Irving, John

Average customer rating:

Best Book I ever read.....
A must read!
It has its moments, but all in all, not completely satisfying
The Exception to The Rule
This is a WOW!! book

A Prayer for Owen Meany
John Irving
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0345361792
Release Date: 1990-04-14

Amazon.com

Owen Meany is a dwarfish boy with a strange voice who accidentally kills his best friend's mom with a baseball and believes--accurately--that he is an instrument of God, to be redeemed by martyrdom. John Irving's novel, which inspired the 1998 Jim Carrey movie Simon Birch, is his most popular book in Britain, and perhaps the oddest Christian mystic novel since Flannery O'Connor's work. Irving fans will find much that is familiar: the New England prep-school-town setting, symbolic amputations of man and beast, the Garp-like unknown father of the narrator (Owen's orphaned best friend), the rough comedy. The scene of doltish the doltish headmaster driving a trashed VW down the school's marble staircase is a marvelous set piece. So are the Christmas pageants Owen stars in. But it's all, as Highlights magazine used to put it, "fun with a purpose." When Owen plays baby Jesus in the pageants, and glimpses a tombstone with his death date while enacting A Christmas Carol, the slapstick doesn't cancel the fact that he was born to be martyred. The book's countless subplots add up to a moral argument, specifically an indictment of American foreign policy--from Vietnam to the Contras.

The book's mystic religiosity is steeped in Robertson Davies's Deptford trilogy, and the fatal baseball relates to the fatefully misdirected snowball in the first Deptford novel, Fifth Business. Tiny, symbolic Owen echoes the hero of Irving's teacher Günter Grass's The Tin Drum--the two characters share the same initials. A rollicking entertainment, Owen Meany is also a meditation on literature, history, and God. --Tim Appelo

Book Description

Owen Meany, the only child of a New Hampshire granite quarrier, believes he is God's instrument; he is.
This is John Irving's most comic novel, yet Owen Meany is Mr. Irving's most heartbreaking character.
"Roomy, intelligent, exhilarating and darkly comic...Dickensian in scope....Quite stunning and very ambitious."
LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"John Irving is an abundantly and even joyfully talented storyteller."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOKR EVIEW

Customer Reviews:

Best Book I ever read............2007-06-18

..it draws you in. If I was required to live in a nursing home I often entertain the thought, what would I HAVE to take with me? And this book is one thing...
When a friend first said "you have to read it" I bought it. Read a little, put it away, read a little, put it away and then out of nowhere, I was hooked. When it became hard to put down, I made myself put it away, (until the very end which I devoured until 2 in the morning..) because like a good day at the beach or in the garden, I just didn't want it to end.
Owen Meany is a little guy with so much insight and love and wit inside him, I've yet to meet another character I've loved as much....

A must read!.......2007-06-15

A Prayer For Owen Meany is the best of John Irving's novels and my favorite book of all. Owen Meany reminds you of the kid you knew in school who was a little geeky, smart in ways you didn't totally understand, and a little of an enigma. Through the reading you come to know this exceptional child and really grow to care for him and the primary character. If it seems like slow reading, hang on. It all comes together in the end and is well worth the time.

It has its moments, but all in all, not completely satisfying.......2007-06-05

Maybe it's just me, but if Owen Meany is supposed to be an "Instrument of God' didn't his final act of heroism seem ...I don't know... a little insignificant?

Sure, it's great that Owen saves a few children, but put into context, hundreds of children die every day. What was so special about these kids? I'm not saying that it wasn't courageous for Owen to save even one life, but surly if the good Lord wanted to save these kids He could have found an easier way. As it is, He creates an odd little boy named Owen, ensures that his voice never changes; instills in him a bizarre obsession with slam dunking a basketball, and then convinces him to join the army in order to fulfill his destiny. A falling piano or inattentive bus driver could have taken care of things much more easily. (I assume God can arrange such things)

It also occurs to me that (in the world according to Irving) God prefers his `instrument' to be of the `disposable' variety. It seems to me that if God had gone to all this trouble to make Owen his `instrument', he might have arranged things so that He would get to use him more than once.

A Prayer for Owen Meany is a novel about faith. Ultimately though, it didn't move me the way it should have. There are moments that shine, but all in all, I found the novel to be bloated and melodramatic. Virtually all of Irving's novels have a tendency to meander but A Prayer for Owen Meany is one of the worst offenders. Our narrator, John Wheelwright is a bitter man, stuck in the past, unable to get on with life after the death of his best friend, Owen Meany. He is ultimately a spectator to his own life, and frankly, he's a pathetic bore.

All in all, this is an uneven work. I found the ending unsatisfying (a bit too sappy for my tastes) and Irving could easily cut 200 pages from the novel. While not as outrageously funny as The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany has some amusing scenes and poignant moments and is worth wading through even if it isn't entirely satisfying.

The Exception to The Rule.......2007-05-30

Just finished this book last night, after being exposed to the film Simon Birch by young cousins a huge family barbecue on Saturday afternoon.

As a rule, I prefer "books" to "movies", so I picked this up on Sunday afternoon at Acres of Books, planning to indulge myself on Memorial Day itself with a morning of uninterrupted reading before tackling the laundry.

Unfortunately, I was reminded that there's an exception that proves every rule: and this is a BIG exception to the `the book is always better than the movie' rule.

Holy, good night nurse, what a trough full of rancid pigswill!

The interesting parts of the story (that is to say, the one-to-one relationship between the two boys) were used as a more or less remote basis of the Simon Birch film. Which DOES, given the tacked on, deus ex machina drowning sequence, play out as a typical Hollywood B- or C- melodrama. The film, however, gets away with such melodrama based on the always stellar work of young Joe Mazzello, who for my ticket money has been the best working child actor of the last 20 years, and an appealing, if eccentric, performance from Ian Michael Smith. It's not a great movie, but it's by no means a BAD movie, and that's an exceptionally good thing in a movie mostly aimed at tweens.

