Sean

Many others have reviewed this book and the whole series better than I will, so I will confine myself to this comment. Although I am sometimes not the brightest reader in the library, and often I become confused when things get weird, and although I got to the end of the trilogy not entirely understanding what “happened” or what it was “about,” I have to say I Don't Care! Even with my bafflement, I loved these books. They are so engrossing I don't mind that I didn't understand them at all, so well-written that the words alone constitute enough reason to read them, and so real that I feel like I have spent time in Area X and known those poor people. Read this book if you love thought-provoking science fiction, “literary fiction,” or just an odd story.

This rotting explosion of greenery and decay and ghostly faces has already entered and disturbed my dreams, as I am sure it will continue to do for a time. There are images that will not be leaving me soon, and I am eager to read the next book in the trilogy.

Four stars as a compromise. The subject is interesting and important, but the style, while popular, was dull. I made some notes of the more interesting passages to comment on, but I lost those notes so I will let this go with just the stars. If you are even a little interested in the subject (and it is very interesting indeed) then read the book.

I continue to love this story. How could I not? It is about Story.
This is most definitely the darkest volume yet. It was a bit tough in spots reading it while I was eating lunch.

Burkeman presents the reader with a negative way of thinking about happiness. By abandoning the active quest for and overt quest for happiness, he suggests, we can redefine happiness as a state that includes death and other losses and sadnesses. He examines Stoicism, Buddhism, the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration, to create an approach to happiness that is more realistic, and therefore more useful, that the “happy happy joy joy” approach of the motivational speakers and popular American/British culture. Not a great book, but a very good and useful one.

An immensely satisfying “prequel” to the Tommy Taylor books. Carey does not get sidetracked. What could have been a simple “origin story,” continues his philosophical exploration of the intersection of story and reality. Yes, he reveals many details of Tommy's early life, his father, and Mr. Taylor's intentions, but it all serves the larger, cosmic story.

Carey continues to play a quick shell game with the reader. He pretends to be writing Harry Potter fanfic while actually telling a story of ideas that has nothing to do with Potter at all. The ingenuity and imagination of the Tommy Taylor books is here embodied perfectly in the beautiful artwork of fine drawers and colorists.

I read this so many years ago I don't remember when, so I can not write a review of it now. But I can say that a few passages have stuck with me all these years, and I can even quote a line of dialogue. And that is saying something for a book after all.

I needed this book since I have many slugs around my home, all of whom appear to be illiterate. I try to engage them in conversation about their latest favorite books, but they always change the subject. So I have decided to help them, gently and unobtrusively, learn to read. This book presents seven clear step to slug literacy, and so far the process has been fun and painless. We have all enjoyed our daily “lessons,” and some of the faster slugs are already reading simple text on their own. If you have slugs, I highly recommend this book. If you don't have slugs, I'm sorry. However, it seems to me the same technique might work even if all you have around your house are children.

Instructive, interesting, and inspiring. I am most certainly going to read the next two in the trilogy. Reading about this great American with the memory of Trump's ignorant insult of him still in mind made it all the better.

A fun read. A bit too sweet perhaps. It seemed like the author asked himself, “How can I improve somebody's self-esteem today? I'll write a book!” But there are times in life when a boost in confidence is just what is needed. I can easily picture a kid needing the feel-good “be yourself” message this book offers. Some people have complained about the stereotypical portrayal of a gay kid in the character of Joe, but I have known kids just like him. They need to read about someone like them. What they do not need is “It's OK to be gay, just as long as you aren't too swishy.” Yes: swishy, too-fem gay guys can drive a person nuts, but the alienation which comes from being told that they are not suitable for depiction in a novel is sure to make things worse, not better.

Dinesen is my new favorite author. Of the stories herein included, “The Ring” has captivated me the most, with its subtle yet fierce eroticism in one sentence. With one sentence, one little image (the knife in the sheep-thief's hand pointing at her neck), Dinesen disturbed me, thrilled me, and immediately let me know exactly what was going on in the mind of an up-till-then naive girl. Just amazing what she did in so few words.

