The first half of the novel is by turns charming and enlivening. David's challenges make it difficult for a man not to identify with his youthful trials. The bridges between acts - written with the reminiscence of an old man - are enough to make a man of 25 look back wistfully at his youth. Add the zany, lovable characters and this becomes my favorite Dickens - so why just four stars?
Some modern readers might find introduction a tad slow; forewarned, however, they should overcome it, as it is fairly interesting. More seriously, the major subplot (Little Em'ly, Steerforth, and Ham) is resolved too melodramatically in the latter half, which seems out of place with the more natural style of the rest of the novel. This flaw keeps it from being a top-shelf classic, but is in no way destructive to the novel. It is extremely enjoyable.

Phew! This took awhile to read, but fortuantely, I had anticipated that. I gave it 4 stars because that is how I felt about it when I finished it. Knowing that it is a Charles Dickens novel and touted as an all time great, I feel like I should have given it 5 stars. However, I'm sticking with my gut feeling.

David Copperfield is a character that I will never forget. How could I? I lived with him for almost 3 months! I will also remember the many other characters, as Dickens ability to bring them to life is his forte.

Perhaps the reason why I couldn't give it a fifth star is the reason why people gave it negative reviews. There may have been times when a little too much description was given which made it drag slightly. It may well be that due to the fact that he wrote in installments and got paid by the page, that the overall novel is sort of overdone. Some parts were a bit hard to trudge through, which meant I wasn't always compelled to read it. I loved the overall story, the many subplots, and the various personalities. One of my favorite characters is his Aunt Betsy. For anyone who thinks the female characters were all the same, I wonder if they skipped the scenes with the Aunt...or Martha for that matter.

I hope that when and if I have fulfilled my insatiable hunger for the pile of books I haven't read, I can read this again and gain a better understanding of it. I am sure I missed a lot.

I wouldn't have appreciated this book when I was in high school, or probably even college. I think it would take a rare young person to have the patience to stick with it, with all the other crazy things that happen at that time of life. I'm glad that I was able to wait until a point in my life where I was ready to read this book and it wasn't shoved down my throat by some professor.

David Copperfield was always a favorite of mine. It is wonderful, how, circling with the years, I can make my own retrospect and read it again from my older perspective.

When I was younger, I too, wanted to complain that all of Dickens' heroines were the same, and now I realize how wrong I was. Agnes is good and beautiful and patient of course, but what about the heroine Aunt Betsey? What about Miss Mowcher, who gives David a piece of advice "from three foot nothing ... Don't confuse bodily defect with mental!" she exclaims, and this is advice we coudl still use today! What about Peggotty, who is true and good and occasionally silly? Then there are the women who are not so good: Mrs Heep, Miss Murdstone, Mrs Markleham (the Old Soldier) and Rosa Dartle?

Dickens' characters are marvelous, but what I find most wonderful is the love that brings them together. Aunt Betsey takes David in, and is rewarded by the softening of her own heart; Mr. Peggotty seeks and finds his niece; Traddles finally marries "the dearest girl" and long-suffering Mrs Micawber will never desert her husband and something at last turns up Down Under. The characters who are courageous enough to choose love over pride are almost always rewarded at the end -- assuming that they survive, of course! (I'm thinking of Ham.) Perhaps it is just a novel, and those who have courage to love are not always rewarded in real life, but the idea is wonderfully satisfying.

Almost as good as Bleak House. Two shortcomings, though. One, the poetry of the language never reaches the same heights. Dickens just doesn't seem as inspired here, and there are moments when he even seems tired and to be suffering from the same disappointment his characters complain of. Two, the mystery theme is pushed to the background and is lame in comparison. Otherwise, the structure is excellent, weaving the themes of the Circumlocution Office and self-imprisonment relatively seamlessly through the story.

One reviewer here has commented that "Little Dorrit" is not without Dickens' trademark humor, and, with one qualification, I would agree. Mr F's Aunt, Mrs Plornish, and Edmund Sparkler in particular are all quite funny. Characters like William Dorrit and Flora Finching, however, who would have been funny in earlier books (eg, Wilkins Micawber and Dora Spenlow in "David Copperfield" it can be argued, are younger - and more romantic - versions of Dorrit and Flora) are only pathetic in this one. It is a sign of the change in Dickens that he can no longer see the lighter side of these characters.

