Book Description
Nelson Humboldt is a visiting adjunct English lecturer at prestigious Midwest University, until he is unceremoniously fired one autumn morning. Minutes after the axe falls, his right index finger is severed in a freak accident. Doctors manage to reattach the finger, but when the bandages come off, Nelson realizes that he has acquired a strange power-he can force his will onto others with a touch of his finger. And so he obtains an extension on the lease of his university-owned townhouse and picks up two sections of freshman composition, saving his career from utter ruin. But soon these victories seem inconsequential, and Nelson's finger burns for even greater glory. Now the Midas of academia wonders if he can attain what every struggling assistant professor and visiting lecturer covets-tenure. The Lecturer's Tale is a pitch-perfect blend of satire and horror.
Customer Reviews:
Spot on satire.......2007-04-17
If you work in academia you'll be bowled over by Hynes' utterly hilarious and deadly accurate rendering of recognizable faculty personality types. It's a tad long and repetitive but impossible to put down anyway.
HYPERBOLE IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE.......2006-11-16
The stereotypical characters and the lengths to which they will go in the game of "one-upsmanship" are not confined to the world of the academic. Look around folks! The power hungry thrive in every walk of life...politics, industry, etc. Everyman seeks power in his own little world.
To truly understand and enjoy most of the literary allusions and nuances in this book, one must be either an academic, an English lit major, or both. This is definitely not a book for the "man in the street". (It could, however, qualify as an example of seeking "power in your own little world"......as in "only we who have an in-depth knowledge and understanding of literature will be able to understand all the subtle "inside jokes").
Finally, the "Twilight Zone" quality of the final few chapters leads one to question if Nelson Humboldt wasn't really suffering from schizophrenia and had gone off his meds.
Desconstructively hilarious: read now!.......2006-10-23
If you're an academic, you gotta read this. Especially if you're mixed up with a literature department. Hynes has written one of the great satires of the American university, maybe the greatest. In The Lecturer's Tale, the Faust legend meets Derrida, Bloom, Foucault, Iragary, and Lacan (did I leave someone out?) with hilarious results as Hynes's antihero, an instructor on the margins of a major English department is blessed, and of course cursed, with a Twilight Zone-style power of reading minds, which he intends to parlay into the only thing more ego-enhancing than Faustian power - academic tenure.
Anyone who can identify all the critics I've listed above will love this book, provided they're not followers of any of them. The final epistemological episode in the bell tower will do a number on your mind.
Hynes's other academic fiction, Publish and Perish, is in a similar spirit, and also very enjoyable. But The Lecturer's Tale deserves to become a true cult classic. The caricatures are dead on. And right on, too.
So if your sense of humor hasn't yet been crushed and ground in the Mills of Cultural Theory, drop that dissertation right now and dig into this zestily renchant slice of academic (sur)reality.
Academic Parody with Suspense.......2006-09-05
Hynes skewers every academic stereotype, the feminist dictator, the European narcissistic poet, the sad sack part-time composition instructor, etc., in this page-turning novel, which is a hybrid, half gothic or horror tale, half satire. It's amazing how he blends the two genres. Some lowly functionary who just lost his teaching position gets into an accident whereby he becomes afflicted with strange demonic powers which help him ascend the academic latter and reveal the academic frauds who surround him. Written like a Charles Dickens novel, The Lecturer's Tale is a rare, one of a kind book that will be enjoyed by academics and nonacademics alike. Lovers of this horror satire will want to check out James Lasdun's The Horned Man, which also takes place on a college campus and includes many gothic elements. Another similarly delicious book is The Devil's Own Work by Alan Judd.
Vita/l Comedy.......2006-08-20
"Crossing the Quad on a Halloween Friday, as the clock in the library tower tolled thirteen under a windy, dramatic sky, Nelson Humboldt lost his right index finer in a freak accident." Thus begins the Lecturer's Tale, its own rich prose proffering a more compelling invitation into this comic Gothic novel than any I could come up with here.
