I do not include music or physics among my interests, yet I enjoyed MOW. The book really makes you think about the way things are (or appear to be). Since this book is about a musician, and you do read it as opposed to listening to it, the author wonderfully conveys the essence and the power of music. For this alone this book is a must read. After reading of one of the concerts in the book, I was left absolutley floored as the narrative was that powerful. This was the first KSR book I have read. I was very impressed with the connection the author made with me. KSR uniquely addresses the reader at various points throughout the book and that added to my reading experience. Some of the physics theory really slowed me down as I struggled to understand as much as I could. All in all a very engaging and thought provoking work.

Having read a lot of KSR it was very refreshing to read Memory of Whiteness. The reason for 4 stars is the beautiful description of the combination of music and 10 dimensional superstring theory. Once you read it, it becomes obvious that it must be so. What I miss is the realistic touch that KSR masters so well in both the Mars triology and the Orange County triology. You really belive those, but MOW is a bit more far fetched. All in all a very good Sci-fi which I enjoyed a lot.

I would consider this one of the all around best works of modern fiction. The depth and breadth of the worked that Robinson creates is truly a wonder. Few writers can successfully juggle the complex ideas contained within this book and still present a coherent story.

When I started this novel I feared that the level of music theory and physics was going to overshadow the story and make for a dry and boring read. By the end of the third chapter I realized that I was hopelessly hooked and couldn't put the book down. This was not due to an attachment to characters but rather an involvement in the world that I have rarely felt.

Let's just hope that no one gets the bad idea to try and make a movie.

Graham Greene's mastery of diction and description is evidenced in the first 180 pages of this book. The ending, however, is rife with histrionics; it's a cheap out to an otherwise engaging read. Though some may equate this with Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" (and Greene properly chastises the reader for this mental comparison), Greene, however, manages to pull of something which is altogether more realistic and stripped of illusion

This book seems to have a tone of autobiography to it. Graham Greene was not the great person that many have proclaimed, and Querry is in the same situation. There are many, many more parallels in the book. An excellent read.

Greene employs themes of faith and unbelief of all kinds in this novel. As with most of Greene's serious works, it's not easily read; if you want to be comfortable, try his "entertainments", and yet I wouldn't even guarantee that those novels wouldn't leave you feeling unease.

Essentially, this is the story of a famous architect who runs away from civilization to a leper colony in Africa. He wants the world to forget him entirely, but the world will not leave him to anonymity. Even in the leper colony his deeds are misinterpreted to be perhaps greater--or at least other--than what they actually were. A doubting priest siezes on Querry's kindness to an injured man as proof of Querry's saintliness; a venal yellow journalist broadcasts Querry's run from the world as the selfless work of another Schweitzer. Just about everything Querry does, whether purposely or inadvertently, is misconstrued by those around him who somehow need to elevate him above themselves as proof that God or good exists. In the end, in true Greene fashion, this situation is ironically reversed; those who at first would believe only in Querry's sainthood come to believe an outright lie about him, much to their disappointment and outrage and Querry's own end.

What did I take away from this? Good literature remains relevant throughout the years; what was true in 1961 is true in 2000 and was true a millenium ago. We build up our saints and heroes (and politicians) often with our own desires, whether they have done anything good or not and tear them down just as arbitrarily. More than that: truth exists, goodness exists, but we in our human weakness (and often unwittingly) find ways to distort that truth and goodness to our own purposes.

Gloopygirls assessment? I liked the book. I'm not about to canonize Green--or gleefully tear him down. I'm not qualified either way--but I know what I like...

Finally, a Graham Greene book I sort of liked (following disappointing experiences with Stamboul Train and This Gun For Hire)! That said, it's not great stuff, but it's at least fairly entertaining, diverting, and sad. The tale is of Henry, a middle-aged bachelor (and presumably virgin) who has been forced to retire from his bank job after 30 years. He's a total zero, dull and timid, with nothing to look forward to but 30 years of watering his dahlias. At his mother's funeral he meets his Aunt Augusta for the first time since his baptism, and she immediately rocks his world by announcing that his mother was in fact not this biological mother. She then proceeds to disrupt his empty life by insisting on his accompaniment for a various trips, notably a ride on the Orient Express to Istanbul, and a furtive trip to Paraguay. She's old, but with way more zest than her nephew, and their interplay is a clear call for everyone to live life and not let it drift by (carpe diem and all that). Of course, her interpretation of this involves smuggling a gold ingot, running around with a young Sierra Leonian pot merchant, and tracking down her Italian war criminal lover-all while spinning tales of her life and loves. Of course, it's obvious to everyone except Henry that his "aunt" is his real mother, but that the one story which goes untold. In the end, it's hard not to feel sad for the pitiful Henry, whose passive approach to life is characterized as being a product of his upbringing.

