"Entertaining and affecting" is how the San Diego Union- Tribune describes The Cider House Rules. "Irving is among the very best story tellers at work today"as described by the Philadelphia Inquirer and that is correct. A native of New Hampshire Irving depicts the scenery of Maine as if he has lived there forever. The story of a young boy falling in love over and over again will have you reading till the very end.
Homer Well, an orphan of St. Cloud's , has a irregular childhood. Since he is the child of St. Cloud's he is forced to be the "older brother". When he leaves he is forced to make a heart breaking decision between the woman he loves and his best friend. Along the way, he encounters people and place he has never see before.
Dr. Larch the "father" of Homer and physician of the orphanage, falls in love with Homer. He loves him like a son and encourages him to take over the orphanage after Larch has passed. Larch has to convince Homer and The Board to allow his to be the primary physician.
The Cider House Rules is a book for everyone. It has romance, action, and end of your seat excitement. It's a true masterpiece.

I have been reading some of the reviews of both the movie and this book, and the people who have read the novel all seem to feel that the heart is no longer in the movie. I read the novel, and it is one of my favourite books of all time, and I can safely say that what needed to be kept to keep the story beautiful was kept. True, many of the plotlines and characters are lost, notably Melony... I really missed her... but I think the biggest mistake that a person writing an adapted screenplay can make is to try to keep too much of the story in there. Books are meant to be read over long periods of time, so there are always many storylines happening at once, and many characters. But in a movie, there are two hours, three hours tops. The storyline has to be relatively simple, and the amount of characters has to be very few, or it becomes episodic and jumpy. What cutting out so much of the book allowed John Irving to do was spend more time on what he left in. He could go much more into depth with the storylines and characters that were kept. Imagine trying to jam everything that was in the novel into a two hour movie. You would end up with endless flat characters, and a bunch of even flatter storylines. Which would be a disgrace to the novel. This is not a disgrace. It takes the most important parts, the most important characters, and squeezes them into a much shorter period of time, and makes for a good movie. A great film and and a great novel do not consist of the same things.

I didn't read this book but I was enchanted by the movie. However I am going to buy the screenplay and devour this poverful story again. I would recommend it to everybody who is trying to relax and find another beautiful thing to do.

David Irving carried out extensive primary research while writing this book and presents an intimate and personal portrait of Erwin Rommel which is fascinating to read. For this reason, this book can only be commended.
There is an absence of references to Irving's more controversial views which also can only be welcome. However in light of recent events the section of the book which deals with Rommel's demise surely cannot be accepted on face value. Essentially Irving's argument is that an unwitting Rommel was betrayed by General Hans Speidel, his chief of staff, and therefore took the fall for Speidel's involvement in the July plot to kill Hitler. Speidel went on post war to become a senior commander in NATO, Rommel of course was forced to commit suicide. In any case, leaving aside the more debatable allegations, I do not view the attempted murder of Irving's precious Fuhrer as a "crime" and therefore found it hard to share in the author's indignation at Speidel's alleged conduct which premeates the book. That aside, this work as I referred to above is not without merit.

Excellent and moving. I include it with Antony Beevor'sStalingrad and John Toland's biography of Hitler as one of the bestworks I have ever read about World War II. As to its ultimate completeness and accuracy, I can't say, but I was surprised by just how good this book was, considering the organized attempts to trash Irving's reputation. Irving does not take a "pop approach" (whatever that means) here, nor does he at any point deny the Holocaust... I have to repeat this: Irving DOES NOT deny the Holocaust in this book! This fact alone makes me suspicious of the other claims being made against him. This is the first of Irving's books I've read - so many nasty things were being said about him that I got curious. ...Maybe there's something here after all? ...I will find Irving's other books (if they haven't been burned yet), read them, and make up my own mind about what he has to say. Meanwhile, I highly recommend Rommel to anyone interested in WWII, particularly the Africa campaign and Normandy. END

I've read this book twice, the last time in the mid-'80's, but I constantly find myself re-opening parts of it for sheer reading plaeasure. Irving employs a lively theatrical writing style that nicely enhances the real drama of Rommel's career. As a result, this is a livelier and more enjoyable bio than the more recent "Knight's Cross."

Irving clearly admires Rommel, calling him one of history's great commanders. That said, Irving doesn't hesitate to point out Rommel's flaws and mistakes, including galling stubborness and unwillingness to heed subordinates' advise at Torbruk in 1941. Irving even presents the argument that Rommel himself, through lack of the same hard resolve and boldness he had prveviously displayed, shares blame for the failure of his critical offensive against the British at Alam el Halfa in August 1942, thus setting the stage for epic defeat at El Alamein a couple of months later.

Rommel clearly comes across as a genuinely decent sort incapable of the types of atrocities carried out by the Nazis on a grand scale elsewhere. All the more touching is his devotion to his wife and son, whom he obviously cherished, so much so that he unhesitatingly accepts suicide to protect them from Hitler's wrath. (Thus on another level, this book is also a touching love story.) This is all the more tragic considering that Rommel, as Irving demonstrates, was not even part of the assassination plot against Hitler, although he possessed enough courage to openly question his leader's conduct of the war.

