You know you have read a bad book when you sit through it, sneering in disgust until you reach the end, when you throw it across the room or hide it in shame. The wonderful thing with William Boyd is he is so magical with the subtlety of his messages. Reading Confessions I knew I was in the hands of a good writer, and that I would not be let down. True to form, the ending wrapped Confessions up neatly and fittingly. Reading books like Boyd's are a relief - there is so much [junk] out there and we must all thank God there are published writers who actually have true gifts of literacy (and I challenge anyone to beat Boyd at his game, he is a true master of the english lexicon). All in all, I love this book and if you, like me, feel good books are few and far between, read this for a good dose of refreshment.

I have read and enjoyed most of Boyds' books - but this was by far my favourite. Buy it now, or borrow it to save paper.

Interesting; very vividly written. Excellent character development. Highly recommend your reading this book. I was down to the last 40 pages and did not want the book to end. I also highly recommend his other book --- The Blue Afternoon.

I feels like i am reading both "The Stranger" and "All Quiet on the Western Front." I was hoping to get something from it but i was disappointed from what i considered the best combination of both novels.

For almost seventy years, this book was only readily found in an 'expurgated' version--that is, an abridged edition published first in 1929. Manning originally published his novel privately, but when it was introduced to the public (anonymously in the first editions), his editors felt that the language was too crude and for the genteel reading public and cut the book down to fit the day's standards. It is only now that we can appreciate the true power and honesty of a book that has been overlooked for too long.
Her Privates We is not a story of war so much as it is the story of men involved in that war--it is only in the final chapters that any real battle scenes take place. For the majority of the book, we are treated to an account of the life of Private Bourne (Manning himself in a literary disguise) during the five months of the Battle of the Somme (July-November, 1916), one of the most tragic and deadliest battles of World War One. To really explain the plot would be to give away the true experience of reading the book, but I guarantee, there is no account of World War One that can be compared to this work. It is unique and as relevant today as it was in 1929.
There is no attempt at hero-worship or empty patriotism in Manning's work. He telling the story of a group of men trapped in a world for which they were never prepared, and their humanity shines through it all. Their language is coarse, their opinions of the war, women, their fellow soldiers differ, but ultimately, they are all in the same Hell and are bonded together in a desperate hope of survival. Manning's is one of the few War works that does not follow the Victorian pattern for novels (hence why it is seldom mentioned in reviews of war literature). He is not trying to help his readers escape, but rather forcing them to face the reality they had created.
It is clear, even in his prose, that Manning was a skilled poet. Throughout the novel, there are flashes of beauty in the writing itself:

"She knew nothing of their subterranean, furtive, twilight life, the limbo through which, with their obliterated humanity, they moved as so many unhoused ghosts, or the aching hunger in those hands that reached, groping tentatively out of their emptiness, to seek some hope or stay."

As well as humor. After a paticularily confused conversation with a French woman with whom they have been billeted, Bourne's superior complains to him:

"I wish to God I knew a bit o' French" said the corporal earnestly.
"I wish to God you wouldn't mix the little you do know with Hindustanti," said Bourne.

The incredible humanity in this book has seldom been paralleled, even in modern literature. Manning's genuis has been overlooked for too long and it is time that his masterpiece was rediscovered to teach a new generation what war is really like.

The most moving book on warfare that I've ever read. Manning takes the reader into the trenches of WWI and through a masterful use of the language shows the struggles of one young, educated Private as he endures the hardships of war. This book was formerly titled The Middle Parts of Fortune. Outstanding from cover to cover.

A collection of stories about initiation. Killing Lizards is a marvellous story about a young boy shifting from killing lizards, as phallic symbols, to blackmailing his mother to get the love he wants from her, especially since the blackmailing tool shows the father does not control the mother any more.

I also loved Hardly Ever, as a frustrated initiation to sex for a teenager. His initiation is purely superficial, unable that he is to go through it, in spite of a real possibility he goes to sleep on (he goes to sleep, with a girl, when that girl is ready for more), but it is always compensated verbally by some bragging about with his school pals.

Gifts is even stranger. The young student is unable to get through his initiation and has to satisfy himself with some gifts. Everyone of his conquests presents him with personal or confidential elements. His poverty, caused by some postal strike, makes this experience even funnier, funny-strange, because the poorer he gets, the more private gifts he receives.

