Linda

I couldn't put this stupid book down! What a hoot. The zombie mayhem really added to Austen's commentary on high society (sorry, Jane....) I can think of a few places today where zombie hijinks could only help!

The discussion notes at the back of the book were another great source of entertainment. Now I have to get some friends to read the book so that we can discussion these points.

I loved this book! When I got near the end and realized that there were 40 pages of notes and not 40 more pages of prose, I was contemplating putting the book down for the day so that I could postpone (and savor) finishing it. It was fascinating reading and, though set primarily in the 20's and 30's, very pertinent today. I will never look at infomercials (or Wall of Voodoo's, Mexican Radio, or political robo-calls) the same.

This book reminded me a lot of The Devil in the White City, another one of my all time favorites. Though the stories are about different topics, it is fascinating to see how aspects of today's daily life came into being. Oh, if only I could get one of those goat-gland surgeries so that I could be around in another 100 years to see the unintended consequences of Facebook, botox and rap music.

Really interesting, but I had a hard time reading the animal experimentation sections (but had no trouble with the human experimentation....go figure!)

The epilogue, with it's comparison to modern-day stem cell and genetic modification research and politics, really transformed the story from historical to topical.

I really wanted to enjoy this book but I ended up just feeling like I was at the wrong end of an inside joke. I love the way Capote crafts a sentence and his powers of description and characterization. This book is no exception. He has painted people and locales in the biting, edgey way that only he can. However, he drops so many names and places that I'm only vaguely familiar with, that I found myself spending more time reading Wikipedia than reading the book. I think if I had read this book back in the 1970's (and, maybe, not have been a teenager at the time) I would have gotten a lot more from it.