I only wish as much as `not bad' could be said for this unfortunate waste of wood pulp.

This allegedly brilliant pile of pages (I REFUSE to insult such articles as Harlequin Romances and Zane Grey Westerns by calling it a book!) is mostly Adult John's internal melodrama, wandering from perspective in time to perspective in time--SOMETIMES TWICE OR MORE WITHIN A PARAGRAPH!--and it reads like the ramblings of a crackhead abused by a religious figure. Whether that religious figure was Owen Meany or Jesus or Ronald Reagan isn't quite clear--but it's a major obstacle in wading thru 500 some odd pages of self indulgence masquerading as a coherent story. Owen is just an excessively argumentative Christ-as-Martyr, with virtually nothing to recommend him. Hester the Molestor is a pointless and aggravating red herring. So is the question of Non-Practicing Homosexuals. The whole exercise is full of similar irrelevancies that don't GO anywhere; and what's worse, they all fail to illuminate any single aspect of any character whatsoever--including the crackhead narrator!

It took me all bloody day to read it--I had to keep putting it down and finding some kind of housework to do--it was like having to hack up a hairball every half hour. I kept hoping, right to the end, that all my slogging would end up in some brilliant revelation or turn that would make the whole slog make sense, and I wouldn't have wasted my Long Weekend Day.

It didn't.

It just ended. Really, Really Badly. Not because Owen died (what a relief!) or even how he died--but in how very, very ineptly it was written.

DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS MESS. My wasted Memorial Day is more than enough hours wasted on it for the rest of you.

Supposedly, Irving didn't approve of the way the film 'adapted' his alleged work.

If he were honest, he'd have admitted that what the film does is expose his "work" for the piece of unutterable diarrheic loose stool that it is.

Hollywood melodrama included, the Simon Birch film exhibits far better choices in terms of plotting, characterization and use of scenery, as far as I'm concerned.

It's not that Irving can't write--he can be brilliant. But A Prayer for Owen Meany is proof positive that he can also be a didactic bore.

YAAAACCCHHHHH. Still hacking up hairballs, almost a full day later.

This is a WOW!! book.......2007-05-14

I can't even begin to describe how awesome this book was, nor how to describe the story of Owen Meany and his childhood friend Johnny Wheelright. There are so many incredibly funny and touching moments, you will laugh out loud at Owen's antics (LOL, the doctor's volkswagon). Other reviewers have mentioned a similarity to Dickens, and I noticed that as well. Wonderfully drawn, quirky characters who in the end all serve a purpose to telling the story, culminating in the final heartbreaking ending as Owen realizes the destiny he was born to. And do have the tissue box ready for the last 50 or so pages, you will need it.

Highly highly recommended, and you will be thinking about Owen long after you have finished the last pages, and the impact he can have on your life as well.

Average customer rating:

The Gospel of Mutilation
Read it 3 times
I had to be convinced by others that this was good enough to finish.
Great book, slightly irritating narrator
The Review According to Me

The World According to Garp
John Irving
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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A Prayer for Owen Meany
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ASIN: 034536676X
Release Date: 1990-11-03

Amazon.com

"Garp was a natural storyteller," says the narrator of John Irving's incandescent novel, referring to the book's hero, the novelist Garp, who has much in common with Irving himself. "He could make things up one right after the other, and they seemed to fit."

Irving packs wild characters and weird events into his classic--officially recognized as such in a Modern Library edition with a new introduction by the author--while amazingly maintaining the rough feel of realism in every scene and the pulse of life in every heart. Many novelists of his time might have populated a novel with a novelist protagonist whose life and books comment on each other and the novel we're reading. Transsexual football players, ball turret gunners lobotomized in battle, multiple adultery, unicycling bears, mad feminists who amputate their tongues in sympathy with the celebrated victim of a horrifying rape--Irving made them all people. Even the bear is a fitting character.

In a crucial episode, Garp's wife's seduction of a young man coincidentally occurs at the moment when Garp is delighting their young sons with a reckless car trick (one of the few scenes beautifully, eerily, heartbreakingly captured in the film version as well). Many authors would have been content with the harsh comedy of the scene, but Irving respects its integrity, and he builds the rest of the book on the consequences of the event. How does he get away with his killer cocktail of slapstick and horror? Because it's simply what we all face daily, rearranged into soul-satisfying art. "Life is an X-rated soap opera," according to Garp, and who can contradict him?

Rereading Garp 20 years later, one is struck by how elegantly Irving structures his bizarre and complex story. Take the two most celebrated bits in the book, the Under Toad and Garp's story "The Pension Grillparzer," which shimmers like an exquisite Kafkaesque insect in the amber of the novel. When Garp warns his son about the "undertow" at the beach, the boy imagines a monster out of Beowulf who lurks beneath the waves to suck you under: the "Under Toad." It's funny at first, but we soon find that the Under Toad is a metaphor with teeth--he connects with a prophetic dream of death in "The Pension Grillparzer," set in Vienna. Garp's son's last words are, "It's like a dream!" And as Irving--who studied at the University of Vienna--can certainly tell you, the German word for "death" sounds precisely like the English word "toad."

