I am very impressed by what I have read. The stories the mother tells are very interesting, a strange mixture of happy and melancholy, but then this is so true of the whole book. I find the image of the mother and her children in their little house very vivid, and strangely sad. It feels very real, I think because there is such a range of emotion there. If it were just a happy little gang of kids being told stories by their doting mother it wouldn't be the same. But the tensions between them all, the sense of impending trouble, is very evocative.

I'm curious Gertrude, is this your childhood, or your mother's, or a bit of both ? It seems too detailed, too personal, to be entirely based on your mother's recollections of her own childhood. Either way, I think it's an excellent book, and I'm very impressed by it. -Simon

the boxcar children goes to a town where it is made to look like frontier times.they dress up like them and sees buildings that look old.then when a lady starts working here,weird things happen.can the boxcar figure this mystery?read to find out!

The letters and essays between these two influential writers form a narrative that reads almost like a novel. I found it helpful for working on my book Stein, Gender, Isolation, and Industrialism: New Readings of Winesburg, Ohio, but I also found it to be an entertaining document about friendship and the writing craft.

This is a good biography, though it is quite long. And it is interesting....But its a great biography if you want to study out one of the father's of a denomination.

Jekyll's classic on shade gardening. Her ramblings are somewhat hard to follow at times. Her style of writing is a bit dated, and it really helps to already know at least some of the plants to appreciate her enthusiasm! But, the book gives great ideas for shade gardening, and deals with the various problems of shade gardening, also.

Typical of many stories of its era, this 1950s book has a simple plot and wordy writing style. The bright, fanciful llustrations are one of its better points, although they are a little overdone.

This book incorporates a certain kind of hyperbole I have always found distressing in its involvement of the "mayor himself" and the efforts of all of the townspeople in Lower Trainswitch. The real world doesn't stand on its head like that for much of anyone. Again this is an artifact of the era.

Unlike other reviewers, I don't find much symbolism of conformance in the "staying on the rails no matter what" mantra of the story.

My children enjoy this story but it is not one of their favorites.

This is an adorable story about a baby locomotive who went to the village of Lower Trainswitch to learn to be a big locomotive.
They have lessons in many classes to learn whistle blowing, stopping for a red flag waving and puffing loudly, just to name a few. However, the most important lesson to learn was staying on the rails no matter what.

Tootle could never seem to do this. He always wanted to go and wonder in the meadow and chase birds or butterfly's.
Tootle had to be taught a lesson.

This little book teaches children in a fun way how important it is to follow directions.
My granddaughter and I enjoyed this read.
The illustrations were colorful and the book was enjoyable for her to look at.
Nice job!

being read this book as a child was simple fun, and went along with my parents encouraging me to be responsible.
as a parent I wanted my kids to realize that others were hurt by our unthinking selfishness.
It seems now that I'm older that the lesson, of doing only what WE want can spill the cargo of our family that we carry through life with us, is still valid.
That everyone in town is rooting for me to do what is right, and cheers when I'm successful, is what I wish to believe.

(...) Suffice it to say that this is one of the worst books that i have ever read (and i am an avid reader). It is completly unrealistic, which would be alright because fantasy is a respected genre. But nothing interesting happens. So let's consider it as a novel then. Does it have interesting characters that one can empathize with? No-they're all hysterical, repugnant, self-absorbed, emotionally stunted, selfish, and neurotic (and I don't mean that in a good way). This book is supposed to be "moving", sort of a tale of rebirth and redemption. But I disliked the characters so much that I actually wanted something awful to happen to most of them. And I am NOT a malevolent person. Do you see how much I hated this book? Enough time wasted on this dreck. (...)

I was delighted by this slim elegant novel and plan to read others books by JP whom I have just discovered. I would like to see a picture of him or go to his web-site???? or fan club, etc.

"Gertrude of Stony Island Avenue" is a hypnotic tale in which the boundary between the strange and the normal seems forever blurred. I was captivated by Purdy's highly distinctive style, which feels authentically "old-timey" yet also perpetually "off-balance." Carrie's search for her daughter constitutes one of the strangest yet ultimately moving quests for selfhood I have ever read.

When you read the description on the fly leaf of this novel you are totally hooked. an inside view into the lives of Stein and Toklas through the eyes of their vietnamese cook . . .this has to be a good read . . . not!! The premise was good but if you enjoy good writing this one needs some serious work. The language seems stilted and artificial at times and the incidents contrived. If you want to read something with depth and richness I recommend getting Yann Martel's Life of Pi instead.

A book to be savored a few pages at a time; chewed and digested slowly like a fabulous meal. More than just "a read," THE BOOK OF SALT is an experience that involves all five senses -- and a sixth sense, if you possess it.

Among other things, Binh is the Vietnamese cook of Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein. He is also an intellectual, a lover, a dreamer, a son, a man. We are privy to his inner life, insofar as he wishes us to be, both humorous and sad.

The story is told in almost poetic fashion; each word is savored for its own merit, and, like the ingredients of any fine cuisine, craftily blended to perform the perfect meal. It is more than satisfying; it is exquisite.

