Paris

I highly recommend this fast-paced and well written novel. It is a story about mothers and daughters, full of heart and humor. Paris Match will make a great gift for my own mother. I anticipate reading Ms. Reid's next book -- and can only hope that it will be released soon!

I read Paris Match and loved every page of it. It was a very easy to read book, and I loved it. There are events in the book that keep you on the edge of your seat. Also the writing is very descriptive and well written. The characters are awesome, and you really get to know them. I loved this book and I definatley recomend it to anyone who is looking for a good book!

This certainly was an enjoyable read, an ideal holiday novel.

This is the only guide that I brought with me to Paris for my 2 months stay there. Here's what I like about this book:

1. The food dictionary on the back! Eventhough I can speak/write/read some French that I don't need to carry regular dictionary around, the food terms sometimes confusing and this book has an excellent section on it.

2. The recipes are worth trying. I tried her recipes for madeleine and financiers, both turned out excellent.

3. Ms. Wells not only give restaurant guides but also specialty shops, bakery, etc. Some of the recommendations are well secluded from mainstream tourists. A trully excellent find.

Here's what I don't like about this book:

1. Many of the restaurants featured are expensive, especially for 2 months stay in Paris. I think there's plenty of cheap and reasonably good food that I could find. I used Ms. Well's recommendation for weekends/special occasions.

2. I think this book is a bit too heavy/thick to carry around.

This book is essential for anyone interested in French cuisine. I have eagerly read all four editions--as well as all of Ms. Wells' other books. French and American friends who live in Paris have agreeds that there is no better survey of Paris's top gastronomic attractions than this book.

I am by nature a nit-picker but have yet to find an inaccuracy in any of her books. Well worth while!

On our first visit to Paris I wanted everything to be perfect. Thank-You Patricia Wells for guiding my husband and I to the best spots (in our price range) for pastries, lunch, dinner and chocolates. Some of my favorites: Boulangerie - Kayser, Restaurant - L'Epi Dupin, Chocolates - Chocotruffe.

This is the letter I sent to Lonely Planet...I hope it helps!

I have taken my time about emailing you with my comments - because of how frustrated I was with your book (LP Paris)- I didn't want to waste any more of my time emailing! I bought a Paris only book because I wanted a detailed book on Paris - I have travelled there quite a bit before, so I wanted some help to see and enjoy some out of the way aspects of the city. After seeing many people with the Green Guide(s), I purchased it. However, I hated its alphabetical organization - and its maps were dreadful. So I paid more than 20 euros for the LP Paris guide. I was sorely disapointed. I cannot comment on restaurants or hotels because I was staying with friends. I did notice quite a few very nice vegetarian restaurants that were not in the guide. I did enjoy using the maps - they were helpful. However...(in no particular order)...
1. The listings of internet cafes is really lame. Your reviewer lists only the MOST expensive ones and misses many cheaper ones relatively nearby - or not. Yes, they may come and go (the EasyInternet is long closed, by the way) but still the list is inadequate.
2. The Musee Rodin - first of all I had a hard time finding it in the index - Auguste Rodin, fine. The reviewer fails to mention the excellent audioguide. See next.
3. Musee de la Magic and Curiosite (whatever), this place is crap. The curiosity side is junk - lame optical illusions and dusty old wind up toys. The magic is about 10 minutes worth, well done, but the admission is around 7 or 8 euros. A rip off. The audioguide is one of the worst ever. Technically it doesn't work and the pronunciation and grammar are next to useless. This was about 4 or 5 euros. I am certain that your reviewer did not go to this place. This is what a guide is supposed to be about - letting me know the scoop and saving me some money! This is Paris, not Pyongyang - the reviewer(s) should get it right, it isn't like this is some new place to go! Wear out some shoe leather!
4. Musee National des Arts d'Afrique et d'Oceanie - hello Steve! This is closed! It was planned for some time.
5.Fontainebleu - you mention the SNCF combination ticket (good) but don't say where it can be purchased - only one booth 2 floors below the Gare de Lyon. I spent almost 45 minutes looking all around for it - along with some nice German tourists. Go the extra mile Mr. Fallon, actually get out there and help! See next!