Finally, some readers may ignore this book because of Irving's indefensible position on the Holocaust. That is certainly understandable, but I think Irving was clearly in his element with this bio. It's a must read for World War II buffs or for anyone who enjoys well-written bios of historic figures on the world stage.

Before reading Irving, you would be wise to read his critics --- or read the opinion of the conservative British judge who ruled against Irving in his libel action against Penguin Books. He was found by the court to be a Nazi apologist who repeatedly misrepresented source documents to validate his revisionist history of Hitler and the Third Reich. (In speeches to hate groups in Germany and the US, he used to joke that "more people died in the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquidick than died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.") In an early edition of the Dresden book, he claimed that 202,040 people were killed in the Allied firebombing. The number, it turns out, was derived by simply adding a zero to the official German count of 20,204. Before you buy this book, consider whether you want to pay royalties to such a man.

This book by sometimes controversial, but always worthwhile, English historian David Irving is a credible attempt on his part to balance a bit of the history of World War II. My research of this author has proven him to be as generally reliable as any other noted historian. His only sin is to try to present a more balanced view of both sides of a tragic war. Although I do not agree with everything that he writes, it certainly does not make him anti-semitic. That epithet should be saved for the true hatemongers who deserve it. To throw the term about loosely only diminishes its gravity.

Hugely dificult to research, this in depth account of the planned systematic destruction of a large city of no military consequence raises horendous questions which will simmer for decades.Irving provides a slightly clouded mirror, but not so clouded as to startle us as to what we see.

I sincerely doubt that anyone will come across this interview in the near (or even distant) future, so I say what I say with impunity -- not that I'm about to say anything that would ever meet much contradiction.

I've only read the first one, Setting Free the Bears, so it's a little ridiculous that I'm writing my first review on a book I haven't yet completed, but here's the thing -- I'm operating on a slow computer, and I don't really feel like waiting around while it labors to bring up the screen for a book I HAVE finished. You people with the 14.4 modems know where I'm coming from.

Anyway, about Setting Free the Bears. It's not bad. There are some really funny parts -- Irving's initial oberservations of the mysterious maxim-maker are pretty hilarious -- but I have a feeling that, were Irving to send hand this manuscript over to his wife today(she is also his literary agent), she would hand it back and tell him it doesn't match up to his other work. And she'd be right. Setting Free the Bears is no Cider House Rules, and it's certainly no A Prayer for Owen Meany. But it does have its moments.

Definitely worth reading.

This story has great meaning to me. I was a seventeen year seaman serving aboard the Heavy Cruiser Tuscaloosa. We were part of the cruiser covering force for convoy pq17. There have been unanswered questions in the minds of all that served in that ill fated convoy. The author has explained how the First Sea Lord doomed 23 ships by what Winston Churchill called,"The worst order of World War 2." It is a perfect illustration of what happens when civilian authority affects military judgements in wartime. Admiral Pound was not considered a good choice for his post by the Royal Navies senior Admirals. Churchill wanted him because he would listen to the Prime Minister's advice. The author makes us feel the terrors of the Murmansk run and shows us that both heroes and cowards were involved. We brought back the pitiful survivors in the fall,who were appalled by the fact that their Naval escort had deserted them.Not knowing why we had been ordered to withdraw, we could not even defend our actions. Highly recommended to all lovers of great drama at sea.

It's a real edifying book. The Hero always remain the orphan he has been even though he could have led a different and better life. He's really the sympathetic hero type, always looking forward to the well-being of others and abiding to social demands and rules. It's really a book full of human emotions and sensitivities.

This is a very scholarly work, in fact it reminded me of a master's thesis or doctoral dissertation revised for popular publication. It is the most thorough and detailed study of Mozart's piano sonatas I have yet found and even so I had hoped for a more complete analysis of how to play the sonatas well. As an adult piano student, I wanted advice as to how to interprent theme, motif and emotion in the various sonatas. This book presents a complete historical perspective on the sonatas but didn't provide the guidance on performance I was hoping for. As part of the library for a serious student, however, it is a must, albeit expensive.

"But is old, old, good old Christmas gone? Nothing but the hair of his good, gray, old head and beard left? Well, I will have that, seeing that I cannot have more of him."

-- "Hue and Cry after Christmas," from the opening page of Old Christmas.

This book is what Washington Irving called a "sketchbook" -- a collection of impressions about something, gathered into a fictionalized story. It's a melancholy, fond evocation of fading English Christmas traditions of the author's time.

The story's simple: Irving sets himself in the English countryside, where he's travelling one Christmas Eve. At a country inn he runs into an old schoolmate, who invites him home to spend Christmas at the family estate. The friend's father, it turns out, dotes on all things Christmas, and has tuned his household to some of the more quaint and obscure English traditions celebrating the day. That lets Irving include lots of odd little bits and pieces of Christmas tradition, told through the old man, as part of his plot. The book covers a night and a day. The chapters are pieces of that time: the stagecoach ride is one chapter, then "Christmas Eve," and so on through "Christmas Dinner."

