One Of The Great American Novels
599145
This edition of LITTLE WOMEN is great!  First of all, there's the wonderful story of the March family in the years during and after the Civil War, as the 4 daughters -- Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy -- grow to womanhood, experiencing joy and overcoming obstacles and tragedy.  This edition stays true to the language and grammar used in the original.  I have read versions of the novel in which the girls' grammar is cleaned up for them!

In addition, the introduction by Susan Cheever is first-rate; it is neither too long or too short, and she beautifully ties it to her own experience without being cloying.

Another reason why I so highly recommend this edition is because there is a glossary at the back to explain some of the obscure (to modern readers) terms and obsolete slang.  Also, there's a nice essay/review by G.K. Chesterson, who warmly praises Alcott's book.
920473
One of the greatest novels ever written.. For a young girl growing up in the South, it is a must st read..
3514621
How this novel has only garnered 14 reviews on Amazon is beyond me. This is one of the great American novels of the 20th century and is a "must read" for any student of letters, for any aspiring novelist. Styron's style is poetic and majestic; the novel is a beautiful read. It is a joy to read. Every page reveals new wonders and delicate crafting of the English language.
1481137
One of the best novels I have ever read. It's about a family and an illness. It's also about love, friendship, careers, marriage, and children. Beautifully written, with great sensitivity and brilliance. Highly recommended for those who love a great novel.
825231
I reread this in two days, in conjunction with a terrific new biography of Fitzgerald, "Paradise Lost," by David S. Brown. I was amazed most by The Great Gatsby's romance, its plotting, its implicit commentary about American social values and ethics as the new century took hold after WW I and Americans saw fortunes to be made. Class and racial distinctions, along with anti-Semitism, were just part of the landscape and are presented as such, as if in a time capsule revealing what everyone just accepted. What is timeless about this book, which many consider the Great American Novel of the 20th century ("Moby Dick" being the 19th century's Great American Novel), are the complex psychological portraits of its characters (Daisy, Nick, Tom, Jay, Jordan, George Wilson,), the sweeping scope of its portrait of America, which still holds up today, the beauty of its descriptive prose, and the poetry of its shimmering romance. It's a wonderful piece of art that deserves its place high up in the American literary canon. This novel overturned all the Victorian claptrap of 19th century literature and consciously focused on the real and modern world, complete with "immoral" behavior, drinking, totally selfish and unethical people, and the drive for freedom from hypocritical piety. A true masterpiece, worth reading twice!
285601
This book ABSOLUTELY belongs on the very short list of Great American Novels.  What blows me away is that I never heard one word about it, even  though I majored in English in college.  That can only be due to the book's somewhat (and highly marginalized) salacious backstory... which was too hot a topic to be included in the film version.  The book is brilliantly written, and its world brilliantly observed.  Ultimately depressing, yes.  But brilliantly so.
4662125
Just when you thought the great American novel could no longer be reinvented, Anthony Reeves surprises and delights us with Vindicate Society.  This first person narrative tells the epic story of a man, a family, and a nation.  It is a true story of how one man made sense of our country in chaotic times, and it provides insight into how we might continue to make sense of our experiences in our own chaotic times.  Reeves has a way of subtly shocking his readers and causing us to fall hopelessly in love with his characters.
1321171
The Plot Against America is a fictional device that provides American readers with a mental exercise to help understand what it was like to be a Jew during the rise of the Nazis in Europe.  It's one of the most powerful novels that I have read in many years.

The story develops brilliantly in the context of one family, Philip Roth's, and their connections to a few friends and neighbors.  The Roths are a surrogate for the entire Jewish community.  As such, the characters and surroundings have a strong non-fiction resonance that provides an edge over most novels.

To make way for the metaphor, Mr. Roth has to move history around in improbable ways . . . by eliminating FDR as president in 1940 and replacing FDR with a remote and Nazi-cooperating Charles Lindbergh.  Those aspects of the novel are so contrived that it's hard to take them seriously . . . except that you will feel the chill of threat into your very bone marrow from this story.

If you are thinking about reading the story to think about "what if", I think you are making a mistake.  The "what if" isn't all that intriguing.

If you want to read the story as a horror tale, that's the right reason for this book.

A reader can learn a lot from this novel.  Place yourself in the shoes of each of the major characters and ask yourself what you would have done.  If you are honest, you'll recognize how easily we are alternatively swayed and cowed by events and people around us.  It's an important lesson that Mr. Roth provides very well.

As usual for a Philip Roth book, the sentences and descriptions are powerful and effective.  He also keeps you off balance with his plotting.  Although some "what nexts" are pretty easy to anticipate, others aren't . . . and that makes you more and more interested in what happens to these fictional Roths.
4402337
Who would have thought that a 1037-page, 80-year-old novel about a spoiled, petulant teenager in petticoats would completely suck me in, and turn out to be one of the greatest novels of all time?

Everything about this book is beyond superlative--vivid characters, settings that live and breathe, but especially Margaret Mitchell's prose. It would be worthwhile for any writer to study her sentences, every one of which flows with living motion, without a single flowery word. The dialogues between Scarlett and Rhett make sparks fly off the pages!

One could criticize the liberal use of racially offensive terms and the portrayal of happy slaves, but I would disagree. Within the world so meticulously created by the author, a bygone world, for all its faults, that was seen as being in equilibrium before its downfall, to have done otherwise would have been false.

