This book is a wonderful, magical read. I got it because I watched the BBC adaptation as a child, and loved it. It's a story of magic, childhood and friendship, but more than it it captures the magic of the unknown - the statues that come alive, and the sense of adventure and mystery that every child knows. The story of the Ugli-Wuglies is truly creepy, but necessary - theres too much tendency these days to protect children from anything that might scare them - its good for them to be scared occasionally, they'll come to learn that the real world is far more frightening place. When you read it later as an adult, there's the theme of love, and the pain of love lost and the fact the that nothing is free, everything has to be paid for ultimately. The only reason I deducted a star is that, enchanting though it is, it lacks the depth or richness of, say, Phillipa Pearce's "Tom's Midnight Garden". All the same, still a children's classic, and every child should have the opportunity to read it.

My children and I have been reading this as our bedtime book. My son, age 8, was going to read it himself, but we soon found his sister, age 6, wanted me to read it instead (so I could do the "voices") so it has been turned into the nightly story. The characters: Gerald, Kathleen, and Jimmy are each drawn clearly and individually. My children are fascinated with Gerald's way of speaking as though he were telling a story. And they love Kathleen's way of alternating between being practical and yet longing for all things "magical". Jimmy is funny and endearing, as he is at that age of Not believing and yet eager for adventure. Their friend Mabel is full of mystery and make-believe and soon pulls them into a grand escapade. The author is able to vividly paint each person and each scene. It is with great reluctance we put the book down after a couple of chapters each night, wanting to finish all at once, but wanting the magic to last a little longer. When we finished, we all decided it was one of our favorites. Extremely well written. I did not find even the beginning dull or slow. From start to finish, this is one of the best children's books I've found. And we've read very many.

Although written around a century ago, this still remains one of the great classics of Children's literature. I have not read Harry Potter yet, but I would suspect this book is at least comparable. The plot is actually fairly complex -- there's humor, drama, romance, and magic. It can be read by both children and adults and both will enjoy it.

The story deals with a number of children who find a magic ring that can make your wishes come true. But this only gives a small idea of the wonders that lie within.

Other great Nesbit works -- Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet.

This book is an extremely well told story of a woman who, in order to survive The Holocaust, ends up marrying a man who ends up as a Nazi Officer.

Sorry to be crass, but this book is a real page turner.

Edith is an intelligent, warm & witty soul who had an extraordinary experience & luckily for us, has been brave enough to look back & write it all down.

It has an intimate quality, due largely to the fact that Ms. Hahn Beer has written it for her daughter who, born in a Nazi hospital, in 1944, wanted to know exactly what happened. Can you blame her?

If you are interested in Nazi Germany or The Holocaust this is a book you won't regret buying. In fact, I'm certain you'll remember it for the rest of your life.

First Rate!

I'm an 18-year old college student in India.My father had been to London recently where he ran into Ms.Angela at Harrods.Although,it was a chance meeting for him,it was a god-sent gift for me.She encouraged him to read a copy of "The Nazi Officer's Wife" written by her mother,Edith Hahn Beer.Although I must admit that war novels never interested me before,I was proven wrong by this one.

Once I started reading the book,I just couldnt put it down.Here is a simple,straightforward account of a Jewsih woman whose faith in her religion and her strength never let her down inspite of the horrendous perils that she had to face every minute of her life during the World War period.When I try to understand the pain in her heart when she was refused her University Degree,when she had to leave her Mother for the Asparagus fields,when she had nobody to turn to after her relationship with her boyfriend was heading no where,when she had to put on an endless charade amidst the core of the Nazi society,when she had to rely on God's mercy to keep her Jewish identity a secret,when she had to work as a maid in London after being an honoured Judge in Germany.....what can i say,its just unimaginable that this woman managed to survive through all this on her own.

There are so many lessons that this book has taught me.I can never stop admiring Edith Hahn Beer for her unshakeable faith that tomorrow is a better day.One of the most beautiful things I found in this book was the French saying "Life is beautiful and it begins tomorrow".It is so true that very few of us bother to realise its meaning!

