I live in Massachusetts and visit the wineries in New England at least once a month, so I was very interested in this book when I saw it become available. On one hand it's great to finally have a book available on these wineries - they deserve all the attention they get. There are some world-class wineries in Massachusetts and New York, especially in Long Island. They have been overlooked for far too long.

Unfortunately, it's hard to have any book keep up with the changes in this industry, and the third edition came out with incorrect information that they hadn't changed from the second edition. I might grab this if you don't know anything at all about the region, but you should always check the individual wineries' websites for actual offerings, hours of operation, and current ratings by the Wine Spectator.

If you live in the Northeast, or are a tourist there, and have an interest in wine, you should pick up this book. I live in central Connecticut (just outside Hartford) and was pleased with the coverage in this area and the Eastern / Northeastern areas in general. Each major winery has a brief discussion and broad rating. There is information on different grape varietals as well as a condensed how-to section on how wine is made. There is coverage on some places to stay and places to eat in the respective areas. As the author notes, this is not an exhaustive tome, but is a helpful guide based on the author's personal experience and recommendation -- often the best kind of guide to have.

A tragedy by William Shakespeare, written around 1599-1601. Before the play opens, the king of Denmark has been murdered by his brother, Claudius, who has taken the throne and married the queen, Gertrude. The ghost of the dead king visits his son, Prince Hamlet, and urges him to avenge the murder. Hamlet, tormented by this revelation, appears to be mad and cruelly rejects Ophelia whom he loved. Using a troupe of visiting players to act out his father's death, the prince prompts Claudius to expose his own guilt. Hamlet then kills Ophelia's father Polonius in mistake for Claudius, and Claudius tries but fails to have Hamlet killed. Ophelia drowns herself in grief, and her brother Laertes fights a duel with Hamlet.

Hamlet's dilemma is often seen as typical of those whose thoughtful nature prevents quick and decisive action.

Hamlet contains several fine examples of soliloquy, such as " To be or not to be" and Hamlet's earlier speech lamenting his mother's hasty remarriage and Claudius' reign which opens "O! that this too too solid flesh would melt". Much quoted lined "Neither a borrower nor a lender be", "Something is rotten in the stste of Denmark", "Brevity is the soul of wit", "To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;" The lady doth protest too much, methinks," and "Alas, poor Yorick". Arguably Shakespeare's finest play and one that can be read again and again.

Hamlet is, by far, the most complex of Shakespeare's many plays. Many of the themes covered are love vs hate, action vs non-action, revenge, and jealousy. Hamlet discovers that "something is rotten in the state of Denmark" when he encounters the ghost of his father, the King, who has recently been killed in battle. From here, Hamlet goes on a search for the discovery of what happened to his father. However, Hamlet not only uncovers secrets of the past, but also the depths of his own being.

The Folger Edition of Hamlet is a great edition to buy, especially for those who are studying this play in high school or college, because it is relatively cheap in price and is very "reader-friendly" with side notes and footnotes that accompany each page of each scene. So, even if you aren't a Shakespeare lover or if Shakespeare is just a little intimidating (we all know how this feels), this version at least allows you to get the gist of what is going on. Also, there are summaries of each scene within each act, to let you know in layman's terms what is taking place. I highly recommend this edition.

Hamlet is considered, by many scholars, the pinnacle of Shakespeare's dramas. If you haven't read it yet this this Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism edition would be a great place to begin.

The text notes that are included with the play are very helpful to understand some of the more difficult language nuances that are inevitable with any Shakespeare. The structure is well laid out and conclusive. It complements the complexity of Hamlet very well.

Of course Hamlet is one of the great paradoxes and mysteries every written. The search of finding yourself and what it is that fuels the human spirit. Hamlet can be a very confusing play because of the depth of substance. However, the critical essays that suppliment the reading make it very accessable.

Each of the critical essays are of different schools of literary criticism: Feminist Criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, post-structuralist (deconstuctionist) criticism, Marxist critism, and finally a New Historicist criticism. Before each critism there is clearly written introduction to explain the motives and histories of that type of criticism.