Learned and full-of-fun, this send-up of academic life and literary critcism is rapidly becoming a cult classic. The more the reader knows of the academic scene, the more widely read, the more s/he (!!) will appreciate of its far-ranging allusiveness, which it manages to mock and deploy all at once. For example, the title evokes the similarly sarcastic masterwork, Chaucer's *Canterbury Tales*, while "The Author's Retractions," a kind of epilogue and acknowledgments, mirrors the "Retractions" that appear at the end of that work. Shakespeare and the King James Bible are also liberally quoted. The novel thus performs its protagonist's cherished project of intervening as a peace-maker in the Culture Wars, by dispensing the balm of laughter. "Race, class, and gender," Hynes declares, "but the greatest of these is...." Obviously, charity, the ultimate message of this often very uncharitable satire.
Still, it's hard to bring off such a towering tour de force of learning without sometimes crashing to ground (an inside joke, read the book). The comic balancing act is difficult to sustain, especially since the author actually does seem to care about his subject matter. This book does sometimes lose its light touch (haha). It would have benefited by somewhat more ruthless editing as it is about 150 pages too long. The heavy-handed caricatures of academic types become too much, and a good deal of the satire is repetitive. While I certainly recommend this novel, I must confess to having grown a tad weary of its endless posturing by the final page.
Average customer rating:
- Alexander was Perfect but Eleanor was Untrustworthy
- Great!!!
- Great end to a fun trilogy
- Fabulous Medieval
- terrific Kinfairlie medieval romance
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The Snow White Bride (Jewels of Kinfairlie)
Claire Delacroix
Manufacturer: Grand Central Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
 Delacroix, Claire | ( D ) | Authors, A-Z | Romance | Subjects | Books
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( D ) | Authors, A-Z | Romance | 4-for-3 Books Store | Stores | Books | Dailey, Janet | Delinsky, Barbara | Deveraux, Jude | Dodd, Christina
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ASIN: 0446614440 |
Customer Reviews:
Alexander was Perfect but Eleanor was Untrustworthy.......2006-09-06
The story was perfect, as was Alexander, up until the moment he drank the wine, (in the beginning of the story), then he was consistently burdened with heartache because of Eleanor.
The editorial review listed above is right. I don't think I've ever seen a heroine lie as much as this one did, and often after she'd sworn faithfully to Alexander that she wouldn't do so again. He gave her so many ways out each time, with his kindness and willingness to take her side, but still, she would lie to him. Then he would find himself being 'thankful' when she'd let him in on the truth behind one of her 'secrets.' How appalling.
At one point, when she decides to tell Alexander and his people a truth, only because they'd caught her in one of her lies, she turns it into a Once-there-was-a-woman story, leaving the people to figure out that she's talking about herself. Couldn't she have just said it was she? Granted, she was treated horribly in the past, but I could drum up no sympathy for this woman because she was deceptive to the end - she had invited Lord Reinhard without telling Alexander, (she could have told him without revealing her final secret)and Alexander is again pained by her actions. All manners of horrible things are going through his mind, not the least of which is his fear that his newborn might be ill. He deserved a better wife.
Great!!!.......2006-07-26
Great once again. Couldn't put it down the first time and have reread it more than once since!
Great end to a fun trilogy.......2005-11-11
THE SNOW WHITE BRIDE by Claire Delacroix
November 10, 2005
Amazon rating 4/5 stars
"The Snow White Bride by Claire Delacroix is the third in a 1400s family trilogy set in England. The oldest brother Alexander has the task of keeping Kinfairlie from going into debt. In the first two books, his objective was to marry off his sisters, Madeleine and Vivienne. In this third episode, the sisters get an idea of their own - to coax their brother into marrying a woman of their choosing. This ends up being a stranger who shows up on their property, seeking help. Lady Eleanor's life story is a mystery, but the sisters are aware that she is running away from someone. They agree to get their brother to marry her, no matter what it takes!" - Complete review at BookLoons - M. Lofton
I enjoyed this book a lot. The entire series was fun. Recommended for those who love historical romances with a touch of humor.
Fabulous Medieval.......2005-11-02
Setting - Kinfarlie, Scotland - 1421 --- In a desperate flight to freedom, Lady Eleanor had made her way to the village of Kinfarlie, Scotland but with the snow falling fast and furious, she needs to find shelter - and soon! Seeing a church through the falling snow she was grateful to find the door unlocked - sanctuary, and at last a place to rest. It was here that the two sisters of Alexander Lammergeier, Laird of Kinfarlie would discover Eleanor and formulate a plan to both aid the beautiful lady and give their brother a dose of his own medicine after tricking the both of them into marriage!
