I have read this book at least a dozen times. Despite the humor, the book deepens with each reading. Once you've enjoyed the characterizations and laughed at all the witticisms there are all the literary allusions to digest. Then there are the references to other parts of the book to map. Truly a gem. The best book Barbara Trapido has ever written. I am so glad that this book is back in print. I've given many copies of this book as gifts and previously I've had to scour used-book stores to find it. Buy it, you'll like it.

What a marvelous little novel. This is a complex and sophisticated story that feels much longer than its actual length of a couple hundred pages. The story of Katherine and her intimate involvement with a large bohemian family is touching, hilarious and at times down right raunchy. The author has a wonderful way with words, she says so much with her sparse prose. I would highly recommend seeking out this book, and I look forward to reading other work by this author.

This slender epic is by way of being the prequel to _The Travelling Hornplayer,_ which I unknowingly read first. This one centers on Katherine Browne and her affair with the entire Goldman family: Jake, the Jewish cockney philosophy professor and semi-radical Bohemian; Jane, his wife and supporter of his soul; Roger, the older son, his mother's favorite, and a neurotic math genius; and Jonathan, his father's favorite, all-round bloke and decent sort. Katherine, a very naive and very sweet young girl, first meets Jacob when he interviews her for a university fellowship and later the same afternoon falls under the sway of John Millet, a bisexual aesthete to whom she loses her virginity. John takes her to visit his old friends in the country, who turn out to be the Goldmans. She falls for the beautiful Roger, who turns out to be something of a ...; when he dumps her four years later during graduation week, she departs for Italy and doesn't return for ten years, having had and lost a baby. Then she rediscovers Jonathan. The book divides neatly into two parts, separated by the Italian interlude: Young-and-Vulnerable Katherine and Older-and-Sometimes-Wiser Katherine. The Goldmans have changed a lot during her decade away, but in the essentials they haven't really changed at all. This is a lovely book and it's amazing Trapido could cram so much story into only 218 pages. The scintilating dialogue makes me want to see and hear it on the stage. And the characters, as in _Hornplayer,_ are absolutely believeable.

I started my Trapido obsession when "The Travelling Hornplayer" came into the bookshop where I work on weekends. After reading that (with bated breath) I ordered each and every other books by this wonder that I could find. So, even after reading the 'series' out of sequence, I can hereby state that is one of the best bunches of books around. "Temples of Delight" appealed to me a bit more, maybe, than even the others; I always was a bit of a sucker for a school story, which the story of Jem and Alice starts out as. Plus, the enchanting scraps of "The Divine Miss Davidine Delight," Jem's novel, are just gorgeous. I can picture Iona Morgan cacking herself as she reads it in Alice's room. The characters on the whole are very easy to visualise, which for me is a big indication of the author's abilities. Even more than that, you find yourself yelling at Roland, "Stop it, you twit!" and at Joe, "You complete jammy bas*ard!" (isn't he AWFUL!) and feeling so sorry for little Alice. And then, she's so happy, and you can believe she deserves her happiness. In the series as a whole, I love the Shakespearean twists (not quite the second son of Sir Rowland de Boys, however) and the way everyone pairs off, in the most unlikely couples. Reading through each book, you come across linkages and cross-linkages you utterly weren't expecting. Magnificent. I can't say enough nice things about this book, this series, this author. I can't wait for the next one! (I think its to be called "Having Sex With Stravinsky" and is due sometime in 2001. Or before, if we all wish hard enough.) Read on!

I worked backwards, first reading The Travelling Hornplayer, before I read this. A measure of a good book for me is whether or not I think about the characters when I am not reading, and how much I enjoy them--for good or bad--when I am reading. It is delightful to finally see Alice get away from Roland "my poppet" Dent and head back to Jem. This is a book well worth reading! Go and find all of Trapido's books, you won't be sorry.

