Books : Búsqueda

Evaluación: - INCREDIBLY slow unless you understand the symbolism
To understand the book, it's a good idea to understand the meaing behind colors and to identify the pages where the colors appear and how they correlate with the books content and overall message. This is not a novel that is simply an enjoable read. Constant analyzation and understanding is needed throughout the process of reading it. Only after understanding does the novel become a literary classic and icon.

---

Evaluación: - Book Review
Great book! I read it once and would love to read it again. I like Fitzgeralds style very much. I highly recommend it.

---

Evaluación: - The Great Gatsby
I always wanted to read The Great Gatsby but for some reason or another it always eluded me. Back in college, almost everyone had read this "great" masterpiece of literature. I'm glad I finally had the opportunity to sink my teeth into this novel and see once and for all what it was all about.

The story was wonderful to read and its subject matter was appealing for the most part. The industrial age must of been a sight to behold. The author does an adequate job of detailing the age and the times of West Egg. Although the lavishness and splendor of the many parties that took place in West Egg were nicely detailed, I found the imagery somewhat sparse and lacking detail at times. The author does a great job of portraying his characters and their morals but for some reason I didn't find this in itself to capture my attention. The story line was so-so in my opinion and could of been better. But in the end, this novel was worth the read. I'm happy I had the opportunity to finally ... Leer Más

---

Evaluación: - LOVE IT
I'm not sure if it's possible to not like this book. It's eloquently written and interesting. A classic love story, that will remain timeless. If you were forced to read it in high school and didn't like it I suggest a quick revisit to the timeless tale. It was wonderful. I'd recommend it to anyone and since it's a short book it only takes a weekend to get through.

---

Evaluación: - So glad I read this again after high school
I remember reading The Great Gatsby in my high school English class and thinking it was boring. In retrospect, I think I was an idiot. Reading it ten years later was a truly amazing experience. Fitzgerald lays down some stunning prose and brings a lavish era of American history to life. I was struck with how that culture of excess in the 1920s seemed eerily similar to the mid 2000s. . . and right before another crash, nonetheless. Great book. If you tried to read it once and failed, try again. You won't regret it.

Evaluación: - A story of crippled souls
Amory Blaine was born to an eccentric mother and a cold and distant father. This is the story of his life, but more than that it is the story of his search for love, and his search for meaning - both ultimately disappointingly unsuccessful.

I gather that this book, the first one that F. Scott Fitzgerald published, was wildly successful when it was first published, in 1920. It really spoke to the Lost Generation. Well, reading it now some 90 years later, it does not have the same impact - nor could it.

As a window on the Lost Generation, or at least on their tastes, it is quite interesting. As I read the book, I could not help but reflect on a thinker I knew many years ago who spoke of people who loved themselves best, but were forever on a fruitless search to find someone who would love them more. All of the characters in This Side of Paradise have that same problem - a deep and overwhelming love for themselves which makes them unable to give unconditionally of themselves. ... Leer Más

---

Evaluación: - Youth speaks.
When first published in 1920 This Side of Paradise rapidly became a bestseller and launched the career of its 24 year old author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. The novel's protagonist, Amory Blaine, is clearly a stand-in for Fitzgerald himself.
The book traces Amory's life from early childhood to young adulthood and describes in great detail his challenges and conflicts as he reaches maturity in the very turbulent second decade of the 20th century. Amory, like the author, becomes a Princeton man. Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of This Side of Paradise is that Fitzgerald's unbridled nostalgia for his time spent at Princeton comes through loud and clear. (The fact that he never managed to graduate does not seem to have diminished his fond memories one iota.)
By his own admission, Amory is an egotistical elitist who has little or no empathy for the less fortunate lower classes. Much of the novel consists of Amory's introspection on the true nature of love, personal fulfillment, the relevance ... Leer Más

---

Evaluación: - Perfecting his craft?
Part of the problem with Fitzgerald's being affiliated with a prized novel, The Great Gatsby, is that the author's other novels must be compared to it. I use this as an opening because, while the instances of early talent in the writer are here in his debut novel, the story, even though richly autobiographical, fell a little flat. Maybe this is part due to the fact that for a good deal of the book the protagonist, Amory Blaine, is pretty much synonymous with the shallow, aimless generation that Fitzgerald and other Lost Generation authors tried to depict. With the exception of minor moments of insight late in the novel, Amory is as superficial as the world seems around him.

