Suarez is a real writer now
934894
Having been on board since Daemon it's been amazing to see Suarez evolve with every book.
He's always had great stories but his writing has just gotten better with each novel. The writing
in this one leaves nothing to remark upon, on the negative that is. On the positive is that the guy's
become a real writer. That's something to be indeed.
Great story that will steal your sleep and hinder your work.
I ended up here cause I googled "books like change agent."
I congratulate you if you haven't read this story yet, you're in for a really great ride.
1362115
I loved the first book in the English Sombrero series, where we met the brash but lovable character of Don Simmons. There he set himself the seemingly unattainable task of running the marathon. Here he buys, after a rather large windfall, a struggling non-league football club. Armed with a squad of semi-professional no hopers he sets out to win the FA cup; the highest price in English football. You have to love and admire Don as he sets about building a winning squad, deals with the press and the football authorities. Don is a self-made man who does things in his own way, which wins him as many friends as enemies. I still found this book hugely entertaining and some of the problem solving inspired. Where it lost me a little was that it was just a bit too beyond the realms of possibilities and that a lot of the problems were solved by just throwing huge amounts of money at it. Would I read the third book if it was released? I probably would and if the writer is in the process, Id say to make it more about personal struggle and less about the money. Well written and great fun, especially if you like English football.
4629826
Another great read from Mr. Suarez. As always his story is rich in details that indicate an extensive research effort. A great story that stimulates thought on current events while presenting some scenarios that are possible in the near future.
2406808
Fredy Espinoza takes writing to a new level. His descriptions of scenes and events are the closest one could possibly get to being there. Reading his book was almost like watching a video. The story in itself is mind-blowing and it's true, which makes it scary and hard to grasp. Yet the words are so carefully crafted I found myself slowing down my typical reading speed so the experience would not end. The writing is, in a word, Delicious. The words drip like rich chocolate as each scene is described. It's the kind of writing that makes you stop frequently to visualize the picture Espinoza has just created for you. Some of the scenes are so real, so perfect, and so accurately described I often forgot that I was reading and instead thought I was there.
What makes a book interesting is the truth about how someone is feeling. Not where they went or what they did, but what was going through their minds...the author exposes his inner feelings to the point where you almost become him. You start to think and feel like him. I laughed, I cried, I wanted to reach out and hold him and absorb his pain.
As the winner of six literary awards for my own book, The Boy Behind the Gate, I am humbled and put Espinoza in a league of his own. This author succeeds in every aspect as a writer. The future is his.
1019926
Suarez gives us another high tech thriller that practically reads itself. Of course this just fiction - right? Don't miss this excellent reading experience.
759376
Daniel Suarez writes from a perspective of deep understanding about technology, with a sly imagination. The effect is truly gripping. Go for it.
14688
Daniel Suarez has done it again in yet another amazing technology packed thrill ride. 3 books into the 4 he has written and they seem to just get better.
826689
A new voice writing in Spanish, and a translator who caught the nuances and brought this wonderful book to us in English make this an especially rewarding treat. I catalog books every day in an academic library. I see so many books, but I have a list of authors I read, and I don't usually care to embark on someone new when the book is a first novel, and the author so unknown. The reviews were mixed, but the book just drew me in.  I read it in a few nights because it captures you and won't let go. I lived in Madrid many years ago, and I visited Morocco during that time. The memories of the Civil War in Spain were fairly fresh in the years I lived there, but they were also fading into the past somewhat. Franco was in power another 15 years after my return to this country, so the upheaval and resurgence of literature about the Civil War, and quests for answers to the trials Spain underwent during the Civil War and it's aftermath have just in the last few decades surfaced and become an academic study. The Time In Between serves as a record of those years, as well as the beginning of WWII and the political machinations that went on in Spain during that time. The main character is a strong woman, who manages to take the proverbial lemons and make some lemonade, with just a twist of mint as well. Surely her rise from seamstress to couturier is a fascinating story, and one which is not beyond the pale of possibility. The characters woven so expertly through the story, of Rosalinda Fox and Juan Luis Beigbeder, being actually persons who lived in that time, and who probably were much as the author portrays them, are two fascinating people whose stories, although peripheral to our Sira, are also part and parcel of what the book is about. The ambiance, the details, the tension rising slowly until the last few chapters - all were mesmerizing elements in the story, and they caught me unaware. I am so glad to have decided to pick this one up and take it home. It would make the most fascinating film if done right. I see there is already a miniseries in Spanish.
3949797
Bill Buckley is once again brilliant.