Underneath the facade of a frothy farce about a Caspar Milquetoast banker and his eccentric and adventurous aunt lies a dark tale of a totally selfish adventuress and the illegitimate son whom she corrupts. The so-called aunt is actually part of the demi monde , smuggler and prostitute, abettor of a Nazi collaborator and a con man, possibly an adjunct to a murder. The British Empire-type characters might have been fashioned by Agatha Christie in the 20's and 30's. The only hint that the book was written in the '60's is the young American hippie girl the banker meets on the Orient Express to Istanbul. The existential parts have to do with middle age and mortality. It was a quick and interesting read, not typical of earlier books by Graham Greene, such as The Power and the Glory.

'Travels' is not a great novel, not even a great Graham Greene novel. It is flawed, mannered, contrived, old-fashioned, complacent; the work of a writer who has earned his laurels and is content to lounge on them. The frequent allusions to then-modish Latin American fiction (the novel ends up in Paraguay) only exposes its lack of adventurousness. Sometimes you wonder whether the maddening primness is the narrator's or the author's. Too often, Greene resorts to caricature rather than character, and even the splendid figure of Aunt Augusta feels like a writerly short-cut.

But.

'Travels' is one of the most purely pleasurable books I have ever read, largely due to the perfectly captured narrative voice, a middle-aged virgin, retired bank manager and dahlia expert unwittingly thrown into a world of smuggling, soft drugs, hippies, war criminals, CIA operatives, military dictatorships, and whose decent, limited tolerance keeps the fantastic narrative believable, but also blinds him to genuine horrors.

The book contains some of Greene's funniest writing; if he'd written it 30 years earlier he's have called it an 'entertainment', those more generic or populist works that weren't overtly concerned with great moral themes. Today, these entertainments seem to have dated better than the 'serious' books.

Of course, 30 years on and Greene can relax his style - the plot is less vice-like, the words don't imprison - rather, they eloquently express a developing consciousness and sensibility. This is a story that proliferates with stories, some comic, some tragic, some parable-lie, all leading inexorably towards one untold story. Like all Greene's novels, 'Travels' concerns modern man's search for home, and the ending is devastating, mixing imagistic beauty with characteristically flat cynicism.

Let's just say, I won't be seeking out the novels of Shirley Hazzard after reading this memoir. I read this in order to find out more about Greene .
Unfortunately , this is a pretty horrible read at times and it's all down to Shirley Hazzard's pretentious phrase - making. Her prose is ugly , clumsy and contrived.
Don't believe the reputation and the recommendations - just try some of it.

"We were light eaters of traditional dishes, of fish or shellfish from those waters." (p37)

"Mass protests against the war by persons of all ages and professions were, at that time, only beginning in America." (p24)

"...some mild excitement in the oddity of that winter meeting on a Mediterranean rock:"(p8)

"In the drear stringency of war's-end England..." (p20)
What's wrong with post-war ?

Reading this was like being in the presence of some London literary madam who is trying to impress you by name-dropping and talking in the most arch way about "when we did this" and "Graham said to me".

Shirley Hazzard's memoir of Graham Greene on Capri came rather later than the main flood of memoirs and biographies that followed the death of the master. The author shares her memories of evenings and meals spent with Greene and her husband (the writer Francis Steegmuller, whose "Flaubert in Egypt" is one of the jewels of my book collection) on that exotic island, home to so many notable expatriates of yesteryear, Lenin and Norman Douglas among them. The book is interesting for its depiction of Greene in all his annoying lovability, although when you finish it (in little more than an hour) you might feel the need for more substantial fare. "Greene on Capri" probably won't be of interest to most people, but for diehard devotees of that difficult genius it makes for a worthwhile read.

Graham Greene is one of those writers whom you wouldn't necessarily want to meet socially -- however great their works might be. You could be in for some scintillating conversation, or just as likely for embarassed silence or a dose of that gold-plated chip on the shoulder. At one point in a restaurant, Greene stands up and makes a loud public announcement that some poor tourist was eavesdropping on his conversation. Another time, he publicly berates the author's husband, translator Francis Steegmuller, for feeding stray cats.