This is truly the Great American Novel, in the top 5 of the greatest books I've ever read, and I suggest that you will thank yourself for reading it. My only regret about finishing Gone With the Wind is that now I can never again read it for the first time.
1612507
One of the greatest novels of the 20th century. I don't know how Modern Library missed this one. Anthony Burgess regarded it as one of the greatest novels of the modern era and so did many other writers and critics. Joyce Cary is a master of colloquial British dialogue and the novel is both uproariously funny and metaphysically profound. Best of all are the unforgettable characters...,,Gulley Jonson, Sara Monday, et, al, Easily the finest novel about a painter and his art and one of my favorites. Easily in my top ten novels of all time
4204205
Why indeed? How about because its the best piece of literature written by an American? The Great Gatsby and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn might claim the title (from me anyway), but Moby-Dick stands out. This novel, which started out as just another novel about a sea-faring voyage, morphed into something much more: a meditation on the great world.

Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the award winning In the Heart of the Sea about the whaling ship Essex tragedy that affected Melvilles work, writes a brief and perceptive appreciation of this great book. Philbricks book works well because his brief chapters reference scenes and characters from Moby-Dick that serve as a gateway to a deeper understanding of Melville, its time (America headed unknowingly into the crucible of the Civil War), and its characters. Each character plays a role in the drama of a ships crew, the great oceans, and the Universe. Philbrick reminds us that Melville has packed so much into this book some think is  "about a whale". Moby-Dick, for all its profundity, is in parts quite humorous, informational, didactic, and deeply insightful about human relations and our relation to world. Philbricks book reminds us of this. If, like me, youve only listened to it once (Ive never read it), Philbricks book reminds you of why you can read it again (and again) with great profit and growing appreciation.

If you're wondering about why people make such a fuss about Moby-Dick, or if you read it as a youth and found it a bore, then pick-up Philbricks book and read it to gain insights into Melville and his great book and to motivate you to go read Melvilles masterpiece.

Postscript: Ive listened to two of the (what I consider) three of the greatest American novels. (I also listened to Gatsby. I read Huck Finn in high school.) While I intend to go back and read Moby-Dick and The Great Gatsby, I value and recommend the listening experience. The performance (more than just a reading) of Moby-Dick by Frank Muller is outstanding. It got me into a book that I had started a couple of times but that I'd become bogged down in. Now I know where Im going. For a fine appreciation of audio books, enjoy this NYT piece by Stanford anthropologist T.M. Luhrmann. By the way, I, too, have memories of passages from books that I heard associated with places. My favorite venue for listening was driving my car (not so much lately), but planes and trains work. Walking serves as a fine occasion for listening, too.
2219805
this is great piece of american literature that is too often overlooked.  i've read that 'the lady or the tiger' was the birth of the mystery novel - i'm not sure if that's true, but does take an analytical look at human nature that's far ahead of its time (even though it's a bit 'flat' by today's standards).  i find the sequel, 'the discourager of hesitantcy' even more interesting with a much more structured narrative.
78330
Probably the first great American novel. The infamous "N-word", so integral to the plot, still is painful to read even in historical perspective, and it's easy to see why the book gets banned so often from high-school reading lists. Twain's use of dialect is careful and character-related, and his observations of life on and about the river are often laced with sheer beauty. Coming back to this book more than fifty years after first reading it, I'm shocked by my failure to remember two important scenes of senseless murder, and by my memory's rendering of two outrageous swindlers into amiable rogues.

The book has one serious artistic failing, though. The last quarter is corrupted by the dominance of Tom Sawyer, whose romanticism trivializes the story, and finally renders a heroic journey into a pointless practical joke. Still, a monumental work, and it makes great reading aloud.
1780393
This is one of the great American novels. As a veteran teacher I've had very few students who didn't come to love this book. It's ideal to read outloud so the students can experience  the dialect that Twain reproduces so well.
1152304
one of the best American novels ever written especial the last few pages when Fitzgerald talks about the American Dream -
3270616
This novel has every element of a classic American novel. Post-war England is contrasted with the newly independant India. The characters are multi-dimensional, unlike too many "cardboard" characters in current writings. Character development is a key element of the novel, though the plot is engrossing as well. The reader is drawn into the story from page one and each page has some pithy observation which the reader is eager to discuss with someone else. There are subtle leit-motivs if one is inclined to look for them. Besides the philosophical comparisons of various marriages, religions, countries, values, happiness, there seem to be subtle questions about loyalty to one's country, mate, family, history and other human importances. This is a book that I will read again, even though there are yet so many unread books out there. After a marathon of reading this summer, finding this gem outweighs all the precious time spent reading mediocre books. After reading the last paragraph of this book I was reluctant to begin another. What can follow perfection?
264017
American Studies, very sadly out of print at the moment (but surely not for long), is one of the great gay novels of the 20th century. Narrated by a gay man in hospital after being beaten by a trick, the novel tells the story of F.O. Matthiessen, a great American literary critic who committed suicide in 1950 after being outed and ostracized at Harvard, where he taught for more than twenty years. Most importantly, though, Merlis writes like an angel, every sentence beautifully made, charming, amusing, and moving. It is as perfect as a novel can be.