And of course,how can I forget to mention how moved I was by this woman's love for her Mother.Her belief that she would be reunited someday with her Mother,her pangs of grief when "she sent me cake when she was hungry,mittens when she was cold"...and her resolution to do the same for her daughter(by trying to provide her the family which she herself never had around her)....these things go a long way in bringing out human emotions in their most tender and vulnerable forms.One cannot help but think inwardly what else one could have done under such terrible circumstances.

No doubt Ms.Beer's decisions were justified in every sense and they were ably supported by her virtues which we should all aspire to inculcate.

Though I consumed this book in a matter of hours, I found it so emotionally affecting that I had to stop and take a deep breath now and then, walk around the block, before I could continue reading. All the more compelling for its simple, honest style, this is a tale of extraordinary courage and perseverance on the part of Edith Hahn Beer. Would that more of her Austrian and German neighbors (of the "Aryan" stripe) had had a greater share of the integrity displayed by this woman. Her life irreparably fractured by events that remain utterly vivid and disturbing 50-some years after the fact, she somehow manages an astonishing degree of objectivity in her assessment of the evil forces arrayed against her and every other European Jew in those very dark decades. Definitely not a story for the fainthearted, this disturbing book and others like it need to be read and reread precisely to help prevent their repetition in the future.

I really enjoy Ms. Nesbit's written works. It is quite a shame that she can't write anymore. Although I liked this one a lot, I was a little disappointed by it because it lacked the charming fairy tale sort of feel that many of her children's books have. However, the story was quite wonderful, and I particularly loved the realistic scene of the children that the reader is given. I highly recommend this book to Edith Nesbit's fans, as well as people that enjoy a touch of mystery, mixed with a child's view of life.

I like the Railway Children a lot,especially how the author told the story. I liked Bobbie because there is something different about her,she was helpful and sweet at the same time. I am wondering where the dog James went? Other than that, the story was great!

The Railway Children is a wonderful book. When the book begins, the three children, Roberta (Bobbie), Peter and Phyllis are living a lovely, secure life at Edgecomb Villa. Their father returns home after being away on business, two unknown men come to visit him in the evening after supper, and he simply disappears. Neither the reader nor the children know what has happened to him until Bobbie makes a chance discovery and learns the horrible truth.

In the intervening time, their mother, a capable and charming woman, takes her children to live in the country near a railway station, because they must "play at being poor for a while." The children handle their new situation with grace and wit, spending hours hanging about the railway station and generally keeping themselves busy, and in the process becoming fast friends with the porter, Perks, and the station master. They also become acquainted with their own old gentleman who lends a hand to help them time and again.

Bobbie is the oldest and sweetest of the children, with a longing to be truly good. Peter is the boy, who is madly in love with trains, stubbornly refuses to pushed around, and exhibits an extraordinary courage in the rescue of a baby and a young man in a train tunnel. Phyllis is the youngest, a funny, clumsy child with good intentions that often seem to go awry.

I read this book to my four year daughter. She loved it. As the adult, I enjoyed reading it. And, you'll be happy to know, it all comes out right in the end.

Once again Ms. Wharton tells a gripping story of class distinctions in the Victorian age. Yet how many times has this happened in our time? A lovely young woman of a lower class meets a handsome young man of the upper class. Slowly their relationship escalates from kisses to making love. A woman's first love is held on a pedestal. She believes every word that issues from his mouth. Charity, our heroine, finds herself pregnant after receiving a note from her lover that he has gone away and will return, yet gossip holds that he is marrying someone of his own class. The betrayal, the gut-wrenching pain, the tears, the fear--it's all there, 19th century, 20th or even the 21st. Yet Wharton doesn't take the easy way out of this situation. She keeps you guessing up to the very end, and I applaud her for her courage. Today, with our penchant for happy endings, we forget about real life. This is a book every teenage girl should read. It might give them a moment's pause before offering the unique gift of their virginity to a young man before marriage. Take it from someone who's been there.