6. Probably the most lame and infuriating...the 183 bus to Orly-Sud. Hey why not mention that there are, in fact, TWO 183s - one that actually goes to the airport and one that only goes as far as the Maire. I found out the hard way, losing almost an hour getting onto the right 183 after merrily skipping onto the 183 waiting at the metro stop (enjoying my "good" luck). By the way I know you didn't actually take this bus, either (shoe leather, shoe leather) because, had you done so, you couldn't have failed to notice the block of slightly rundown apartments designed by Le Corbusier which the bus runs right by! I barely made my plane. Again, travel guides are supposed to be written from real experience, not from some internet search or a phone call to the Tourist Agency. Boooo!
7. This criticism is not unique to this book - I am simply tired of carrying around extra pages - 7 pages of LP advertisements, but even more annoying, the at least 30 pages of the standard LP guidance (10% of this book) to wit: a section on litter, business hours, drinking and driving (duh), "air travel glossary", HIV/AIDS organisations (important yes, but why is it in a travel guide?)...so much of this is just re-hashed from LP guide to LP guide.
8. Finally, the maps are well drawn, but the indexes associated with them are absurd. They assume you know WHERE the place is, so you can find the number!! NO, I don't know where it is (yes, that is why I am using the map!), so I want to LOOK IT UP, ALPHABETICALLY! Listing numerically only helps if e.g. you are near #161 and are curious to know what else is around in the area, but even then you must pick them out of the index because they are further broken down (eating,drinking, the ever helpful "other"), and not strictly number order.
9. Along with the not just in this guide part, I find it really rapacious of you to mention your "Ekno" phone card. It is SO EXPENSIVE!! Can you be any more biased? I bought a Delta Multimedia card for 15 euros, available at pretty much any tobacco shop, and got 400 minutes of calling to the US!! This was from a private phone - from a public phone it was worth 100 minutes. Your Lame-O Ekno is 49 cents a minute!! Please!
OK that is most of it! I am very disapointed in this guide. It should be super, FILLED with information based on actual experience - and it is clear that it is not.

I think Lonely Planet is just resting on its laurels with this one. Everyone knows where to go in Paris, it is the details that would make a book worth buying. Too often, this book doesn't have them.

Like most Lonely Planet publications, this one tells you everything you need to know about the target locale, in this case Paris. It is a bit matter-of-fact in some areas where I would like to see more enthusiasm from the author, for example, about the lovely Montorgueil area, recently gentrified, and quite charming. But, in general, I would consider this a fairly reliable guide.

For my wife, 14-year-old nephew, 12-year-old neice and I, the Lonely Planet guide to Paris was perfect. (Nephew and neice to uncle: "No museums!") It suggested renting bicycles at the train station to ride to Giverny and told us on which days and at what times we could rent toy boats in the Jardin du Luxembourg -- two highlights of our trip. It suggested getting the Carte Orange Metro pass and explained the airports so well that we had the courage to take the train into the city (which worked out very well). The one restaurant suggestion we took from the guidebook (Le Bateau Lavoir in Montmarte) was very nice. The maps were useful (but you still need a pocket map book) and the book is not too large or fat. I liked the color pictures before the trip, and now that I open the book, I like them even more as a momento. We also had the Frommers, Michelin and Eyewitness Paris books. They were better as references. The Lonely Planet guide was better to have at hand while we were out and about. I wish it gave prices in Euros and not Francs, but I assume the next edition will.

Like the majority of sequels, the second is never as good as the first. Norton the star now dines on Pounce pizza prepared by superstar chef Wolfgang Puck, stays in a famous New Orleans hotel that has a no-pets policy, tours the United States on the TV talk-show circuit, and receives fan mail and photos from humans as well as cats. Most of this book describes Norton and Peter's year in Provence, where Norton's days in a beautiful 300-year-old country home are filled with naps in the garden, exploring the neighborhood, and more napping in the lap of his human. I think you need to be a cat person to really understand the humor in this book.

