Dear Andrew Solomon, This is a fan letter: PLEASE keep writing such beautiful fiction. PLEASE write another novel as soon as possible. I have never come across Solomon's prose in "The New Yorker" and have not read his two non-fiction books, one about artists in the Soviet Union and one about Depression. A STONE BOAT is his first novel. It was a birthday gift to me and I read it in three days. I then waited one day and read it all over again. It is one of the most elegantly written novels I've ever read: Solomon chooses words as if they were precious jewels and then sets them perfectly. And yet, the reader is never conscious of the author, as Armistead Maupin says, "using a ten dollar word when a ten cent word will do." A STONE BOAT tells of a gifted classical pianist, Harry, at the beginning of what will no doubt be a major career. An American living in London, Harry joins his privileged family for what is supposed to be a joyous holiday in France. But it is here that they learn that Harry's mother has cancer. This tragedy is the centerpiece of the narrative, but it is the lives that touch Harry's and his mother's that make the book even more fascinating and complex, funny, charming and, above all, achingly beautiful. The novel is not packed with scores of characters. Rather it is an intimate story of a family and the few who are their satellites: from Harry's good-hearted, passive, British male lover to his wise and strong American girlfriend, from his unforgiving, tough-minded agent to his hedonistic sex partner, Nick. It is, in the end, a story of life conquering death, of a family bonding at first to refuse Death admittance to their home and then, finally, conspiring to help one of their own die, in her own way and time by her own hand with dignity and grace. This is a once-in-a-lifetime read: a novel to cherish. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

This is a very touching and wonderfully written novel. Every scene in it has the feel of authenticity. Highly recommended for readers willing to let themselves be moved emotionally by powerful prose.

Andrew Solomon's "A Stone Boat" is a remarkable first novel. The author's mastery of the English language and the way he uses it to create senses of setting and character are incredible. There is much to admire, too, in Mr. Solomon's way with a story. His characters are real as are their relationships. Harry, the main charactor/narrator, describes his mother upon first sight in the most extraordinary way - close your eyes and you see her sitting across the room. This passage is one to read and re-read all the while savoring the beauty of the language and the sheer descriptive powers of the author. Do not lend this book to your friends or you will never see it again - the prose is that remarkable. One hopes Mr. Solomon is working on his second, third and fourth books as this review is being written.

This is an excellent, one-of-a-kind field guide. Not since the 1940s has any book on this area of the Pacific appeared, let alone such a beautiful, usable field guide. The illustrations, maps and text are both accurate and up-to-date. The authors, highly reputable ornithologists of international stature, are to be congratulated on their efforts in this little-known area of the Pacific, historically and currently beset with political strife.

There is a wonderful irony in the fact that just this book has been published at just this time. In the last three months there has been a great deal of news about the willful and savage destruction of Buddhist art in Afghanistan by the so-called Taliban. Colossal statues carved from living rock (one of them being the largest stone statue then existing in the world) were deliberately blown to smithereens to satisfy some sort of incomprehensible politico-religious bloodlust. The colossal statues stood in the Bamiyan valley. Their atoms are now indistinquishable from the other trillion grains of sand scattered about the foot of the Hindu Kush.

But now, just as one starts to comprehend the staggering degree to which all mankind has been impoverished by these heinous acts, Richard Salomon and his colleagues at the University of Washington and the British Museum offer back to the world something else nearly lost but now recovered -- and by doing so they manage to rekindle at least a little of one's faith in the fundamental decency of mankind. A mere one hundred miles east (and slightly south) of Bamiyan and the now-vaporized collosal statues was found a cache of Buddhist literature written on birch-bark scrolls dating from the first century A.D. They are said to be "the oldest Buddhist texts ever found, as well as the earliest surviving manuscripts in any Indic Language."

There could hardly be any writing material more perishable than birch bark, and these manuscripts were crumpled up and stuffed into earthen jars in a way hardly conducive to their survival. They were acquired by the British Library in 1994. Had they not been, one can easily imagine the maniacal thrill the Taliban would have derived from destroying them along with all the other "unacceptable" art they stumbled upon.

Though on the surface, fragile, crumbling manuscripts and colossal statues cannot be directly equated, I think the apparent difference in size and vulnerability between the two actually makes this story more intriguing. Logically, the statues should have survived but did not; the far-older manuscripts, which have been steadily disintegrating for two thousand years, did! For once it was not the giant statue that got to exclaim, "Look around, ye Mighty, and despair!"

True, by the time Saloman and his colleagues got hold of these manuscripts and began to unroll them, they faced the mother of all jigsaw puzzles, and some pieces were gone forever. The team has now spent years fitting them all back together, devising scholarly restorations of the lost portions of text were possible, and making a comprehensible translation of what emerged.