Charity Royall is a girl from a small town who spends her days face down in the grass dreaming. Enter Lucius Harney, artistic, city guy who for a few months sweeps Charity off of her feet, rescuing her from small town life in North Dormer. Charity turns out to be little more than a side dish for Harney who goes on to marry Ms Balch; Charity is left depressed, pregnant and forced to marry the middle-age man who raised her, to save her name. I love all things Wharton so I may be a bit biased but I disagree that the ending was poor. It's pretty standard that Wharton's books do not have a happy ending; the characters have an amazing, brief love affair, but in the end, there is always some impediment, as in Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence. For the realists out there, read this book; those who must have a happy ending, stick to fairytales!

Written when Wharton's own marriage was failing, this tale of first love won and lost is a bittersweet, moving novel which melds Wharton's two worlds beautifully - high society, and rural New England. Her personal favorite of all the novels she wrote, Edith Wharton captures the very essence of love and longing in this beautiful, sensual story of Charity Royall and Lucius Harney. Born to a poor mother, Mr. Royall rescues Charity and raises her as his own daughter, but when his wife dies of consumption, and Charity begins to ripen into a lovely woman, Mr. Royal realizes that his feelings for her are deeper than he imagined. Repulsed by his offer of marriage, Charity instead turns her attentions to the handsome young architect from Boston, Mr. Lucius Harney, who is visiting North Dormer for the summer. As summer unfurls in North Dormer like the Red Rambler rose in Charity's garden, Charity and Lucius' love blossoms, burns hot, and spills over into sexual union. Wharton's language of love is extraordinary - beautiful, sensual, and filled with all the fire of first love. I won't ruin the ending for you by revealing it, but it is poignant, achingly human, and ultimately fitting that Charity ends up where she does. Bittersweet and gorgeously written, this is a magical book not to be missed.

Of Love and Other Demons opens with a description of the author/narrator, in 1949, reporting the excavation of a convent of Clarissan nuns, and seeing "a stream of living hair the intense color of copper" spill out of the crypt. The hair belongs to Sierva Maria de Todos los Angeles, a marquise who is now two hundred years dead, the protagonist of this grotesque, terrible and gloomy story.

This book is pure Garcia Marquez, so you know it has to be good. The world inhabited by the characters is an incredible one; one whose truths are as strange as its demonic magic. Although a love story of sorts, Of Love and Other Demons has none of the comic antics of Love in the Time of Cholera; it reminds one more of the spare and grim Chronicle of a Death Foretold.

Sierva Maria is the only child of Don Ygnacio de Alfaro y Duenas, the second Marquis de Casalduero and Lord of Darien. Garcia Marquez describes him as "a funereal, effeminate man, as pale as a lily because the bats drained his blood while he slept." Don Ygnacio really doesn't do much with his time other than lie in a hammock and look at the world with fear and gloom in his heart.

Bernarda Cabrera, the Marquis's second wife, is Sierva Maria's mother. She is as addict of violent sex, cacao and fermented honey; a woman from the merchant class who had formerly been in love with a slave named Judas Iscariote. Filled with hatred for her own child, Sierva Maria was brought up by black slaves and learned to worship Yoruban gods, sing African songs, speak African languages. Sierva, in fact, prefers the vital, alive slaves to the decadent and perverted Spaniards.

Despite her odd parentage, Sierva is a happy child until the day she is bitten on the ankle by a strange dog. Even though the wound heals with no problem, her father, along with the religious authorities decides that she may be rabid, possessed by demons, and their barbarous attempts to exorcise her form the crux of this story.

The chief exorcist, Cayetano Delaura, an intellectual priest whose secret passion is books of courtly romance, falls in love with the young Sierva and with her coppery hair and it is their love that will chart the course of Sierva's life. Father Delaura's opponent regarding Sierva is a Jewish doctor named Abrenuncio de Sa Pereira Cao. This man is the voice of reason in a world where sanity and reason become wild and twisted. His is the lone voice crying in the wilderness.