For over 40 years, Graham Greene spent Spring and Autumn at his villa in Anacapri. During much of that time, Shirley Hazzard and Steegmuller were also in attendance and struck up as close a friendship as that truculent Englishman would allow. Rather than a formal biography, GREENE ON CAPRI is a delightfully impressionistic book about Greene, the island they all held in common (though Green knew astonishingly little about its history), and the famous literary visitors whose lives partially intersected, most notably Harold Acton and Norman Douglas.

As I am planning a visit to Capri in the foreseeable future, I was pleasantly surprised how much information about the island and its history is conveyed in the book's 149 pages. Everything but the Blue Grotto was there. I was particularly delighted to see a photo of the villa that figured so largely in one of my favorite films, Jean-Luc Godard's CONTEMPT (1963): it was built by the Fascist -- later Communist -- writer Curzio Malaparte.

Many of my favorite books point the way to interesting new authors, works, and places. GREENE ON CAPRI is a keeper, and I expect it will help inform my future reading and (hopefully) travel for some time to come. Shirley Hazzard is a delightful writer, and Greene a fascinating if prickly subject. The result: a literary gem which merits my highest recommendation.

These were written at a time when book length stories were rare. These stories take place on a larger scale than the average comic story and it is a treat to see all of those great heroes in the same story. The main problem with these stories is the use of Snapper Carr, the mascot. What on earth were they thinking about at the time? He is without a doubt one of the most irritating characters ever created. No, he did not make the stories even the slightest bit more accessible to me.

This book reprints The Brave and the Bold 28-30, which introduced the Justice League, and Justice League of America 1-6. Nine classic stories from the dawn of the Super Heroes as we know them today. Trying to buy all these issue seperately would drain your wallet, but together in a handsome volume, they are a deal for any classic comic collector!
(Note: This review is for Vol 1, not Vol 2. For some reason, it shows up under both)

I read the 6th Volume most recently, but this review might apply to the entire JLA ARCHIVES series. The stories in the series improve a bit as time goes on, but the difference from volume to volume is barely perceptible.

You'll have trouble finding a more colorful and bizarre collection of popcorn-science-fiction concepts in any novel or collection of stories; not in comics, not in Larry Niven or in Isaac Asimov, none of those guys. The characters and dialog may seem awkward and stilted (even by the standards of 1960's comics writing), but the inherent weirdness and originality blazes right on through.

With the possible exception of Stan Lee, Gardner Fox is the single most influential writer in American comics. In addition to the Justice League, he created The Flash, The Atom, Hawkman, and the 1940's Justice Society of America (and numerous others I can't think of right now). Along with editor Julius Schwartz, he revamped most of those characters in the late 1950's to create what we call the Silver Age of comics. A list of Fox's literary successors includes comics writers Cary Bates, Mark Waid, and Grant Morrison.

Mike Sekowsky's artwork is perfectly suited to represent the various alien worlds and super-science characters that recur throughout the stories, even if his superheroes usually look a little off (except Wonder Woman).

This book answers the question that millions of people were thinking when Jordan quit basketball: What was HE thinking! With everything from his first retirement and death of his father to his attempt at baseball and return to the NBA, Greene's book lets you know exactly what Jordan was thinking during this period of time and his reasoning behind everything. A good book!

Any book or anything with Michael Jordan is great because he is the best of ALL time!And all his books like Rebound are great books to read.And they have great pictures.

I am the biggest Michael Jordan fan in the world and I thoughtthat the book is great. Bob Greene is a great author, and I love theway he made this book. He wrote a little over half of the book talkingabout him playing baseball, and then the other half of the book when he returned to basketball. He gives you a lot of facts about him playing baseball, some that I didn't even know! Great book, I suggest you read it.

Snag Him is an awsome book about two teenagers who fall in love. One main character is Ben Donovan who is the most popular and cutest guy in the entire school. The other main character is Megan is isn't even close to being popular and is a little on the chubby side. There is also this other character names Alyssa who is the most popular girl in school and she wants to get with Ben. Megan also wants to get with Ben because she has had a crush on him for three years. Well, Ben and Megan's senior class takes a three day trip up to the mountains. Alyssa keeps trying to get with Ben while Megan thinks she can never get a guy because she thinks she is ugly. While they are up in the mountains Ben falls head over heels for Megan because Megan isn't fake like all the other girls he dated who always agreed with him no matter what. Ben likes how Megan speaks her mind and they both fall in love with each other and foget all about Alyssa. This book talks how it doesn't matter how you look. If someone likes you they should like you for who you really are. That is why this is an awsome book because I totally agree with that!