Trapido enthralls readers with writing that is as funny as it is poignant. Alice, an English schoolgirl, is transformed by her friendship with the spirited Jem to become an imaginative reader of immense proportions... Jem disappears as immediately as she entered Alice's life, but Alice remains loyal to childhood memories and is finally rewarded when Jem re-enters her life bringing Alice a gift: her very own "man of letters", a dangerous Sarastro with flashing eyes and irresistible charm, Giovanni. Enter this world of literary bliss, laugh and cry with characters you won't forget; TEMPLES OF DELIGHT is a spiritual experience

The Travelling Hornplayer takes up, thematically at least, where Brother of the More Famous Jack left off. Trapido succeeds in breathing new life into the familiar characters of the former novel, a generation down the line.

Without revealing too much of the storyline, this novel focuses on loss -- death of a family member, loss of one's own youth, the potential loss of one's marriage -- without being maudlin. In fact, the tone is quirky and the messages life-affirming. The central character (if there is one) is Stella, daughter of Jonathan and Katherine (the lovers of Brother of the More Famous Jack). Stella is truly stellar: a talented cellist, dyslexic and unsocialised, over-coddled and resentful; apparently 'above' her peers. This novels tracks her life and loves in parallel with those of her father, who has matured into an acclaimed novellist. Katherine, having recovered from the trauma of the cot-death of her first child (in Brother of the More Famous Jack) has become an over-protective mother, and an amateur interior decorator: Jonathan says that after a year in a new house 'everything was so beautiful I just wanted to spend all day drinking tea and looking at the walls'.

The style is witty and quick, and the handling of tricky subjects like death, adultery, HIV and the mother-daughter relationship is tender. If you like Trapido, you'll love this one!

"The Travelling Hornplayer" is for anyone who's ever fallen in love or had their heart broken, found a new friend or mourned a death. It's an intricate, complex, beautiful novel told from the shifting points of view of its characters, each of whom is himself shifting. Together they form a constellation of flawed geniuses and selfish empaths, drifting through a world that moves them into endless configurations. "The Travelling Hornplayer" is about the ripples we make in the world, how they affect those around us in ways we don't anticipate, how sometimes they double back and affect us. How that shadow disappearing around a corner is sometimes a stranger, and sometimes a friend and sometimes a lover and sometimes our parent, and sometimes we're looking into a funhouse mirror and it's ourself we saw. It's a book about an essay about a symphony about a poem. It's a book about writers and students and children and mothers, lovers and artists and spies, murder and mourning and sex and blue flowers. It's a novel perfect for anyone who loves books and everyone who loves life, and I recommend it without reservation.

This is my first Barbara Trepido book- And i'm absolutely delighted with it! The different storytellers in the book brings to life the plot with their personal narration. Each spin their part of the tale by recounting their life experiences, and this culminates in an intricately woven plot littered with unexpected revelations that fit perfectly together like lost pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. As the plot unfolds, the characters' lives unfold before us, and one cannot help but feel for them and even relating to them. Bizarre and almost exotic their lives may be, yet there are qualities in Barbara's characters that the reader can identify with. In the midst of admiring them for their talent and beauty, we pity Ellen for the loss of her sister; we wonder at, yet understand Katherine's maniacal zeal in caring for her daughter; we shrug at Stella's fragile sense of insecurity and over-commitment to her boyfriend. Barbara explores love, loss and betrayal, death, lonliness and ingratitude in her quirky and comical manner, interspersed with allusions to Wilheim Muller and Conrad which seem to be the connecting thread throughout the novel. The plot comes full circle, the ending even if a little too coincidental, pulls the curtains on this story to a splendid close, deserving of a standing ovation.

Two sisters-- one natural, one adopted-- engage in a series of trials and love affairs that lead them from strange coincidences into the truth.

Light reading, but smart enough to feel like you aren't wasting your time. This is my first Trapido, and while I found her a talented writer, I didn't find anything really special about the book-- sort of a cut-rate Drabble or Murdoch. All the same, an entertaining enough read.