Lady Eleanor was amazed at the Laird of Kinfairlie's sisters warmth and caring, as well as shocked that they wanted a complete stranger to marry their brother. After years of abuse at the hands of two deceased husbands, she finally agreed, sensing that the young laird could at least offer her protection from the danger that followed close on her heels. What she didn't quite expect was to discover a man who seemed to want nothing more from her than to make her smile; who seemed to respect her as a person; and who sparked in her a passion that she'd never before experienced.
Alexander was enchanted with his mysterious new wife and though he soon discovered how he'd been tricked into the marriage, he wanted to gain her trust and her love. It would soon became a true test of his faith when he realized that she held many secrets close to her heart, a heart that he was no longer sure was pure. As much as Alexander wanted to believe in her, rumors of her murdering her late husbands and mysterious accidental poisonings at Kinfairlie pointed to her guilt, as a ruthless fiend sought to capture her for himself or would Alexander's love be enough to save them both?
--- In the third book to the `Jewels of Kinfairlie' trilogy, Delacroix has penned another exciting, sensual and edge of the seat romantic adventure. Delacroix proves once again how masterful she is at creating wonderful characters and integrating a fabulous plot, mystery and sensuality into the mix. Eleanor was brilliantly drawn so that the reader truly felt overwhelming sympathy over the horrors that were visited down on her; Alexander was a dream hero; and the villain a total ruthless fiend! This is a totally entertaining read and it begs this reader to say - please, don't stop here - there's three more jewels (the rest of the Lammergeir sisters) just waiting for stories! --- Marilyn, for (...)
terrific Kinfairlie medieval romance .......2005-10-25
The Laird of Kinfairlie, Alexander, is proud of marrying off two of his sisters Vivienne (see THE ROSE RED BRIDE) and Madeline (see THE BEAUTY BRIDE) in what appears to be happy relationships. However, his two siblings have not forgotten how poorly he managed their futures once he replaced their deceased parents. Vivienne and Madeline decide to find a bride for their brother before he can wed off the still too young remaining sisters.
They select Lady Eleanor who wants to marry for love and passion, but knows men only covet her fortune. Alexander's siblings ask her to marry their brother. She knows if she chooses Alexander as her husband she will be freed from danger of those abusive suitors willing to do anything to claim her fortune as theirs. However, Alexander is interested in her smile that makes his insides weak. He wants Eleanor by his side for a lifetime, but persuading her he loves her starts with earning her trust.
The third Kinfairlie medieval romance is a terrific entry as the two sisters avenge their brother's misdeeds by finding the right woman for him if he is wise enough to realize it. The story line is exciting but character driven starting with the contented married siblings plotting their brother's fall into matrimony and only getting deeper as the heroine trusts nothing male because they only want her only her fortune while Alexander knows he can achieve security with Eleanor, but wants more as he realizes she is his soulmate.
Harriet Klausner
Average customer rating:
- Quick reading but lacks energy
- Cute
- Like reading a script when you wanted to see the movie
- Good Read
- Healthy Dose of Holiday Cheer
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The Snow Bride
Debbie Macomber
Manufacturer: Mira
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
MacOmber, Debbie | ( M ) | Authors, A-Z | Romance | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1551667363 |
Book Description
A Snowbound Christmas . . .
A Second-chance bride!
Practical Jenna Walsh has done something impratical. she's met a man on the internet and now, a month before Christmas, she's going to Alaska to marry him. Dalton Gray seems to be everything she wants in a husband -- sensitive, gallant, romantic . . .
On the flight to Fairbanks, she has the misfortune to sit beside Reed Kenner, who obviously isn't sensitive, gallant, or romantic. However, he's not impressed with her plan t marry Dalton, a man he detests (for good reason, as Jenna later finds out). So Reed takes it upon himself to change her destination -- and her marraigae plans.
Which is why Jenna ends up at Reed's cabin in tiny Snowbound, Alaska. It's currently a one-woman town (and the other woman's out of town. That leaves Reed, a bunch of eccentric old men, a few grizzly bears -- and Jenna. Kidnapped! And then there's a blizzard. The two of them alone, stranded in Snowbound . . .
