false 103345 11 Risky in conception, hip and yet soulful, this is a prose poem of a novel -- intense, lyrical, and highly evocative -- with a mystery at its center, which keeps the reader in suspense until the final page. In a tour de force that could be described as Altmanesque, we are invited into the private lives of the residents of a quiet urban street in England over the course of a single day. In delicate, intricately observed closeup, we witness the hopes, fears, and unspoken despairs of a diverse community: the man with painfully scarred hands who tried in vain to save his wife from a burning house and who must now care for his young daughter alone; a group of young clubgoers just home from an all-night rave, sweetly high and mulling over vague dreams; the nervous young man at number 18 who collects weird urban junk and is haunted by the specter of unrequited love. The tranquillity of the street is shattered at day's end when a terrible accident occurs. This tragedy and an utterly surprising twist provide the momentum for the book. But it is the author's exquisite rendering of the ordinary, the everyday, that gives this novel its freshness, its sense of beauty, wonder, and hope. Rarely does a writer appear with so much music and poetry -- so much vision -- that he can make the world seem new. 1094652 2002 If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things total:649|5:224|4:238|3:123|2:44|1:20| 649 2549 996 135 2 3 false false Mon Jan 28 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 28 10:50:51 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 29 11:40:35 -0800 2008
In a general, very oversimplified sense, the reason we, as humans, have names is as a way to distinguish us from one another. When I was a small writer, knee-high to a grasshopper (actually, as my parents will te...more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 16 07:28:40 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 16 07:28:50 -0800 2009
The plot holds readers' interest but this novel's real gem is its characters. McGregor conjures up a residential city street and the people w...more...]]> 4 3 false false Mon Aug 25 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 25 13:01:18 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 25 13:08:33 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 1 false true Wed Jul 30 11:54:56 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 07 09:51:06 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 30 11:54:56 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false true Mon Mar 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 23 07:11:52 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 23 07:12:06 -0700 2009
It tells the small details of a street but does so in a many that the characters are largely anonymous and the story ju...more...]]> 2 0 false false Sat Jan 31 09:26:59 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 31 09:49:00 -0800 2009
Consider this:
-The daughter of the guy from number (insert no of house here)...
The guy with the carefully trimmed mustache stared ... -

There are no names mentioned for pages and pages. It gets confusing as th...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jul 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 12 13:45:12 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 17 04:53:56 -0700 2009
When i came across this pass...more...]]> 2 0 false false Fri Jan 16 11:26:28 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 16 11:26:38 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed May 20 14:05:07 -0700 2009 Mon May 25 16:23:22 -0700 2009 The naivety of several drugged-out teenagers, the wistful nostalgia of an old widower, and the mysterious obsessions of one boy are all focused on and centered around one awful crime that takes place that evening. Although the writing is absolutely beautiful in the way that only prose-poetry ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Apr 07 18:25:51 -0700 2009 Sat May 02 15:12:00 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Nov 15 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Jul 09 06:22:16 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 09 06:38:02 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Aug 27 00:00:00 -0700 2005 Sun Feb 22 01:05:08 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 22 01:08:29 -0800 2009
Everyone in this book is linked by one central event - and we don't know what it is until the end of the book.

What can I say about it? It's beautiful and poet...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat May 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 16 08:40:34 -0700 2009 Sun May 17 16:29:41 -0700 2009 2 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Jan 27 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 27 14:25:15 -0800 2009 Wed May 06 15:52:42 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Nov 28 18:21:27 -0800 2008 Mon Jul 20 16:35:36 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Aug 29 13:17:06 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 29 13:17:06 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 28 06:32:51 -0700 2007 Tue Sep 04 11:15:43 -0700 2007
One of the most intimately written, touching and one of the best books I've ever read. When I say this book is "intimate" it's hard to describe. It's not a book that drives you deep into the heart and mind of a character, but rather sends you int...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Jul 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 07 14:49:13 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 15 08:19:08 -0700 2009 the lack of names for all the folk in the street meant I felt less emotionally attched to them (except the sweet storyline of the old couple)but I can see that physical descriptions and the house number is often how we refer to folk in street we dont know tha...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Mar 23 09:37:13 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 23 09:42:18 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jul 25 11:55:38 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 12:01:23 -0700 2009 more...]]>