Anybody that loves cats will love this book! The cat, Norton, is unbelievably smart! Norton goes everywhere with his human, Peter Gethers - to the best restaurants and hotels. The book is also a wonderful diary of their trip to the Provence region of France and nearby areas. The book has a happy ending (I never read books if anything bad happens to the animal). In fact, I believe Norton goes on to write his own book, "Historical Cats".

Before you read another of word of this glowing review, know this: I am an unabashed, unambiguous, gushing and adoring Norton-phile - and I always will be. If you're looking for objectivity, you won't find it from this reviewer..."A Cat Abroad" was author Peter Gethers's second installment in his trilogy of Norton-ology. Originally published in 1993, the book chronicled the adventures of a precious Scottish Fold named Norton, whose enchanting and coquettish personality, singular intelligence and other-worldly savvy endeared him to all who knew him - or read about him. Norton was such a brilliant little creature - and such a treasured companion to Gethers - that his stunning physical beauty could have been a mere sideline to his power and magnetism. But it wasn't. Norton was so staggeringly cute and handsome (those ears! those eyes - which look like irridescent half-moons when he looks down! The fur like spun silk!) that he commanded the attention - and deference - of Oscar-winning actors, filmmaking geniuses, hotel managers, restaurant proprietors, best-selling authors (i.e., Gethers), and anyone else who had the pleasure of meeting him. Of course, there was much, much more to Norton than a handsome face and physique, as Gethers lovingly depicts here. Norton guided his owner's professional sphere, love life, and varied friendships with skill and ease - and taught him many lessons in the process. In return, Gethers provided his beloved little companion with the most wonderful life any animal has ever enjoyed. (Get a load of the answer Gethers provides when one Norton fan asks him, "Why won't my cat act like Norton?" Trust me, Gethers was the owner Norton was born to have....) How it warms the heart to read of Norton's intriguing adventures throughout Europe and how he charmed everyone within purring distance with his charisma and stellar comportment! In the first Norton installment (The Cat Who Went to Paris), Gethers describes his first meeting with his new friend - and how he lost his heart in approximately one-tenth of a second. "I don't think he's a normal cat," Gethers was told, in what was probably the understatement of the year. Sadly, however, Norton had one trait in common with the remainder of the feline race - length of life...If you think you know all there is to know about pet loss and grief read this book - as well as "The Cat Who Went to Paris" and "The Cat Who'll Live Forever." Norton has captured a part of my heart as no other animal ever has - and it's a love that endures beyond death.

We brought this guide along as the one of two that we chose to lug all the way across the Atlantic. One was this one, the other was Frommers France (much heftier than this one). After two days of trying to make this one work we finally gave up and carried the Frommers around everywhere because we could never find restaurants or enough information in the Access guide. It was really frustrating to stand at the Louvre, look across the street at a massive church and find absolutely no entry in the access guide. It is very difficult to find a restaurant by type of cuisine (French, Alpine, Chinese) and many of the hours of museums and restaurants where incorrect in the guide, causing us a lot of lost time in futile trips. Definitely opt for the Frommers Paris or Frommers France books if you have a choice. They were great

Better for pre-trip planning, you can sit in bed at night reading the insightful, almost personal descriptions of the restaurants, shops, galleries, hotels, parks, and markets that make up Paris. Seperated in the book by geographic areas, reading along is like walking along the streets, giving you an opportuinty to think ahead of time of some of the places you might want to explore or experience. Good information on hotels, descriptions that give you a feel for the places.
Quirky because, although you can find a great jazz club with hours open from 10pm to 3am in this guide, it won't tell you what time the Louvre or the Effiel Tower closes. The guide will give an acceptable descripton of a tourist attraction, then segue into a description of the bookstore, the cafeteria, the park next door without ever mentioning when might be a good time to visit along with the other tourists.
I enjoyed refering to it in the months before the trip.