There are many demons in this wonderful story of the fantastic, including love. The Bishop (a wonderful character) sees rabies as a manifestation of a demon-possessed body; a superstitious abbess finds a supernatural portent in every ordinary event. When Sierva asks her father if it is true that love conquers all, he answers, "It is true, but you would do well not to believe it."

The real demons, however, are the beliefs held by both the Spanish and the Christians, a theme that has been explored my Garcia Marquez in other books. This is only heightened by the clash of cultures between them and the Africans with whom Sierva Maria has been growing up. Father Delaura believes "that what seems demonic to us are the customs of the blacks, learned by the girl as a consequence of the neglected condition in which her parents kept her." The Jewish doctor, Abrenuncio, believes the real danger for Sierva lies in the exorcism which she is undergoing.

A fear of animals also dominates in this bleak and sad story. As a young boy, Ygnacio was terrified of all animals except chickens. But one day he observed a chicken at close quarters and "imagined it grown to the size of a cow, and realized it was a monster much more fearsome than any other on land or sea." He even tells himself, "I live in fear of being alive." The only animals left on his estate are mastiffs, which, strangely, he loves. Dogs play an important role in Of Love and Other Demons. Abrenuncio's name, Cao is Portuguese for "dog," and one of the characters meets a mysterious and watery death across a bridge "where they had just hung the carcass of a large, sinister dog so that everyone would know it had died of rabies. The air carried the scent of roses, and the sky was the most diaphanous in the world." Heady stuff? Maybe. But not for someone as talented as Garcia Marquez.

Ultimately, Of Love and Other Demons asks the questions: What is body and what survives the death of the body? What is flesh and what is spirit? What is demonic? This isn't Garcia Marquez's very best book, but that doesn't matter; it is yet another tour de force from one of the century's most brilliant and original authors.

I have to admit it, I am a Garcia Marquez fan, and therefore my opinion may be biased, still, I have to say I simply loved this book. I loved it because it is a very different love story, a story of a love that could never take place, and still, it did... The story line is simple, well developed, enigmatic and very different, in one word... BRILLIANT

This is a fantastic book, with magical but very realistic characters, sometimes loving, other times very cruel, and at all times very human.

It tells the story of Sierva Maria, poor little rich girl... she never felt the love of her parents, was raised by her African servants, got bitten by a dog with rabies, and was believed to be possesed by demons.

I must warn you, this is not your happily ever after story, but it is definetly well worth your time. It is exquisite!

I have never written a review in these type of venues, as I never find them useful. Books are a matter of taste and liking them depends much on your depth of knowledge and sometimes the mood you are in.
However, I feel compelled to respond to a negative review of this book. And believe me, I am not a touchy feely type of guy either.
Although everyone is entitled to their opinion, it is not fair to give the impression that this book is anything but brilliant.

The reader must understand that the simplicity of the story allows you to layer your own thoughts and (yes) feelings. This book is very different than any other Garcia Marquez book. It is a mood book, but in a different way than "100 years...". This book aims to capture your heart. Just like "...times of cholera" you fall in love with the story that is not being told directly.
Forget the reviews and find out for yourself. Allow yourself to be immersed, and fall in love with this little book. (if you can, read it in Spanish)

This book has a tone that is light and airy, as most fantasy books do. The author of this book is obviously a happy person who likes a happy ending. The tone of this book keeps the reader happy and not rally scared or sad at the events that take place. I like the way the author kept a character in the book that keeps the tone positive even in the most dire of situatations. ... So you see how the tone of the book can be a very positive one, and the author does very well in keeping that positive tone.
I thought this book was very well written in terms of tone. The author is one I respect and admire, and I also love this book. A fantasy reader will find its use of action and plot very intriguing, with the tone as it is. The book is one of my all time favorites and I'm sure the people who have read it will agree that, if made famous, this book will become an instant classic. ...

