This small book is a collection of short passages on the emotional aspects of a Father-Son's relationship. Inspirational, thought-provoking sentiments remind one of the special bond that can exists between the two; time is fleeting, and what a shame if you or I were just taken for granted, instead of being appreciated for the special person each one of us were meant to be -- capture the essence of what life is all about! No man is an island ...

I read this novel and i found it very interesting .Even from the title we feel the irony of the writer:there are "Great Expectations",but none of the heroes of the book can acomplish them . In fact irony in this novel may be considered a kind of intertext . The book presents a life turned upsidedown:Pip`s life changed completely from the moment he is held hills over head by the fugitive Magwitch . The main hero of the novel Pip,is a kind of prism :through his eyes we can see the action ,we see waht he sees , we understand what he understands ,from the point of view of a 5 years old boy .That is why the narrator is subjective ,as the central conscience of the novel is influenced by heroe`s emotions and opinions . The novel is also an irony of destiny : thus ,Mrs Havisham ,an excentric old woman ,half crazy , half excentric ,has a " broken heart " as she was left by her fiancee .Decided to revenge she finds herself guilty of agression against life as she uses the two childern ,Estella and Pip to acomplish her wild dark dreams .She teaches Estella to hate and hurt men ,first turning her into a frosty girl and later into an insensitive woman . The novel also presents the evolution of Pip.He is a poor boy ,but through hard work he becomes a rich man.In his evolution he was helped by his secret love for Estella ,but he is disappointed by her.In the end of the novel he prooves that he changed:when he meets Estella he doesn`t return to her .

I heard for a long time that Great Expectations was a very dull book, so I didn't read it until now. When I began reading it, I thought, all those people were wrong about this book! It was so interesting and I could hardly put it down! I thought the entire story was absolutely fantastic. The book made you really get into the characters. The part that I also enjoyed about it was that it wasn't just a cheesy romance novel. It had other things in it besides those about Estella and Pip. I was also very impressed becuase it wasn't a book that I could read in a couple days with no trouble. I actually had to think about it while I read it! Needless to say, this book was one of, if not THE best book I've ever read. I would recommend it to anyone, as a matter of fact I've inspired not only some of my friends to read it, but also my favorite English teacher who has never had the joy of reading it.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is his gift to the world. This book is quite confusing at first but it all comes togethor in the end. Expectations is about a young boy named Pip who has been raised by his sister. By pure luck he is introduced to a rich elderly woman and a run away convict. You would never guess that these two people have anything to do with each other. The book is filled with many charectors and written in old english. If you like romance and mystery you'll love this book.

Incredibly boring book that takes advantage of the blair witch popularity. the burkittsville part is last and of course the shortest part of the book.

If you really want to get the most out of this book listen to the following BLACK SABBATH albums while reading it: First Album (1970), "Heaven & Hell" (80) and "Mob Rules" (81). Those last two CDs go great with chapters 4 ("the Knowing") and 5 ("the witch danced"). Songs like "Black Sabbath", "the wizzard", "beyond the wall of sleep", "NIB", "evil woman", children of the sea", "Lady Evil", "Heaven & Hell", "voodoo", "sign of the southern cross", "country girl" and "falling off the edge of the world" make incredible background music for folklore such as "Carlisle witch", "children of stone", "stones returning", "witch child" and "Bedlem witch".

This book scared me to death. It is written wonderfully and has great spooky stories in it. I could not put it down AT ALL! It had some things in it that make you wonder whether it is true or not really true. They could have made some of the stories longer, but they were still great. Buy it for a holloween read!

Why does anyone think that this book is a good one? I think it is the worst book ever written.