Boyd is a strange writer about frustrated, and even twisted, initiation for teenagers. Fascinating how they can live on this frustration that becomes their everyday food, or even fodder, the brain being more or less negated.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

This book was given to me by my college English professor. Even though it is out of print, it is worth finding and reading. The stories are short and reflect upon what emotions and feelings one goes through while growing up and going through this thing called life. I enjoy reading this book while around the pool and relaxing since the stories are short and not demanding of hard concentration. The reading is at a moderate level and the plots often provoke an assesment of the readers' own life and his reactions to situations. A very good book!

This book was good but it could have been better. Some of the questions could have been harder and some could have been better.

I found this book to be a wonderful asset to my literature collection. I am a teacher, and it's fun to find new things to use in the classroom. Using the trivia questions, my students love to shout out the answers! What fun! Kudos to the author! I wish she'd write more!

This book is really fun to test ur friends and family on there little house knowledge if u are one that loves little house books test ur knowledge on ow well u know it with this book

This book is about one of the more interesting groups from WWII. And it does a very good job of describing living in that group and some of the actions they partook in.
But it doesn't provide much context for what they did. Very little about how their actions worked with what was happening between the armies in North Africa and why what they did helped so much.
So if you want to know what life was like in the LRDG, this book is good (not great). If you want to know why what they did mattered - there's not much here.

This is as candid and forthright an account of life in the LRDG as you will ever find. Kennedy Shaw wrote this book in 1943 as the exploits of the LRDG in North Africa were coming to a close and the story flows with a freshness that time has not diminished.

Great book written by someone who was there. Many of the logistics taken for granted by todays special operations groups were thought up by these guys. Interestingly most of the force was made of of individuals from the Commonwealth and not England. For more detailed information go to Long Range Desert Preservation Group on internet.

I saw "Armadillo" on A&E and was fascinated throughout. When I went to the library, "Armadillo" was not available, so I got another book by William Boyd, "An Ice-Cream War." This book was a disappointment to me. I think the writing was superficial, it didn't seem to have a plot and I never could get into the story. People asked me what it was about, and I had a hard time telling them. I'm glad others were involved, captivated, engaged etc. but I was not.

I think it is a nice and readable book but not really a masterpiece

An Ice-Cream War is a historical novel concerning the war front in the African colonies of Germany and Britain during WW I. As with most folks I suppose, I know relatively little of WW I ... and nothing of the battles fought in these colonies. William Boyd educates the reader of this forgotten slice of history very nicely by enveloping it in a very realistic story concerning reluctant soldiers, both German and British, and their families. The author strikes a successful balance of wry humour and pathos, with the end result being that indeed war, or at least this war, is horribly tragic and senseless.

This is the second William Boyd novel I've read, the first being Brazzaville Beach. Although both novels involve Africa, they are quite different (Brazzaville Beach is a story about modern sub-Sahara Africa). Sadly for me, I had lofty expectations of An Ice-Cream War since I thought Brazzaville Beach was one of the best novels I've ever read. So I was in a sense disappointed with An Ice-Cream War even though it is a perfectly competent and interesting story.

Bottom line: historical fiction on par with the best works from Michener and Uris. However it doesn't quite reach the levels of literary excellence of Boyd's Brazzaville Beach.

More than any North American or European writer working today, William Boyd understands the developing world in a manner somewhat like the greta Grahme Greene. Boyd's earlier books about Africa have been dead-on portraits of life in West Africa. You get the feeling from reading his African books of the ennui and decay caused by the heat, the humidity, and too many gins on the veranda. Blue Afternoons has many of the elements of Boyds earlier works - exotic tropical locals, the clash of European/North American cultures with those of the developing world. The exotic locales and glimpses into turn-of-the-century Philippine society gave the book an intriguing texture. The story, however, wasn't nearly as captivating. A marvelous backdrop for a contrived, thin storyline. I kept thinking that Boyd must have done an incredible amount of historical research to be able to evoke the time and setting with such descriptiveness. But he left out the most important part of the book - the story. Overall, not a very satisfying book. I recommend instead one of his earlier books, such as Brazzaville Beach or On Yankee Station

William Boyd returns to the familiar ground of Hollywood's golden area between the World Wars (which was so meticulously recreated for us in his 1988 novel "The New Confessions") and embarks on a journey which takes him forward in time to the present day, and around the world to the Philippines and Portugal. While the Blue Afternoon does not match his earlier work (Brazzaville Beach, A Good Man in Africa) in terms of meticulous attention to historical detail, he is in top form in poignant descriptions of love affairs between characters in desparate circumstances. This book is a must read for Boyd fans. For those uninitiated to Boyd, it would perhaps be better to start out with "The Destiny of Nathalie X", a fine collection of short stories, or the more satisfying and thematically focused "The New Confessions".

