Joyce Carol Oates Does It Again
588599
Joyce Carol Oates continues to amaze her fans with brilliance.  The writing style for this emotional spin through the months following the death of her husband three years ago fits the anguish she felt.  And the style as well as the pace changes as she realizes the new life awaiting her.  This is a must read for widow or widower alike who should find her candid exposure an important part of their own healing.
2496263
I'm a big fan of Joyce Carol Oates but this book left
me feeling like something was missing.  Although
I really enjoy your descriptive writing, this was
almost too much.
934654
Great book as are all of Joyce's. I highly recommend it. She uses excellent real life experiences of herself and others to drive her point home. Everyone can benefit from this good read.
1602219
I think Barbara O'Neal is becoming one of my favorite authors.  I'm so glad I happened to find her on Amazon while looking for a few books to read several months ago.  When you read one of her books you almost feel like you're right there with the person she's writing about or you feel like you know this person really well.
She has another winner in this book.  I loved all of the characters except for her sister Stephanie, who I still don't understand was such a mean spirited person.  Maybe I missed it, but it was never explained. Oh well, she wasn't in it very much anyway. It is one of those rare books you read that you want to find out what happens but you don't want it to end either.  In the parts where the main character Ramona is baking the breads, you can almost smell the bread baking, she describes it so well.
Someone mentioned some sexually explicit scenes in the book.  There is maybe 1 or 2 parts in the book that details some "sexual activity" between Ramona and her long lost love but to me it was touching and needed to be in the book so the reader could feel how Ramona was feeling.
This book would especially appeal to bread bakers, but I would recommend it to anyone.  It is a touching and wonderful story.
I am so looking forward to Ms. O'Neals next book !!!!!!!
2003709
This stunning memoir comes out of the death of Joyce Carol Oates's husband of 48 years.  As a long-time fan of Oates's fiction, I've always been curious about her husband.  Although he was a well-known editor and publisher, he never read Oates work, and I find that fascinating.  How can you be married to one of the country's most prominent novelists and also involved in the world of editors and publishers and not read your wife's work?  I knew there must be a deep and mysterious connection between Oates and Smith, and this lovely memoir reveals that connection as well as the searing pain Oates endures when the connection is unexpectedly broken.

With a combination of seriousness and humor, Oates navigates widowhood and gives us a portrait of her marriage and her understanding of death.  In my opinion, this memoir is one of Oates's strongest works.  People will inevitably compare this to Joan Dideon's A Year of Magical Thinking, but, for me, Oates's memoir is so much more personal and heartfelt than Dideon's.  Both are fantastic books, but this one is better, I think.
3857647
Edna O'Brien is well up to the task of writing Joyce's biography. His difficult nature is explored but in a way that brings one to Joyce's work with an appetite to take on the challenge.
1416195
like every other book there is  of the gilda joyce series i love this book so much that i won't put it down until i'm finished reading it. theis series is not disappointing. this is like the other gilda joyce books but better because of the little twist with her mother getting married. i am always bummed out when i finished reading the last book in the series that jennifer allison doesn't make anymore. but maybe she will surprise me again with another great, fantastic book.
464204
The best of the Rosamond Smith / Oates mysteries. It strikes me as amazing that a writer as good (and exponentially prolific) as Oates can get better, but she does. Her recent forays, including The Barrens and Blonde, are so deliciously subtle in their presentation of characters' thought patterns and multiple levels of motives, that it leaves me staggering with respect for her skills. In her biography, some light is shed on her writing process. Oates seems to eat and breathe writing. She will pick up her manuscript in a taxi and continue scribbling exactly where she left off. The command she exerts over her craft shows in this book. She has mastered the form of paranoid mystery. Her characters ooze their deviant personalities. Even her hero in this book has a deep streak of manic perversity.
If you want to know what goes through the mind of serial killers, read The Barrens and her previous book in this Smith series, Starbright will be with you soon. If you enjoy accessible literary excellence and riveted to your seat bones fiction, you can't go wrong with JCO.
2618060
I loved reading all of the books of T S. Joyce books.. I have read all the ones written can't wait for more
2243603
I just finished a book of her short stories that I didn't like because they were all unresolved, as so many short stories are.  However I loved these 4 novellas;  all had resolutions, as do, of course, her great novels.

