Like many Americans, I didn't know much about our country's principles of government or its legal system. This book helped me to become more knowledgeable about both. I admit, this is not reading I would choose to curl up with in front of the fire; this was part of a requirement for my MBA. However, I will remember what I've learned in this text long after my class ends. Having previously been clueless about the legal system, it is now exhilarating to read about, say, how the nine US Supreme Court Justices are dealing with the aftermath of the Gore vs. Bush debacle and actually understand what is going on. The chapters are well-organized and easy to understand. There are even helpful study tips and ways to brief a legal case in the beginning of the text. After completing this book, I not only feel better equipped to handle business decisions, but also feel empowered and enlightened for better understanding our great country.

If there has ever been any question about the legitimacy of Vonnegut's work as literature, The Vonnegut Chronicles dispell all doubt. Unlike other criticisms, the Chronicles is a page turner, and one that you will come back to time and time again...I know I have!

After reading Iris Murdoch's A Fairly Honorable Defeat, I had the oddest sensation of imagining what my own life would look like in her hands. I find this story of two marriages, tinkered with by an enigmatic magician so absorbing that I just spent the entire weekend reading it. Does anyone know if Julius King is a personification? I am now reading Iris Murdoch's book The Fire and the Sun. I like the part where she says that Plato "...was impressed by the way in which artists can produce what they cannot account for..." Whenever I read one of her novels, I find myself going to the library to find out what she was talking about.

I first became a Murdoch fanatic in my 20s, and would gobble up her books like Oreo cookies. At the time I was dazzled: nobody wrote like her, with precise descriptions of physical and psychological terrain alike. Nobody made me laugh with delight with descriptions that were comic without being mean spirited. (I'm hard pressed to find a writer as brilliant.) In the past, I recommended this book to others with rave reviews-all the while certain that I had a lock on what it "meant." The characters alone are a hoot: You've got the Machivellian Julius, the sassy but silly Morgan, the calm but fuzzily ineffective Tallis. But there's also Rupert-whose writing a tome about philosophy and seeks to enlighten others. Add to that Simon, his gay brother, Hilda, Rupert's loving, slightly plump and aging wife. We don't really see her interior at all, and yet we know her, a droll, sweet and self-satisfied woman, and one who is about to face the shock of her life. The great characters and qualities that make ALL her books amazing are especially evident in this novel, with its sparkling wit, bold situations, and dryly humorous dialogue. Just to give you a taste, in one chapter, a character's clothing gets cut to shreds by an opponent,who leaves his foe literally naked and defenseless. Magically, this "scene" works and seems entirely believable. Few writers can pull that off. On a more serious note, "A Fairly Honorable Defeat" was always my favorite because of what it had to say about loving someone (e.g., truly noticing another and acting in their interest along with your own) vs. "using" them for whatever reason or out of whatever weakness. What it has to say beyond that, I'm not entirely sure. Not that a lack of knowing interferes with the pleasure of reading. Besides, Murdoch the story teller is saying something different than any of the pompous things that come out of the mouths of MOST of her characters. All I have to say is, in this one, don't underestimate Tallis. Happy reading.

Iris Murdoch's novels are addictive. Since a friend gave me a copy of "The Bell" a few months ago, I've read almost nothing but Murdoch--11 novels in all. In fact, I checked out six at one time from my university library so as soon as I finished one I could start on another. I've become a chain-reader. This one may be the best one so far. It's certainly the most chilling, if not the most riveting. It's a good place to start for the uninitiated because it's so incredibly engaging and entertaining, althougt not necessarily fun. All of the basic Murdoch elements are there--the complexity of love and life; the overwhelming essentialness of love to life; the frailties, faults, and follies of basically good people; the way the lives of good people can be wrecked by both their own carelessness and by intentional acts of evil; and despite all of this, an odd optimism that life is good and that all will be well. ... Julius is even more frightening, however, because you will recognize in him someone you know or have known. Although there are no monsters, ghosts, or serial killers, the book is as suspensful as any of the popular horror or crime novel that routinely makes the bestseller lists today. And no "romance" writer alive knows more about love and sex than Murdoch. I always finish Murdoch's books feeling unsettled but strangely satisfied and always awestruck by what she is able to do with plot, characters, ideas, and words. Put down your Stephen King, your John Grisham, or your Danielle Steel and pick up this book instead.

This review of Vonnegut's work transforms what the author himself classifies as pleasure reading into a truly literary experience. For the diehard Vonnegut fan this critique is a must have...that is if you enjoy analyzing.