This book is fun, full of suspence and has great historial footnotes.

All the characters come to life and since Buckley utilizes real people as characters one has the sense that history is revisited here.

Buckley is a brilliant writer and story teller.

It is hard these days to find good, serious and fun novel writers, well Mr. Buckley is one of those.

My only worry : Is this book his swan song?
2102795
This is fine narrative by a not so well known writer. I have read some of his previous book and I really think he's reached maturity. It's worth reading for those who like modern hispanic literature.
3380873
Here's a writer on par with the best, and yet he's only writing non-fiction. He should write a novel, he's just a brilliant writer. This tome is an intellectual feast made all the more appetizing by his brilliant writing style.
2796242
By compiling five years worth of past articles written for ESPN's Page Two, Bill Simmons manages to write, re-write, comment upon, criticize, and yes-even argue with his infamous Sports Guy musings while telling the story of how the Red Sox finally won the World Series.  This is no lazy rehash of old columns. His ingenious use of footnotes (there are at least 2 million or so per page) adds layers of "back story" to the plot.  If you are a dedicated Sports Guy reader, you can skip re-reading all those columns again and go straight to the footnotes for his skewed hindsight and hilarious ramblings on serial killers, mullet haircuts, Hoover Dam ,and of course, the Yankees.  If you've never read Simmons before, this book is a perfect introduction to the Sports Guy.

Rather than being the typical sports retrospective play-by-play of the 2004 World Series, Simmons manages to tell a very personal and very funny story about becoming and staying a true believer. Sure, sure-we all know the ending of this story-the Sox finally win.  In Simmons' hands, the ending is hardly the point. Rather, it's the five-year ride he takes us on, with stops in Hollywood, Fenway, matrimony, and even fatherhood.  It makes no difference if you love the Sox, hate the Yankees, or even care about sports. Read this book if you enjoy sharp, opinionated, fast moving, and funny writing.
1642580
I am reviewing this book from an "Uncorrected Proof - Not for Sale" edition, but the book has been available in hard cover since October 2009.

I much enjoyed this book.  The author, Jesse Katz, is a journalist, and it shows in his writing.  It is crisp, descriptive, clean and unambiguous.  Unlike the situatation he finds himself in when he volunteers to not just be his son's Little League team's coach, but to be commissioner of the local Little League.

As you'd expect in a memoir, there's a lot of humor, but as he's writing about real people, I don't expect everyone in the book would find the book hilarious where they come in. Particularly the just-prior commissioners, whom Katz wonders about when he inherited little money in the pot, but yet has no trouble affording this or that, while previous commissioners said there were no funds. Some humor may have been a bit gratuitous, but I won't quote it because for all I know, it was changed in the final edition that went to press. A lot of the humor, though, is simply fun writing.  Like when people start talking to him about this huge task he's taken on:  "I heard of lot of 'You're a better man than I.'  Which, of course, is not what people mean when they say it."

I really like his writing style, especially for a memoir. His word pictures can be marvelous.  Here, he's talking about Raynelda's (his Nicaraguan wife) step-brother Nestor (different dad):  "His dad was a Managua civil servant, a kind, subdued white-collar drudge who had tutored Nestor endlessly as a little boy, and that gave Nestor a direction that eluded the rest of his family. Despite being uprooted and smuggled and plunged into a baffling new culture at the eve of adolescence, Nestor was astonishingly sober and studious, as if he lived in a protective coccoon that only he could perceive. I would see him at the kitchen table while music blared and glasses clinked, performing algorithms nobody possibly could have deciphered, and I would marvel at his resolve, at his utter sureness that every sacrifice would be redeemed. When years later he graduated from UCLA, a doctor of biochemistry, it was at once miraculous and, by then, almost routine."