We recently took this and two other guide books to Paris, and as another reviewer said, we did not even bother to carry the others with us after the first day. The guide is excellent for seeing the city on foot and attempting to experience the essence of the many different quarters. If you're looking for "the best of Paris in 2-3 days" you might look elsewhere. This book leaves it to you to decide what you feel is important to see (because there is just that much) and gives information according to location. A map is at the beginning of each section with numbers corresponding to all the things listed to see, do, eat and buy in that area. While restaurants are not listed by ethnicity, it never took us long to locate the kind of restaurant we were looking for in the book. In addition, each section contains a good introduction to the history of the quarter and the essence one should try to get from it.
My only complaint is that the street maps do not point out Metro stops, and we sometimes had to do guess work to calculate our routes after exiting the Metro. (though there is a convenient Metro plan inside the back cover)

Those looking for a straightforward narrative, go elsewhere but those looking for charming insights into the heart of the Parisian bohemian scene from roughly 1905-1933, this is the book. Stein's genius was to write the book as if one was actually having a conversation with her partner, Alice B. Toklas. Famous figures come in and out of the story: Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Fitzgerald, Hemingway. Not only is this a book about people but it's also a book about the heady days before World War 1 and the general unease and regrouping that was done after the war. You get plenty of insights about the art scene, and by the end of the book, find yourself wishing you could be sitting in Stein's salon, looking at all the paintings.

This book can be read straight through from cover to cover or it can be read in bits and pieces and there is no lack of enjoyment from reaidng it either way.

This is the book that brought Stein into mainstream society, and not without reason. Considerably more accessible than her other work, she relays the story of her life through the personna of Alice B. Toklas, her life-long companion. Primarily consisting of remarks about the various movers of the Paris art and literary scene that took place at the turn of the century, Stein, above all, isn't afraid to say just what she thinks. However, her wry anecdotes and asides are not written without the greatest of attention to style, and the reader finds each sentence to be representative of the orignality in grammatical structure that made her famous.

This book is an interesting look at the art and literary scene of Paris at the turn of the century. This book is actually more of an autobiography of Gertrude Stein, but supposedly is written through the eyes of her longtime companion Alice Toklas. Many who knew Toklas said that Stein imitated her voice and style perfectly, and perhaps that is why it is considered such a great work of literature. For my part I enjoyed the narrative, thought I was not particularly fond of the way it was written. I realize this is a style unique to Stein, but it just didn't work for me.

The most fascinating part of this work is seeing such great figures as Picasso and Hemingway through the eyes of Stein/Toklas. Even TS Eliot makes a brief appearance. The narrative is very interesting for this reason--with all these great figures around, how could it not be amusing? And, of course, Stein does not hesitate to use the medium of Toklas to proclaim that she is one of the three actual 'geniuses' that Toklas has ever met (incidentally, this short list excludes both Hemingway and Eliot). In fact there is an awful lot of egotism apparent throughout this book, and it is very irritating at times. Still, this is a very interesting look at Paris before, during, and after the first World War, and provides fascinating insight into a circle of painters, musicians, and literary figures that I'm sure many people would gladly give a limb to have belonged to.

This is my sixth Bellow novel. For first timers, I would highly recommend Henderson the Rain King over this work because Henderson is an easier, funnier, and more exuberant read--a great parody of the Hemmingway novel. That said, Mr. Sammler's Planet is classic Bellow. The protagonist, Mr. Sammler, is heroically flawed (as all of Bellow's protagonists are) and is caught at a point in his late life where numerous themes challenge his moral center: misogyny, pessimism, death, the human condition, the social contract, filial duty, the achievements of science, and modern western philosphy among other themes--and in any great Bellow work, there are so many themes!