BTW, there is another little joke for those versed in Victorian Lit. The comedic couple Edmond Sparkler and Fanny Dorrit are a play on an earlier couple, Edmond Bertram and Fanny Price in Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park". The joke is that Dickens has taken the names and inverted the characters. Fanny Dorrit couldn't be more different than Fanny Price, and likewise Edmond Sparkler and Edmond Bertram. I'm sure this is not an accident. Dickens had a thing for the name Fanny, using it for two of his less appealing "temptresses", Fanny Squeers (in "Nicholas Nickleby") and of course Fanny Dorrit. Funny stuff.

And speaking of Fanny Dorrit, I have one last comment. It is often said of Dickens that he couldn't create good female characters. This puts me in mind of Chesterton who related a similar complaint made by Dickens' male contemporaries that he couldn't describe a gentleman. As Chesterton deftly pointed out, however, what these gentlemen really meant was that Dickens couldn't (or wouldn't) describe gentlemen as they wished themselves to be described. Rather, Dickens described gentlemen as they actually appeared. I might say the same thing about the women who complain about Dickens' female characters. It's not so much that Dickens couldn't (or wouldn't) describe good female characters. Rather, it's that the kinds of characters he did describe aren't the ones the complanaints wish to see. Women praise the Elizabeth Bennetts of the book-world not because the real world is full of Liz Bennetts (it's not), but because that's the way they themselves wish to be seen. Truth is, however, there are far more Fanny Dorrits and Flora Finchings and Dora Spenlows than there are Liz Bennetts. The women who complain of these characters, though, would rather ignore this unflattering little fact. Whatever. The truth will out, and there's far too much truth in Dickens characters to be so lightly dismissed.

4 1/2 stars

Dickens' last novels (with the exception of the unfinished EDWIN DROOD) really form a group all to themselves: exceptionally concerned with the excesses of social institutions and the cruelties of high society, they in some ways read more like Trollope and Thackeray than they do Dickens' own earlier works, although they retain Dickens's fine gift for character and bite. LITTLE DORRIT is proabbly my favorite of the later works: its multiple stories are extremely gripping, and his satire at its sharpest and most necessary. Many people say these later novels are not as funny as his earlier works, but DORRIT is to me an exception: there are few funnier (or more dear) characters in Dickens' repertoire than the breathless, kindhearted Flora Finching, and I find myself almost helpless with laughter whenever Flora's senile and hostile charge, Mr F's Aunt, makes her perfectly doled-out appearances in these pages. (Arguably the funniest scene Dickens ever wrote is the scene with this "most excellent woman" and Arthur Clennam and the crust of bread). This is a great Dickens novel even for people who tend not to like Dickens (and yes, there are some of them, as hard as that may be for the rest of us to believe).

Little Dorritt is not light reading. While it is in many ways a very entertaining work, it is not for those seeking pure entertainment. It is a very rich work, full of social commentary [church bells ringing, "They won't come."; the Circumlocution Office], humor [can anyone resist laughing out loud and Flora Finching?], several memorable characters, and a very powerful statement on personal salvation.

Yes, the novel does drag from halfway to the three quarters mark; but what 900 page Dickens novel doesn't? When you read Dickens, you should expect that. It is during that time that he typically starts to resolve many of the issues raised in the first half and also sets up his exciting finale. While the finale of Little Dorritt is not exciting in the Hollywood sense, it is very fulfilling.

The major theme that spans the entire work, something I haven't seen others discuss, is that of Old Testament vs. New Testament thinking. It is the Old Testament thinking of Arthur's mother that keeps her in her wheelchair. It is only when she gets a dose of New Testament thinking from Amy Dorritt that Arthur's mother walks. Dickens was a Unitarian who had a strong belief in the redemptive power of Christ. While he often ridiculed both the Church ("They won't come.") and religious hypocrites (Borriohoola-Gha in Bleak House), it is through Little Dorritt that he presents this redemptive power. Entertainment becomes a treatise on right living.

"Gates of Mitzvah" proves that Reform Jews were talking about mitzvot long before the "Pittsburgh Principles" were written. This book is a nice introduction and reference volume outlining the most common mitzvot in the Jewish lifecycle, such as brit, bar mitzvah, putting up a mezzuzah, get, etc. The most interesting reading comes at the end of the book, where several essays are presented which discuss the role of mitzvot in the lives of liberal Jews. This is only an introductory volume of course, and anyone who wants the mitzvot to play a more important role in their lives will quickly outgrow it.