The book isn't just about baseball; there's his parents, his wife's family, trying to figure out what makes himself tick.  The very last part of the book bogs down a little, as it deals more with his an affair that starts with a baseball mom.  The books seemed honest to me, without sugar coating.  I don't think he's figured out what makes himself tick yet, though.

Happy Reader
4014178
This book joins the company of but a handful of libros I have completed in a single sitting, without taking my eyes off the pages until I had finished it. In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I discovered a remarkable dichotomy of idioma and cultura that hit me close to home; the book absorbed me from the first paragraph. Daz manages to mesh Latino and American cultures in a fresh, exuberant way; his writing is unlike that of any other contemporary author I have yet encountered.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a work of metafiction, which makes the linguistic code-switching employed by the (seemingly omniscient) narrator(s) that much more extraordinario: the Spanglish sounds so crisp; the hilarious informality of street vernacular, both American and Hispanic, juxtaposes smoothly with the distinguished prose of a practiced writer, and our dear principal narrator-author executes this meta-duality in masterful fashion.

I admired the many allusions, ya sutil o no, to works of fantasy and science fiction, employed in the book to characterize both Wao and the primary narrator. I love the Lord of the Rings and the references to LOTR in particular profoundly demonstrate just how much Oscar relied on it to keep him going in life.

This book is especially impactful to me, as I am fluent in English and Spanish and have grown up and lived in both cultures (specifically Mexican as opposed to Dominican, but many Latin cultural values and paradigms are similar). I can relate to las luchas del pobre Oscar in many ways, and I have seen the struggles he and his family experience in this book in the lives of those dear to me.

Wao is well worthy of the Pulitzer it earned, and I look forward to reading more of Daz's work.
617328
Valdez-Rodriguez is a promising new writer.  As a Hispanic who reads, writes and thinks in English, I appreciate her style, content and ability to break the rules.
The Dirty Girls Social Club is a funny novel that touches our realities in a smooth easy to read way.  I enjoyed her treatment of each character, her ability to weave social situations, and her humor.  Unlike Hispanic literature from native Spanish speakers, or translated works, Valdez-Rodriguez is a writer for us here in the US - "Latinos" come in all shapes, colors and from diferent socio/economic backgrounds.  Any book that tries to put us in a box is bound to be critized, and this book will certainly have its critics.  However, there is no reason why some Latinas should not be snobby, materialistic, and on the prowl for men with money.  Welcome to America!
Read the book and keep an eye on her (hopefully) future works.
Joel
956452
I'm not sure how I missed Alejandro Zambra until now. He's the author of three other novels and one of them, Bonsai, won Chile's Literary Critics' Award for Best Novel. He's written for the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Tin House, Harper's, McSweeneys, and Junot Diaz calls him a "total knockout" yet when I found My Documents on Amazon it only had eight reviews. It's one of the best books I've read all year.

I suppose it's technically a book of eleven short stories, but when you're done you feel like you've finished a novel. The stories could revolve around the same character at different parts of his life, before and after Pinochet. Though Zambra writes with equal heart and melancholy, he also has a lovely sense of humor as he describes, for instance, the way all of the children in his primary school were known to each other by the numbers they'd been assigned, or the way that a young man's first desktop computer comes to be symbolic of a doomed love affair.

I am in love with the way Zambra sees the world--how he draws meaning from the tiniest idiosyncratic moments. I'll be reading his other books in short order.
2709585
There ar a few prolific writers that I can remember, Zane Grey, E. S. Gardener, Tom Clancy and others that as long as they write their books w/o another writer's "contribution" that have the quality and the wit to have a book after another and all are great books.
Each writer in it's own field has been great. Baldacci is going to become a classic in its own right if he keeps producing entertaining suspensful books like his "Camel Group", King and Maxwell that has been converted in another TV serial, that will keep you page after page.