[I received a copy of the book from the publisher with the expectation of an honest review.]

Before saying anything at all about Hartke's thought-provoking book, I should offer a full disclosure so my biases are known. I am a Christian; I am gay; and the idea of transgender and the phrase “I identify as male/female” makes me rather uncomfortable but not so much that I can't have a reasonable discussion about it.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio....” Anybody who does not realize that the world is far more complex than they are capable of understanding simply is not well suited for living in the real world. The biggest conceptual mistake we can ever make is to pretend that our understanding is sufficient to describe reality, that we know everything. I remember when I was maybe four years old, standing in the front yard looking at the world all around me. Voila! I had an epiphany. I rushed inside to tell my mother, “Mommy, Mommy, I know everything!” Oddly enough, she laughed at me.

That event was my whole life in one moment. I have never stopped thinking I know everything, and the universe has never stopped laughing at me. I have learned less humility from this than one might expect, but a little bit—enough that I get suspicious whenever I find myself “knowing something” with no actual evidence, learning, or experience to back it up. And since I have never said the words “I identify as...” (in fact, have no real point of contact to understand them), since I don't really know what it would mean to feel I am supposed to be a woman rather than a man, I am forced to admit that whatever I may think I know about the subject is ... well, sometimes I'm still a four year old who thinks he knows everything.

One of the clues I picked up fairly easily is the fact that some people are getting kicked out of their families, losing their jobs, spending enormous sums of money, enduring anguish, and undergoing medication and really severe surgery to make their physical body correspond with their emotional and mental conception of themselves. It is possible that people might do all of this because they are just bored, but as soon as I start thinking that way, I deserve to kick myself for an idiot. Of course this is something real to these people, real in a way I simply do not and can not understand. The tiny bit of humility I have learned forces me to admit that I just don't know what they are going through; I don't know what it feels like; I don't really know anything at all. The Golden Rules is very clear in this case: I need to shut up and listen. Nothing else will do. The Lord who teaches me “Do to others what you want them to do to you,” leaves me no other option. So I will shut up and listen, and fortunately Hartke steps in as someone patient, clear, and articulate to listen to.

Hartke begins with a careful exploration of the concept of sex and gender as expressed in the creation stories of Genesis. It has been normal to read those chapters as meaning that each and every human is precisely and entirely male or precisely and entirely female, that each person is and must be heterosexual, and that the whole point of it is procreation. In chapter 4, “And God Said, Let There Be Marshes,” he does a good job of deconstructing the binaries we imagine the Bible requires. Although there is a clean distinction between, e.g., light and dark, day and night, ocean and dry land, just as there is with male and female, it never occurs to anybody to assume this means that the Bible is saying there is no dusk or no swamps, even though it is normal to assume the story means that there is nothing besides the male/female duality. But it is simply a fact, he points out, that there are in-between areas, mixed zones. He asks the reader to consider the possibility that the “male/female” duality is no more meant absolutely than is the “day/night” duality. It is a difficult idea for some; but Hartke brings to our attention the testimonies of people who tell us what it is like to live with that as a reality of life. The biblical interpretation might not carry the weight of the argument on its own, if one were inclined to fundamentalism, and the personal testimonies might not, but the two together are presented to full effect and are compelling. At the very least, this reviewer finds it difficult to believe that anybody could read the section without at least a little grudging acknowledgment that there is a case to consider.