All that death, and yet Garp is mainly exuberant. This story is, as Garp's stuttering writing teacher puts it, "rich with lu-lu-lunacy and sorrow." It enriches literature, and our lives. --Tim Appelo

Book Description

20th ANNIVERSARY EDITION
with a new Afterword from the author

The New York Times bestseller

This is the life and times of T. S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny
Fields--a feminist leader ahead of her times.  This is the life and death
of a famous mother and her almost-famous son; theirs is a world of sexual
extremes--even of sexual assassinations.  It is a novel rich with "lunacy
and sorrow"; yet the dark, violent events of the story do not undermine a
comedy both ribald and robust.  In more than thirty languages, in more than
forty countries--with more than ten million copies in print--this novel
provides almost cheerful, even hilarious evidence of its famous last line:
"In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases."

Customer Reviews:

The Gospel of Mutilation.......2007-04-04

It is odd, and perhaps a bit sad, that John Irving has become or became American's literary sweetheart. Given his narrative concerns, it would seem a wide readership would have never been his fate. For one, he is fixated on the mutilation of the human body. This mania with mutilation borders on the near fantastic in The World According to Garp. And more disturbingly still, is it completely infiltrates the narrative's sense of sexuality. For the narrator of Garp, sex and bodily mutilation are nearly synonymous. And what is the purpose of this overall fixation with the lopping off of limbs and the act of sex? In The World According to Garp, sex is not viewed as a healthy or even human impulse. It is only when the major characters divest themselves of lust, or sexual activity, that they extricate themselves from most of their mental woes. It's a grim vision. It is hard to envision flocks of readers gobbling this book in the late 70's and early 80's and viewing it as the great voice of our (or their) time. The novel is also written on a high level of generality. No reader should expect to plumb very deeply into the human condition in this novel. Like Garp's writing itself, Irving's prose is witty and salacious, but never really gives the reader any serious human dilemma to masticate and digest. There is something to chew, but it is light fare.

Read it 3 times.......2007-02-14

... and counting. It is a great book: offensive, sweet, harsh, sad, shocking and entertaining--all in one! Must read it, but don't forget A Cider House Rules, too.

I had to be convinced by others that this was good enough to finish........2007-01-26

Needless to say, it wasn't. While Irving's literary style always has merit, he does a poor job at characterization- which is especially disappointing, considering the title of the book is "The World According To Garp." With a name like that, you'd expect the title character to be perceiving and insightful, but instead Garp is boring and egocentric, thinking of little but his own cheap desires. If that was the point, then I feel duped.

And while his mother is certainly more interesting- she's even more self-absorbed, and so it hardly makes up for anything. There's an almost sociopathic quality to his main characters, and while Irving probably didn't intend to portray them that way- it's still an enormous flaw I was unable to overlook.

Great book, slightly irritating narrator.......2007-01-18

This is one of the greatest books ever, in my opinion, along with Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany. However, the narrator's voice is hard to take sometimes. It's extremely dry and monotone. Still, I'm listening...

The Review According to Me.......2007-01-14

The book is rather fresh in mind having finished it within the last two weeks. This is a book that made me laugh out loud several times in the first two hundred or so pages. I don't believe I laughed again over the last four hundred or so pages. This is not to say that the book is not good after the introductions to Garp and his mother has segued to what this story is really about (which I will get to in a second). Rather, the story grows and changes as you read it. There comes a point in the maturity of Garp where his amusing (sometimes silly) adolescent experiences are in such stark contrast to the grave and serious world that the adult Garp lives in that we cease laughing and start fearing alongside our would be hero.

"Fearing what?" you might ask. Well, this is precisely what the story is really about so to speak. Fear. Mainly, a father's fear of the world. The fear he has for his children. The fear of losing his wife. There is much fear in this book. Much is written about Garp's fear, his reactions to fear, how his reactions affect others, and how other's reactions to fears (real and perceived, much like Garp's) affect Garp. How Irving writes about these fears has us very fearful as well. I worried about Garp's safety throughout much of the last third of the book.

That this story makes you care about Garp enough to worry on his behalf, is enough evidence to suggest this is such a good story and Irving is a tremendous author.

I give this book only 4 stars because I felt like all of Garp's "growing up" years that are at the front of the book could have been woven throughout the story in flashbacks that would have interspersed the gravity of much of the story with some much needed humor. I think there were many logical places to put these flashbacks, and Irving himself has written that he considered this option but was worried he would put all the flashbacks in the same place and wasn't sure where to put them.

Average customer rating:

Follow the yellow brick road...
Disturbing
Until I Find You: A Novel
Incredible author, maybe not so much this time
Not the best of Irving - but I liked it

Until I Find You: A Novel
John Irving
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1400063833
Release Date: 2005-07-12

Amazon.com

At over 800 pages, John Irving's Until I Find You is a daunting proposition at best. Anyone who finishes it will have acquired forearm muscles, sore shoulders, and not much else. The story is self-indulgent, repetitive and, ultimately, boring, that cardinal sin that readers can't forgive. Longtime Irving readers have stayed with him through a few hits and a miss or two, but this is an all-time low. We are accustomed to Irving's work as quirky, bizarre, and off-the-wall and have forgiven all by calling such high-jinks and characters "imaginative" or "absolutely original." The only thing original about this tome is the descent into soft porn.

Jack Burns, the hero of the tale, is four years old when it all begins. He is the illegitimate son of Daughter Alice, a tattoo artist and, guess what, daughter of a tattoo artist. She takes Jack on a pilgrimage to find his womanizing father, William, a church organist and "ink addict." By seeking out church organs and tattoo parlors, she expects to find him. She doesn't, and by now we have spent more than a hundred pages in Northern European cities doing an imitation of Groundhog Day. Same story, different day: a little prostitution for Alice, a few questions asked; alas, no daddy.