Fans of Fitzgerald and Evelyn Waugh may enjoy The Blue Afternoon, which has the same sort of sweeping temporal background as Gatsby or Brideshead.

A masterful storyteller, William Boyd captivates his reader from the onset. "The Blue Afternoon" is a wonderful and beautifully written story that encompasses romance, intrigue, crime, and passion, and one that truly holds the reader's attention from cover to cover. From the moment I read the incredible prologue, I didn't want to put this book down. There is a skillful blending of perspective here--the author (a man) has been eminently successfully in creating a story in which a woman is the narrator, and she, in turn, recounts the story of a man (her father)

In this book, the protagonist is Tony Last, an Englishman who would much rather tend to his beloved estate in th country than join his wife on trips to see their arrogant and aristocratic friends in London. Brenda, the wife, becomes bored with their quaint life, has an affair, and Tony's son dies in an accident. In a strange twist, on a trip to South America near the book's end, he ends up in the dense jungle in the care of an illiterate man who promises to let him go but instead forces him to read aloud from Dickens. The main idea is that betrayal follows Tony wherever he goes-- from his wife in England to the enigmatic man in the jungle. It's a enormously humorous satire of the London aristocracy,in which the people treat their "friends' misfortunes as entertainment. In fact, they gossip about the affair his wife is having in his own house, during a party he is throwing. The jungle is a parable for London-- seemingly harmless at first, but with dark undercurrents of backstabbing, lies, and treachery. A terrific novel by a Waugh, a brilliant writer.

This being the third of Waugh's novels I have read, it is probably my favorite. Waugh is easily the most readable of the great British authors of the 20th century.'A Handful of Dust' is not as funny as 'SCOOP' but it is sharp satire of British society. The book has alternate endings and I prefer the one where Tony and Brenda reunite.

The story centers around the Last family, principally Tony and his wife Brenda. All the elements of the demise of a marriage are contained in this masterpiece - a stodgy husband, a cheating wife, and a tragic death. Beware ladies because the females in the novel are on a whole as weak and superficial a group as ever encountered. Waugh at the time of its writing was reportedly recovering from a failed romance and no doubt was influenced by a jilting fiance. Brenda Last,in particular, is a character you will love to dislike. Brenda's infatuation with the 'neer do well' mama's boy, John Beaver, stretches the reader's imagination.

Both conclusions are appropiate and you will be staisfied with either.

Written by Evelyn Waugh in 1934, this British novel is a biting satire of the silly lives of the upper class. The author is master of the nuanced barb and he uses them with seeming delight and controlled rage. It is an unpleasant book to read and I know I would hate the author if I met him in person, and yet I can appreciate his skill in creating the discomforting atmosphere, his fascination with things that go wrong, and the dark side of human nature.

Tony Last, an aristocrat who devotes himself to the upkeep of his expensive ancestral home is blind to the infidelities of his wife Brenda, who parties in London with her sycophantic lover. There's a whole cast of vapid characters, each exquisitely developed with revealing detail. When tragedy strikes it's like a piece of chalk scraped upon a blackboard, and as the story continues to unfold, and Tony travels to the jungles of Brazil, the plot swerves into a painful absurdity. It's all one big farce and yet there is no comic relief. And by the end of the book, only sadness prevails.

I must give this book a high ranking however because of Mr. Waugh's skill and his uncanny ability to uncover some painful human truths that I'd rather not see. I can therefore only recommend it to students of human nature who are willing to be tormented in the same way the author torments his characters. Just be forewarned.