There is no more to tell about Binh; Truong has said it all. But there must be plenty of other fascinating characters lurking about in Truong's brilliant mind. Surely there's more! We await her next story excitedly, like children at bedtime.

This is a fascinating, multilayered story. Truong's language is compelling and poetic; I only wish I could write as beautifully as she does. She drew me deep inside the protagonist, Binh, and yet at the ending he was still full of mystery: the way most of us are to each other. While Binh's narrative was heartrending, sometimes fierce, his portrayal of Stein and Toklas was great fun. I look forward to reading Truong's future books.

Gertrude Bell was a fascinating woman, doing things that women just didn't do in the early part of this century: meeting Arabian royalty (and bandits and terrorists as well), going places uncharted by European men or women, and becoming something of a heroine to many Arabs of high and low rank. But this book, though it starts off well, becomes rough going fairly quickly. It feels as if Wallach quotes extensively from Bell's letters simply because she had access to them, not because they were always interesting or enlightening (though some were). There is lots of repetition (we must hear about once every two or three pages that she drank "bitter coffee"; the phrase "Young Turks" is defined three times, each time slightly differently, inside of about one hundred pages) and inexact detailing (three fairly detailed maps of the Middle East still leave out a number of sites important to the events of the book). By the end, when Bell was doing her most important political work in the construction of modern-day Iraq, I was skimming over the thick accrual of tedious detail that doesn't really bring Bell to life in the way she deserves.

I first became interested in Gertrude Bell while on a tour of Jordan, visiting a museum which included a number of her wonderful photographs. I was extremely amazed that a woman had such access to Arabian men at that time, and admired her adventures and curiousity. Even in this day, her exploits are unheard of, for a female. I was thrilled to come across this book, quite by accident, a few months after I heard of her. After reading the book, I am even more amazed by her life, and although it bogs down a bit at times, I still believe Grace Bell is one of the most intriguing females of this century.

The life of Gertrude Bell is both inspiring and sad. Janet Wallach conveys the accomplishments of this woman in a way that makes one want to read on just to see what she will do next. Conversely, Ms. Bell's personal life lacks the luster of her accomplishments. From the story, I wonder if her lonliness is because she is a woman far ahead of her time or just a bore. Nonetheless, the dichotomy presented in this book makes it good reading for those who look to biographys as a little window into someone's soul.

This book is a good introduction to Gertrude Bell and discusses a few, limited issues surrounding the centuries of unrest in the middle east. It truly focuses on the life of Gertrude Bell and should not be used as a primer on mid-east issues.

Matthew Stadler writes very well--sometimes heart-stoppingly well--and is bold both in experimenting with narratives and in again and again and again focusing on loving boys, an extremely fraught subject in contemporary America. I think that his first novel, Landscape:Memory, remains his most fully accomplished book (and, OK, it makes me more comfortable when the boylover is not an older man). Still, I like the ironical voice of the narrator in his desultory research on Gertrude Stein's nephew, his account of his friendship with a gay man of his own age in Seattle, and of his obsession with the son of the family with whom he's staying in Paris. The endings of all four of his novels seem forced to me, but I find the sensibility interesting and some of the sentences jewels. Anyone who believes that adolescent males lack any sexuality will be upset by the book. Others may still want to shake the narrator out of his complacencies and wonder if Mr. Stadler is in a rut -- even noting the different locales and eras represented in his oeuvre to date.

While reading the book, I was struck by all the similarities to Hollinghurst's amazing "The Folding Star". Both books feature a teacher who lusts after teenage boys, a trip by this teacher to a non-English speaking "old world" country and an unusual blend of historical fiction, unabashed erotica, and Proustian pyrotechnics.

The writing is quite wonderful in this book, but is not as dense or as high-brow as Hollinghurst's. Instead of impressing us with his vocabulry, Stadler brings a unique gay American sensibility to the novel, which gives it quite a different sensibility than Hollinghurst's.

While both writers will obviously be compared to Proust and to Mann, I find both Holinghurst and Stadler to be reminiscent of A.S. Byatt. Just like in some of Byatt's writing, the search for historical truth also parallels the search for truth in one's own life. I definitely recommend this book, although If I were to only read one of them, I would read the better book, The Folding Star

I really enjoyed this very funny, erotic and different novel. Matthew Stadler is probably one of the most gifted young novelists writing today. Even though his books are disturbing, they have a way of captivating you so that you can't wait to read the book right through. I lost some sleep over this one.

This is the story of a young teacher's journey to Paris to uncover the sad history of Gertrude Stein's troubled nephew Allan. The teacher travels to Paris under an assumed name, after being fired from his job because of a sex scandal. In Paris he becomes enchanted and obsessed with a 15 year old boy. Thus the story continues from there.... Forget the pedophiliac part of the story, this should not frighten you away from Matthew Stadler's excellent writing & descriptions of this time and place. His writing is so elegant at times its like reading a classic or it will be in time.

Whether he is shocking the reader, or enticing us with beautiful prose, Matthew Stadler, certainly know how to keep a reader's attention, and take you places you might not dare go alone. This is perhaps his best book yet.