I was lucky to find Devil's Own Work in a discount bin with Stephen King's praise, "Best novel I read this year" on it. And it was a great novella, so great I wanted to teach it in my English course. But it's out of print. There's no justice in the publishing world. This classic needs to find a reissue--fast!

A spare but meaningful read. Copies should be automatically sent to all newly-appointed 'literary darlings'. A must read for 'serious readers' as well. Do we settle for too little in the name of contemporary fiction

So you want to become a famous writer? One way to achieve this success is to sell your soul to the devil, a price not unheard of since Faust willingly paid that price in works by Marlowe and Goethe. Alan Judd's little novel, THE DEVIL'S OWN WORK, reworks the Faust legend with humor and a literary economy comparable to Hemingway. The novel is a mixture of strangeness and mystery; it was written as an homage to Ford Madox Ford and THE GOOD SOLDIER. This story explores the supernatural nature of creativity and the perils confronted an artist with more ambition than he perhaps has talent. It is a delightful tale that not only examines the nature of the creative act as well as the demon temptations to which an artist may be subjected, but also the vacuous literary elitism that often honors personalities above their literary merit. Alan Judd, author of a critically acclaimed biography on Ford Madox Ford, has also written four previous novels

Ford Madox Ford (born Ford Hermann Hueffer) had the good fortune to have as his biographer the English novelist Alan Judd. The tetralogy "Parades End" which marks the end of the gentleman officer class and Edwardian England had its origins in Ford's experiences after his arrival at the Battle of the Somme (1916) with the 9th Welch regiment. Ford's commanding officer,Colonel Cooke, disliked Ford's age (too old), his special reserve officer status, and his literary reputation. Colonel Cooke wrote to brigade headquarters that Ford was "quite unsuitable to perform the duties required of an officer in this campaign" Ford was soon hospitalized with lung problems and sent home to England for medical treatment. He failed in his attempt to return to duty in France and was assigned light duties as a captain in the 23rd King's Liverpool Regiment. He was discharged in 1919 under category 19-"authors,gipsies, travelling showmen, unemployables">(page 308).Judd's sympathetic biography brings to life a writer described by Richard Locke in the Wall Street Journal as a "perennially neglected and rediscovered literary" giant.Locke said that Ford "ended up out of fashion and out of cash". He was the writer in residence at Olivet College, Michigan.Ford will be remembered as a major novelist who generously helped many British and American writers.In 1939 Ford and his long time American companion Janice Biala traveled to France where he died.

I read this book for a class 30 years ago, forgot about it, and then saw it on a list of the top 100 novels of the 20th Century. This is a wonderfully constructed, thoughtfully written, and facinating story. Independent of the story and the issues of change and transformation thematically dominating the book; the style and prose are intriquing and creative. An easy read well worth the time to revisit or discover new.

The Good Soldier is woefully underread, and it fully deserves its somewhat belatedly-restored status as a true classic of 20th c. English literature. Ford Madox Ford, a friend and collaborator of Joseph Conrad, lays out a deceptively simple, almost trite, plot, one which we first think we've heard a dozen times before. But the beauty of this book is in the telling. Ford's narrator is piecing together the events of the past decade as he tells the story, and as such he jumps back and forth over the course of the last ten years, offering glimpses of events yet to come, going back and re-telling accounts of events he's already shared (though always with a new twist and revelation). In essence, the narrator is "learning" the story along with the reader, and he never (if ever) truly "understands" what's happened till the very end. Ford shatters forever the old 19th c. English novel where good and evil are absolute polar opposites, where characters unfailingly embrace either one or the other pole, where decency and "good" almost always prevail in the end, and where characters are immediately transparent (take Dickens, for example: a paragraph or two and you know all you need to know about each and every character he introduces; whether they're "good" or "bad," etc.) Ford uses the genre of the novel to create a work of literature where art mirrors real life. His characters are never what they seem at first meeting, events are fraught with deep hidden meanings that bubble beneath the surface, and there are three sides to every story. Beautifully written with moments of sparkling wit and levity, it is also an emotionally draining work that tackles love (versus what simply goes by the name) and propriety (versus what society says is proper). You'll want to flip back to the first chapter and re-read it from page one, knowing then what you know by book's end. A true masterpiece which I cannot recommend highly enough. This particular edition from Everymans Library is particularly handsome and well-bound, with insightful introductory essays by thoughtful critics (which, needless to say, should be read after the novel itself).

I was in a bookstore and picked a copy of this novel up, and from the second I read what I later learned was a famous first sentence (and justifiably so)--"This is the saddest story I have ever heard"--I knew I had to read it. What is truly sad about the book is that the narrator has no conception of where the tragedy in the book lies. While he is articulate and seemingly insightful in his analysis of others, he remains blissfully unaware of his own enormously failings, both in morals and in character. It is indeed a very sad story, but the narrator leaves out the fact that he is quite possibly one of the most pathetic characters in all fiction.

If one prefers one's narrators and ostensible heroes to be truly heroic and sympathetic, then this novel will not please. If one, however, can imagine enjoying a novel written with J. Alfred Prufrock as the narrator and central character, then one is in a position to appreciate THE GOOD SOLDIER.

The novel is not a page-turner. If you read this novel quickly, you have read it wrongly. The beauty of the book is the exquisite prose, and should be read slowly, savoring each sentence and each sentiment. There is a dreamlike (one could say nightmarish) quality to the book, and one will most enjoy it by allowing oneself to become entranced by the atmospheres summoned up.

If you are willing to take the novel on its own terms, with its unheroic and unadmirable characters, with its pathetic elements and situations, and its subtle psychological observations, then there will be few reading experiences that will match THE GOOD SOLDIER. One of the most remarkable novels of the past century. But if you only like novels where there is a definite hero and admirable characters, you probably wouldn't enjoy this very much.

this book will help no one in the bar buissnes, half the drink resepes wrong, and not spesific the people who wrote this book don't know anything about mixing drinks. and who ever gave this book 5 stars is drunk. i need to know how to reture this book.

"The Complete Idiot's Guide to Mixing Drinks" is a wonderful book, filled with anecdotes, tips, and histories of spirits. It takes a basic, straightfoward approach to bartending that is easy to understand and use. The book is very thorough, and is best used in conjunction with a simple recipe book. It is NOT simply a book of recipes, however. I find it to be far superior to similar books (i.e. "Bartending for Dummies.")