SUSAN S. (susieqmillsacoustics) - , reviewed on 6/15/2011 + 1062 more book reviews

It is difficult to decide how I feel about this book. The first 300 pages were the equivalent, in my opinion, of Chinese Water Torture. The author goes off on tangents of describing objects and places in lengthy detail, including the history of the making of them. While some of this is relevant to the story, many times it has no bearing whatsoever, and just makes a really long book that much longer. One example is around 300 pages into the story where the cover of this company's business plan-the COVER-mind you (which has no bearing on this tale)-is described as "rugged hand-laid paper of rice chaff, bamboo tailings, free range hemp, and crystalline glacial meltwater made by wizened artisans operating out of a mist-shrouded temple hewn from living volcanic rock on some island known only to aerobically gifted, Spandex-sheathed Left Coast travel bores..." When he's not giving wordy descriptions, he's going off on pointless, rambling metaphors. I nearly walked away at the thought of enduring 800+ more pages of this torture, but my reason for reading this is because it is listed on the "1,001 books to read..." and I felt there must be something. It did become really good around that time and was a very exciting read in places and very enjoyable through most of the rest of the book. (I wonder about schizophrenia with the author?) I was a little let down in the end, and felt that while it had a good story, it was disjointed and could have been better told in about 750 pages-not 1100+. This could partially be done by shortening the first 300 pages to perhaps the 50 pages relevant to the book.

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