This book was written in the 1980s when life in New York City was a bit wilder than what it's become today. New Yorkers figure prominently here, as do American "southerners" and a Britisher, who embodies all of that country's cultural archetypes: restraint, "shyness," proper behavior, etc. Put these characters together and you get the joke: a series of cultural clashes and bloopers, mad people, bizarre behavior, appalled reactions, humiliations, revelations, improbable plot twists, and all other manner of silliness. But is it any good, you ask? I guess it depends on your mood. If you're in the mood to watch cartoons and giggle at stereotypes (rude New Yorkers, dumb southerners, brash Jewish princesses) you'll think this work is good. If you want some substance with your humor, you probably should go elsewhere.
I stuck it out because the plot does move along eventually and some of the characters are sufficiently kooky to be interesting, but I was mildly offended by the constant hammering away at the stereotypes, all of which have been utterly exhausted by standup comics, the movies, TV, etc etc ad nauseam. Reader, beware!

STARS AND BARS provided one of the most enjoyable reading experiences I've ever had. Henderson Dores and the befuddlement he felt at the various situations in which he found himself were a constant source of humor, sometimes hilarity, and of admiration for Boyd's inventiveness and style. However,while I'm no prude I found a couple of scenes offensive; sometimes Boyd comes across as a case of arrested development in his need to describe female genitalia. This trait is especially offensive in one particular scene where the context is not sexual and the details are beyond unnecessary. I've since read ARMADILLO, which is also great fun; it also is more substantial and contains less of the prurience. I look forward to reading more Boyd, as he is a top-notch storyteller. However, if he hasn't yet, he needs to get over his distracting little obsession.

This transatlantic comedy of errors is a nice bit of whimsy. Somehow it blends high art, fencing, embarassed English, trailer-trash Southerners, strange criminal activity and unexpected romance. Henderson's perigrinations through the South seem serve no higher literary goal than to amuse and bemuse, but even in Alabama that's no crime.

Whilst beginning Armadillo, I was slightly put off by the slow start. I thought, a few times, that I might move on to something else. Boyd spends a lot of time setting this one up. However, I continued and the payoff was worth it. Boyd is a fabulous writer and was able to produce this wonderful novel that seems to cross all types of genre barriers - is it a mystery, thriller, romance?

Bottom line: I was very pleased that I read Armadillo. A fine book by a fine author.

Based on the book's jacket quotes, I expected a much darker, more ominous book. Instead I got the loss adjuster's version of High Fidelity written more dramatically. Which is fine, since I couldn't imagine the words Kafka and comedy being used in the same sentence anyway. To be fair, Armadillo is deeper, more thoughtful than High Fidelity. Throughout, the protagonist Lorimer Black is woven into a complex, dangerous, and utterly believable tailspin full of symbolic events, coincidences and resolutions. I enjoyed the finely written characters, each so vividly drawn that I snarl at the thought of people I know who fit similar descriptions. I also appreciate how the book left some issues unresolved. There are things that Lorimer doesn't know and never will know and the reader shouldn't either. Believe me, it adds to the enjoyment of reading this book. Overall a very rich, well-told and satisfying story which I'd reccommend to anyone who appreciates modern fiction, especially with an English twist.

It is a cold winter's day in London that is about to get much colder for claims adjuster Lorimer Black, who must feel that he is visiting the Twilight Zone. He goes to see his client, Mr. Dupree, only to find him hanging from the ceiling, an apparent suicide. After calling and dealing with Officer Rappaport of the police, all Lorimer can think of is what a way to start a day.

Not to long after that, an over-insured hotel burns down and his boss wants Lorimer to investigate. Frauds and scams seems to be the message of the day. However, life subsequently turns truly rotten for Lorimer. His car is vandalized and his father abruptly drops dead. Before he can even begin to mourn, he is fired. What's a man to do, when you suffer from a sleep disorder? Hopefully you get a dream-laden, good night's sleep.

If ARMADILLO sounds weird and a bit off centered, don't lose any sleep because that is what the novel is all about. In the capable hands of William Boyd that strangeness works, providing the reader with an ironic but extra dark look into London whose pendulum fails to swing back and forth. Lorimer is a wonderful character, whose world is falling apart in spite of his efforts to simply fit in with his peers. Readers who enjoy a dark intrigue need to try Mr. Boyd's latest novel because it is a winner.

Harriet Klausner