The present book is intended to be an exhaustive, definitive restoration and translation of only one small component of the total manuscript cache. Indeed the reconstructed manuscript translated here is a bare 44.4 cm by 27 cm in size, and contains only forty four-line verses. In contrast to its physical size, however, is the text's enormous pupularity within Buddhist literature. It is known to have survived in at least two other Indian language versions, Pali and Sanskrit. It is unquestionably one of the loveliest and most evocative statements of the Buddha's teaching about solitute and the role he expects solitute to play in the practice and spiritual growth of his followers. Thoreau, who had a great affinity for Indian literature, would have loved it -- as does nearly everyone else fortunate enough to encounter a sensitive translation.

Saolomon's translation of this elegant sutra is reassuringly familiar to those students of Buddhism who already know an earlier version of it. Though there are minor variations and differences, one's confidence in the reliability of all other received Indian texts (which have been translated and recopied endlessly over the years) is greatly reinforced. Together with the other texts found with it, this cache also helps one get a fix on what literature was apparently regarded as important to literate Buddhists two millennia ago, and just what traditional writings were by then finding their way out of India and onto the historical road to central Asia and beyond. Judging by the quality of this select library, Ghandara, already known to be a flourishing center of Buddhist art, must also have been the site of much very advanced Buddhist teaching, writing, etc.

Make no mistake, this book is devoted largely to scholarly issues, and the bulk of it will be of interest primarily to scholars. However it is also a fresh look at a significant segment of Buddhist literature, derived from the earliest source the world is ever likely to recover. The scholarly preoccupations (paleography, orthography, phonology, morphology, etc.) are informative, but the sutra itself is the real payoff for those whose zeal encompasses merely a serious interest in Buddhism. The thrilled reader stands awestruck by this miraculous feat of ressurection and restoration, and he eagerly awaits publication of the other associated texts, many less well known. When complete, this triumph of Buddhist scholarship may well appear to the intellectual world to assume the proportions of the most colossal of all sculptures, and could have a far deeper impact on our minds and lives.

The Solomon Organization is a truly fast moving thriller that the reader does not want to end. With all of the divorces today the reader can find a common ground with Scott Lester. This novel brings family values to the test and makes the reader wonder how far family values should go. This up-to-the-minute thriller keeps the reader horrified of what will happen next. A great read that will not let you down. A true winner from begining to end.

Having been through the medical maze to find the correct diagnosis for my illness, Fibromyalgia Syndrome, I have learned the hard way how to "micro-manage" my health.

If this book had been available when I began my journey, I think I would have been able to eliminate a lot of time spent on the heart-ache of mis-communication, and expectations that weren't realized.

The "insider tips" and the forms would have been invaluable in communicating with the plethora of medical specialists I had to see to get a correct diagnosis.

Thank you for this book!

After hearing two of the authors interviewed on PBS, I obtained a copy of the book. It is full of great information and exercises to help someone prepare, conduct, and plan their own health care. There's lots of suggestions for working with one's doctor to get the information they want to know. Very helpful for anyone who's frustrated or uncomfortable with their current situation.

Even though I've had substantial exposure and experience with the medical system in this country, I learned many things from this book as to how to effectively utilize my doctor and other medical institutions. I liked this book so much that I'm sending copies to my friends and family.

If you are a fan of Wharton and Forster, then you will apprciate this wonderful novel. The misadventures represented in "Bertram Cope's Year" are truly inspired, especially as this volume was written in 1919. This is a comedy of manners. The author has taken great pains to expose his character's never-to-be-discussed nature. Clues are plentiful. However, the ladies keep falling in love and in line. Even his benefactress is smitten. A refined bit of drollery. An early gay classic.

Fuller's neglected, glistening novel poses the question, "Who of any of us is worth the bother other people make of us?" This novel's characters--all of them--are hungry for companionship, for mirrors to reflect back images of themselves, for romanatic alternatives to prosaic lives. They might have wandered out of a T.S. Eliot poem, but instead they are the flesh and blood of 20th century Evanston/Churchton, Illinois, moving spectral-like through their lives, essentially impenetrable to each other. It is a gay novel--and one of the best I've encountered--but it offers an extremely perceptive account of the straight world, too, as that world intersects--or blindly collides with--with the gay. To Fuller's credit, both worlds are fully developed here.

Fuller's wit is amazingly sharp; his writing is concise and unornamented, yet there are also beautiful moments--lyrical descriptions of the changing seasons, the Indiana dunes, and the Churchton landscape. In his afterword to the novel, Andrew Solomon rightly calls the book "a gentle tragedy," but I emerged from it recognizing that life for all of these characters does go on, repetitively and unfulfillingly at times, wildly romantic and full of possibilities at others. Although Bertram Cope's circle of friends ages throughout the pages of this book, the characters are even fresher and sharper at the end of the novel than they were at the beginning. A wise, intelligent book, full of insights and memorable characters.