OK, now it is time for confession. Although I can have a reasonable discussion about the topic of “non-binary” and transgender people, I find myself uncomfortable with the dismissal of the male-female duality as a normal part of how the vast majority of humans perceive themselves and their humanity. I am uncomfortable with the dismissal of biological categories based on reproduction as normative for the common animal (including human) experience. I think I would have an easier time hearing someone like M, one of the transgender people whom Hartke quotes, if they did not say things like, “To say that you're nonbinary innately suggests there is a binary, and my whole point is that there's no such thing. We've created this formula and forced our understanding of gender into it.” While I very much need to hear M's story, and listen respectfully and carefully to what it feels like to go through life as they do, I nonetheless resist when told that the lived experience of humans and other animals as male and female is “created” by humans, imaginary. M needs me to understand that their experience is real and valid; I need M not to insist that they are representative of the norm. It would make it easier to hear; it would help me realize I am talking to a person who is living in the real world. Part of the rhetoric of transgender and non-binary coming out has the unfortunate consequence of telling those of us who see ourselves as complex and multifaceted but nevertheless “male” or “female” that our self-perception is wrong and non-existent. That Hartke naturally furthers this rhetoric interferes with my ability to listen respectfully, and I do not like that.

If you are a Christian who is transgender or think you might be, read this book for a comforting and strengthening reexamination of Christian theology. If you are Christian and not transgender, read it to have your horizons expanded and your assumptions questioned. Read it to hear to voices of people who experience themselves differently than you do. Read it to obey the Golden Rule. In spite of the discomfort is caused me, and my objection raised above, I am grateful to Hartke for having written this book. Having read it, I am sure I will be able to be a better friend to the non-binary and transgender people in my life.

I started reading this book by accident, and I am so glad I did. I had no idea Levithan could write such beautiful prose, but there are passages in Two Boys Kissing that are just poetry. (I do not have a copy of the book with me right now, so I can not quote any, but I would love to.)

The book is structured interestingly, being narrated in a first person plural omniscient voice, “We” being a cloud of men who died of AIDS before the disease was really studied and workable treatments were found. I am old enough that I know some of those men in the “We” who narrate. One of them is my friend and house mate Kent, who committed suicide by starvation when his HIV diagnosis was changed to full-blown AIDS. He didn't want to endure the misery of it, and he didn't want to deal with the humiliation of the health care system he would have been subjected to as a poor person. Other friends of mine who are part of that voice are persons I lost track of briefly (really not long at all), and on calling or hunting them up, found out they had sickened suddenly and died.

Although my story is not like any of the characters in the book, Levithan makes them so immediate and so real that I can identify with each. Some reviewers complain that the characters were not fully developed, but I think maybe they just wanted a different book than the one the author actually wrote. He's not giving us action or adventure, or even much character development, but rather a series of extended vignettes in which we may see ourselves, or perhaps not.

I am grateful for the beauty of the words and for the chance to hear my own generation speaking to a younger one, the kids on whose behalf I have been as quietly vocal as I have been, so that they would be born and grow up in a different environment than I did, than did the men who died and who went on to narrate this book.

Be strong, pink-haired boys and kissing boys. I hope you won't need quite as much strength just to stay alive as some of us did, so you can use your strength to flourish. It's still not all the way good, as this book testifies, but IT GETS BETTER, so hang in there, don't jump, have hope. I'm rooting for you.

I know very little about this time and place, but the little I have thought about it has been from the Christian martyrs' perspective. This was an interesting look at it through other eyes.

I really enjoyed it, enough that I am already reading the next in the series. Light and fun, but the mystery was interesting.

I haven't got much to say, but I am enjoying these books very much. I can't wait for volume 3.

I didn't cry a whole bunch when it ended and I knew there was no more. Only a little.

I didn't feel so sad because I wanted more of the story and plot. I like stories to end. I was sad because I had come to the end of such a perfect synthesis of art, philosophy, theology, psychology. This book is science fiction doing what only science fiction can do, and using that mode to explore some of the deepest questions we can face. A brilliant book, and a perfect sequel to its equally brilliant predecessor, The Sparrow.

Good art, good story, but I really don't like super heroes, so I am the last person who should review this. I started reading the Runways... several years ago but put it down because it eventually list my attention. I picked it up again and decided just to press on. it is good, I understand that, and I highly recommend it to anybody who might like it. I just really don't like superheroes.

I am very glad I read this book, and very glad it was written. It is the best I have read so far on its subject.