Hmm. Maybe she'll be a Christmas bride, after all
Customer Reviews:
Quick reading but lacks energy.......2004-12-22
"The Snow Bride" is the full-length version of the short story by the same name which first appeared in _On A Snowy Night_. The premise is worth exploring, a young, beautiful executive assistant leaves the comfort of her Los Angeles home and heads to Alaska to meet the man she has been corresponding with over the Internet for the past several months. She learns, through a series of coincidences, that he is not the person he appeared to be and unexpectedly falls in love with a brash, rugged pilot. All in all, the characters are sweet and delightful, (the male lead is very funny!) but their tale makes a better short story than novel.
One plus is that Macomber writes wonderful romances without all the explicit language an graphic content that usually appears in this genre. Her characters and dialogue are usually fun, snappy and at times, very humurous (a quality not lost in main character Reid). Unfortunately, this story falls very flat. It is excruciatingly predictable and lackluster; having lost its zeal after the first two chapters. I like how one reviewer described it -- "cute". That about sums it up. It was dragging miserably, but still maintained its "cuteness" and humor.
I say buy a used copy or preuse a library copy on a day when you're looking to fill some time with a quick read.
3 and 1/2 stars.
Cris Cunningham
Cute.......2004-10-08
This book was very cute. That is about the word for it. No serious plot and you can guess from the beginning what will happen. None the less cute and an enjoyable afternoon read!
Like reading a script when you wanted to see the movie.......2004-09-21
Okay, yes, the plot is cute. But its full potential (even for humor) is never explored. By far the most likable characters are the minor ones (i.e. the indomitable Chloe), there's almost no visual detail, characters' motives are barely touched on, and everything seems flat. The villain is so cheesy it's ridiculous. All in all, this book is an extremely light read despite its length; if you want a real Christmas pick-me-up, do what you have to do to find a copy of Rexanne Becnel's Christmas Journey.
Good Read.......2004-02-06
I was very impressed by this book. It was extremely romantic but it wasn't dirty. I would like to see many more books like this. Bravo.
Healthy Dose of Holiday Cheer.......2003-12-21
Prolific romance author Debbie Macomber brings readers a new Christmas tale, complete with a trip to snowy Alaska. Tired of being taken for granted by her boss and love interest, Brad Fulton, Jenna Campbell throws caution to the wind and travels to Alaska to meet her on-line pen pal Dalton Gray. But when her flight lands in Fairbanks, and Dalton isn't there as planned, her surly seatmate, Reid Jamison, agrees to take her to Beesley, Dalton's hometown, until he discovers that Dalton is the man she is meeting.
Because Dalton jilted Reid's sister Lucy, Reid "kidnaps" a furious Jenna and takes her to his home in Snowbound.
Humor and romance ensue as Reid and Jenna find themselves fighting an unlikely attraction between this burly pipeline worker and a sunny California girl, as a snowstorm forces them to maintain an air of civility in Reid's humble cabin. Quirky old-timers Palmer and Addy add comic relief to this fluffy Christmas confection, especially when Brad, Dalton, and Jenna's often married mother, Chloe, all show up in Snowbound. Whether one is snowbound or not, Ms. Macomber's latest provides welcome holiday cheer, away from the hustle and bustle.
Product Description
8 massmarket paperback Titles By Thacker - Snow Baby - A Shotgun Wedding - Tangled Web - Father of the Bride - One Man's Folly - Heart's Journey - Daddy Christmas - Daddy to the Rescue
Average customer rating:
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Snow Bride
Manufacturer: Mills And Boon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0373103573 |
Customer Reviews:
Book Description.......2005-09-08
Make sure you get the book that came BEFORE this one, "Michael's Father". This book is the sequal to "Michaels Father".
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FROM THE PUBLISHER
From the time she was a teenager, Colleen Bryan had loved Gunnar Larson. With his broad shoulders and sexy swagger, he'd been everything she's ever dreamed of. And now, snowbound with him in the wilds of Wyoming, she set out to prove she was much more than his best friend's 'baby' sister.But her best-laid plans went astray. Colleen and Gunnar had their night of passion, and a child-their child-was the result. But she couldn't help but suspect that the marriage he proposed came from a sense of duty...not devotion.
Customer Reviews:
Warren Stands Out.......2006-12-30
In this book, Warren has drawn one of the issues contained within, and it's the only story that stands out. In his usual meta-textural, pop-cultural style, Warren treats us to the retrospective story of Gen 13 done as a TV documentary. Not only are the drawings just as amazing as Warren always does thiem, but the story has a lot of gags and is quite funny.