In this addition to the His. Hers. Theirs. miniseries we meet Megan Kennedy a shy, chubby girl who has had a crush on high school hottie and popular guy Ben Donavan for just about forever. Ben and Megan through an accident become friends and Ben starts to fall for her. Only problem he's got his shallow friends and parents at his back. But then while on a class rafting trip Megan hatches a plan to get Ben.

Good book. Very cute.

ThiS book is GREAT! take it from me, a love storied addict. personally, i can more or less relate to megan (female character) cos i don't have a perfect body myself. but, reading this book has given me more confidence in myself and the fact that not all guys go for those perfect size 6 model-wannabes that i seem to see everywhere. this is a definite MUST BUY. good book, good price. oh yeah, synopsis: megan, ben, megan not a perfect body gal, ben, cutest guy in school. snobbish, shallow parents, for the rest of the story, head out to the nearest bookstore.

The rise of Danny Greene and his battle with the Cleveland mafia makes for an interesting tale. As a relative newcomer to northeastern Ohio, I found the book to be a useful history lesson. However, the writing lacks polish. Porrello could use a good editor, and was ill-served by his publisher who allowed so many spelling and punctuation errors to go to print. It's also hard to keep track of the large number of players mentioned in the book, and sometimes their relation to events at hand is unclear, at best. Still, if you like to read about wise guys, it's a book worth picking up.

I lived in Cleveland during this period.
It was an amazing time.
As an Irish Catholic I had some affinity with Danny Greene, but realized he was basically a gangster no matter what his public persona as a community and labor leader.
Rick Porello does a fine job of telling this amazing tale.
I only hope the plan to make it a movie goes forward, I'll be first in line.

Being a Clevelander I found this book to be wonderful. Being able to identify names and places made this book even more interesting. I definitely like the factual information instead of a "hollywood" reporting style. If you have read other mafia related stories, this one helps tie the names and places together during that era. I would defintely like to see this story portrayed in a movie.

I admit it: I'm a sucker for a travelogue in the style of Peter Mayle or even Francis Mayes: a bit self-indulgent, but entertaining. If I cannot live abroad myself, reading "A
Year in Provence" or "Under the Tuscan Sky" is the next best thing. My delight in finding a new author in the genre was quickly dashed however.

This book is a vanity piece.

Why, you ask? Here's an example: the author, Jeffrey Greene, spends two chapters discussing his wedding under a pear tree in the remote village of Rogney, deep in the heart of Burgundy. Why is that vain? Because he goes to great lengths to tell us about all the folks from back home who had to fly over, the musical celebrity guests that felt compelled to perform, and how the "simple back yard wedding" turned into several days of celebration including an extended in a nearby chateau for all the guests. And all of this because everyone was so happy for him. His bride through all this is a bit player, by the way, which is a good thing as I don't think Greene, and his ego could legally marry a third person. Perhaps the most gratuitous bit a fluff in a book so filled with fluff that it could fill a pillow, is the vows at the wedding itself: the various friends that officiate quote Greene's own poems along with the standard liturgy, and CS Lewis.

When Greene is not talking about himself, he talks about the village drunk/idiot. Given the choice, I would rather spend time with the drunk than with the author.

When you write this sort of book, you are supposed to be an observer, not the topic, and this is why this book fails: Greene goes to France, and tells us nothing about the experience, only about himself.

I loved this book. It is not egotistical at all; it writes of an area less explored than Provence or Tuscany; and the author has a knack of bringing his characters alive; the house itself is so well described one feels one has walked through it. There was not a chapter I found dull, and I devoured it in a sitting. Greene doesn't laugh at the locals, or sneer at the imagined "quaintness" of Europe. You can't do better than this for travel narrative.

I have read just about every book on restoring homes in France and Italy. (Non, I'm not a voyeur or dreamer.... I have done something similar in SW France & wanted to check out others' experiences.) In my view, Jeffrey Greene's poetic and self-revealing (without being self-centered) memoir of his experiences with his neighbors (as well as his family members) and his presbytery is simply the best of the genre. He treats his new acquaintances in the Burgundy village in the same way he approaches his building restoration: with delicacy and good will.

Greene's vignettes (e.g., one can SEE the car secured with boards and covers by the village square and the woman who leaves it there)add up to a loving portrait of a place and a time. Greene is a poetic observer who gives us, his readers, a feeling -- and understanding -- for his world. Thank you!!!