Some have a problem with the experimental format of This Side of Paradise. It is written as a narrative, poem, drama, letter and journal. I didn't feel that way, and thought it gave a unique aspect to the novel. Fitzgerald's technique seems to coincide with the modern novel of experimenting with narrative. However, ... Leer Más

---

Evaluación: - Definitely not my cup of tea
I have to say that I found this book to be quite boring. i've been laid up for a few weeks. I have a Kindle so have been able to read and enjoy many of the classics. This was a book i had to stop reading several times and always wondered why i returned to it. I will try something else by Fitzgerald from his later years. I won't give up on someone others consider a brilliant writer.

---

Evaluación: - Paradise Lost
I love F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby, his almost florid romanticism and his poetic prose. The first part of This Side of Paradise had me completely, young glib man going to Princeton, full of himself, living a frivolous college life, falling in and out of love. I awaited the story's last part, wondering how his life might turn out. Instead, about mid-way through, and with virtually no coverage of Armory's WWI duty on the front lines, we are served a random, lazily assembled smorgasbord of poetry, memos, script form dialogue, long-winded essays on a very young person's attempt to come to terms with the world, etc. etc. etc. Most disappointing of all is the author's failure to explore the serial failure of his love affairs, a subject I wish he had addressed in far greater depth.

I kept on to the end, because of my interest in Fitzgerald's tragically short-lived career. Greatness I suppose was his with Gatsby, for it is work whose substance come through in a structural maturity, ... Leer Más

Evaluación: - obviously a classic, but which edition is the best buy?
Fitzgerald's tale is obviously a classic, but which edition is the best buy? There are so (or is "too"...) many available. Personally, I like this editon The Beautiful and Damned (yes, you need to click the link to see which one it is as Amazon combines many reviews together), especially because of the captivating cover shot. A great value IMHO.

---

Evaluación: - Hidden Treasure in the Shadow of Gatsby. . .
The American reading public seems to reduce `classic authors' to one-hit wonders: The Stranger, Catcher in the Rye, Vanity Fair, Frankenstein, Catch-22, Oedipus the King, etc. One great work seems to exhaust us and we move on. The only real exceptions are situations in which the author has two great works of moral equivalency: Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-four, Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Iliad and The Odyssey.

A victim of the one-book limit on our memories is The Beautiful and Damned. No, it's not as good as The Great Gatsby. But then again -- to paraphrase Joseph Heller -- neither is any other American novel. If it weren't for Jay Gatsby, however, this other work by F. Scott Fitzgerald would likely get suggested more often as `the Great American Novel'.

I was blown away by it. The novel is divided into roughly three parts, following the third decade of life of a useless Harvard ... Leer Más

---

Evaluación: - Great Book for any Fitzgerald Fan!
Great book for any Fitzgerald fan! This was my guide to living life in my twenties, lol! I've heard it called a hard book to read, and I can see that. But there is great satisfaction upon finishing the book. I guarantee it!

---

Evaluación: - A must-read--before it's made into a movie
Nearly ninety years after its first publication, _The Beautiful and Damned_ is still a shockingly relevant account of the entitlement class, the children of the rich or privileged who don't know how to navigate through life without big money. And, it's a New York City novel--written as only a mid-westerner can. It seems to me that because New Yorkers are too much in the middle of it to see themselves clearly, an intelligent "outsider" like F. Scott Fitzgerald must come along. To write as well as he did, Fitzgerald let the city inhabit him. New York got into his blood, and he recorded it in narrative right down to the dirt under the carpet. Fitzgerald's details lead the reader into the depths of the beautiful and doomed couple, the Gloria-Anthony entanglement, as they are part and parcel of the extremes of poverty and wealth (in the World War I era or the roaring 20s).

I don't know how Fitzgerald knew what he knew about the human psyche, or specifically about how a young man might react ... Leer Más

---

Evaluación: - the title says it all
The Beautiful and Damned is Fitzgerald's second novel and the title says it all.Anthony Patch and Gloria Gilbert are two self asorbed people who desire romantic love and they fall in love with each other. They have no desire for productive work and they desire lives of luxury. They receive allowances from their parents and Anthonys grandfather gives a little as well but Anthony has no desire to wotk and Gloria is obsessed with being an actress which irritates Anthony. Both are alcoholics which adds fuel to their self destructive situation. In the end ,Anthony becomes wealthy winning 30 million dollars by challenging hsi grandfathers will he is stricken from it despite being the only direct descendant but the money makes neither he or his wife happy. Their narcissism combines to damn them to misery despite their exterior beauty of which their wealth is a large part of.At times the book rambles into clever phrases that have no point and it is too loose at times but it is still a book worth reading though ... Leer Más