This edition of Hamlet will not only introduce the reader to more Shakespeare, but also explain the play and help to familiarize the reader with literary criticism too. It is a beautiful volume that cannot be more recommended if you are wanting to buy a copy Hamlet.

Edward Rutherfurd has done it again: take a location and describe crucial episodes in its history using the fictitious characters of a few local families through the ages. What remains is a very bulky, entertaining though not earth shattering book. After his "histories" of Salisbury, London and Russia he has now chosen the Forest, an extensive woodland area south of Salisbury. The book is well written and reads fast despite its 800+ pages.

The book starts in 1099, when King Rufus is killed during a hunt in his royal Forest. Edward Rutherfurd gives an alternative description of this killing. In this first chapter the author is quite keen on venting facts: a bit boring and interruptive to the story. Luckily this is less so in the remaining 6 stories which describe such events as the life in a medieval monastery, the Spanish Armada, a witch process, the time of the Puritans, the business of the smugglers which have always been active on the southern shores of England, and finally the way in which the Forest became a national protected area. I look forward to reading his next novel on Dublin...

Edward Rutherfurd specialises in "Michener"-style books. Even tho he did not originate this type of novel, I personally feel he is the best at writing them for 2 reasons: 1) Instead of dealing with a very large area (Hawaii, South Africa, etc) as Michener does, Rutherfurd picks a small geographical area such as London or England's New Forest. This makes the focus of the story more manageable. 2) Rutherfurd is much better at characterisation & plot developement than Michener.

"The Forest" is Rutherfurd's latest 1000 year geographical epic, & altho not his best work, is eminently readable. Unlike his previous (& better) work, "London", "The Forest" deals with an area few people outside of the UK will be familiar with. This of course means the historical events he fictionalises will also be unfamiliar to the average American reader, thus adding some freshness to tales of Cavaliers vs. Roundheads, peasants relating to their feudal lords etc. In the chapter entitled "Albion Park" Rutherfurd even tries to adapt Jane Austen's "Pride & Prejudice" to his multi-generational narrative!

Does it work? For the most part, yes. Rutherfurd's novels are an excellent way for a reader to get a handle on history, & he makes large events personal to the reader. My main problem with his writings is his tendency to make family members thru the generations have the same appearance & mannerisms over hundreds of years. They never seem to inherit anything from their mothers; a Furzey is a Furzey whether in the 11th or the 19th century. This seems especially strange in "The Forest" as he has the same families marrying each other for the entire book without ever starting to share characteristics! I assume this is the author's way of making a protagonist instantly identifiable & not confusing the reader with too many different people to keep track of. The other fault I found with "The Forest" was starting the story at the end of the 11th century. Although the Roman period & Anglo-Saxon eras are mentioned, there is no narrative covering them as there was in "London". Personally, I would have welcomed the inclusion.

If not quite as good as "London", fans of Edward Rutherfurd will not be disappointed with "The Forest".

If you have not read this author's other books, London and Sarum please do so for they are as outstanding as is this newest book by a wonderful author and historian.

I don't know when I have enjoyed history as much for Rutherfurd tells it in the most beguiling ways through stories of real people, their trials, loves and losses. At times one can find tears flowing because they are so poignant and heartbreaking yet one is left with a marvellous sense of seeing history and tradition so revered by our British friends lovingly revealed here. It is difficult to put this book down for many reasons. Each story in each period of time that he writes of has so many nuances that one may want to race through the pages, yet, it is not the best course for a lot of information relevant to the foundation of the early settlement of America by British colonists becomes increasingly clear and a new respect for the traditions our own American land are wonderful to recognize.

What is especially delightful is the story of those early forest dwellers, both human and animal. The reader is brought to a keen awareness of how deeply Britians revere their land and their ancestral roots that trace backwards into antiquity and are still present throughout countless descendants who carry on a reverent legacy of respect and love for their great forests. From shipbuilding timber to charcoal to wood for heating and cooking,to acorns and other benefice for the animals, the forest is an everlasting symbol of nurturance and as an invaluable resource for their life and livelihood.