Alice and Jack return to Toronto so that Jack may enter a previously all-girls school, which will admit little boys for the first time. There begins another 200 pages of the girls and the teachers abusing Jack, over and over again. By now, he is five and is, for some unfathomable reason, eminently interesting to girls and women. His "friend" Emma keeps careful track of "the little guy," as she calls Jack's penis, looking for signs of life. The worst part of all this is that none of it is funny or sad or even clever. There are wrestling vignettes, of course, and prep school tedium, but no bears. Maybe bears would have saved it. There were funny parts in The World According to Garp and The Cider House Rules as well as poignant, horrific parts in both of those and other Irving novels. This story is flat. The voice never changes; it just drones on.

Jack becomes an actor. First, he is a boy in drag because he is so pretty, then he takes transvestite parts. He and Emma, now a published novelist, live together in LA, which provides endless opportunity for name-dropping. His career eventually takes off and he gets recognition and awards, but still no daddy. Irving, it turns out, never knew his father, either. Perhaps this exercise will exorcise that demon once and for all and Irving's next book will be about something more compelling than a little boy's penis and his trashy mother's antics. If you do make it through to the book's snapper of an ending, you deserve to find out what it is on your own. Call it a reward. --Valerie Ryan

Book Description

Until I Find You is the story of the actor Jack Burns – his life, loves, celebrity and astonishing search for the truth about his parents.

When he is four years old, Jack travels with his mother Alice, a tattoo artist, to several North Sea ports in search of his father, William Burns. From Copenhagen to Amsterdam, William, a brilliant church organist and profligate womanizer, is always a step ahead – has always just departed in a wave of scandal, with a new tattoo somewhere on his body from a local master or “scratcher.”

Alice and Jack abandon their quest, and Jack is educated at schools in Canada and New England – including, tellingly, a girls’ school in Toronto. His real education consists of his relationships with older women – from Emma Oastler, who initiates him into erotic life, to the girls of St. Hilda’s, with whom he first appears on stage, to the abusive Mrs. Machado, whom he first meets when sent to learn wrestling at a local gym.

Too much happens in this expansive, eventful novel to possibly summarize it all. Emma and Jack move to Los Angeles, where Emma becomes a successful novelist and Jack a promising actor. A host of eccentric minor characters memorably come and go, including Jack’s hilariously confused teacher the Wurtz; Michelle Maher, the girlfriend he will never forget; and a precocious child Jack finds in the back of an Audi in a restaurant parking lot. We learn about tattoo addiction and movie cross-dressing, “sleeping in the needles” and the cure for cauliflower ears. And John Irving renders his protagonist’s unusual rise through Hollywood with the same vivid detail and range of emotions he gives to the organ music Jack hears as a child in European churches. This is an absorbing and moving book about obsession and loss, truth and storytelling, the signs we carry on us and inside us, the traces we can’t get rid of.

Jack has always lived in the shadow of his absent father. But as he grows older – and when his mother dies – he starts to doubt the portrait of his father’s character she painted for him when he was a child. This is the cue for a second journey around Europe in search of his father, from Edinburgh to Switzerland, towards a conclusion of great emotional force.

A melancholy tale of deception, Until I Find You is also a swaggering comic novel, a giant tapestry of life’s hopes. It is a masterpiece to compare with John Irving’s great novels, and restates the author’s claim to be considered the most glorious, comic, moving novelist at work today.

Download Description

John Irving has won an O. Henry Award, a National Book Award, and an Oscar. Until I Find You is his eleventh novel. He lives in Vermont and Toronto.

From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews:

Follow the yellow brick road..........2007-06-25

This was the first John Irving novel (800++ pages!) I have ever read.
Yes it is repetitive and thus boring at times, and yes the hero's mother is the queen of dysfunction and visits that dysfunction on her little boy. There were times that I wanted to just quit, but for some reason I kept going back. I love Jack, I love Emma, and I like the Wertz very much. By the end I wanted Jack, Emma (that sweet Honey Pie), Heather, and William to go on forever.

Disturbing.......2007-06-14

I can appreciate the author's talent, but I could not get past the endless, graphic child abuse. I got the message the first 5 times it happened, but he was abused by basically every woman/girl he came into contact with. It was too disturbing for me. This is the first Irving novel I have read and don't know if I will be able to try another.

Until I Find You: A Novel.......2007-04-05

I have to say I purchased this book about a year ago and still haven't been able to get into it. It must be my frame of mind these last two cancer filled years. I may try again during the summer while I am sitting on the patio relaxing. I have heard so many wonderful things about it and must find my way into what everyone else can see.

Incredible author, maybe not so much this time.......2007-04-02

Please do not be put off from reading other John Irving novels because of the negative reviews, including mine, of "Until I Find You." Absolutely check out "The World According to Garp, "A Prayer For Owen Meany, or "Cider House Rules." Irving is masterful at creating unique, quirky, endearing characters. But not in this one. Any likable character in this novel is miniscule and rare. In addition, I am still pondering Irving's eerily light treatment of the overwhelming amount of child abuse his main character Jack has to sustain. Sexual abuse is dished out by practically every girl or woman Jack encounters. This makes for a depressing book that also seemed to go on far too long. That said, I strongly recommend this author as one of the best at walking the thin line between comedy and tragedy.

Not the best of Irving - but I liked it.......2007-03-21

Let me start by saying that Until I Find You is an excellent novel and is one I would highly recommend. The only problem with this novel (and the reason I believe the reviews are somewhat low) is that it is not one of Irving's better novels. Keep in mind however, that an Irving novel that is not his "best" is still better than most of the books on the best seller list. The story follows Jack Burns from age 4 to adulthood and involves the tattoo industry, Hollywood, and other interesting plot settings. The book's plot is interesting, but I felt it dragged at times and probably could have been improved by editing it down just a bit.

If you are an Irving fan, by all means add this novel to your reading list. If you are new to Irving, start with one of his earlier works like The World According to Garp.