When I got Hero's Song, I just picked it right off the shelf. I just got interested in the title. Now that I've read the whole book I can't wait to finish reading the third book. Ms. Pattou should hurry up!! So all I'm saying is you've got to check this out.

It was the best book ive ever read. I even recogmended it and the second book in its series to my whole class. I've read both of them. Hero's Song was pure action, while Fire Arrow had a tiny bit of romance, but not enough to make it mushy. I recogmend both books.

My son got this book when he was 2 or 3 months old. We would read it to him occasionally as he was getting older. When he got to be about 6 months, he could do most of the things in the book (play peek-a-boo with Paul, pat the bunny, etc.). Now that he is a year, he does everything -- he waves to Paul & Judy, he puts his finger in the ring, smells the flowers, etc. He loves this book so much, the cover has come off and we have to purchase another.

The great thing about this book is that there is something fun for them to do on every page, and it grows with your child. The only drawback I found is that it's not super-durable if your child really loves it and reads it over and over and over and over... :-)

This is an awesome book and a classic! My 18 month old twin girls have really been into touch and feel books. This is definitely one of their favorites. It has soft textures, scratchy texture, and the peek-a-boo is their favorite as well as the mirror. It also has a scent page, which is great as well. The only thing I would change is to make it more durable. I've already taped it back together, and the comb binding comes undone easily when toddlers are handling it. It is still a great book, and I would recommend it to anyone with toddlers. At least it fits in my purse or diaper bag easily because it is small and lightweight.

Pat The Bunny is one of my 10-month-old daughter's favorite toys. She likes to leaf through the pages, and especially likes to play peek-a-boo with Paul and to look in the mirror like Judy does. The book captures her interest for relatively long periods of time. My only concern is that the plastic binding is somewhat flimsy and my daughter keeps pulling the book apart. I can put it back together again, but I wish that Pat The Bunny came as a standard bound board book that wouldn't fall apart quite so easily. It has to endure a lot of baby love and attention!

The Norton Anthology of American literature is a great collection of the most prominent and prolific authors in this young nation's history. The Anthology covers the development of authors in the new world, from the early native American folk tales to the works of Toni Morrison and Allen Ginsberg. The anthology spans poetry and prose and gives the reader a great cross sectional view of American society and its problems. The presence of Native American, Black and Hispanic authors presents a complete line up of works of literature, presented in a pleasant chronological order and introduced by a brief and interesting description of the author's life and works. The introductory description of each author facilitates the contextual placement of the text and its comprehension. The anthology contains several novels such as "Howl", "Sula" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". The presence of these complete works makes the anthology more complete, as they are an important part of the American literary tradition. The selection of authors and of their works is a good one, but presents some flaws. Obviously not being able to include all relevant authors in the American literary tradition, the editors selected a large number of authors, and their most important works. Nonetheless several important texts seem to be missing. Texts by less prolific authors, such as the great new classic "To kill a mockingbird" are missing. Although the anthology gives the reader an introduction on the author and his works it does not stimulate sufficiently through interesting points to be discussed and questions which shed light on hidden or obscure aspects of the texts. The anthology is a great tool for any class, or for the passionate reader. It is ideal if accompanied by a class or group/club in which the texts are discussed.

To anyone seeking an encompassing overview of American literature, here is your book. This, the latest edition of the Norton Anthology, not only makes for months of good reading but also acts as a good primer for further pursuits in American letters (academic and otherwise.) Besides the countless number of excellent selections, eleven works appear in their entirety. Among them, Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Whitman's "Song of Myself," and Ginsburg's "Howl."

The anthology also contains several new additions - most notably an intriguing section of Native American trickster tales that provides an interesting counter to Chris Columbus' over-zealous ramblings. As for more contemporary writing, I was pleasantly surprised at the number of deserving writers and poets newly anthologized in this revision: Toni Morrison, Raymond Carver, and Sandra Cisneros just to name a few.