This book is a marvellous Christmas, Birthday, or general gift to a person whom you love and know is an avid book reader, and a guarantee that the recepient will be well pleased. You may find that you may want to read it yourself. And then read his other books for a continuation of his vast knowledge and delicious storytelling vignettes of life as we can only imagine it was in the British Islands over the past thousand or so years. A wonderful journey.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD(if you don't know the outcome of this story-it was well covered by all major news sources-please stop reading. Trust me, this book is so suspenseful, moving, and well written that I would hate to spoil the end for you)

It's difficult to explain the wide range of emotions you'll go through while reading this book. There's a building excitement as the men of the Andrea Gail, a small(compared to most other boats of the Gloucester fleet)but sturdy fishing trauler rigged for nearly a month's stay at sea, set out from Gloucester on their season's final trip to the Grand Banks, a rather unpredictable but verile breeding ground for swordfish. The crew, led by Captain Billy Tyne, consists of a likably haphazard group of local Gloucester men who demonstrate an impressive understanding of deep sea fishing and the dangers it presents, especially when the vessel one works aboard is nearly 2000 miles from the nearest North American shore, not to mention the nearest emergency hospital. Unfortunately, as the name of the book implies, things turn bad quickly for the ship and its crew. A series of storm fronts collide almost directly over the Andrea Gail as it makes its way home from a prosperous run, and the ship finds itself beneath the most powerful storm in recorded history. Waves crest at nearly 150 feet and wind speeds reach 100 mph before the crew finally realizes its sad fate. The book doesn't deal exclusively with the Andrea Gail, but also cuts between a few coinciding stories of endangered boats and the rescuers assigned to remove them from harm's way. The author makes sure that each of these individuals is given their due credit and presents them as professional and courageous. As silly as it sounds, I couldn't help but feel connected to the men and women unfortunate enough to weather "the perfect storm." Sebastian Junger does such a thorough job of fleshing each character to its emotional fullest that it's impossible for this naive inlander not to feel an unfounded empathy at their struggle.

I can't encourage you enough to buy this book. It's a fantastic read.

Who hasn't dreamt of leaving the safe confines of terra firma, for the endless mystery of the sea? Who has not wondered what would it require to leave the endless responsibilty of the "real world" behind, to set out upon the water? The answers to these questions are for more complex than one would hope, or even expect. On the eve of a major motion picture, Sebastion's Jungers harrowing tale of the everyday hero against a very angry Mother Nature, will probably see a renewed interest at the bookstore. Even for those who read it when it first appeared, a second look is well worth the effort. The Perfect Storm is almost a perfect book. It is not the most artfully drafted composition, nor does it carry an earth shattering message. Rather, it is a simple tale of working men who set to sea to earn a living, and in doing so, risk their lives every time their boat leaves its dock for another expedition. We are introduced to the families of these men, and we learn firsthand the anxiety and trepidation that comes with loving someone who risks death on a daily basis. Yet, The Perfect Storms truly comes alive when the Andrea Gale (the boat at the heart of the tale) encounters a tremndous storm. The reader is then taken on a ride of breathtaking proportions. The description of what takes places during a hurricane at sea, as well as the mechanics and actions during a Coast Guard rescue mission are simply fascinating. Not to be overlooked is a short but unforgettable description of what happens to a person when they drown. It will leave you breathing deep and savoring every breath fromn that point on. The Perfect Storm does what any adventure should do...it makes you care about its characters; it makes you care about what they care about, and in the end, it makes you mourn their loss. This is a book that should find its place on any landlocked boater's bookshelf, as well as any family member of someone who looks to the sea to earn a living. It will bring true understanding to such a demanding line of work. I can only hope that the movie can do the book justice. And I look to the next investigation that Junger will so elegantly share with us. Kudos to Men's Journal Magazine for running the original story that became the premise for The Perfect Storm.

By now most have seen the movie... so we have the gist of the story of the men of the Andrea Gail and their friends and family back in Gloucester.

Their doomed battle against nature out over the Flemish Cap is described in much more detail than even the graphics of the movie could convey. But what I liked most about this book was the impressive research Sebastian Junger put into this true story!

With splendid clarity, he describes the physics behind water wave mechanics from tiny wind-generated capillary waves to powerful towering monsterous walls of green water. He also describes in morbid detail what really happens to the human body when it drowns, and it isn't from getting water in the lungs!