The narrative is simple: a close third person point of view brings us inside Mr. Sammler's head as he interprets and analyzes the events in his life: his dying nephew, a pick pocket who assualts him, greedy relatives, a missing manuscript, and his Holocaust experience. There are long philosophic digressions, sometimes humorous, sometimes didactic, that can frustrate, confuse, and enlighten the reader, all within the space of a single paragraph. This density of thought is one of the supreme challenges of Bellow, but as an ardent fan (who only "gets" a mere fraction of what he's talking about), the payoff is exponentially greater than the effort I put in. The only narrative flaw I find is in the dialogue between Sammler and Dr. Lal. It's structured in a Platonic form--reminiscent of the final chapter in Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man--and the section seems forced and stilted compared to the rest of the novel.

Bellow's prose is as strong as ever. We return to New York City in the late 1960s, much filthier and more violent than the setting of Seize the Day. His descriptions of people and places are vibrant, and his comic timing masterful.

Ultimately, Mr. Sammler's climatic quest, like all of Bellow's protagonists, lies not in some external feat of physical valor but in a confrontation with the progtagonist's soul. Faced with the death of his nephew, Sammler must come to terms with his life as holocaust survivor, elitist intellectual, misogynist, and man.

Saul Bellow is not for everyone... But if you are introspective, self critical, and enjoy philosophic and comic writing, than this would be an ideal 2nd or 3rd Bellow novel.

This review is to refute some of the negative customer reviews. Anyone who is reading only for plot is reading on a very superficial level. I had never read Bellow and didnt know what to expect. After a few pages, I wasnt sure I wanted to continue, but I'm glad I did. I felt this book was, among other things, like opening a time capsule from the late 1960s. I did not at all feel the author was preaching his own views or that the characters were not developed. The author delves deep into the mind of a well-educated man who is a Holocaust survivor, living in New York when the city was decidedly at a low point and confronted with hippie-era social and political attitudes. I don't know if this story is autobiographical, but it is not plotless, dull or stupid. I urge potential readers to ignore those comments.

This was my introduction to Saul Bellow and I probably shouldn't have started with this one, because all the others probably pale in comparsion to this. They have to. Anyone this good would have to be some inhuman writing machine. Wow.

Sammler is a human being like the rest of us tackling questions that we all have given passing thought to at least once in our lives. He may come to a firm conclusion about them, but he gives it his best shot, even as he deals with his family, including his dying nephew.

The best part about this novel are the stream of consciousness narratives that show us the ebb and flow of Sammler's thoughts, where most of his thinking takes place. Here are the best scenes in the novel, and Bellow does it with ease, showing that he is influenced by Joyce but not mastered by him, taking his techinques and refining them to the next level.

Anyone interested in reading about the sixties should try this book, or just anyone who has ever stood and watched something happen and wonder why they didn't do anything, and wonder why. So does Artur Sammler.

I'm not sure what the competition was in 1988, but I find it hard to believe that Pete Dexter's "Paris Trout" was the best the American literary community had produced that year for the National Book Award. This award giving out to the most outstanding work of Fiction in a given year includes the names of past honorees, William Faulkner, Delillo, Gaddis, Roth, etc. I'm sorry to say that Pete Dexter is not one of these. The premise behind the story has promise. A small town racial murder and how that town and the main characters deal with the aftermath. We do find ourselves frightened of Trout, shocked by the blatant racism, and fearful of the silent acceptance that lies beneath, but in Dexter's hands the story falls short. The writing doesn't come across as anything above the norm. Some of the plot events seem to be thrown in just for shock value and nothing more. Out of all the books that my wife and I have read aloud together "Paris Trout" is one of the more forgettable. If you are looking at knocking of some National Book Award winners, go read Delillo's "White Noise." The award going to "Paris Trout" in '88 just seems a little fishy to me.

This book is about a truly evil person- PARIS TROUT- and the collection of misfit's and sad people he affect's. From the poor girl he kill's to his wife, to his lawyer, he destroy's everything around him . After reading about these sad people in post-war GEORGIA you might need a shower.