Yet what makes this anthology truly successful is the breadth and depth of the text as a whole. The selections, the organization, the well-written bits of biographical information... IT ALL FITS PERFECTLY! No doubt other readers will find this anthology as informative, provocative and enjoyable as I do. A definite keeper for my permanent collection.

The Norton anthology is the definitive collection of American literature. Its selections range from the letters of Christopher Columbus to quintessential American works like Whitman's "Song of Myself" and inherently American movements such as beat poetry. The collection offers a wide spread selection of works, some of which fall outside of your typical definition of "literature." All, however, have been important parts of our artistic tradition and provide literary examples of the coming of age of America. Literature has truly helped to define the American identity. This book is a history lesson, a journey through some of the most beautiful poetry and prose ever written and a testament to the kind of intelligent, passionate people that have formed our country.

This is a very unsettling book. The way it is written contributes to this. At times, conversations are layered into story telling so the reader is kept uncertain of who's speaking. This echoes the uncertainty of the times the people in the book are experiencing. The harsh conditions of the Andes, with its thin air, dried vegetation, freezing nights and burning sun serve as a backdrop for the gripping story of cruelty, death, politics and sorcery. Colonel Lituma is driven to find the fate of three people who have disappeared from the camp. He knows he probably doesn't really want to know what happened, but he has to investegate to satisfy his curiosity. I was completely under the spell of this book and will be looking to read more of this author.

Death in the Andes is a story of brutality and fear and ignorance. The language is often coarse and vulgar. The ending is especially disturbing. Were it not for the remarkable writing of Mario Vargas Llosa, I might have put this unsettling story aside. But Mario Vargas Llosa is a captivating story teller and I found myself wanting to know more and more about his characters that inhabit the harsh mountains of Peru.

The reader encounters alternating viewpoints and layered conversations that intermingle the present and the past, forcing the reader to remain alert. Death in the Andes is structurally a mystery story in which two soldiers assigned to a barren outpost investigate the disappearance of three men. The brutal Shining Path terrorists (the Senderistas) are the natural suspect, but Corporal Lituma also mistrusts both the townspeople (largely traditional Indians) and the construction work crew building a highway across the mountains. Initially, he has little patience for talk of the pishtacos, vampire-like humans that sucked the blood and ate the melted the fat of their victims.

There are stories within stories. Young French tourists are stoned to death, rather than shot, to save bullets, and to permit others to take part in the killing. In fascination we listen to a lonely young man describe his improbable love of a prostitute. We witness a village turning upon itself and selecting victims for the Senderistas. We meet an aged, repulsive woman who in her youth helped kill a pishtacos. We gain a nebulous understanding as to why Peruvians and foreigners involved in re-forestation programs and nature preserves become prime targets for assassination.

I have already begun to read Death in the Andes again and I am searching for more writings by Mario Vargas Llosa. Although I found his portrait of contemporary Peru to be unsettling, disturbing, and haunting, Death in the Andes will appeal to the reader on many levels. It is a memorable lesson in history, in cultural conflict, and in man's inhumanity.

In Death in the Andes, Vargas Llosa weaves a tale that is neither simple nor pat. He reveals truths about human nature: their complexities and frailities in stressful circumstances. People alone in the mountains; people who have lost hope turn to beliefs as old as those same hills and become something horrible. They turn on their neighbors and kill them at the behest of people all too willing to use them for their own ends. The terrucos, serruchos, apus, and pishtacos which liter his story surround the reader in a vast world one cannot explain away as being the rantings of mountain people. Vargas Llosa places the reader into this mysterious world, and it is not always a comfortable one. The Shining Path scenes in this book are, in themselves, enough to make one turn away. But it is worth the read, as simply a lever to pry open that world which I can never really know, even though I've pedaled a bike in the backcountry, and had people yell that I was a "pishtaco" or one who steals the flesh from another to sell, I am not of Peru. Vargas Llosa took me as far I could ever go.