The author does all this without getting into difficult scientific jargon that the laity may not appreciate. Many parts of this book read like an exciting field course in oceanography! Junger really takes care to provide the reader with a strong understanding of just how amazing the unification of those 3 storm cells was... the kind of power it generated!

A well-written book that I've seen as mandatory reading material for university geomorphology courses because of its finer details!

The concept is good--two out-of-shape middle-aged guys try to hike the 2,100 mile Appalachian Trail--and the first fifty pages of "A Walk in the Woods" are enjoyable. Despite years of camping and hiking in the Boy Scouts in my youth, I too would be out of my league trying to prepare and equip for hiking the AT. But in the interest of full disclosure, the book should have been called "A (Short) Walk in the Woods--Rediscovering (Small Parts of) America on (39% of) the Appalachian Trail". Bryson hikes from North Georgia, but calls it quits at Gatlinburg, Tennessee--renting a car to drive from there to Roanoke, Va. Perhaps realizing that he was supposed to write a book on the AT, but had quit (oops), Bryson then drives around to various parts of the Trail, taking day hikes on weekends. He then teams back up with the indomitable Katz to hike the last hundred miles of the trail in Maine. Again--you guessed it--they quit and go home, lamely insisting that they had hiked the Appalachian Trail. I'm sure hard-core thru-hikers everywhere are simply beside themselves over this.

Interestingly, at the same time Bryson talks about how those on the AT depend on "the kindness of strangers," Bryson and his foul companion Katz are almost vicious to their fellow hikers--mocking their intelligence, rebuffing attempts at friendly conversation, "ditching" companions, even stealing shoestrings from other hikers' boots in the night--nice. And as others have noted, while preaching about environmentalism and repeatedly criticizing the Park Service, Bryson and Katz leave a trail of cigarettes, discarded equipment, and soda cans over miles of the Trail.

Bryson stereotypes Southerners (another "Deliverance" insult--yawn) and spouts knee-jerk environmentalism (acid rain! yikes!) all the while. And the brief foray into Civil War history--a brief profile of Stonewall Jackson--is a howler, filled with inaccuracies and undisguised Yankee disdain for a man who, though eccentric, was arguably one of the greatest military commanders of all time.

That said, Bryson does have an ear for witty repartee (one wonders how much was filled in later, for comic effect); I chuckled out loud a few times. The book is also a nice, quick read, good for an airplane ride or short weekend, for instance. But I couldn't help but be disappointed. I was ready to root for two underdogs to conquer a daunting physical task--instead, they gave up early and were jerks to everyone they met along the way. Granted, if I tried to hike the AT, I might not make it half as far as Bryson--but hey, I didn't sign up with my publisher to write a book about hiking the Trail, either.

Bought this book for my wife, then ended up reading it first. Added insult to injury by waking her up repeatedly with my laughter, which I just couldn't contain. Bryson is very witty, and his descriptions of striking out onto the Appalachian Trail with his companion Stephen Katz are not just colorful, they are often moving.

His descriptions of their daily diet are a scream. Snickers bars, Little Debbie pastry cakes and Slim Jim beef sticks are not the normal trail food (nor are noodles as a daily diet), but many serious hikers have secreted wrappers from these products into trash cans at the end of a hike. Bryson manages to poke fun at hikers and himself as well.

He has managed to hit the nail on the head with his descriptions of the National Park Service, yet portrayed the personnel who work for this organization as dedicated individuals. His descriptions of the underground coal fire burning which has gone on for decades under Centralia, Pennsylvania, have made me! want to plan a day trip there, along with a side trip to the Delaware Water Gap.

There are holes in this tale, but if one just overlooks the small lapses that pop up here and there, the book is quite enjoyable. Serious hikers should lighten up and read it like a funny novel. I'll try his "Lost Continent" next, as other readers have called it one of his best. If it's as good as this was, I'll be happy.