Precio de Lista: $11.00
Ud. Ahorra: $3.08 (28%)
a partir de 09/08/2010 09:08 PDT

Evaluación: - When they were good they were very very good, and when they were bad they were horrid
This 1922 short story collection is a trip back in time through the eyes of this celebrated author. There are 11 stories here, of varying quality and I enjoyed reading them all and letting myself visit the time and a place and the culture that is now just a small blip in the annals of history. Some stories are set in the world of the moneyed, others are set in the world of fantasy and there are other that are just figments of the author's imagination. I didn't like all of these stories. As the saying goes, "when they were good they were very very good, and when they were bad they were horrid", but I felt I got to know F. Scott Fitzgerald through these stories, see how his mind worked, and understand how he became so well known and was able to come to his full power in his novels.

His strongest stores were set in the real world, the young southern man who was smitten by a rich young woman, two recently released soldiers from the War in Europe who stumble upon some party-going socialites, a ... Leer Más

---

Evaluación: - MobileReference edition also has at least one error...
Tales of the Jazz Age: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Diamond As Big As The Ritz, My Last Flappers & more (mobi)

I'm sorry to report that there is at least one error in the MobileReference edition of Tales of The Jazz Age in the Jelly-Bean story, and that it mirrors the same error I found in the public domain editions.

In the paragraph that begins with, "In the twilight of one April evening when a soft gray had drifted down...," this sentence is truncated: "His mind was working persistently on a problem that had held his attention for an."

I bought this MobileReference edition based upon the publisher's post and claim of no errors in this thread. It's no big deal ("To err is human...."), but I'll be asking for a refund of my 99 cents.

---

Evaluación: - Tales of the Jazz Age
This is a well-bound, well illustrated hardcover reprint of F. Scott Fitzgerald's second collection of short stories, including "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "May Day," and "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz."

---

Evaluación: - Comments from the publisher
This page mixes reviews for 3 books: one published by MobileReference and two others published by 'Public Domain Books' and 'Juniper Grove'. It is unclear which review corresponds to which book. We assure you that MobileReference book does not have any errors. The MobileReference book was carefully checked for accuracy and completeness by a team of experts. Please download the Free demo. To find Tales of the Jazz Age published by MobileReference, search: mobi Tales of the Jazz Age.

MobileReference

---

Evaluación: - Affordable but filled with errors
Although the stories are complete, they are filled with errors. It is distracting when sentences don`t make sense and it takes away from the experience. It is understandable why it was so affordable.

Evaluación: - Pay for what you get
This version can be difficult to read as it creates new paragraphs mid-sentence. You pay for what you get. I'd recommend spending a little more and getting a better version of this e-book.

---

Evaluación: - formatting no big deal
I am not put off by the somewhat ersatz formatting; I am not (or was not) a big F. Scott fan, so this is not dissimilar to reading beat poetry or jazz-age haiku. Or perhaps because of the weird layout I'm really enjoying this work. The closest I ever came to liking the guy was haunting around the old parts of the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, but for the $2.50 (US) admittance fee I might check out some of his other stuff as well. Who knows. At these prices y'all should be reading a lot more anyways.

---

Evaluación: - It's only $2.50 for a reason
This book was not formatted properly for the Kindle 2...you will get a headache trying to read it. Spend the extra money and get the $10 version!

Evaluación: - Highly Recommend
An entertaining and illustrative portrayal of a golden time. This is Fitzgerald at his best!

---

Evaluación: - Masterpiece, but ...
What a difference the edition makes. The re-ordered sections change the entire pacing. The original version, published in 1934 echews the chronological narrative and packs a different punch. Revised in the early 50s (posthumously), the later version is easier to follow, but loses a bit in the build up.

A classic either way - perhaps strong than Gatsby.

---

Evaluación: - Why is Fitzgerald so attracted to such loathsome characters?
Now, I have an admission to make. In my own fiction, I tend to get lost in my own little world, fall in love with my language and my parataxis, and subject my reader to little in-jokes that make me laugh. For example, in a recent work of mine, I included a little part about T. S. Eliot's Wasteland. I referenced, what I though to be heavy handedly, the "game of chess" section, and what I hoped to be more oblique, the "death by water" part. This was done because I was trying to get across the theme of decay. Ok, so it did not work. I can accept that fact. Maybe I have to be more aware of the audience, or something along those lines. The point here is that my own idiosyncrasies perhaps do not translate well. I have the same problem reading Fitzgerald that I suppose that people have when reading my own work.