Average customer rating:

Favorite Irving -- quite possibly favorite novel
An absurd look at life
Decent Read
Another delightful tale
the best John Irving book I've read

The Hotel New Hampshire
John Irving
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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Similar Items:

The World According to Garp
The Cider House Rules (Thorndike Press Large Print Basic Series)
A Prayer for Owen Meany
The Water-Method Man
The 158-Pound Marriage (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

ASIN: 034540047X
Release Date: 1995-08-30

Book Description

"The first of my father's illusions was that bears could survive the life lived by human beings, and the second was that human beings could survive a life led in hotels."
So says John Berry, son of a hapless dreamer, brother to a cadre of eccentric siblings, and chronicler of the lives lived, the loves experienced, the deaths met, and the myriad strange and wonderful times encountered by the family Berry. Hoteliers, pet-bear owners, friends of Freud (the animal trainer and vaudevillian, that is), and playthings of mad fate, they "dream on" in a funny, sad, outrageous, and moving novel by the remarkable author of A Son of the Circus and A Prayer for Owen Meany.
"Like Garp, [THE HOTEL NEW HAMPSHIRE] is a startlingly original family saga that combines macabre humor with Dickensian sentiment and outrage at cruelty, dogmatism and injustice."
--Time
"Rejoice! John Irving has written another book according to your world....You must read this book."
--Los Angeles Times
"Spellbinding...Intensely human...A high-wire act of dazzling virtuosity."
--Cosmopolitan

Customer Reviews:

Favorite Irving -- quite possibly favorite novel.......2007-03-08

I love this book. I've read about 1/2 of Irving's novels and this is my favorite, though I haven't been disappointed by any. This book is entertaining, compelling, devastating... I could go on and on. He mercilessly kills off characters the reader has developed a fondness for, but somehow keeps us reading. Irving writes with an often dry sense of humor and treads some odd line between realism and absurdity, and it simply works.

Common Irving obsessions pop up -- rape, prositutes, bears, motorcycles, Vienna. A lot of the same stuff from Setting Free the Bears, but he is a more experienced writer here and not afraid to be American and doesn't have the same young man's individualistic bravado that characterized that novel (my least favorite). He writes about the glory and the tragedy of the (inevitably thoroughly dysfunctional) family, which is really what he excels at, I think.

In short, read it. But don't see the movie if you loved the book; despite some perfect casting (e.g. Jodi Foster as Franny), it is horrid.

An absurd look at life.......2006-10-02

"Hotel New Hampshire" a great read. It looks at the life of an anything but normal family. An impulsive often harebrained yet passionate father, an incestuous brother and sister, etc. The story also contains several family friends like Susie who runs around in a bear suit, the old man Freud who is blind and uses a Louisville Slugger as a cane, and whores and bomb-chucking revolutionaries. Since it is a lengthy story that covers practically the entire histroy of a family, to describe the plot would be too much for here. However, it is a beautiful story of a family and their honorary members.
At times is seems to drag a bit due to it being a lengthy tale, later you'll probably find that it is necessary to set up the next part of the story. Some of the symbolism is heavy-handed and some of the changes that happen come across as abrupt and jarring. For some reason though, this works. It was frustrating, but when it comes down to it, it brought a uniqueness and charm to the writing. It almost seems like Irving reigned in his editors, instead of the other way around.
It is absurd, surreal, hilarious and most of all full of love and has passion for life. It looks at all the things that make us human, love friendship, loss, failure and joy.

Decent Read.......2006-08-28

I was first introduced to John Irving when my mom recommended me "The World According to Garp." I absolutely loved it, and still do. I kept saying to myself, "This is one of the best books I've ever read." Next, I read "Setting Free the Bears," which, while it was nowhere near as great as Garp, I still liked, overall. The third John Irving book I read was this one, "The Hotel New Hampshire."

I absolutely loved the first half. There's bears, rape, death, Halloween, and school bullies. It really took me back to the magic that was Garp.

But, about halfway through the novel, a couple of characters die rather unexpectedly. I don't know why Irving chose to kill off the characters there and then, but it really threw me out of the story. Just two chapters, and a few months in the book's chronology, before a main character was killed unexpectedly. I don't know why, but it just didn't feel "natural" and it made me realize that I was reading a novel, something made up. It just felt contrived.

After that, though, the book started gathering a little more steam. That is, until it randomly skipped ahead seven years. The family stays in Vienna for seven years, and nothing ever changes. They know the same whores, the same "radicals", and we never even get to meet their school buddies. That's part of what I liked the most about the first half, the people they met at school.

And the way they "deal with" Chipper Dove seemed a little ridiculous, even for John Irving. And after the deaths in the middle, I really couldn't care about any of the characters anymore. None of the deaths in the second half made me in the least bit sad. (I did like the terrorist plot, though.)

In the end, its merits outweigh its faults, and I DID enjoy reading it. But it could have been so much better.

Another delightful tale.......2006-03-25

The Hotel New Hampshire is a story of love, family, absurdity, and solidarity. Win Berry graduates from his small New Hampshire high school and goes to work at a resort in Maine to save money to attend Harvard. Mary Bates, also from Dairy, New Hampshire, found herself working at this same resort and the two fell in love over the course of that summer. That summer also brought them Freud, a small German man who had trained a bear and provided entertainment at the resort. He became a life-long friend to the couple and at the end of the summer sold Win the bear. What unfolds is a life's story, told from the perspective of Win and Mary's 3rd child, John, that is as bizzare as it is touching and moving.