A Walk in the Woods

"Not long after I moved with my family to a small town in New Hampshire I happened on a path that vanished into wood on the edge of town" is a spectacular beginning by writer Bill Bryson of his ludicrous and whimsical experience of walking the AT or Appalachian Trail. In this memoir, Bill, our hero...ahem..cough...cough, CLAP!, has decide that a stroll of the great AT, running from Maine to Georgia or vice versa, sounded like fun. His friend named Katz joins him on this comical trip in the woods. His son, who has an after school job at an outfitter's, suggested that he buy his supplies there because of their large stock of materials for a hike in the woods. This is a very engaging and interesting book, but I would not recommend this book to a kid who still thinks sex, crap, and etc. are extremely bad words, unless you are a parent who enjoys making up definitions and trying reverse psychology on your children to think they didn't read that word at all, they dreamed it. Its appropriateness is the about the same as a PG-13 movie, for those people who don't know what PG-13 stands for, it stands for Parents Cautioned Some Material May By Inappropriate For Children Under 13. I read this book for a school report and I thought it was going to be boring because it was a true story. But I was totally wrong. Whatever you may be doing right now, stop and go to your nearest book store and buy this book. That order was mandatory, do it. Thank you for reading my review. I hope it informed you enough to read the book.

I am giving TARA ROAD three stars because it is not my favorite Maeve Binchy novel - I don't think the secondary characters were developed as well as in some of her other books. Yes, the story has elements of a soap opera, but please don't compare it to anything written by Danielle Steele. I have never been able to get through one chapter of any of her books that have come my way. Okay, I did read MESSAGE FROM NAM, she must have had a ghost-writer. Excuse me, I digress. TARA ROAD is an enjoyable read. The main character, Ria, changes throughout the book, and I really liked her. She seemed very real to me, like a good friend. My only complaint about this book is at times it was a bit slow, and not 100% believable, but so what, it's a novel. The story itself is actually very inspiring, about friendship as well as self-reliance. I definitley recommend TARA ROAD to all Maeve Binchy fans, and for those who've never experienced Maeve, if you like good stories with characters who become like friends, please give her books a try. However, for first time readers of Maeve, you might want to start with ECHOES or EVENING CLASS, which are two of her best!

I'm giving this four instead of five stars because it's absolutely a blast of a juicy, gossipy "women's" book, which most of us women love; as for the actual writing - it's not Toni Morrison, okay? Indeed, as one reviewer below has written, it's a little disconcerting when Americans don't speak like Americans. We don't use expressions like "the lot of them" and "I'm off to the store," etc. - things like that. You have to wonder - don't these famous writers get edited?

Still - this is a much more fun potboiler/soap opera than (ick) Danielle Steele, as another reviewer recommended. Danielle Steele's adjectives are, typically: "fabulous" - "fantastic" - "incredible" - "marvelous." As they say, never underestimate the reading taste of the American public! As far as I'm concerned, Pilcher is right up (or down) there with Danielle Steele. But Maeve Binchy was recommended to me years ago by a highly erudite librarian who read everything from Shakespeare to Joyce. Thus, when Tara Road came my way in the form of an unabridged audio tape read by Jenny Sterlin, I figured I'd take a chance, and man - couldn't get enough of it. It's easy listening, but as smooth as Irish coffee laced with Hagendaas ice cream.

I love the way that I can envision Ria, Gertie, Rosemary,Colm and all of the other wonderful characters in "Tara Road"... At first I thought that the beginning of the book was too long, but I realized that it was necessary to really make me understand and care about Ria and her life, and everyone that revolves around her unique home. Binchy first made me ache to travel to Ireland when I read "Circle of Friends", and now with this contemporary Dublin setting, I'm seriously yearning to go. She makes things so easy to envision!! I stayed up late at night and got up early in the morning to enjoy all 502 pages. I'm hoping for a sequel, as I don't want to leave Ria's life-- I'd like to follow the next 20 years of it. This is a wonderful story, full of memorable, diverse characters whose lives are perfectly entwined by the "master" of slice-of-life writing. Enjoy!

While "Postcards" is as beautifully written and original as "The Shipping News," it's a depressing read. Instead of the passionate, moving sadness of tragedy, the story is a slow, steady grinding of one catastrophe after another.

