Contemporary Books - Page 16

Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1272 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Science Fiction Masked In A Glaze Of Poetic Impulse 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

If ever there is a formula for the perfect novel, 451 has the ingredients. It would be one part science fiction masked in a glaze of poetic impulse, settled on a bed of classic literature soaking up the juices of vast philosophical thought. The burning of books is a horror to any who love the written word and our freedom to dream. It would be our worst nightmare for society to regress to a state of anti-intellectualism so staunch that ideas themselves have become the enemy. Ray Bradbury not only captures our fears in this post nuclear world but also touches upon our often forgotten love for the stories that have captured our hearts. This is a must read for anyone who has ever loved a book.

Editorial Review:

The hauntingly prophetic classic novel set in a not-too-distant future where books are burned by a special task force of firemen. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books. The classic novel of a post-literate future, 'Fahrenheit 451' stands alongside Orwell's '1984' and Huxley's 'Brave New World' as a prophetic account of Western civilization's enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity. Bradbury's powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which over fifty years from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.

Love the One You're With

Emily Giffin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 274 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

How do you know if you’ve found the one? Can you really love the one you’re with when you can’t forget the one who got away?

Emily Giffin, author of the New York Times bestselling novels Something Borrowed, Something Blue, and Baby Proof, poses these questions—and many more—with her highly anticipated, thought-provoking new novel Love the One You’re With.

Ellen and Andy’s first year of marriage doesn’t just seem perfect, it is perfect. There is no question how deep their devotion is, and how naturally they bring out the best in each other. But one fateful afternoon, Ellen runs into Leo for the first time in eight years. Leo, the one who brought out the worst in her. Leo, the one who left her heartbroken with no explanation. Leo, the one she could never quite forget. When his reappearance ignites long-dormant emotions, Ellen begins to question whether the life she’s living is the one she’s meant to live. At once heartbreaking and funny, Love the One You’re With is a tale of lost loves and found fortunes—and will resonate with anyone who has ever wondered what if.

Run: A Novel

Ann Patchett

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 205 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Just couldn't get into this book 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I have read other works by Ann Patchett and enjoyed them, but Run left me as cold as the wintery environment in which it is set. It is the story of a Boston politician who has two adopted African American sons, and what happens after they inadvertently discover their birth mother and biological sister. The characters were well drawn but their story did not engage me as I had hoped it would and it was a real slog to get to the unsatisfying ending of the book. I would Patchett's prior novel Bel Canto or her very moving memoir, Truth and Beauty, over this novel.

Editorial Review:

Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving, possessive, and ambitious father. As the former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see his sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard cares about is his ability to keep his children—all his children—safe.

The Best American Short Stories 2008

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Recommended 4 out of 5 stars.
16 of 16 people found this review helpful.

I look forward to this series every year, so it was with high hopes that I opened up this year's editon and began to read. The format is the same as it has been for years, with Ms. Pitlor cherry picking stories and handing over a hundred or so vetted stories to the guest editor. I don't get too caught up in who the guest editor is in any given year - I think Ms. Pitlor does a good job in gathering a pool of quality stories, but this year I thought the overall effort was slightly below the average.

Four of the stories in the collection come from Harper's Magazine, and while I was glad to see the series move away from being so New Yorker oriented, I subscribe to Harper's, so those stories weren't new to me. To of them deserved rereading anyway - the masterful Alice Munro with "Child's Play", and Nicole Krauss, "From the Desk of Daniel Varsky."

Two of the three stories from the New Yorker were also quite well done - "Puppy", by George Saunders, and "Nawabdin Electrician" by Daniyal Mueenuddin. Others that I felt really rose above were "Buying Lenin" by Miroslav Penkov, "Man and Wife," by Katie Chase, and "Straightaway," by Mark Wisniewski.

Four of the stories in this collection would fall under what I would loosely consider 'Fabulist' stories, and those are not really my thing, although I still enjoyed "Man and Wife." Perhaps that is a trend, because I don't remember as much of that in years past.

One of the things I've always enjoyed about this series is that it collects stories I'm sure I'd never get to see otherwise, and that always makes it worth it to me. This year, I would just have to say that not all of it was as interesting to me as other years. I would still definetly recommend it to anyone who enjoys short stories.

Editorial Review:

This brilliant collection, edited by the award-winning and perennially
provocative Salman Rushdie, boasts a “magnificent array” (Library
Journal) of voices both new and recognized.With Rushdie at the helm,
the 2008 edition “reflects the variety of substance and style and the consistent quality that readers have come to expect” (Publishers Weekly).