Alcoholics living out their own malaise in high society do not interest me. I cannot find the characters that Fitzgerald writes about compelling. I find myself disgusted at their ... Leer Más

---

Evaluación: - As Mediocre As It Can Get
The first 40 pages is dull. So is the middle 100 pages. The ending is probably one of the most unsatisfying endings I've ever read as it ends not with not a bang but a sad whimper in diminuendo as if the author just didn't want to work on it anymore and dashed off a coda.

Fitzgerald's lyricism, in my opinion, is simply overrated. Granted, there are some breathtaking passages (which I took note of), but most of the writing was just dull, dull, dull. He would've benefited tremendously from studying storytelling as well since he makes the middle portion so deadly dull that it made me want to chuck it across the room, and butchers the last portion so badly that it came across as amateurish - choppy, rushed, and consequently ungraceful - which gives credence to his own remark about the book: "I would give anything if I hadn't had to write Part III of Tender Is the Night entirely on stimulant..."

He also makes tons of basic storytelling faux pas, such as redundant attributions (e.g. "I think ... Leer Más

---

Evaluación: - Taken aback.
I was excited to start this book at first. The story started off somewhat slow. Not till I started the middle of the book then it started to get exciting. The ending did not turn out how I expected. Overall, I felt depressed after reading this story.

Evaluación: - Wonderful Stories
This volume is great. It includes some 20 short stories from a variety of masters. Hemingway, Poe, and Henry James are but a handful represented. Luckily the modest price means we can all enjoy to own this volume.

Most of us were introduced to many of these fine authors in high school or college. Unfortunately we did not read them very carefully, we were too harried, more interested in a grade than in securing an education.

So fine, water over the dam. Now, we can read them for pleasure, enjoy the elegant prose, learn from the insight provided into the human condition, etc. Classics should be read several times in our lifetime. The good ones always provide us with pleasant, revealing and useful surprises.

Short and to the point this collection is a joy to read. The important thing is that they should be read (or reread) and then we should take time to think about what the author has revealed. What was the author telling us? How does it relate to our own lives, to ... Leer Más

---

Evaluación: - A outstanding collection of short stories at a great price
For some reason, neither Amazon nor Dover list the actual stories contained in this attractive collection here on Amazon. They include:

1 Nathaniel Hawthorne: Young Goodman Brown (1835)
2 Edgar Allan Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart (1843)
3 Herman Melville: Bartleby (1856)
4 Bret Harte: The Luck of Roaring Camp (1870)
5 Stephen Crane: The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky (1878)
6 Mark Twain: The Private History of a Campaign that Failed (1885)
7 Sarah Orne Jewett: A White Heron (1886)
8 Charles Waddell Chesnutt: The Goophered Grapevine (1887)
9 Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: A New England Nun (1891)
10 Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Yellow Wallpaper (1892)
11 Henry James: The Real Thing (1893)
12 Kate Chopin: A Pair of Silk Stockings (1897)
13 Jack London: To Build a Fire (1908)
14 Ambrose Bierce: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1909)
15 Theodore Dreiser: The Lost Phoebe (1916)
16 Willa Cather: Paul's Case (1920) ... Leer Más

---

Evaluación: - Title says it all
Fine works from the masters, what alse can I say
an outstanding collection of works.

---

Evaluación: - Title
This is actually a very good book to have. It was bought for a class in English Literature, but it has some good stories in it. I would be willing to read some of the non-assigned stories from this book. Best part- its a small book.

Precio de Lista: $13.95
Ud. Ahorra: $4.96 (36%)
a partir de 09/08/2010 09:08 PDT

Evaluación: - Love Letter Template
I bought this book like many others who saw it in the "Sex in the City" movie. I like to write love notes to my wife and found this book to cover some more ideas and thoughts about topics of love that I had not yet thought. The writing style from the different eras is also interesting. I will be buying Love Letters Of Great Men - Vol. 2.

---

Evaluación: - understanding the writer
I can understand the great men best through their art but to understand their art you need to know who inspired them.It is the secret to what they are saying. I found their actual words less moving than their artistic expressions.You know the artist through his work but the letters gave me a better understanding of him as a living ,bresthing human.