but not necessarily easier time.

English Creek will linger in your memory. Its story of 14 year old Jick McCaskill is by far the best of Ivan Doig's Montana books. He probes Jick's coming of age, his relations with his family (not a dysfunctional one either), and culminates in Jick's assumption of responsibility fighting a massive forest fire. A lyrically written, memorable book.

Doig's characters are just incredible. His sense of humor is immense. His description of the depression years in Montana is fascinating. And of course, the landscapes inspired by his acquaintance with the countryside depicted in ENGLISH CREEK are breathtaking. This is the best book I have read in ages! I am going to find a way to work it into my American literature course, because it is not only a great book, it's a priceless piece of Americana.