The rest of the stories are not drawn by Warren (only written by him), but the mediocre artists so distract from the story-telling that here, a couple of days after reading the book, I can't remember what they were about.
Gen 13 returns to its roots: cheesecake........2003-01-28
It's possible that someone reading London * New York * Hell, the Gen 13 collection by Warren Ellis and Steve Dillon, might suspect the book of catering to readers who want an intelligent plot in their comics. Adam Warren dispels that notion with Superhuman Like You, the next collection of Gen 13 books.
Don't get me wrong, Warren knows his audience. No one subscribes to Gen 13 for awesome storytelling; that thing with Ellis was an aberration. The book is about skin, and that's why readers always come away from a Gen 13 book knowing what color Fairchild's undies are.
Book Description
Radical Orthodoxy is a new wave of theological thinking that seeks to re-inject the modern world with theology. The group of theologians associated with Radical Orthodoxy are dissatisfied with conteporary theolgical responses to both modernity and postmodernity i Radical Orthodoxy /i is a collection that aims to reclaim the world by situating its concerns and activities within a theological framework. By mapping the new theology against a range of areas where modernity has failed, these essays offer us way out of the impasses that postmodernity represents.
Customer Reviews:
Two stars for effort.......2006-04-19
An unreadable exposition of the unknowable, or at least the ineffable. When Aquinas awoke to the realization that all his work was as straw, he probably didn't imagine that Milbank and company would be trying to send us back into that scholastic sleep one day. A little apophatic humility wouldn't go amiss here.
Against Secularism.......2005-06-07
Radical Orthodoxy is a collection of essays on diverse topics. The common strand is that they all seek to resituate the contemporary situation within a proper theological framework. All other thinking is subordinate to theology. To show this, the authors deal with subjects such as knowledge, nihilism, erotics, aesthetics, etc., putting them in theological context. Some of the essays are better than others. All seek to counter both nihilism and Enlightenment thinking through traditional Christian categories. This book is difficult to digest. It is made even more challenging because of the variety of topics it covers. Despite this, it is extremely valuable for those interested in postmodern theology or the movement called Radical Orthodoxy.
Radical Orthodoxy: Anarchic Grace.......2000-12-13
This text is a collection of essay by some of the most notable and widely received theologians in current cultural/Postmodern discourse. The essays cover a wide spectum of thematics, from sex to the city, music to body, Christian orthodoxy to radical phenomenological takes on materiality. Most importantly is the robust manifesto that peals large over the postmodern, nihilistic terrain: it is a call, in the first place, toward a radical alternative of a people that can no longer be defined by the vulgar liberal/conservative categories. These people--the mystical body politic of Christ--can be prescribed as a movement toward and into a Trinitarian de-centered body that resists captialist strategies of control and opens out acts of anarchic charity--the life giving participation in God. Radical Orthodoxy is the global movement in which all Christian are called. They are called because through Radical Orthodoxy, the idols of both the liberal and conservative are fully revealed: the idols of ideological control shot-through a pious or "inclusive" (and always bad) reading of Holy writ.
Books:
- The Pleasure's All Mine: Memoir of a Professional Submissive
- The Real Minerva
- The Scent of Betrayal (The Privateersman Mysteries)
- The Scent of Your Breath
- The Tower: A Facsimile Edition
- The Ugly Dachshund
- The Ultimates 2, Vol. 1: Gods and Monsters
- The Virgin and the Gipsy
- The Warmest December
- The Water Dancers: A Novel
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The Primacy of Perception: And Other Essays on Phenomenological Psychology, the Philosophy of Art, H
- Raw
- Kaz the Minotaur
- History: Fiction or Science
- Inconceivable: A Woman's Triumph over Despair and Statistics
- Lie Algebras in Particle Physics
- Love Is in the Earth: Kaleidoscopic Pictorial Supplement A
- Like Only Yesterday: The Memoirs of Donald E. Noble
- Foreign-Owned Firms: Are They Different
- The OSHA Handbook: The Guidelines For Compliance In Health
Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror
Straight Man: A Novel
Small World
Changing Places
Blue Angel: A Novel (P.S.)
