Customer Comments

This is a deliciously great read - you won't want to put it down. Author Carlos Ruiz Zafon portrays a beautifully descriptive, while at the same time dark and mysterious, picture of Barcelona in 1945. The novel is a love story, a murder mystery, and a spooky thriller -- all poised against the historical background of the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Masterfully written, such that although I wanted the mystery solved, I didn't want the book to end.

Dave Eggers is an excellent author -- very well researched, very clear, very authentic. The characters in Zeitoun, as in his other books, come alive to the reader. You feel their joy, their pain, their humanity. This important work of nonfiction focuses on Abdulrahman Zeitoun and his family at the time of Hurricane Katrina. In the storm's aftermath, Zeitoun, an American of Syrian descent, has a unique experience (one hopes it was unique or limited in scope...). You will find yourself shaking your head repeatedly as Eggers portrays the inexplicable arrest of this pure of heart, good community citizen who calmly and quietly canoes the flood waters helping stranded neighbors and caring for abandoned dogs. Chaotically and shamefully, the collective "authority" continues to treat Zeitoun with utter disrepect and disregard for his civil rights. The book is an eye opener. It demonstrates what can happen -- did happen -- in America (yikes) in the state of an emergency.

Whoa - I couldn't put this one down. Read it in two sittings. A real page turner. It's very intelligently written. The plot is intricate due to the nature of the story, i.e., the main character has no long or short term memory from one day to the next. She only retains what she learns in her waking hours, then goes to sleep and when she re-awakens, it's gone; she has to start over learning who she is, what's happened in her life in the last twenty years. I didn't find one "wait a minute" (error) in the way the author clearly laid out the twisted narrative. Great read, quick and fascinating. Keeps you guessing til the end as to who Chrissy can trust - or not!

I loved this book - the best one I read in all of 2011, and I read quite a bit. I found it riveting. Yes, it's about the Lost Generation and Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stein, Paris in the 20's, bullfighting - which all make it fascinating. But to me it was a remarkable love story. The relationship between Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway's first wife, and Hemingway is so intensely and beautifully portrayed. I am about to re-read this superbly written first novel by Paula Mclain, as I plan to select it for my book club. I think it will make for very interesting, heartfelt discussion.

Paula Mclain vividly portrays "the lost generation" living large in Paris in the 1920's. She does this through her heart warming and heart wrenching story of Ernest Hemingway and his first wife. Told through the eyes of Hadley Richardson who marries Ernest when she is 28 and he is 21, the novel pulls the reader deeper and deeper into this very personal, tantalizing account of the couple's shared love and life. To be sure, it is about Ernest and Hadley, but Mclain also provides a good overview of the intensely romantic, decadent, sometimes tragically sad but delicious, era. I could not put the book down, and through my tears, hated to have it end.