I can't imagine why anyone would find this charming novel's depiction of of gay men to be "chilly." If there's a "chill" to be felt in this subtle comedy of manners it would stem from its depiction of women who persist in imagining that men with no sexual or romantic interest in them still "want" them in some way. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose, as Arianna Huffington has so spectacularly demonstrated. In any event Fuller's book testifies to the fact that we all still have an enormous lot to learn about gay life before Stonewall. It wasn't always lived in "the closet" -- as "Betram Cope's Year" shows with style, taste and enormous wit.

I had to get ready for this book. I've dealt with medium-strength depression for most of my life and have been very closely affected by suicide, so I bought Solomon's book the first time I heard of it. However, I made the purchase a year ago and simply looked at this book sitting on my coffee table for an entire year before finally reading it. Apparently I had to make myself ready for it. This is an extremely important opus on depression from the point of view of the sufferer, as Solomon is, with the personal narratives interspersed with important scientific background that does not become didactic or professionally detached. Solomon's major achievement here is to illustrate how many forms depression takes and how many different types of people have to deal with the illness. It is both biological and psychological to varying degrees. We are unlikely to see a universal cure to an illness that has extremely personal causes and effects, no matter what the psychology or pharmaceutical establishments say.

The problem with this book is that is badly overwritten and often extremely self-indulgent. Solomon has the habit of going on and on and on (and still on) about his own depressive episodes and breakdowns, especially in the interminable chapter 2. He frequently interrupts other less-personal portions of the book with more of the same, including chapters 8 and 10, which are otherwise interesting treatments of the history of scientific thought about depression and political attitudes toward treatment. Solomon has every right to tell his personal story, because it is the backbone of the book, but there is a fine line between self-awareness and self-absorption. One good side effect of depression is self-awareness, as you yearn to understand what's going on in your own mind. Believe me, I know. But Solomon has moved into pathological self-absorption and obsession, which are probably not helping his personal situation. Solomon's obsession with victimhood has a negative impact on large portions of this book. The same goes for many of his interview subjects. A related issue is Solomon's troubling pro-medication stance, as he has no trouble admitting (or bragging) that he takes 12 pills a day and may continue for the rest of his life.

A general overall issue with this book is Solomon's longwinded overwriting, with no indication whatsoever of an editor. Simply piling on gigantic amounts of data and anecdotes do not necessarily strengthen points that were made more simply a long time before. Even with its many weaknesses, this is still an extremely important book, and may go a long way toward improving the public's perceptions of depression. But future editions would be very well served if they were significantly edited and condensed.

Who, at least at one point in their life, has not been mildly depressed? As a counsellor, if you were to tell me that not once, ever in your entire life did you ever feel down or depressed, I would probably want to make sure you were still breathing. However, for many, depression can be a severe, chronic battle each and every day, and one of the biggest setbacks in an individual's life. It can be a family's nightmare, hinder careers and personal relationships, and play havoc with a person's self-image. For some, just getting up in the morning can take evey ounce of willpower. There have been many books written on depression, some are excellent self-help books, others ARE depressing to read. This book, however, is an insightful look inside depression in personal, scientific and cultural terms. The author also takes a look at the biological aspects of the disease which, for many, can be a controversial issue.

Solomon has battled depression for much of his life. Through his research and studies, he has gained valuable knowledge on the subject which he openly shares with his readers. Of the vast number of books written on depression, "Noonday Demon" is definitely one of the most complete, accurate and informative ones to be found. I also enjoyed his easy manner, occasional wit and positive approach to an affliction that for a multitude of individuals can be a disabling, life-long illness.

Most people occasionally experience feelings of melancholy, sadness, hopelessness and pessimism in response to a particular event, such as the death of a loved one or at the end of a relationship. As National Book Award Winner, Andrew Solomon, reveals in THE NOONDAY DEMON, however, a true depressive illness typically has no single, obvious cause. Solomon knows his subject. His 571-page book is as much a comprehensive "atlas of depression" as it is a candid autobiography of his own dark history with the illness. Equipped with plenty of empathy and scholarly research, Solomon guides us through a fascinating labyrinth of subjects related to the dark condition of human experience called depression--breakdowns, medication, alternative treatments, cultural and scientific statistics, addiction, and suicide--ultimately leading us to a better understanding of the illness that affects nearly 19 million Americans. Like William Styron's book, DARKNESS VISIBLE, before it, Solomon's NOONDAY DEMON is truly a must read for anyone interested in the darker range of human emotions.

G. Merritt

A bacchanal and major home renovations ensue when a bewheelchaired stranger crunches up the gravel driveway of a wealthy widow.

Corrigan, while fundraising for the handicapped in the English countryside, rolls into the heart and home of lonely Mrs. Blunt, much to the chagrin of her streetwise housekeeper and the daughter who stands to inherit her wealth.

Brilliantly concise and characterized by a dry and confident wit, Corrigan is charming, hilarious, and rage-inducing all at once. Note of interest: Blackwood picked up writing as a hobby when she was in her forties and married to poet Robert Lowell.