Life Is So Good: One Man's Extraordinary Journey through the 20th Century and How he Learned to Read at Age 98 Review

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(More customer reviews)I originally bought 2 copies and am now ordering 9 more copies. There is so much wisdom in this book. It is a primer on life. It goes beyond "Tuesdays with Morrie". George Dawson is so positive and upbeat. I agree with the previous reviewer that this should be mandatory reading in schools, but I would lower the grades to Junior High School and maybe even 5th and 6th graders. George gives us a black man's perspective of life in the South in the first half of the 1900's. He also gives us an excellent work ethic and model for living. White and black children alike would benefit from the historical perspective. We all can benefit from his little philosophical statements here and there. I had lots of smiles while reading this, plus many tears. I remember the South (I'm white) when bathrooms, drinking fountains and restaurants were segregated. I was a child from California, to whom this was foreign. George brings these memories back, but in a non-judgemental way. He experienced the introduction of cars and airplanes, as well as the tragedy at Columbine High School. Through out, he has respect for others and a tolerance for differing perspectives. Buy this book. Read it, and then pass it on. Share it with your children. Discuss the contents. George Dawson has truly given us all a remarkable gift.

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As I Lay Dying: The Corrected Text (Modern Library) Review

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(More customer reviews)To quote the briefest chapter, the one that would surely catch your eye if you picked it off a shelf and skimmed through it: "My mother is a fish."
As with his stunning _The_Sound_and_the_Fury_ and _Absalom_Absalom_, this book makes use of the author's masterful use of stream-of-conscious writing to render an entire reality with internal monologues. The story unfolds as you construct it from the observations and responses of the characters. Though briefer and less challenging than these other two books, it's as absorbing a read as they have been for decades. When you reach the end, you can imagine that you'll pick up the book again someday, sure there's more to explore.
The structure is simple once you get the hang of it. Each chapter is the name of a particular character in the story of the family of Addie Bundren, dead in the first few pages, and being transported by her clan to the land of her birth for burial-by wagon, in the heat and dust, over rivers, for weeks, before the vacuum seal... There is no "Once upon a time." Instead, whatever that character is thinking at the instant the chapter begins is what you're reading. Soon, you know who everyone is and what she thinks of everyone else. The effect of this structure is that you can inhabit the narrative as each of the players, can see how events are interpreted differently. It's also like a mystery-someone will have troubled thoughts about something you can't quite distinguish; then, twenty pages later, you figure out what they've been talking about and you flip backward in a frenzy to see how the early references to the issue flesh out the story. This is a terribly rewarding way of reading.
This is a great first Faulkner for everyone. You develop the ability to read his complex novels by virtue of the simplicity of the story and the mostly brief chapters, each from a fresh point of view. You learn to read on if you don't get something. (Important skill: Faulkner is one of my absolute favorite authors since high school, and one of my favorite things is that you have to trust the story to tell you what you need to know in time. Not only do you get the reward of context for the occasional non sequitur, but you have the thrill of anticipation when something weird happens. This book is a great example of how, unlike Hemingway, where you have to read a basically boring story over and over to understand all the juicy stuff, Faulkner gives you nibbles of fantastic plot to hold you through the ultimate analysis.

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