Kaplan uses the title question to explore the nature of the modern person's relationship with belief, and the possibility of meaning. As more and more materialists (the ones I read and watch on Youtube, at any rate) are forthrightly saying “Existence is meaningless,” – which naturally follows from a strictly materialistic philosophy – some of them must begin to question whether that is a good thing, or even if it is true. Perhaps when the statement works its way from “Existence is meaningless” to “Well, then, I guess this video I made about science and my beliefs is also meaningless and pointless, as am I. It's all just filling up the minutes until death.” then the ensuing confoundment and fear and trembling will prompt honest philosophical inquiry. Kaplan is waiting to assist.

The subject is fascinating but something about his writing style began to grate around chapter 11 or so. It was almost too much. I can't lay my finger on the problem exactly, but there were too many sentences and paragraphs where I–a somewhat intelligent and moderately well-educated person who sometimes reads philosophy–had a difficult time following him. It was not because he is too smart and erudite for me. No, it is his writing.

But then part 5, chapter 13 happened. OH BOY! His discussion of Isaac Luria and the Infinite made it all worth while. I am glad I stuck it out. I hope you will be, too. Kaplan points to a way for a modern materialist to think about the possibility of meaning in existence, and he even provides some nifty clues for a thorough-going theist-who-isn't-exactly-certain-what-theos-actually-means to broaden his way of viewing the question.

I am grateful to Eric Kaplan for this book and to myself for reading it.

And yes, I believe in Santa Claus, of course.

Gorgeous art. And it made me cry. At work.

Reading this is an odd experience. The protagonist, whom we are supposed to love and admire, according to the author, is a cowardly cad and nothing good can be said for him. His lady love, whom we also should love, is a self absorbed twat. The only characters who did their jobs as they ought, who acted on their commitments, are the three evil barons whom we are intended to hate and despise, and who probably were in fact self-righteous and tedious bores. As for the author, he is either willfully blind to the absurdities of what he is saying or else he is an idiot.

And yet the book is deservedly a classic and a source-point of much important European and English literature. It entertained me and I enjoyed reading it.

Winters continues his meditation on the question, “What would you do – no, really, what would you do – if the Earth – no, forget all that claptrap, this is for real, what would you really do – if the Earth were definitely going to end soon. I do not normally read police procedurals and such-like, but these books are riveting.

I definitely understand why this is repeatedly chosen as the best novel ever.

Two things struck me about the book. First, it is True in its depiction of the human condition, and therefore applicable and understandable even by those in different circumstances. The relationship between Anna and Vronsky, especially as shown clearly in part 7, was remarkably like the relationship I had with a friend. I was Vronsky, he was Anna. Nothing in external circumstances was alike at all. Two men, not lovers; but the personalities and the way they clashed, Anna's pain and internal monologues: I understood my former friend so much better by understanding Anna. As far as I know, my friend has not thrown himself under a train, and I pray he never does, thought it would not surprise me if he did. However, the anguish which got Anna to her climax and my friend to his are so similar in their fantastical inability to live in the world as it is.

Second, I loved the final section and am glad I read it. I have read a few reviewers who hated it, hated it, and who wrote that it was written under duress and that nobody should read it. I think maybe I now understand why those reviewer hated it so much, and I think they must be thorough-going materialists unable to deal with a differing point of view, as is so often the case. The account of Levin's ruminations and spiritual life speak to me. I am far more orthodox in my theology than he, but his process of reaching his particular accommodation is similar to mine–similar enough that I feel a close kinship with him.

A wonderful book! As with all good literature, I think I know the human condition, the whole world, and myself better for having read it.

I never really read Archie comics much when I was the target demographic, but I had to read this one, just because. Sappy and predictable and typically Archie, but I really enjoyed it.

I really have nothing to say about this. It is not something I would normally read or enjoy. I read it only because it was on a Nook I checked out and I was finding out what it is like to read comics/graphic novels on an e-reader.

I guess if one were into manga about young ladies having dream-sex with demons it would be OK, perhaps.