This is not one of Greene's best books, but it is worth a read if you are a fan of his works. About a third of the way through this book I was ready to chalk it up as a major disappointment. The payoff comes late, and when it does it makes the read well worth the time. The last third of the book is a marvelous sketch of relationships and love. Greene really knows how to put the subtleties of life into words.

This isn't a "buyer beware," it's just a "buyer be patient!" The Greene touch is here, you just have to get to it.

I had read a few negative online reviews of this novel, had looked at the the cover (with King Kong standing there), and I had few hopes. I find the book a remarkable book---and just those qualities that some readers disliked were qualities which impressed me. The fact that some characters, most characters here, are not "fleshed out" is just right, for these people exist in a kind of spare landscape of slim hope and love, and they are no more attached to worldly things or even common social interaction, say, Ahab. As much as anything else here (and perhaps because the world depicted is somewhat vaguely suggested), we get the feel of Graham Greene's deep and mature consciousness, for in fact we are roaming around the inside of his mind more than around any landscape populated with Dickensian people (despite what one of the back-cover reviews says). Greene wrote this novel only three years before he died, and I found it a privilege to be in the company of his maturity, his encroaching despair, his sense of bleakness and crassness, all touched by hints of the power of love. It's a book that deserve more attention, and perhaps you need to be a bit older than younger to appreciate it.

One of the last novels by Graham Greene, "The Captain and the Enemy" was written in 1988, just three years before the death of the master. Although his prose is as always enjoyable, a little detached and sentimental at the same time, in the novel there seems to be an indication that Greene was aware of the shortcomings of the old age. The books is written in a form of a careless memoir with too many holes in it, no doubt intended ones, considering the contents, but now and then Greene ventures into the reflexive mode of general narration, and I couldn't help but have an impression that I listened to an old man's voice of admission. For a writer, it must not have been easy, but then Greene kept writing all his life, and virtually all of his literary heritage has been revered to this day; a wonder the man had never won the Nobel Prize for literature - another proof that one should not hold too much value in such awards.

In a way, "The Captain and the Enemy" is full of contradictions, whether intended or not, but on the other hand, this small book incorporates all lifelong passions of Graham Greene, where yet again he touches the multidimensional subjects of interest from yet another viewpoint. The book starts in a humorous way, to quickly transform into a good-natured and intriguing story of a small boy whose life is one great patchwork, him not having a fixed place in the world, with all family connections never materializing themselves. The mother - dead as long as he remembers; the father, or 'The Devil' as everyone is fond of saying - loses the boy in chess, or was it backgammon? The boy never seems to unveil that mystery which no one bothers to tell him. Then there is the Captain, the winner of the game, whatever it was, and his woman, Lisa. As you shall see when you read the book, there is no other way to call her, but the woman. Never in the center of the storyline, although incredibly essential for one's understanding of the novel, Lisa enters the story as abruptly as she does exit, leaving us virtually scratching our heads. Such is the whole novel, in fact, full of mysteries, secrets, blanks spaces, only some of which shall be filled in eventually.

One of the greatest strengths of the novel is the portrait of the pair, Lisa and the Captain. Although Greene takes infinite care to never really show us them both, or none of them separately for that matter, it seems to me that the key to understanding "The Captain and the Enemy" lies in letting go of the reader's routine, and the yearning for the full explanation, resolution of all threads, explanation one is used to be spoon-fed with. If you accept the fact that the story leaves much to you, all of those blanks to fill in, patchwork to sew together - you are already well-prepared. However, as much as the details are important, the key is to adopt the narrator's viewpoint, or better, the Captain's, if you dare. Why did they live apart from each other all their life, and why it seemed they loved each other dearly, although there's never any real sign of it? Greene was capable of writing a great love story without having his characters ever mention the subject, nor mouth the four-letter word themselves, for that matter. So far away, and so close.

"I brought up the forbidden word. 'Does he love you?'

'Oh, love. They are always saying God loves us. If that's love, I'd rather have a bit of kindness'" [p. 84]

I finished this four-part novel in one day. At first I enjoyed it immensely, but as I read on, I had more and more trouble understanding its real meaning. As the book progresses, we change the scenery and land in Panama of the late 70s, where another part of the Captain's life is revealed, and the book adopts the flavor of an espionage thriller. As I closed the book, I had mixed emotions, and needed to air my head a bit to at least attempt to grasp the full meaning of this novel. Good literature makes you think, and that we can't deny Greene. His novels slowly grow on you, and leave a long-lasting impression and a desire to come back, one day. Which I shall do, and I wish you the same, dear reader.