"Postcards" presents the reader with an endless string of murder, sickness, injury, theft, suicide...By the end of the book I was hardly moved by any of it. A few moments of hope and human kindness would have made the losses seem more profound. Without it, the violence and pain ended up seeming merely pointless.

The book has its redeeming qualities from a technical standpoint. Proulx manages to carry off the postcards concept (each chapter starts with a reproduction of a postcard message that adds some information to the story) without it becoming gimmicky. The story is interesting in the way that watching a car crash might be interesting - you wonder what else could possibly happen to these people. And her writing style and subjects are as quirky and finely drawn as ever.

But ultimately I found I couldn't care about the characters' lows when there were no highs to measure them against, and instead of a plot the book was simply a litany of sorrows.

Postcards was the first of many books that I actually finished. I have tried to read many "good recommendation" books and never quite finished them, due to a lack of interest. What drew me to complete postcards was Proulx style of writing and prose. It was very interesting although I found I had to re-read many parts of the book, just part of my short attention span I guess. The downfalls of the book was character confusion, by the time I got halfway through the book I was confused about the characters in the Blood family, and of the ownership of traits. The most dreadful of all is the unanswered anticipation that was built up in the first page of the book, I felt let down and angered that I had put the time to finish the book and never had my questions answered. By the time I was three quarters through the book I realized that this was to be. I wanted to throw the book into a busy intersection, but refrained due to the fact it wasn't my book. It was lent to me by a friend who hadn't read it yet. Oddly enough I plan on reading it again to get my characters right, and I will check out "The Shipping News". Maybe this is the best compliment I can give the author, I hated the story but I loved the style. Very vivid.

Introduced to Annie Proulx from her book _Shipping News_, I eagerly snatched this book up with the same expectations and I was delivered of that and more. An outstanding story of family, blood lines, history and human strength and frailty, Annie once again strikes gold. Teased, the reader gets little glimpses of mementos, mail, postcards throughout the novel that relate in intriguing ways to the story content. Probably the biggest teaser would be the first few pages. I challenge any lover of literature to read those pages and put the novel back on the shelf. There is simply no way to resist this book when you have read this entry. My analysis of a great work of literature is my intention to reread the novel again. There are a handfull of books I know I will, as the temptation to read something fresh is always greater. This novel will never be lent out, for I will wait until it dims just the slightest in my memory, and then I will seek it out and read it again with as much anticipation as when I read it the first time. I can't wait!!

The authors have written an interesting and timely book. I liked all of the factoids and descriptions they gave about life one thousand years ago in England. Fascinating to see how our ancestors did it (life) facing challenges we have long ago conquored. The organization of the book tends to break up the narrative. It is mildly annoying in places, as are comparisons to current news that will, unfortunately quickly make this book look dated. This situation is caused by the author's using a period calendar as a backdrop to their story and organizing the book around the twelve months of the year and the seasonal activities of the Anglo-Saxons under study.

A quick read and overall enjoyable.

The book is written by journalists, not historians, and that in itself makes it all the more valuable for the general reader. Alas, too many historians write for other historians, and their prose is so stilted and dry as to be unreadable. But this book is a joy to read. Using the Julius Calendar as a device to introduce us to the everyday life of Anglo-Saxons in England in the years leading up to the first millennium, the authors present us with a perfect picture of what life must have been like on a seasonal basis, from January through December. I highly recommend this book to readers interested in the social history of that period who do not wish to wade through a thousand pages of scholarly boredom.

The authors have written an interesting and timely book. I liked all of the factoids and descriptions they gave about life one thousand years ago in England. Fascinating to see how our ancestors did it (life) facing challenges we have long ago conquored. The organization of the book tends to break up the narrative. It is mildly annoying in places, as are comparisons to current news that will, unfortunately quickly make this book look dated. This situation is caused by the author's using a period calendar as a backdrop to their story and organizing the book around the twelve months of the year and the seasonal activities of the Anglo-Saxons under study.