Paris Trout centers around a character of the same name. Though he is clearly a psychopath, he has money and is a business man, so his violent nature is ignored by the citizens of his small town, Cotton Point, Georgia. The book opens with an attack by Trout on a local black family. The town's white population does not want to be seen siding with a black family against a white man, so, from then on they turn a blind eye towards Trout and allow him to bully the legal system. Also involved in this hard boiled drama are Trout's wife Hanna and Harry Seagraves, Trout's good-guy lawyer. The book is framed as the story of a very bad man terrorizing a sleepy town, but the amazing thing about it is the way Dexter slowly turns the tables until it becomes clear that the complacency of the townspeople is a far greater sin than the murderousness of someone who lives among them. Though it reads like genre fiction with gripping suspense and at times remarkable violence, the subtle play on the psychology of a small town elevates the book to a remarkable literary novel. Although, I should say, if this book were not as deep and were merely a legal thriller, I would still have found it to be fantastic based on the strength of Dexter's writing. A great book.

I might have enjoyed this novel more had I not read Hilary Mantel's brilliant A Place of Greater Safety first. As novels about the French Revolution go, City of Darkness... is a decent read and doesn't embarrass itself with any horrible historical howlers, but can't hold a candle to Mantel's delicious and penetrating characterization and diabolically ironic writing style.

Having six alternating viewpoint characters does water down the story. I sensed that possibly Piercy had wanted to write a novel of the French Revolution from the point of view of the women involved--and only the women--but that her editor persuaded her to include Danton and Robespierre so that there would be a couple of characters that the average reader had actually heard of. Unfortunately, her portrayals of these two figures can't compare with Mantel's complex portraits. I found the portrayals of Claire Lacombe and Pauline Leon much more interesting, primarily because I'd known little about them previously. While this novel is perhaps half as long as Place..., it seems unnecessarily rambling and diffuse in a way that Place... never does.

I can't lay my finger on why, but this book was hard to get through. It usually doesn't take me that long to read a book. I keep thinking its because its seperated up into different characters perspectives---or because it is so detailed. As a historian, I am not too familiar with the French Revolution, so I can't tell you how "accurate" it is. I can tell you to, read the authors introduction, in which she states she superimposed our current culture onto the culture of the French people. IE it means she didn't mess around with historical jargon. I didn't mind that at all---especially since she explained that to us in the introduction. Some others find fault with it, I guess. It depends on what you prefer in historical fiction.
Ms. Piercey tells the story of women from several different walks of life, as well as the story from some of the major players in the Revolution. I can tell you that after I finished this book, I went to the bookstore and looked through a general history of the Revolution and was able to identify everyone pictured in it, as well as all the scenarios and events. So---yes, its very detailed. I liked it, it was just hard to get through...
Theres an actress, a chocolatier, Mme. Roland, whom I didn't care for, Nicholas Condorcet, who I did like, Danton and Robespierre. She shared all different walks of life for me, as far as I'm concerned. I appreciate that she took the time and effort to share with us the different aspects of the people, the very real people of the Revolution. She makes them so real.
She is obviously a feminist, too, by her style. But using her feminist background, she was able to explain to us exactly how and why so much of the Revolution depended on THE WOMEN. And NOT the rich, "educated," women! Pretty good; Just expect to take it slow!!

Piercy's fiction/nonfiction account of the French revolution has high ambitions, and she achieves them--partly. Piercy views this momentous event through the eyes of six people, all of whom are historical characters, but the amount of historical information about each varies greatly. She starts at the top with Nicholas, Danton, and Robespierre, representing the enlightened aristocrat, the pragmatic revolutionary, and the extreme radical. Next on her list is Manon Roland, the wife of a mediocre beaurocrat who exercises influence and power through her husband. Last but certainly not least are Claire and Pauline, two women who led the women's revolution, driven to the streets by the lack of the basic necessities of life--bread, wine, meat--and a desire for equality.