“We all live in and with and by stories, every day, whoever and wherever we are. The freedom to tell each other the stories of ourselves, to retell the stories of our culture and beliefs, is profoundly connected to the larger subject of freedom itself.”—Salman Rushdie, editor

The Best American Short Stories 2008 includes
KEVIN BROCKMEIER • ALLEGRA GOODMAN • A. M. HOMES • NICOLE KRAUSS • JONATHAN LETHEM • STEVEN MILLHAUSER • DANIYAL MUEENUDDIN • ALICE MUNRO • GEORGE SAUNDERS • TOBIAS WOLFF • and others

Grace: A Novel

Richard Paul Evans

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 37 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Ditto with Barb avid reader 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I agree exactly with Barb avid reader's review. Very succiently put.
I too Picked this up hoping for a light uplifting read. The story was sweet, the ending horrible. It made me wish I never read it. Loved The Last Promise. Bought the hard bound edition.

Editorial Review:

She was my first kiss. My first love. She was a little match girl who could see the future in the flame of a candle. She was a runaway who taught me more about life than anyone has before or since. And when she was gone my innocence left with her.

As I begin to write, a part of me feels as if I am awakening something best left dead and buried, or at least buried. We can bury the past, but it never really dies. The experience of that winter has grown on my soul like ivy climbing the outside of a home, growing until it begins to tear and tug at the brick and mortar.

I pray I can still get the story right. My memory, like my eyesight, has waned with age. Still, there are things that become clearer to me as I grow older. This much I know: too many things were kept secret in those days. Things that never should have been hidden. And things that should have.

Eragon (Inheritance Cycle)

Christopher Paolini

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2700 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A exellent book, what's with all the bad reviews? 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Unlike other people, I saw the movie before I read the book. People talked to me about it, but I thought it was a depressing book series with the last dragon on earth in it.

But after seeing the movie and learning I had been mistaken in this viewpoint, I got the book from the library and am now reading 'Brisingr'.



A young boy named Eragon, raised by his Uncle Garrow and Aunt Marian in the land of Alagaesia, where the evil King Galbatorix lords over the land, finds a saphire colored egg and thinks it is some sort of valuable stone. He tries to sell it, but it ends out hatching, and revealing a small dragon inside.

Eragon raises the dragon, and gleans information about them from Brom, the village's storyteller. He gives his female dragon the name 'Saphira', from a dragon name that Brom gives him.

Soon, evil beings called the Ra'zac come to Eragon's village, and murder his uncle Garrow (his cousin Roran being somewhere else, and his aunt having died years before), leaving Eragon with a heavy thirst for revenge.

Brom finds Eragon and Saphira, says he knows about dragons, and insists that he allow him to train Eragon, so he might live though his quest to kill the Ra'zac. Eragon agrees, and him and Brom and Saphira leave, for the Ra'zac are leaving, and the trio don't want to lose them.

After dropping off at a massacered village, having Eragon's fortune told by Angela, and getting information from Jeod, a wealthy merchant and an old friend of Brom's, they try to find out the Ra'zac's hiding place, which leads to them fleeing for their lives from Hellegrid.

While on the run from Ra'zac, they get attacked, and Brom is wounded. A young man named Murtagh rescues Eragon and Saphira, and offers to help them with their quest. They reach a hidden cave, where Brom wakes up and tells Eragon he was a Dragon Rider, and that his dragon, Saphira, was killed by the traitor Morzan. He then dies, leaving Eragon heartbroken.

Shortly after they get captured, and Eragon meets Duraz, a evil Shade that is intent on learning Eragon's true name (learning the true name of a person will allow anyone control over a person). With a little bit of luck, Eragon and Murtagh escape to join Saphira, rescuing a elf woman in the process.

When they reach safty, Eragon heals her, and finds out from her mind the way to the Varden, and that she must have medicine from them is she wants to be healed. They journey there, where and Saphira discover that Murtagh is Morzan's son, (Morzan being the traitor Dragon Rider that allied with Galbatorix, the evil king of Alagaesia, to kill the rest of the Dragon Riders and in doing so killed all the dragons that did not escape Alagaesia), and ally themselves to the Varden.

A battle is waged, and Eragon and Saphira must fight against the Shade Duraz, or die in the process...



All together, a great book.

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1)

George R.R. Martin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1522 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A Winter Is Coming 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

A Game of Thrones is the first book of George R.R. Martin's masterpiece, fantasy epic. The good news for those familiar with this series (no A Dance with Dragons is not yet finished) is that the series is being brought to the small screen by HBO. If you are a fan of Rome or the Arthurian legends keep your eyes and ears open.

For the last year I have been living without cable, but I will once again be swimming in the deep end when this amazing work is brought to life. Like much of the other series on HBO, this will be a story for mature viewers. It is a story of hard living in a kingdom very much resembling England during the Wars of the Roses. There is a touch of fantasy but it is not heavy handed. The main characters are all human insofar as they are from the human species. Another difference is that this story is not the standard Good vs. Evil. It is a human story and in that sense it is a contemporary tale.