A quick read and overall enjoyable

Coleman Silk, the central character of The Human Stain, is a classics professor at Athena College who is forced into retirement as a result of a comment in the classroom which is misinterpreted as a racial slur (readers will be reminded of the real-life Washington D.C. bureaucrat who in 1999 was briefly forced from his job for saying the word "niggardly"). Silk in some respects brings to mind David Lurie, the protagonist of J.M. Coetzee's Booker Prize winning novel Disgrace. Both men hurl themselves into a sort of self-imposed exile from academia by stubbornly abandoning pragmatism and refusing to bend to the politically correct forces that confront them.

There is a lot going on in The Human Stain. Roth takes on academia, political correctness, race, identity, the Vietnam War, and family, all against the backdrop of Clinton's impeachment proceedings and our country's headlong rush into a culture of puritanical condemnation. In the end Roth asks some big questions. What is an individual's responsibility to community? What is the community's responsibility to the individual? When these links fail, Roth asks the reader to challenge his or her beliefs about where the blame lies.

The non-linear style of Roth's storytelling is captivating, but I found the change of viewpoint to be at times distracting. Sometimes the reader is inside the head of the characters, tracing his or her thoughts and motivations. Other times we're an outsider looking purely through the eyes of the narrator (Roth's alter-ego Nathan Zuckerman). It's not until the end of the novel that we understand why this is.

In my opinion some of the big questions are convincingly addressed, and most of the elements tie together. Some don't. The novel is set in 1998, which makes one wonder why Roth decided to incorporate post-traumatic stress of Vietnam veterans as a competing plotline, given that Saigon fell some 23 years earlier.

In the end Roth leaves some strings dangling, and I suppose it's a testimony to the richness and depth of the characters that we read the last page wanting to know a bit more.

I am unfortunately not as familiar with Roth's earlier works and previous reviewers, though I have read him, knew of him, and respected him as one of America's great writers. I was nonetheless excited to discover this motherlode of observation, perception and wisdom that deigns touch upon such complicated and socially sensitive matters as race, academic culture, contemporary social pyrotechnics, vietnam, and simply surviving the murk of daily living. As an African American, it was a very pleasant surprise to discover the implicit wisdom of Roth's dissection of what it must be like, or entail, to cross the color line. Roth explores the subject matter with a wisdom and sensitivity and, more importantly, and insigtfulness that is rather staggering. Should I add, for an outsider? But perhaps that is the implicit lesson of the book; that though we may be positioned as outsiders in viewing arcane matters dealing with other races, cultures and societal segments, we may not be at all--that the human stain that brushes against all of us, gives us insight into the plight, the problems, and the possiblilities of the rest of us. Roth's novel is excellent, entertaining and rewarding reading.

"The Human Stain" is a fictional work that includes a detective story, a cultural commentary, several personality portraits, and a darn good yarn too. It's about a college professor who is forced from his position as dean because he is accused of using racial epithets during a class lecture. Isn't that a familiar story at Brown and other school?

You can't say a lot about the characters in this story because that would give away the plot. But Roth's novel is an attack on the militancy of college-campus political correctness and the feminists whose Roth character believes are hypocritcal. Further the book is a discussion of the roles that race plays in America and what is means to be raised as a Jew. There's lots of other themes too including man's preoccupation with sex which is, of course, what Roth writes about frequently.

The character Faunia refers to the novel's title, the "Humain Stain", when she says "That's what comes of hanging around all his life with people like us. The human stain." The "he" she is referring to is a crow in the pet show. Faunia likes to talk to crows. She's supposed to be the village idiot in this novel, but she's more comples than that. In the same paragraph Roth mentions another bird, a swan. Writing of the Greek gods, Roth says they are like humans in their cruelty--leaving stains of excrement and semen wherever they go--and their desire for erotic love. He writes "...[Zeus] to enter her bizarrely as a flailing white Swan." This is a direct reference to the poem by William Butler Years "Leda and the Swan" which Roth quotes at length in his novel "Portnoy's Complaint"--whose very title is a psychological term for to the desire for erotica and the angst that causes because of cultural mores. The poem reads in part "How can those terrified vague fingers [Leda] push the feathered glory [the Swan] from her loosening things?".