Let me say this first: this is not a book for the fainthearted! If you have someone you care about in Colombia, you will drive that person (and yourself) crazy if you read this book!! (Unfortunately, I speak from experience.. *gentle smile*)

Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez is best known for his beautiful classic novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude". "News of a Kidnapping" is very different from the other novels I have read of García Márquez, but still very interesting and well written. If one were not familiar with the kidnappings that have occurred in Columbia, one might just believe this was just another brilliant novel by Garcia Márquez.

"News of a kidnapping" is a true-life story of one of the evils of Colombia and Latin America. García Márquez writes about the kidnappings of Colombian journalists, and other well-known persons or their relatives, ten in total. "News of a kidnapping" is the story of how these people lived during their endless months in captivity. While held hostages they were not tortured nor abused, but just being away from their families and loved ones for many months and the lack of news from the outside world wore them out. The emotional suffering was made even worse by the attitudes of their abductors. One moment they could be very nice to them, and in the next moment they could be behaving like wild animals. Parallel to the memoirs of the imprisoned journalists, we follow their families and their anxiety; and the fight to have the ones kidnapped set free.

In Colombia people live in constant fear of being the next victim of kidnapping, or maybe even worse, that their loved ones will be. All too often we hear of famous athletes, celebrities, or other high profile people being held ransom for money or to achieve other political goals. That Garcia Márquez has dared to write such a book is rather amazing, bearing in mind that he probably risked his life by doing so. This book will for sure change the way you look upon your personal freedom!

After finishing this book I realized that living in Norway is maybe not that bad after all. It is not the belly on earth, and not much is happening here, but Hey! maybe that's not so bad after all..

If one were not familiar with the kidnappings that have occurred in Columbia, one might just believe this was a brilliant piece of fiction. Unfortunately this is not the case and Marquez does a fantastic job of recounting the terror that the hostages had to go through in their ordeal. This a true life tale of one of the plagues of Latin America. It is all to common to hear of prominent atheletes, entertainers and other high profile individuals being held ransom to fullfill a political cause. This is a story of Pablo Escobar, the notorious drug lord and how he conducted his reign over Columbia. This is the story of the Medellin cartels attempt to pressure the United Staates into not exradicting any of it's members. The portrayl of the drug lords and their lackeys is brilliant, showing the human side of people who are inhumane. The captives are so real, as portrayed by Marquez that one becomes very emotional over the conditions they had to endure. This book details the kidnapping of various journalists, ten in all, one by one. An easy enough book to read one will finish this book quickly as the suspense is, to use a pun, captivating. That Gabriel Garcia Marquez would write such a book is amazing considering that he risks his life by doing so. True to his his journalist roots he did it at the urging of the released captives suggestion. Marquez is to be applauded for his effort and his bravery as well as he shed some international light on a terrible malady of Latin America. After reading this you will appreciate your freedom and and all the luxuries it affords.

I read News of a kidnapping(Noticias de un Secuestro) of colombian writer, Gabriel García Márquez in spanish, and for me it was one of those book that I found myself cryng while reading it. Does it loose something with the translation?,I don't know; Does it loose something with the cultural gap?, maybe.Maybe if you don't live in a country were your physical integrity its in constant risk, you'll find this novel an odd version of Magic realism, but one musn't forget that García Márquez began his career as a journalist, and in his collected journalist works you could find in seed what you can fully appreciate in News of a kidnapping: That Gabo is almost as talented in non-fiction as he is in fiction. He might not be your typical or classical journalist, his works are so interesting and well written that you might think that you're reading fiction. Lástima that this is not the case: in Colombia, and lately in Venezuela, people live in constant fear of beign the next prey of the kidnappers,or maybe even worse, their loved ones. These menace is for everybody: Young, old, women, men, children, poor people, rich people. I think that García Márquez dared to write about something that few would: the kidnappings of a number of colombian journalists.How they lived during their endless months in captivity; their families and their desperation; the negotiations; the sacrifices of human life for what: An ideal...or greed? News of a kidnapping its a wonderful books of a horrible contemporary latinamerican issue.