The Berry family opens The Hotel New Hampshire in Dairy and the novel chronicles the out of the ordinary experiences that occur in this unlikely hotel. The next stage of the family's life takes them to Vienna to open The Second Hotel New Hampshire. The family experiences a dark period in Austria with tragedy and sadness mixed in to the family's trademark weirdness. Finally, life brings them back to America where each finds their place in life all the while remaining a tight unit, each person a necessary part in the other's life.

Completely unable to describe accurately, John Irving has written another masterpiece. The characters are alive and wonderful and their experiences unpredictable. What makes Irving's novels so fantastic is that the stories are completely fantastic, yet completely realistic all at the same time. If you have read one, you know exactly what I mean. You find yourself falling in love with the characters and feeling as though you are part of their family. I've never met a John Irving novel I didn't love.

the best John Irving book I've read.......2005-11-22

In my opinion this is far and away the best of John Irving's novels (although I admit that I have read nothing more recent than A Prayer for Owen Meany). Up until that point I read everything by Irving that I could get my hands on. This book is hilarious, often bizarre, and sometimes sad. The humor can be pretty raunchy, but it always seems to have a pretty good point to it. Irving has a great gift for creating fascinating characters, and his brilliance in this respect is in full force in Hotel New Hampshire. From sister Franny, to the bear called State of Maine, to the poor and stinky laborador retriever, you will not soon forget this wild bunch of characters. I've read this book several times, and even though I know the story pretty well, I don't get tired of it. It is highly recommended reading.

Handbook of Stem Cells, Two-Volume Set with CD-ROM, Volume 1-2: Volume 1-Embryonic Stem Cells; Volume 2-Adult & Fetal Stem Cells

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Handbook of Stem Cells, Two-Volume Set with CD-ROM, Volume 1-2: Volume 1-Embryonic Stem Cells; Volume 2-Adult & Fetal Stem Cells

Manufacturer: Academic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Essentials of Stem Cell Biology
Stem Cells: Scientific Progress And Future Research Directions
Stem Cells and The Future Of Regenerative Medicine
Developmental Biology, Eighth Edition (Developmental Biology)
Genes VIII

ASIN: 0124366430

Book Description

New discoveries in the field of stem cell research have frequently appeared in the news and in scientific literature. Research in this area promises to lead to new therapies for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and a wide variety of other diseases.

This two-volume reference integrates this exciting area of biology, combining the prerequisites for a general understanding of adult and embryonic stem cells, the tools, methods, and experimental protocols needed to study and characterize stem cells and progenitor populations, as well as a presentation by the world's experts of what is currently known about each specific organ system.

The editors of the Handbook of Stem Cells include: Robert Lanza, Helen Blau, John Gearhart, Brigid Hogan, Douglas Melton, Malcolm Moore, Roger Pedersen, E. Donnall Thomas, James Thomson, Catherine Verfaillie, Irving Weissman, and Michael West. The Editorial Board includes: W. French Anderson, Peter Andrews, Anthony Atala, Jose Cibelli, Giulio Cossu, Robert Edwards, Martin Evans, Elaine Fuchs, Margaret Fuller, Fred Gage, Richard Gardner, Margaret Goodell, Ronald Green, William Haseltine, Joseph Itskovitz-Eldor, Rudolf Jaenisch, Ihor Lemischka, Dame Anne McLaren, Richard Mulligan, Stuart Orkin, Martin Pera, Benjamin Reubinoff, Janet Rossant, Hans Scholer, Austin Smith, Evan Snyder, Davor Solter, Alan Trounson, and Leonard Zon.

This comprehensive set should be a much-needed addition to the library of students and researchers alike.

* Provides comprehensive coverage on this highly topical subject
* Contains contributions by the foremost authorities and premiere names in the field of stem cell research
* The accompanying CD-ROM includes over 250 color figures

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Best Irving novel ever written
New to Irving?? --> try another one first.
Editor wanted?
"Simply Strange"
An Irving dud

A Son of the Circus,
John Irving
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Trying to Save Piggy Sneed
The 158-Pound Marriage (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
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Setting Free the Bears
The Hotel New Hampshire

ASIN: 0679434968
Release Date: 1994-08-16

Book Description

A Hindi film star . . . an American missionary . . . twins separated at birth . . . a dwarf chauffeur . . . a serial killer . . . all are on a collision course. In the tradition of A Prayer for Owen Meany, Irving's characters transcend nationality. They are misfits--coming from everywhere, belonging nowhere. Set almost entirely in India, this is John Irving's most ambitious novel and a major publishing event.

Customer Reviews:

Best Irving novel ever written.......2007-01-29

I'm going to be honest, I'm partial to this book. I'm Indian, so anything related to India catches my eye. But I'm a stickler for good literature, and here, again, Irving shines. Regardless of the 600+ pages, I couldn't put this book down. Some say it is a little slow and dry, but that's India! Irving does a fantastic job on his research, this story is very true to life. The plot is gripping and exciting: dwarves, transvestites, actors, doctors, murder, suspense, intrigue. It has it all. I would definately recommend this book for the serious reader with an open mind concerning other cultures. It's also a great insight into Indian life as well. Five stars!

New to Irving?? --> try another one first. .......2006-09-20

John Irving remains one of my most favorite and respected authors, in spite of, not because of this book. After reading Garp, Cider House, and a few others, perhaps it is my own lofty expectations for consistent greatness that led to my genuine disengagement with this particular text. Many of the classic `Irving' traits (sub-plots, interior dialogue, overt sexuality) encompassed the novel but the most important aspect was missing. Even at the conclusion of the story I could not make myself care for or truly understand Dr. Daruwalla (protagonist). After 700-something odd pages, (usually an aspect of Irving's style that I appreciate and embrace), I was ready for the novel to end. And it did, rather expectedly and unceremoniously. This is not to say that the novel should not be read, it was mildly enjoyable (perhaps because I read the majority of it on the beach), but as for John Irving's potential, it pales in comparison to `his greats'. Hesitantly recommended for the veteran Irving reader is the best rating I can give this book.