This book is a riveting read, long passages held me for page after page. I could not put it down as Roth takes us inside the mind of Delphine Roux, the French teacher at Athena college who has created so much trouble for Coleman Silk, the main character in the novel. Roth reveals her thoughts as she reflects on her status as a beautiful expatriate intellectual utterly alone in the word. She is miserable because she is despised by the female faculty members who hate her for her good looks and who, consequently, refuse to read her published writings. She hates Coleman because her isn't intimidated by her beauty like so many of the men are. She feels lost as a expatriate: caught between two oceans and not certain to which shore to seek refuge. She's a woman who desperately wants erotic love. But she can't abide the many suitors she has at the school. She goes to the New York Public library--anyone who lives in New York will tell you that the adjacent Bryant Park is a great pick up place--and looks wistfully at her intellectual peers: handsome men reading difficult books in those hallowed halls. If only she could find someone like that at the far flung, mountain-enclosed school where she's surrounded by shallow thinking Philistines masquerading as intellectuals.

One fascinating feature of this novel is that it's all written in one voice. There's no effort to reproduce accents like, say, William Faulkner would do. And there's no effort to change the substance of the language from one character to the next. Whether it's the uneducated Faunia speaking or the highly educated Coleman Silks, they all speak with the erudite voice of Philip Roth. I find this technique a good one: why sully the great language in a novel just to sound like one of the locals? That's my complaint with Irvine Welsh who writes in Scottish patois.

This novel spoke to me directly in two particular ways. First Roth writes of the death of two children. My own children are alive and O.K. but I felt compelled to rush to them as I read Roth's harrowing account of the two children dying a ghastly death. It was such a page turning horror tale, as good as the only Stephen King I read, and had me so upset by the end that I almost flung the book across the room. I haven't been moved by a book like that in a long time. There should be a preface at that chapter: "not for the faint of heart".

Secondly, Roth wrote was speaking to me again, on the subject of living alone in the woods--since that is what I do--with Henry David Thoreau like authority. The narrator of the novel is a writer who has fled the city for the quiet of the woods. (Doesn't Philip Roth live like this too?) Roth says, "The secret to living in the rush of the world with a minimum of pain is to get as many people as possible to string along with your delusions; the trick to living alone up here, away from all agitating entanglements...is to organize the silence, to think of its mountaintop plenitude as capital, silence and wealth exponentially increasing....The trick is to find sustenance in [He quotes Nathaniel Hawthorne] 'the communication of a solitary mind with itself''. These words give hope too any person attempting to go it alone away from the noise of the city.

ALL HE EVER WANTED was a surprise for me in that before I started to read it I didn't know it was a period piece, so to speak. Nicholas Van Tassel is a stuffy professor at a small college in New Hampshire in the early 1900s. His stuffiness, at first, rubbed me the wrong way. But I've been pleased with Anita Shreve's past books and was determined to keep going, despite this. It was also a little difficult to get used to the way the book is written. The stilted words as Nicholas tells the story of falling in love with Etna and their life together was an initial drawback, but after the first 40 or 50 pages, I was at ease with it.

This is a sad tale. A man who only wanted a few choice things in his life, Nicholas has a way of screwing those things up so that even if he gets them, it doesn't make him happy. He's not a particularly likable fellow although there are certain things about him that make you at least understand him. It was somewhat refreshing not to have to read about a perfect person since so few of those exist in real life!

I enjoyed reading this book and was pleased with the skill used in telling the story. Anita Shreve gets my vote for a job well done.

I found this book compelling, not least because its protagonist is so unattractive. Shreve shows him first as dull and pedantic, then gradually turns up the heat until she has created a monster. Yet our hearts break for this man who wants only one thing, then allows his obsessive passion to overwhelm his moral sense and destroy what he most cherishes. Shreve's books are always insightful, and her storytelling gifts are superb. This is not one of her very best, but it's more than good enough!

Anita Shreve just can't seem to write a bad book.
In All He Ever Wanted, her tale concerns unrequited love, the results of the somewhat unlikely 'love at first sight.' Maybe this was more commn in the early 20th century, the era in which this book is set, but it was the only part of the tale that stretched my credulity. The story covers a lot of ground: anti-Semitism, ... abuse, women's rights, and academia.
If you liked Shreves' other books, you won't be disappointed by this one.