Joyce Carol Oates is definitely one of the top ten novelists of the 20th (and now 21st) century:  Great intelligence, great imagination and great story-telling ability.  Having all three is rare indeed.

I only wish her books were kindle specials more often.
4809917
This saga of successful lives torn apart by murder, Oates's 19th novel, appeals to the more sophisticated, mature reader. Ian and Cynthia McCullough, apparently happily married for 26 years, living interesting but average lives (Ian is a demographic expert working in social science research and Glynnis is a food writer working on a cookbook tentatively titled "American Appetites") are suddenly involved in a drunken brawl. Glynnis falls through a window and dies. Ian is charged with murder, goes to trial.
This story, in the hands of one of America's most skillful writers, turns out to be an expose of evidence against American appetites for food, wine, drink, power and sex. This is superb fiction that works on several levels, leaving the thoughtful reader with a great deal to think about.
2782815
This is the first book I have read of Joyce Carol Oates. Now, I want to read all of her books. Her language is so... beautiful. If you are a reader that likes "deep" books, you should definitely read this one.
The story takes place in a University in upstate New York during the 60s. The narrator of the book is an 18-year-old girl, whose real name you never know through out the book, though she likes to call herself "Anellia" sometimes . There's three parts to the book. The first part is when she joins a sorority, full of rich, popular, pretty girls. But "Anellia" is poor and geeky, who looks like a 13-year-old even though she is 18. The second part of the book is when she falls in love with a black philosophy student, who is hesitant at first to let "Anellia", who is white, know and love him. The third part of the book, which I think is the best part of the book, is when she discovers that someone who she thought was dead is not.
I loved this book. I think Joyce Carol Oates is gonna be my second favorite author.{John O'hara is my 1st.} It is great for adults, and teenagers who like adult books.{I am a teenager} It is the kind of book that you'll think about for a while after you finish reading it. But if you are a person who likes "trashy" books with lots of sex scenes and stuff, look somewhere else.
3124255
OMG T.S. Joyce did it again. Another great book I couldn't put down. It made me laugh and cry. I love all her books and can't wait for more.
3972920
I just can't  get enough of T.S. Joyce and her books. Every release I devour in one sitting and they'll never get old.
3668743
Murder meets music in the latest Tori O'Shea adventure.  In typical Tori form we find her again hunting truth and family ties.  This is another winner.  I'm always eager to read the latest Tori installment!
3171254
Dis Mem Ber by author Joyce carol Oates collects together seven short stories which, along with the mystery and suspense outlined in the subtitle, also contain elements of horror. But, since this is Oates, these stories can be read simply for the creep factor, something she excels at  no other author except, perhaps, Poe, can make my skin crawl the way Oates can  or they can be mined for the meanings under the surface eg feminist musings about the position of women in society in the manner of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. However you read them, though, perhaps the thing that makes them so chilling is that they are, at least at some level, conceivable.

As in any compilation, I liked some of these stories more than others. The titular story is perhaps my least favourite entry. Dis Member, is the tale of a little girl named Jill who becomes infatuated with an older relative who hides some very dark secrets. The ones I like best in no particular order are:

Heartbreak - the sibling rivalry between two sisters is exacerbated by the arrival of a handsome relative.

Drowned Girl - the narrator, a university student, sinks slowly into madness as she becomes obsessed with another student whose body was found in a rooftop water tank some months earlier.

The Blue Heron - the story of a new widow who is being harassed by her brother-in-law and depicts, although in a very quiet way, Elizabeth Kubler Ross second stage of grieving  anger.

I can honestly say, though, that there was only a slight gap between my likes and dislikes and I enjoyed them all. The stories are all compelling, atmospheric, and, dare I say, dis turb ing.

Thanks to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review
3818658
I'll Take You There is an unflinching view of the life of an obsessive college student describing her run-in with sorority life and her compulsive love for a black philosophy graduate student. As usual for Oates, this book is filled with remarkable prose that is piercing and haunting. My biggest complaint is the cover, which makes this book look like Chick Lit.  It's not.  Recommended.