Editor wanted?.......2006-09-11

I typically find Irving's books to be good, and swift, reads, but this book was an exception--it took me over a month to get through A Son of the Circus. The first half of the book takes its sweet time setting up probably dozens of subplots; the second half goes faster, as various loose ends are tied up.

It was very enjoyable in spite of the slowness, with wonderful characters and great settings. The depiction of Bombay was fabulous; I don't know if Bombay is anything like that, but certainly the picture was imaginatively complete.

So I think it's worth reading, as long as you're not expecting a page-turner.

"Simply Strange".......2006-05-22

John Irving describes his main character, Dr. Daruwalla as having a story that is "simply strange." That is likewise the best way to describe this novel. Dr. Farrokh Daruwalla is a pediatric orthapedic surgeon who spends his time between his native Bombay and his adult residence in Toronto. However, despite being from India, Daruwalla has never felt at home there. He really doesn't feel at home anywhere. Anywhere that is, except the circus. There isn't an Indian circus that Daruwalla will not attend and it was at one of these that he met some of the people that are closest to him in the world.

In addition to being a doctor, Daruwalla is also a closet screenwriter. He writes a series of films that both are wildly popular and hated in India, featuring Inspector Dahr, played by John D., the son Daruwalla never had. Inspector Dahr's character is a detective that uncovers both mysteries as well as corruption within the Indian police system. However, when a real life mystery confronts Dahr and Daruwalla, their real life limitations are exposed as well.

John Irving has again done a wonderful job of telling a bizzare tale filled with imaginative characters. Only Irving could possibly dream up these characters. And also in true Irving fashion, the characters themselves drive the story. Unfortunately I did not find that this was one of his better books. While I enjoyed it, the pages did not easily turn for me and there were times where I found the story to have wandered too far and I wondered how it would ever make it's way back. Ultimately the story does wrap itself up and in a very clever way, but it takes a while to get there and can sometimes be frustrating in the process.

An Irving dud.......2005-12-26

I just didn't like this book. I loved so many of Irving's earlier books, but I never believed this story nor cared for any of the characters. If you want to read a great book set in India, try Mistry's A Fine Balance. Infinitely better.

The Imaginary Girlfriend (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

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An Unimagined Girlfriend
Not Irving's best work.
Not one of Irving's best
Don't buy this book
Great Story, but buy Trying to Save Piggy Sneed

The Imaginary Girlfriend (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
John Irving
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Until I Find You: A Novel
Trying to Save Piggy Sneed
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Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound

ASIN: 0345458265
Release Date: 2002-12-03

Book Description

“The Imaginary Girlfriend is a miniature autobiography detailing Irving’s parallel careers of writing and wrestling. . . . Tales of encounters with writers (John Cheever, Nelson Algren, Kurt Vonnegut) are intertwined with those about his wrestling teammates and coaches. With humor and compassion, [Irving] details the few truly important lessons he learned about writing. . . . And in beefing up his narrative with anecdotes that are every bit as hilarious as the antics in his novels, Irving combines the lessons of both obsessions (wrestling and writing) . . . into a somber reflection on the importance of living well.”
–The Denver Post

Customer Reviews:

An Unimagined Girlfriend.......2005-08-12

I am a tremendous fan of John Irving but I found this slight writing about those who inspired him uninspiring.

Not Irving's best work........2003-09-25

I expected more from this book. Irving's memoir is sorely disappointing in comparison to his novels. It's not BAD, it's just not written with the same level of complexity and interest found in his fiction.

Not one of Irving's best.......2003-06-26

I am a big John Irving fan and have read almost all of his novels. This book was a big disappointment for me, though. Rather than deeply delve into the events and people who shaped his writing, Irving provides perfunctory descriptions of the major events in his life as a writer and wrestler. He devotes much more attention to the scores of every wrestling match he ever took part in than to details regarding the process of crafting his novels. For wrestling fans, this book might be just what you are looking for; for others, I would skip it and re-read Garp.

Don't buy this book.......2003-06-25

Buy "Trying to Save Piggy Sneed" instead, since it includes this work and several other pieces. It's just my stupid opinion, but I think the publisher deserves a big dope slap for republishing this seperately.

Great Story, but buy Trying to Save Piggy Sneed.......2003-01-06

The Imaginary Girlfriend is a terrific memoir. Irving, while taking a break from writing novels, decided to pen a short autobiography, but he brought his usual sense of humor, ability to develop characters, and readable style to the project. The story does an excellent job of explaining the life events and people who have shaped his character and writing, which I think is very useful when trying to understand and appreciate his other books. I think this story itself is some of Irving's best writing and is certainly worth the short time it takes to read. I would recommend, however, instead of paying for the memoir alone, you purchase Trying to Save Piggy Sneed which includes this memoir as well as several short stories. You will not be disappointed if you are an Irving fan or just enjoy good, entertaining writing.

Spanish Dictionary for Beginners (Beginners Dictionaries)

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Spanish Dictionary for Beginners (Beginners Dictionaries)
Helen Davies
Manufacturer: E.D.C. Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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French Dictionary for Beginners (Beginners Dictionaries)
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ASIN: 0794502881

Chemical Engineering Dynamics: An Introduction to Modelling and Computer Simulation

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Chemical Engineering Dynamics: An Introduction to Modelling and Computer Simulation
John Ingham , Irving J. Dunn , Elmar Heinzle , Jiri E. Prenosil , and Jonathan B. Snape
Manufacturer: Wiley-VCH
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3527316787

Book Description

In this book, the modelling of dynamic chemical engineering processes is presented in a highly understandable way using the unique combination of simplified fundamental theory and direct hands-on computer simulation. The mathematics is kept to a minimum, and yet the nearly 100 examples supplied on a CD-ROM illustrate almost every aspect of chemical engineering science. Each example is described in detail, including the model equations. They are written in the modern user-friendly simulation language Berkeley Madonna, which can be run on both Windows PC and Power-Macintosh computers.