David Adam, Vicar of the Holy Isles, has two special ministries. As vicar, he ministers to thousands of pilgrims every year. But he is also a poet, a prayerful poet in the Celtic tradition. This collection of prayers is organized according to the order of service, from first preparation through the final blessing. It includes Adam's original prayers, as well as classic prayers, well known and unknown, from sources as diverse as the Carmina Gadelica, the Alternative Service Book of the Church of England, Evelyn Underhill, and a manual for private prayer published in 1559. For those who wish to pursue a more prayerful life, this little collection is a must, whether you follow the Celtic path or some other.

The plot of this book is weak and very slow to develop. There was very little development of the characters thus they lacked depth. I stopped reading half way, which is further than I got with Hagberg's "Joshua's Hammer". I would not recommend this book.

"Eden's Gate", David Hagberg's newest novel featuring his recurring character Bill Lane, is an average read and definitely not up to the standards set by some of his earlier novels. It is a quick read, but there are a number of problems. The main problem is the abrupt ending. It seemed like momentum was being built for a big finale, but it ended up being a one-sided shootout.

The novel centers around a German madman, Helmut Speyer, who has discovered a mysterious box located in a submerged area/bunker called Reichsamt Seventeen. Bill Lane goes undercover as a South African agent named John Browne (with an "e" as reiterated way too many times in the novel). In order to join forces with Speyer, he saves him from assassination. While he seems to have Speyer's trust, Speyer's number one man Baumann has his doubts.

The action starts when Lane tries to retrieve the mysterious box. Russian agents become involved and not only does Lane have to keep his cover, he must also protect himself and the Germans from the Russians. Lane survives many close calls, but that's to be expected in this type of novel.

Lane's wife seems out of place and doesn't have a big, or seemingly important, role. The enemies are all cookie-cutter types and don't seem to have their own personalities. They all seem to be based on a generic pre-Cold War Russian and WW2 German. These faults in addition to the rushed ending makes this one an average novel. However, many of Hagberg's/Sean Flannery's novels are better. Don't judge the quality of this author's works on only one novel.

This was another Hagberg action book. After being contacted by the German law enforcement officials,Bill Lane infiltrates a gang of German bad guys who are hiding out in Montana.They are
led by Helmut speyer,an ex-Statsi head.Lane dives into an underground Nazi bunker that has been flooded and destroyed.He
brings up a case that containds a devastating weapon that Speyer intends to use.It then becomes a race against time for Lane to stop him.This book has plenty of action and the usual cast of

villains and heroes. This is a good read. You will not be dissapointed.

There are few books available today that discuss interactive television, so it's great that there's this one to help explain it. However, as someone who has been involved in this business for 2 years now, I found the book blatantly biased toward PC-based interactive TV programming -- something that in the last year has taken a back seat to settop box-based interactive TV programming. Also, the vendors and producers mentioned in the book are not necessarily the industry leaders. The book makes no mention of Screamingly Different Entertainment, B3TV, Mixed Signals Technologies, or Wink. Take this book for what it is: a corporately penned tale about interactive TV with an agenda, but by no means a comprehensive, balanced overview.

function of the Web tv and feature of the web tx

I had to get up to speed on the world of WebTV quickly. This book did it for me. If you're a beginner like I was, this is the first book you should read before getting into the details through other, more industry-specific sources.

I was very excited when I saw this book hoping it'd open me all of the secrets of not-known-until-now world of HDL Synthesis. How wrong I was. The title is very misleading, the book spends just a few pages on synthesis. Overall, this book might be useful for a novice, but even for me, an undergrad ECE major, it turned out to be almost useless. It contains minimum of factual information, often outdated(and this is critical in the ECE world), and only slightly touches the surface on a number of topics it tries to cover. I think the authors whould have concentrated on something specific, instead of giving "what happened in Computer Engineering in last 15 years" review.

I have been a user of VHDL for the last three years and am now beginning to use Verilog, mostly because I am now doing ASIC development. For the new Verilog user, this book is excellent because it covers the gamut for an HDL and FPGA designer -- the syntax of the language,the difference between structural and behavioral constructs, simulation, hierarchical design, and of course the ubiqituous State Machine. Also included are some sections on targeting different types of technology, including standard cell. I found this book quite useful compared to other Verilog books I have purchased.