Editorial Review:

A Game of Thrones is a contemporary masterpiece of fantasy. The cold is returning to Winterfell, where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime. A time of conflict has arisen in the Stark family, as they are pulled from the safety of their home into a whirlpool of tragedy, betrayal, assassination, plots and counterplots. Each decision and action carries with it the potential for conflict as several prominent families, comprised of lords, ladies, soldiers, sorcerers, assassins and bastards, are pulled together in the most deadly game of all--the game of thrones.

The Fountainhead

Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 970 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Worth of money. 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I bought a used book in good condition. This book arrived very fast and of course was in a better condition than my expectation. I am happy with my current purchase and would like to continue in future.

Poorly written, even for failed philosophy 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Ok, to start off lets forget all about the B.S Philosophy of Ayn Rand and focus purely on the writing content of the story itself.

I give it one star, simply for the character development which seems to follow her philosophy fairly well. She seems to have developed the Protagonist and the antagonist very well, though it seems she did this by accident if only to fill her philosophical ideals. It's apparent because the supporting characters seem shallow and their interactions in no way resemble true human relationships.

Rand seems like she tries to make up for this with excruciating and painfully dull, redundant, and useless detail such as the one sentence that almost made me burn the damn thing. "They went on, to move, to feel the movement, to know the feeling of their own muscles moving"

If rand wanted to create a nice piece of literature and not just a semi creative philosophy book, she could have cut out the redundant details and focused more on tying in all the complex details and philosophy of the book itself with a viable and decent story line. If you cut out all the useless B.S the book itself would be about 1/3 shorter and easier to read.

This book is a good example of why many famous philosophers such as Aristotle and Cicero stuck to the non-fiction genre. Philosophy alone doesn't make a good story.

Editorial Review:

Howard Roark is an architect whose genius and integrity will not be comprised. He has ideas that work against conventional standards.

Blood Sins (Bishop/Special Crimes Unit: Blood Trilogy)

Kay Hooper

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Some sins can’t be forgiven…
because some sins no one survives.

New York Times bestselling author Kay Hooper has touched our darkest fears but none so dark as in her latest thriller. Here’s a psychopath who lures his victims with a promise no one can resist…and demands a price no one would knowingly pay.

Young, vulnerable, attractive, Tessa Gray made the perfect victim. Which was why Noah Bishop of the FBI’s Special Crimes Unit recruited her to play the role of grieving widow. As the supposed new owner of property coveted by the Church of the Everlasting Sin, she’d be irresistible bait for the reclusive and charismatic Reverend Samuel. His fortified compound in the mountains near Grace, North Carolina, had been the last known residence of two women murdered in ways that defied scientific explanation.

Though hardly as naive or as vulnerable as she appears, Tessa knows she has a lot to learn about using her unique gift. She also knows that Bishop and the SCU have to be desperate to rely on an untried psychic agent in an undercover operation so dangerous. And desperate they are. For the killer they’re hunting is the most terrifying they’ve ever faced and shakes even the most seasoned agents: a soulless megalomaniacal cult leader who can use their own weapons, talents, and tactics against them.

By entering the cult’s well-guarded compound, Tessa will be exposing herself to the dark magnetism of a psychopath on an apocalyptic crusade of terror that spares no one, not even the youngest victims. And Samuel has protected himself within a fanatically loyal congregation, many of whom occupy surprising positions of power within the community. Even Grace’s chief of police, Sawyer Cavenaugh—a man Tessa will have to trust with her life—may be unable to protect her. Because no one, not even Tessa herself, can guarantee she’s strong enough to resist—or powerful enough to battle—a killer who’s less than human.

Lady and the Tramp

Walt Disney

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 165 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A great movie for children! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Starting a collection of favorite movies for my CA granddaughter. Was pleased to find it on amazon and at a good price. It was shipped quickly and was exactly as described.

Loved it as a child, Still love it 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I grew up watching and rewatching this movie. I absolute adored this story and the film as a child and I had to buy it when it came out on DVD. I still watch it to this day. I highly recommend this for families. Children will love it and adults will love it. An all around fantastic disney movie for the family.

Lady and the Tramp 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I still love this movie every time I see it. Now, my grandson loves
it also. He watches it over and over.

Not happy at all with MJ Entertainment 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I had bought this DVD for my daughter. When we got it the disc 1 the movie didnt play, disc 2 the special features was fine. I e-mailed the company MJ ENTERTAINMENT and they said to just mail it back with the receipt . I mailed it out and now over 2 months has gone by and I have not received my new copy from them. I have e-mailed them over and over getting no where with them. Their customer service is terrible. I would not recommend buying anything from them because if there is a problem you loose. Hope this helps.