Piercy excels in describing the everyday details of the lives of these people, and makes Danton and Robespierre human. Her portrayal of the Paris of the time, the teeming streets, the houses of the poor, the entertainments, the struggle for food--is masterful. In the cases of Pauline and Claire, she took the little that is known about them and developed them into strong, powerful women.

But Piercy also struggles under the weight of information she tries to incorporate into this "novel," and the result is often plodding. She is a masterful novelist, and "Gone to Soldiers" is a wonderful example of what she can do with a good story that has a historical background. But here she tries to do way too much--explain the politics, the history and life of the time, and also accurately render historical figures in a fictional way while being faithful to the facts we do know. The first third of the book is a chore, as she tries to set everything up for the characters to come together in Paris. It is no accident that her best characters are Claire and Pauline, about whom little is known, and who come alive under her wonderful novelist's pen. The three men are rendered more clumsily, especially when she tries to describe their feelings during historical events. And Manon is a failure--I suspect Piercy got bogged down in trying to be faithful to the autobiography this woman left behind. As the revolution picks up steam, the story does too, but I found myself reading along to find out how they all get out of the mess that they've created, rather than out of real feeling for the characters.

Having said all that, this book does send you back to brush up on the history, and also sparked a very lively discussion in my book club about why the American Revolution was so different. Was it because the English had a much longer tradition of democracy? Was it that a lot of tradition and custom that hampered change had been left behind in the Old World? Or was it because there was no need to take property away from the rich--there were limitless opportunities available to anyone willing to push west and start out fresh on his own land. Probably all of the above.

One cannot lug his audio-visual equipment everywhere he goes, and while keeping back issues of Hustler and Swank close at hand is an option, the chance that these less than wholesome rags may somehow slip out of the briefcase and lie spread open for all eyes on the rush hour LIR to see is not one those with sense would court. Under the Roofs of Paris is, therefore, perfect. On the commute the tired, yet horny, gentleman can peruse its pages secure in the knowledge that his rampant and all-engrossing sexual obssesion will not be discovered. Sure, the brain behind a set or two of prying eyes might know that the author, Henry Miller, wrote some "dirty books", but if it knows that, it knows that he wrote them a long time ago, back when dirty meant the sight of a woman's bare ankles. Chances are however, it won't even get that far. You see, Amazon's sales notwithstanding, people rarely read. They'd like to, even think they should, but they don't, and the guilt they feel at the sight of another engrossed in a book soon morphs into resentment, a resentment so powerful (Who does he think he is, anyway? Reading! Some of us have to work!) that the subject, or even the title, of the volume at hand goes unnoticed. So read away, Masters of the Universe. With Val and the boys your respectability remains in tact. They're better than Viagra. Cheaper too. Just a page or two and John Thursday will be good and ready for wifey's (or the babysitter's) figlet...

Because Miller wrote this for an LA purveyor of smut in 1941 for a dollar per page, you can bet there's a payoff at every turn. Predating Lolita by 14 years, the first few pages, while addressing similar September-May relations, makes Nabokov's masterpiece seem puritanical by comparison. There's no real story here, but vivid descriptions and outrageous situations makes this a stimulating read. Great to share with a loved one. A must for Miller fans and for those seeking sexy textual thrills.

This is like straight-up porn, for your imagination of course. There is virtually no story. If there is, it certainly gets overshadowed by all the sex. It took me long to read this, and it's because I couldn't get over what was going on. There'd be single paragraphs which I'd read over and over... I guess I couldn't believe my eyes. To think up these things is one thing, but to see it written out, is another entirely. This was one of my train-reading books... while I was commuting to work, I'd read on the train. I read THIS book on the train. I'm a lady. I could never divulge the sort of things I had to do before heading to jobs after reading parts of this book. You can physically feel the things that are going on. It's sick, in a good way. If you're up for any of the things mentioned in here, I'd say this book might make a GREAT gift as well. I highly recommend it.