If you like Dickens, then you'll love this book. It's that simple

When you have a novel set against some tumultuous period in history such as the French Revolution, the US Civil War, the Holocaust, or in this case, the Russian Revolution, you expect a story with some depth to it. There are books set in times and places that I have never personally experienced, but after reading the book, I feel I had been there in person. This book is not one of those. A lot of the history (which I've read) is accurate enough, but the characters are flat as cardboard, and I never felt they came alive. I had trouble figuring out their motivations, they ended up seeming like victims of their own incredible naivete. The skeleton in the family closet was predictable, not shocking to a 21st century audience, and really did not further the story. This is not a long book, which may also be part of the problem. I realize not everyone can produce a War and Peace or a Doctor Zhivago, but I felt this novel didnt rise above the mediocre. I felt the authors barely scratched the surface of the subject matter.

Dr. Carlisle was loyal to the end to his crazy wife. Sometimes he struggled to stay loyal to her and to help her with her condition. I was disappointed that he did stay with her until the end. I felt he should have divorced her. Even though I do believe in loyalty to your spouse, in Dr. Carlisle's situation, he had had enough, and he needed to free himself of that crazy, ungrateful woman. I also was disappointed because he did not report the death she caused - he saved her. This book was a bit drawn out, and the same story could have been told on half, or at the very most three quarters of the amount of pages.

The USS Somers, a swift two-masted ship, was the site of an experiment in training young people to be sailors. Unfortunately, one of the officers, a Mr. Midshipman Spencer, son of the then secretary of war, was unhappy at being in the navy and liked to fantasize about being a pirate, which was the subject of the fiction he liked the best. His fantasies, combined with a harsh captain, the presence on the ship of at least one man who had served previously on a slave ship (considered piracy by the laws of the time) and Mr. Spencer's unpopularity with his fellow-officers and propensity to fraternize with and buy the affections of the crew, led to a tragic scandal and indirectly to the founding of the U.S. Naval Academy.

This book is ridiculous. Carlile puts words in the mouths of characters under many sets of circumstances which he could know nothing about--intimate dialogue that is absurd when created in this manner. I realize it is billed as a novel, however, I thought there would be more depth of character shown here. This book is shallow and disappointing. Carlile takes factual circumstances and builds private conversations around them. The scene where he has Hemingway having intercourse with McAlmon--am I naive? I have read a lot of Hemingway--did I miss something? I never got a hint of this type of relationship. And the way he sets the event up is absurd--like a dream sequence. It is idiotic. However, if there were no mention of the sexual escapades of the group, it would have been too boring to continue. I was glad when I finished this. I didn't find it to be well written.

I have read much about Hemmingway and this author has done justice to his lifestyle. It is very informative about literary Paris in the 20's and 30's. Do remember it is a novel and enjoy!

I don't know, I have read almost every biography of Hemingway, and many biographies of the other writers from this group, and quite frankly I think Carlile got it right. Of course in a novel the author adds thoughts and dialogue, but again, little of it seemed far afield from the biographical realities I have read. In truth, most of these folks were self-aggrandizing, narcissistic, drunken sloths, who showed a great deal of pettiness and jealousy of each others' works. Most of the reviews here seemed upset with Carlile's focus on sexuality. However, the fact was that these post-Victorian writers and artists, not unlike late 1950s and 1960s practitioners in that sexual revolution, WERE obsessed with sexuality, and experimented to a great degree with sexual variations and polyamory. Finally, some of the reviewers were put-off by the scene where Hemingway (in his sleep??) forced himself sexually on McAlmon. Frankly, Carlile is not the first to hypothesize that Hemingway's youthful and extreme disdain for homosexuality (culminating in some pretty violent acts against homosexual acquaintences of his) may have been his overcompensating for his own homosexual impulses, and that this "reaction-formation" may even be the source of his life-long and often farcical attempts (through deeds and writings) to prove the extent of his own masculinity. Indeed, contemporaries of his theorized this about Hemingway for years.

In any event, I frankly enjoyed the book. It was obvious that Carlile had read the same histories of this group as I have read over the years, and it was fun to have him fill in the blanks with what seemed to be right-on-target and realistic appraisals of a group whose talents were not as developed as their egos, and whose actions (scatological and sexual ones included) were elevated to cultural phenomena.