|
| The Little Book | 
 enlarge | Author: Selden Edwards
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $12.24
You Save: $13.71 (53%)
New (46) Used (14) Collectible (6) from $12.24
Avg. Customer Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 6027
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.4
ISBN: 0525950613
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780525950615
ASIN: 0525950613
Publication Date: August 14, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
An irresistible triumph of the imagination more than thirty years in the making, The Little Book is a breathtaking love story that spans generations, ranging from fin de siecle Vienna through the pivotal moments of the twentieth century.
The Little Book is the extraordinary tale of Wheeler Burden, California-exiled heir of the famous Boston banking Burdens, philosopher, student of history, legends son, rock idol, writer, lover of women, recluse, half-Jew, and Harvard baseball hero. In 1988 he is forty-seven, living in San Francisco. Suddenly he isstill his modern selfwandering in a city and time he knows mysteriously well: fin de siecle Vienna. It is 1897, precisely ninety-one years before his last memory and a half-century before his birth.
Its not long before Wheeler has acquired appropriate clothes, money, lodging, a group of young Viennese intellectuals as friends, a mentor in Sigmund Freud, a bitter rival, a powerful crush on a luminous young American woman, a passing acquaintance with local celebrity Mark Twain, and an incredible and surprising insight into the dashing young war-hero father he never knew.
But the truth at the center of Wheelers dislocation in time remains a stubborn mystery that will take months of exploration and a lifetime of memories to unravel and that will, in the end, reveal nothing short of the eccentric Burden familys unrivaled impact on the very course of the coming century. The Little Book is a masterpiece of unequaled storytelling that announces Selden Edwards as one of the most dazzling, original, entertaining, and inventive novelists of our time.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 30 more reviews...
 A Wild Ride for Book Clubs August 17, 2008
48 out of 55 found this review helpful
I am a self-admitted book-a-holic, and for a book to keep me up and guessing - that's saying a lot. For a book to completely surprise me - that is saying even more. For a book to challenge me intellectually and make me laugh out loud in parts - to be cerebral and totally cool at the same time - sheer delight! How did Selden Edwards pull THAT off? This book makes me want to sit down with the writer and ask a hundred questions about the obvious craft of turning such an outrageous idea (and it is that) into a cohesive story. I didn't want the book to end, and I miss the characters already. My book club is reading it, and I can hardly wait to hear everyone's favorite passage/character/scene/line. It's clearly my favorite book of the summer, and I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't a terrific movie in a summer to come; it plays (and stays) in the mind like the best kind of film.
This is one of the best books I have ever read August 14, 2008
21 out of 25 found this review helpful
The Little Book is impossible to describe and impossible to forget. The characters that Edwards creates- and the insights about different cultures and eras- are nothing short of remarkable. Just like Pat Conroy says on the cover, it forever changes you. I finished it and immediately began re-reading- and was still sad when it was over. It is a perfect book club choice, vacation read, or book to recommend to a friend. You won't be able to put it down!
Insightful and thoughtful August 18, 2008
14 out of 20 found this review helpful
Selden Edward's first novel is a reader's delight. By reader I mean someone who enjoys "real" literature like Powell and Fowles and Chabon and Eugenides and Helprin but does not distain science fiction and mysteries and fabulism. This is a novel for someone who just loves to read and loves the characters one encounters and the intricacies of plot, structure, and pace. This wonderful novel has the quality of an epic to it. I returned home three days ago from a long vacation and found my copy waiting for me. I began to read it that evening and have not put it down since. I am almost finished and will write a second review as soon as I do finish. After three hundred pages, I can recommend this book to everyone. I have just been pulled right through.
 Tedious, self-aggrandizing, ho-hum September 14, 2008
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
The dust cover proclaims that the author worked 30 years on this book, and it shows. As a snarky little student, when faced with the classic vocabulary assignment of making sentences out of a word list, I delighted in fitting all the words into the fewest, and most contrived, sentences possible. Like those contrived sentences, there are probably a dozen good stories, many essays on Freud, Sam Clemens, and other notables of the period, a handful of interesting characters, and a history of Vienna, all rolled into the book. Like the teachers who rolled their eyes at my absurd contrivances, I found I just couldn't stand this much cuteness, I confess to skimming and finally tossing the book aside.
There are scraps, even long stretches of good writing and gripping tale here. It might have been a wonderful story, but for the comic book perfection of the hero, an uebermensch, set down in the pinnacle of modern intellectualism, 19th century Vienna (sarcasm). The story becomes quickly tedious and predictable, even though more history, paradox, baseball, rock & roll, etc. keep popping out of Edwards' hat.
Edwards seems to have put everything he has into this one book, and invested his hero with every virtue and skill he ever had, or admired, or wished for himself. If only he'd started passing his writing to a good editor twenty-five years ago, he'd have a substantial body of work in print already. Instead, I suspect he's started and finished a writing career with his magnum opus. We can hope an editor reins him in on his next project, thirty years just won't cut it for the second book.
If you're interested in the time travel ideas presented here, Look to Robert A. Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps", and "All You Zombies". As heroic as they are, Heinlein's protagonists are far more believable and interesting than Wheeler Burden.
Best Book I've Read This Year August 19, 2008
9 out of 15 found this review helpful
Selden Edwards is a family friend, so I immediately bought this when I found out it had been published. So many books with fancy blurbs do not live up to the hype. But this one sure does. Great characters, deeply layered plot that pulls you along but keeps you guessing. I have not wanted to put it down, and am almost sad to think it will end soon. I guess I can always re-read it. The quality of the writing and the story structure show why writing and rewriting a story for 30+ years can add value. Much like Norman Maclean's amazing A River Runs Through It, this was clearly a labor of love that distilled the story to the point that every word counts. Edwards did not take quite as long as Maclean did to finish his story, but it that is not to say it is not as good. Maclean's is my favorite book of all time, but this one is quickly becoming a new favorite.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