I have been searching for an Verilog book that will allow me to get up to speed quickly for an particular project. I wanted something that presented the syntax of the language in an clear manner but more importantly would give me an methodology to allow me to use Verilog in the design of an FPGA. This book seems to have "the right stuff". This book along with "Verilog HDL" by Samir Palnitkar seem to be the best that I have seen for learning Verilog

Another reviewer here mentioned similarities with Updike and Russo, two authors I have read recently. I concur with that; the male character in this novel is in the throes of confusion, as is Rabbit, and confronts his real self, a bit like the main character in Empire Falls.

But this book stands out for its excellent depiction of the breakdown of both a person and a relationship. Gates is very perceptive in presenting the tiny details that herald this breakdown - the subtle dialogue, the intimate feelings, and the situations that are too complicated for normal people.

This is an emotional story, about love and loss, about trying to cope and giving in to primal desires. Unforgettable, but I can't give it 5 stars, which I reserve for Updike and Russo.

After only a couple chapters of Preston Falls, the reader realizes that Mr. Gates accomplishes what few authors are able to: he depicts the fears, insecurities, and frustrations that we all have and does so in a believable way. Often, I found his observations to be omnisciently accurate. For example, when the middle-aged protagonist is about to snort a few lines of blow with his guitar-playing pseudo-scumbag buddies, thereby symbolically snapping the fraying strings which are attaching him to his unsatisfying family life, the author describes how Willis is feeling about recapturing his youth in such a recklessly taboo fashion: "Suddenly he feels like he has to s---: the excitement of being bad"(p.102). Until I read this, I was under the impression that I was the only human alive who felt the almost unrestrainable need to relieve my bowels as I was about to do something naughty (something I first experienced when I held a match to a cigarette in the back yard with my adolescent friends). Mr. Gates fills his book with countless keen observations like this. His character development combines elements of John Irving and Nicholson Baker, and his dialogue is believable and easy-flowing about 95% of the time. The only thing which may have been a bit ovedone was Jean's super goody-goodyness (For God's sake, Ms. Willis, it's alright if your nine-year-old son uses the word "suck"!). But as a whole, Doug Willis, Jean, Reed, Calvin, and Champ are complex and imaginative (yet plausible) characters, who are as predictable and unpredictable as we all can be. This is a quick book to read and well worth it. But warning. . .it's hard to put down!

Preston Falls is full of plain brilliant writing, is funny, suspenseful, suprising, shrewd, and marvellously observed. Gates deserves all the praise he's gathered -- do bother with it. Yes it's sardonic as all hell, but amusingly so. His devilish minor characters are larger than life, his scenes of things coming undone for the central character Willis are hilarious, and real. True, the last third is a little flatter and imperfectly resolved, and Jernigan is maybe a better book. But the solution is to read them both, back to back as I did. Then read Kingsley Amis, ye who have ears to hear the glee behind such fine, sardonic points of view.

There are two schools of Austen. The first, her ardent admirers, adore everything she does; the second find the snobby world her characters inhabit a perpetual turnoff. Belonging to neither category myself, this book strikes me as somewhat tentative, in regards to Austen's development as a writer. This opinion I'm sure won't endear me to the legions of Austen fans who treasure every word she wrote. But though the story itself is a fine one, the novel as a whole lacks the attention to detail, character, and metaphor that Austen would perfect in her later novels (particularly "Mansfield Park," which never seems to get the accolades this novel and "Pride and Prejudice" do). Though Austen compensates for this with various literary techniques (creating an opposite foil for all of her characters, constructing parallels for various scenes, etc.), when it comes right down to it, this is the work of a beginner, a writer just beginning to get her bearings. I know "S&S" has its passionate proponents, mostly on the basis of its romantic plot, and heartfelt depiction of the love lives of two very different sisters. But on the whole, this book derives its strength mostly from straightforward storytelling, rather than imaginative and poetic writing. Not a bad beginning, but Austen definitely improved her game with her future novels. (...)

"Sense and Sensibility" is a witty, diverting book that was a pleasure to read. I was eager to read another novel by Jane Austen after so thoroughly enjoying "Pride and Prejudice", and was far from disappointed. Austen creates wonderful stories full of depth, elegance and an endless supply of witticisms. There are so many terrific quotes in her novels that it gets hard to pick a favorite. Don't be hesitant to pick this book up - a year ago I would have laughed if someone had told me that I would be a Jane Austen fan. I'll never regret giving it a chance, so I hope that you will too.