Madonna solves models comprising many ordinary differential equations using very simple programming, including arrays. It is so powerful that the model parameters may be defined as "sliders", which allow the effect of their change on the model behavior to be seen almost immediately. Data may be included for curve fitting, and sensitivity or multiple runs may be performed. The results can be seen simultaneously on multiple-graph windows or by using overlays. The resultant learning effect of this is tremendous. The examples can be varied to fit any real situation, and the suggested exercises provide practical guidance.

The extensive experience of the authors, both in university teaching and international courses, is reflected in this well-balanced presentation, which is suitable for the teacher, the student, the chemist or the engineer. This book provides a greater understanding of the formulation and use of mass and energy balances for chemical engineering, in a most stimulating manner.
This book is a third edition, which also includes biological, environmental and food process examples.

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Hard to read - for true Irving fans only
From the beginning, a novelist of the first rank
early John Irving material confuses, bores...
The rest of you are lying; you couldn't finish it.
Extremely disjointed

Setting Free the Bears
John Irving
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0345417984
Release Date: 1997-06-23

Book Description

It is 1967 and two Viennese university students want to liberate the Vienna Zoo, as was done after World War II. But their good intentions have both comic and gruesome consequences, in this first novel written by a twenty-five year old John Irving, already a master storyteller.

From the Paperback edition.

Customer Reviews:

Hard to read - for true Irving fans only.......2006-04-25

I've never before been pretentious enough to think I could see an author developing through their work but I think I'm starting to with John Irving. This is his first book I believe and has some strong characters and an interesting plot but it very hard to read. Obsenities in the story are weakened into something unintelligable and the whole thing is hard to get through.

I read his second book, 'The Water Method Man', right after this, and it is similar in style but a nicer story and easier to read (a bit).

If you are just starting out with John Irving, don't start here! 'A Prayer for Owen Meany' and 'The World According to Garp' are delightful - start there!

From the beginning, a novelist of the first rank.......2006-03-02

I really can't understand the head-up-the-assedness of many of these reviews. I loved this book when I first read it and I still love it now, having just finished it again.

If John Irving believes that Setting Free the Bears would not be published as a first novel today, then that is more an indictment of the publishing industry than any reflection on the book.

This multi-layered story is involving, illuminating, touching and shocking. Perhaps it is not as rich and polished as his later novels, but since those later works must rank as some of the best ever written in the English language, I think we can cut the guy a little slack. As a first novel, it is simply outstanding.

So yes, contrary to a rather bizarre opinion found here, I did finish it.

early John Irving material confuses, bores..........2004-07-18

'Setting Free the Bears' is an early work by John Irving that would have been normally out of print, and deservedly so, if it were not for his later fame from 'The World According to Garp'. In some ways the book is similar to 'The New Hotel Hampshire', a book I actually didn't care for, but lacks the humor or the huggable characters (or the curious incest sub-plot, thank goodness). So what exactly is wrong with 'Setting Free the Bears'?

Well the plot itself is rather strange and somewhat incomprehensible. A young Austrian college student bumps into a very quirky fellow, and together the tour Austria on motorcycle. Just when you think the book will turn into a funny road story with an Austrian twist the author decides to split the story in two, with the a narrative of the main character camped out at a zoo and his strange friend narrating his (pre-war) family history. Very disappointing, and very dull. The ending concludes in comical fashion back at the zoo. But this fun ending is too little, too late.

Bottom line: a very amateurish effort by the often outstanding John Irving. A definite miss.

The rest of you are lying; you couldn't finish it........2004-01-09

There's no John Irving novel I don't love, except this one. Most of them, I have re-read about five times. Even "The Water-Method Man", one of his weaker novels, I read twice.

I couldn't finish this one, not in THREE separate attempts, at three very different times in my life, three different frames of mind. There's nothing wrong with my reading skills. I'm forced to conclude the rest of you are lying.

Siggy and Hannes are simply not characters one can care about, and the actual writing is wretched.

Extremely disjointed.......2003-03-23

The bears of the title are in the Heitzinger Zoo in Vienna, which is why I read this first novel of Irving's. Giving a choice of his novels to begin with, I probably would have selected The World According to Garp or A Prayer for Owen Meany. But in preparation for our trip to Austria, this novel popped up as having a tenuous tie, and due to the fact that we were not finding much to go on, tenuous was better than nothing.

If you take the middle section, called ''The Notebook," and remove the bits about the zoo, what you are left with is the prehistory it the Siggy character, a biographical compilation of one family from right before World War II up to the time that the Soviets withdrew from Austria. In this section you get a highly detailed and personal account of what was taking place from the point-of-view of the street. I found it strangely similar to Morton's A Nervous Splendour--a feeling of history contained in a microcosm. While fictionalized, Irving gives a clue as to his research on page 222 where in the fictional diarist lists some books of "influence."

The other parts of the story were less successful, at least for me. This could have been because I was looking to learn about Austria and Vienna, and took less enjoyment from the crazed antics of Siggy and Graff. Although many scenes were vivid--the climactic meeting of motorcycle and beehives, the brutality of the milkman to his horse--the overall plot was extremely disjointed. While I am likely to read another Irving novel, due to his reputation, this novel has soured me on the idea for the moment.

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