I read this every year lately, and it's a nice, low-key, sad and happy little way to mark the Christmases passing. Washington Irving wrote it in the early 1800s -- the dates of most of his "Sketch Book" are right around 1819 or 1820 -- and the story is mostly a reminiscence about even earlier Christmas traditions. Then it took until 1894 for this edition to be printed, with the illustrations by Caldecott. Later the facsimile edition I have was printed, in maybe the early 1980s... For a little book about Christmas past to have made it through all those years, and come down to me in this personal "sketch," is a glad thing. Coming back to the same copy year after year makes a nice little private tradition.

The text to this is available in a few places on the Web. That's an okay way to get to know the language, but a facsimile of the original book, with the illustrations, is still worth the few dollars it'll cost. The Caldecott who illustrated this is the one for whom the children's book award was named, among other things. You need to read this one next to the Christmas tree, not by the glow of a computer monitor.

This book is a good teaching tool. It covers the basic history and metamorphoses of the health promotion field, offering the reader a chance to critically examine the various approaches. It offers a refreshing look at health, utilizing a multi-dimensional approach in defining and evaluating individual and community health. It also offers many illustration of the ideas by describing health projects from around the world. One thing that could be discussed more are the counter arguments made by epidemiologists against such a broad approach...I would have loved to hear the authors' responses to this.

Feel free to classify me as a big John Irving fan. In my opinion, A Prayer of Owen Meany is one of the best books I've ever read. Other great books by Irving include the Cider House Rules and The World According to Garp.

Unfortunately, this book isn't in the same class as the above-metnioned Irving classics. First off, it's hard to warm to a book that involves writers as its main characters. There's something self-centered when a writer spends hundreds of pages writing about other writers and it shows in this book. Part of the problem is that most of the characters aren't very likeable. The main protagonist is Ruth Cole who is saddled with a mother who abandons her (who eventually becomes a crime fiction writer), a philandering father (who is a children's author), a teen age boy (who grows up to be a novelist) that has an affair with her mother, a sexually free best friend (a journalist), and two husbands (one of whom is a literary agent). Ruth evenutally grows up and becomes a novelist of some renown.

This book is broken into three parts with the first depicting Ruth's very young childhood. The following two books deals with Ruth as an adult. While all three of the books are tenuously linked, there are some disjointed components of the story that don't always match. The books go through Ruth's marriages, career and even a bizarre murder in Amsterdam's Red Light district that changes Ruth's life forever. Regarding the three books, the first one lures you in with attractive sexuality, the second keeps the reader with its plot twists, and the third is an overly long conclusion and denouement that tried to tie up a number of loose ends.

The good thing is that Irving does his usual great job in describing events and drawing the reader into the story. Unfortunately, as you are drawn into the story, you find that you don't have a great deal of respect for most of the characters in the book. In fact, the most attractive and likeable character is the only one who isn't a writer or involved in the literary field and that's a beat cop in Amsterdam. Perhaps Irving is longing for a simpler life that is unavailable to writers who are forced to create?

Finally, in addition to disliking the characters I came away disappointed because Irving's motive and message in writing this book seem so unclear. While it's an engaging story, I'm not sure there was much of a point. In the end, I was happy to have something that kept me interested on the train to work for a few days but disturbed that such a great writer failed to make clear why he even bothered.

I've read many John Irving novels, and I did look forward to this one. He's a great storyteller, and though many of the tales are implausible, hey, that's fiction. The first part, about teenager Eddie and grownup Marion, went on too long, and was tedious. Still, I thought the book was going to be about Eddie, and expect to see more of Eddie as a grownup. The rest of the book takes place 30 years later, and is centered around Ruth, Marion's daughter, and we really don't learn much about Eddie as an adult. I had a hard time switching to Ruth as the central character, and found the book lacks a unifying force. How I read the book says a lot about how I felt about it. I read 100 or 150 pages in a few days, put the book aside, thinking I would not go back to it. Then I'd read more, get into it, and then stop again. Usually, when you're really taken by a novel, you steal every minute you can to read it. I don't regret having read it, but I told my wife, also a John Irving fan, that she wouldn't miss anything if she didn't.

How important is sex? Apparently very, according to John Irving in A Widow for One Year. But it's not everything. In this novel, the characters that are led astray by bad sexual choices are never truly happy- for example: Ted, Hannah, and Ruth (with her bad boyfriends). The characters are only truly happy when they are in love, and as a prerequisite for love, the sex must be good! After all, why wasn't Ruth in love with Allan? Inadequate physical attraction, lackluster sex. But with Dutch "what was that sound" Harry, the chemistry was there. In A Widow for One Year, the characters are only truly happy and fulfilled when they are in a loving relationship. The widow who persecuted Ruth: unhappy. The divorced woman who came to buy Ruth's house: unhappy. Hannah: unhappy. Ted: unhappy. Marion + Eddie: happy. Ruth + Harry: happy. So, don't marry your best friend. And don't look for personal fulfillment in a career or even parenthood. If you're like the characters in this book, marry for love and you'll be happy for life (but first find out if the sex is any good).