en-US Fri, 25 Feb 2011 15:36:16 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 5015
Later, as Perowne makes his way through London streets filled with hundreds of thousands of anti-war protestors, a minor car accident brings him into a confrontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive young man, on the edge of violence. To Perowne's professional eye, there appears to be something profoundly wrong with him. But it is not until Baxter makes a sudden appearance as the Perowne family gathers for a reunion, that Henry's fears seem about to be realised.]]> 289 Ian McEwan 1400076196 Chris 5 all-time-favs 3.64 2005
author: Ian McEwan
name: Chris
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2011/02/25
shelves: all-time-favs
review:

]]> 4406
Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness.

First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.]]> 601 John Steinbeck 0142000655 Chris 5 all-time-favs 4.41 1952
author: John Steinbeck
name: Chris
average rating: 4.41
book published: 1952
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/07/15
shelves: all-time-favs
review:

]]> 9717 The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. This magnificent novel juxtaposes geographically distant places, brilliant and playful reflections, and a variety of styles, to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of one of the world’s truly great writers.]]> 314 Milan Kundera 0571224385 Chris 5 all-time-favs 4.12 1984
author: Milan Kundera
name: Chris
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1984
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/03/10
shelves: all-time-favs
review:

]]> 4395 The Grapes of Wrath is a landmark of American literature. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. Although it follows the movement of thousands of men and women and the transformation of an entire nation, The Grapes of Wrath is also the story of one Oklahoma family, the Joads, who are driven off their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity.

First published in 1939, The Grapes of Wrath summed up its era in the way that Uncle Tom's Cabin summed up the years of slavery before the Civil War. Sensitive to fascist and communist criticism, Steinbeck insisted that "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" be printed in its entirety in the first edition of the book—which takes its title from the first verse: "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored." At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s fictional chronicle of the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s is perhaps the most American of American Classics.]]> 455 John Steinbeck Chris 5 all-time-favs
The novel is set in 1930s when the farming industry collapsed because of new inventions such as the combine harvester which meant that masses of crops could be grown, however this meant the soil had nutrients and what not completely used up. This meant that thousands of farmers who lived in the mid-west decided to move to the west coast. The novel follows the Joad family as they make they their journey to the coast. We share their hopes and dreams, their successes and failures.

It is this that makes the novel feel so alive. As you read the novel the hopes become uncertain as they get closer to the west coast and are eventually shattered, although not completely. It is this journey of hope to despair to hope that truly made the novel for me, because you truly do become emotionally attached to the family.

Which brings me to another point, despite the symbolism and messages of the novel it never seems to focus on them, much like other Steinbeck that I have read. He seems to be only interested in making you feel something, which makes the message all the more powerful. However the message, that when you experience injustice we must not stay silent, that only when everyone is united can we eliminate injustice, and so on, still get through and by the end of the novel you arte filled with them.

All this means that it is one of my all time favourite novels and is a book I will always be fond of because, without sounding too cheesy, it changed me. The book was the first to make me truly think.
]]> 3.88 1939
author: John Steinbeck
name: Chris
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1939
rating: 5
read at: 2008/01/01
date added: 2010/01/10
shelves: all-time-favs
review:
A masterpiece, I believe, is a book that makes you feel impassioned about something, which changes your view on things and which generally makes you question, for lack of a more suitable word, stuff. Grapes of Wrath was perhaps the first book which did this for me.

The novel is set in 1930s when the farming industry collapsed because of new inventions such as the combine harvester which meant that masses of crops could be grown, however this meant the soil had nutrients and what not completely used up. This meant that thousands of farmers who lived in the mid-west decided to move to the west coast. The novel follows the Joad family as they make they their journey to the coast. We share their hopes and dreams, their successes and failures.

It is this that makes the novel feel so alive. As you read the novel the hopes become uncertain as they get closer to the west coast and are eventually shattered, although not completely. It is this journey of hope to despair to hope that truly made the novel for me, because you truly do become emotionally attached to the family.

Which brings me to another point, despite the symbolism and messages of the novel it never seems to focus on them, much like other Steinbeck that I have read. He seems to be only interested in making you feel something, which makes the message all the more powerful. However the message, that when you experience injustice we must not stay silent, that only when everyone is united can we eliminate injustice, and so on, still get through and by the end of the novel you arte filled with them.

All this means that it is one of my all time favourite novels and is a book I will always be fond of because, without sounding too cheesy, it changed me. The book was the first to make me truly think.

]]> 5473 12 George Orwell 0786183926 Chris 5 all-time-favs 3.91 1949
author: George Orwell
name: Chris
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1949
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2010/01/08
shelves: all-time-favs
review:

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