Can't believe I had never read this after all these years.
341063
This was my older sister's favorite book growing up. Despite my love of  reading, I had yet to read it.  It's an  Innocent  portrayal of growing up and experiencing all life's nuances through  the good,  tough,  and amusing.
371749
I can't believe I put off reading this for decades! One of the best books ever written; no wonder this is a classic. I refrained from reading the synopsis so the thrill of uncovering the plot was heightened. I could definitely read this novel again.
235840
I still find it odd that some (if not most) people will never re-read a book. I've just re-read this one because it was my first McEwan and I was so unfamiliar with his odd story structure that the essence of the book didn't stay with me. But that was something like ten years ago. I like to think I've grown as both reader and writer in that time, so I knew the book would speak volumes to me now.

It does. But given that you might not have read it, a little something about the storyline.

English couple June and Bernard Tremaine are former Communists who have married immediately following WWII, Jenny their daughter, who subsequently marries the story's narrator, Jeremy. By the time Jeremy and Jenny marry, the parents are separated, and Jeremy is fascinated with both, who use their son-in-law as a conduit to one another. By now both have forsaken communism, Bernard for something of a secular humanist approach to life, June immersed in spiritual practices. The book's - and Jeremy's - project is to discover the nature of their growing apart, presumably as a tool of understanding to prevent something similar from happening to Jenny and him. On the way to such understanding, Jeremy unearths the singular moment of the older couple's division, an event occurring in France's Midi, involving a pair of black dogs.

McEwan weaves his story back and forth in time and centers it on the heady days of the fall of the Berlin Wall. McEwan's - and Jeremy's - tone here is one of reasoned detachment, but that does little to erase the mystery of June's experience with these black dogs, an event the Bernard didn't witness and wishes to rationalize away.

Here the author personalizes the eternal conflict between human experience and humanity's fascination with what might lie beyond such experience. It's a skillful, tastefully told tale, measured as perhaps only McEwan can do today in giving us literary insight.

My rating: 19 of 20 stars
1457659
This is a marvelous story. I didn't remember the ending, but it's been many years since I first read it.
3448780
This was the first book I ever read without putting it down in about 1987.  I have read it once more and am about to purchase a new copy.  My dad recommended this to me and I recently recommended my gf read it. She did and devoured it like myself.  This may be one of the more under appreciated books, I've read.  Would be potentially a great movie.
955686
I did not read this book when it came out. I was sure that I
would be influenced by ongoing events and I wouldn't have
really enjoyed it. So I left on my library and forgot about it
until now.  Now that the USA is trying to pull out of Afghanistan
the way it does, and the upcoming resurgence of the
enemy, it caught my eye. And what an eye opener it is.
He makes things plain and simple
I am amazed how this book hasn't become a must read text book
for most governments on the so called WOT. Although the book
has its flaws, especially if you read it after 6-7 years, still
it can still teach people today how to go about while fighting
Islamists, because the same mistakes described in the book
are the ones that are continuously committed now.

One must remember that this is an older book so the reader
must keep in mind that for example Osama Bin Landen is alive at the time
it was written or that the drones did not have the great
devastating effect that they have now
1361395
I first read this book while in High School. I was the first person to check it out in our library. 40 years later it's like reading a new book. If you have never read this book it's a must.
3637917
I was not disappointed.  What a book - I can't believe this was written so long ago.  You will not be disappointed.
954028
I can't believe I never read this before now! A very easy to read classic.
742351
I'm a misanthrope.  I guess that I was one of the 8 or 9 people who read this book when it came out as a pulp paperback in the late 1970's.  I was so stunned, shocked, and horrified, by this book that I literally couldn't get anyone else to read it.  My mind was so captured by the characters that  I couldn't work without wondering "where are they now?"  "What is happening?"  I had to take off work to finish the book.
Now here it is...20+ years later.  I still remember when Thinner came  out and the world discovered Stephen King was Richard Bachman.  I had  become a Stephen King fan and was very happy, elated, and suprized, that he  authored a book that to this day invades my waking space and my  nightmares.
I'll be blunt.  It's not the best written novel I've ever  read, but it is the most gripping.  Be careful, be honest, and beware,  "The Long Walk" is coming.
3561762
It seems like this book was super-great when I first read it about 40 years ago.  I haven't been able to forget it.  I am excited to see it is in print again---but why was it ever out of print?  It is timely, provocative and just plain great reading for any age.
1050193
I spent decades trying to remember the title of this book and the author. My brother had tried me to get to read Heinlein for years and I refused, not knowing I had already read and loved this book. Like others, this may very well have been the first science fiction book I ever read and I can't wait to reread it.
2644932
Read again after 30 years. Don't know how much a 9th grade English teacher expected students to get out of this novel, but as an adult, reading this story made me think of ways we evaluate and try to make people over in our own image. A real stunner.
2156935
I'm in my late 30s and I remember reading this at the library when i was in early grade school. I loved it then and still do. And, no joke, the stories about the hitchhiker and the scarf girl have been permanently stuck in my head since then.

Over the years, I couldn't remember the name of this book so I've never been able to buy it. That is until Buzzfeed randomly did an article about it back in March or April. I was so hyped I ordered this almost immediately.
192527
I reread this book since it had been about 60 years since I'd last read it and I've been visiting some Mark Twain sites lately.  I was amazed at how much of the story I had forgotten over the years.  It was good when I read it the first time and it was good the second time as well.  Mark Twain was an excellent story teller and his books are timeless.
1327920
I can't believe I'm not the only person to have ever read this book.  I read it first when I was about 10, around 21 years ago.  It has always stuck with me.  But every time I've ever told anyone about it they've never  heard of it.  It was such an imaginative book, I felt like I was actually  there as I read it.  I've been drawn back to it over the years and I  believe it is still at our local public library, but I've never had a copy  of my own.  I would love to know where I could get a copy.  It's too bad a  book this good is so hard to find.
741859
I was never forced to read this book in school, and had only picked it up (secondhand) because the title had lodged itself in the back of my mind.  I'm glad to have discovered it. I'm a fan of Salinger, and Pynchon, and Heller, and most anyone who writes of the (probably passe by now) moral ambivilance of the modern world. Whatever you may think of the stance taken by these authors, I think you will find, as I have found, that this book anticipates that attitude, one which I had always associated with the late 1950's. Reading "All the Kings Men" has given me much insight into the great books which came later, as I consider how those authors must have thought and felt, creating their work with Mr. Warren hanging over them. "All the Kings Men" is a fabulous work, and I'm not sure that its treatment of ethics has been surpassed by those which came after.