There was a period of time where I made myself think through what I wanted, realistically, and how to achieve them, ultimately. Were you one of those kids who wanted to set the world on fire and initiate changes for the better, if not for fame then for purpose? I was saddened by how scaled back my plans became once I was a bit ground down by circumstances. Then I set it all aside and half-numbly addressed day-to-day tasks.

Recently, I was in a situation where a man-boy poured his little heart out More...

The author does a great job of illuminating the main character's inner dialog and questions about his predicament. At each point in the novel, the protagonist responds to his situation sensibly and/or understandably, demonstrating smarts, will-power, perseverance, and human fallibility (his patience can and does reach a limit). I liked the plot twists and turns ... at least for the first 2/3 of the book, I really had no idea WHAT was going to happen next. I was hoping it wouldn't end the way it More...

Right from the back of the book: “As exciting as ‘Back to the Future’, As romantic as ‘Peggy Sue Got Married’, a phenomenal time-tripping adventure.” Well, in the spirit of a little ‘time-tripping’ let me bring these comparisons slightly up to date; Replay certainly has a quaint combination of elements from the aforementioned films, but it most resembles ‘Groundhog Day’. Any fan of the three previously mentioned films would find it difficult to be disappointed by Replay.

Beginning with the first More...

I had very high expectations for this 1988 World Fantasy award winner. The main character, 43-year-old Jeff Winston has a heart attack and dies, only to wake up in his college dorm room 25 years earlier with his current memories intact. He "replays" his life several times throughout the book trying to correct the mistakes of his "previous" lives. After the second "replay", I got tired of reading about Winston's miserable life and sexual escapades and wished he would just die and stay that way. T More...

Lose yourself in it. Forget the science and just enjoy the characters and their reactions. Two of us here read it and we did discuss it afterwords - and a book that both of us (with our divergent tastes) are intrigued to discuss is a good book!

A friend suggested this book to me years ago. Honestly, I didn't ever think I'd read it because sci-fi/fantasy really isn't my *thing*. I'm glad I gave in. Replay is one of the best stories I've ever read.

The main character of this book dies within the first few pages... and then returns to relive his life over and over with all of the knowledge his life experiences have given him. There are twists and turns throughout, keeping you guessing about what will happen, where Jeff's life will take hi More...

I heard about this book on NPR in an interview (not with the author) about forgotten books that most influenced readers. Written in 1988, it might be classified as "science-fiction," but it doesn't fall in that category for me. It has no technology for example. It is about a man who dies one day at the age of 42 and wakes up immediately afterward in his college dorm. He gets to relive his entire life with the knowledge he had before and rectify mistakes....and then at the age of 42, he dies agai More...

I don't read much fantasy, but for what it's worth, I really enjoyed this book. It's sort of like the movie "Groundhog Day", but instead of repeating just one day, the character relives 25 years of his life and then dies again on the same day/time and then starts over again...but he still remembers everything that happened to him in his prior life. After several cycles he meets another person who is also replaying their life. Great premise, good writing, a bit (just a bit) weak at the end. The s More...

Great Book! Loved the premise. Jeff Winston dies at age 43 and instantly finds himself age 18 back in his dorm room. He has all of his life experience intact, but he is starting over again. He then creates a completely different life. He is able to win huge bets, invest in the right stocks, and knows what is going to happen. However once he hits 43 he dies again! Boom...back to college. Now he has two lifetimes of experience. How does this affect how he lives the next life? Loved it! Of course y More...

Selalu menarik untuk menyimak kisah time-travel dalam bentuk apapun. Dalam novel Replay ini mengusung tema unik dimana tokohnya dikhianati sang waktu untuk mati berkali-kali di waktu (tahun, bulan, hari, jam, menit dan detik) yang sama. Selama siklus kehidupan yang berulang itu Jeff berkali-kali menjalani kehilangan, pengasingan, dan bahkan penyembuhan. Tapi yang terparah dari semua apa itu adalah kehilangan akan orang-orang yang dicintai.

Hingga separuh buku novel ini mengisahkan betapa membing More...

With a setup that recalls Groundhog Day and Back to the Future II (a middle-aged man, Jeff, relives his life from age 18 to his "death" at 43 over and over, able to change things each time but never escaping the loop; going back in time gives him a chance to make a fortune betting on horse races), Replay promises to be a fun sci-fi wish fulfillment story, but winds up something else entirely, a wistful meditation on the relentless passage of time and the regrets we all carry about the choices we More...

Jeff Winston, as the reader finds out on page one, dies. Hell of a story opening, but then just as Grimwood is describing the pain exploding in Winston's chest, Jeff finds himself back in 1963, memories & knowledge of the future intact. So the first thing he does is to bet on the Kentucky Derby and win a fortune. He goes on to live a rich life then inexplicably, at the same time and on the same date in this life, he dies again. Then it starts over again...each time just a litle different. Ev More...

An amazing read. Jeff Winston dies of a heart attack at age 43 in 1988 but wakes up as his 18-year-old self in 1963. Everything is as it had been but his knowledge of the future remains with him. He builds a new life, only to die again on the same day in 1988. He approaches life differently in each of his "replays" but the crux of the story is his discovery of a woman, Pamela, also replaying. It's a wonderful love story with endless complications as they continually die and return. A complex and More...

Jeff Winston, the protagonist of the novel, dies at the age of 43 again and again and relives his life starting at the age of 18 (for the first replay at least). There are no paradoxes here as Jeff is not going to meet his past self in the other life. The only thing that has been transferred are the memories from his past life. This happens repeatedly, and he remembers all his replayed lives every time he starts anew.

The novel is more nearer to being classified as a fantasy rather than a science More...

This is my favorite kind of sci-fi book: well written and thought provoking, and with completely believable people in unusual circumstances. I enjoyed the first two thirds of the book the best, although the portion (I found disturbing) near the two-thirds mark and the rest of the events in the last third were all “plausible.” I did think that most of the plot, at least up until the very end, was predictable, but that didn’t really detract from my enjoyment in reading it. It turned out to be not More...

Jeff Winston dies at 43. And wakes up at age 18 to live his life again. And he keeps living it again, over and over. With each life his life takes a different approach to figure out how to stop the replays, and how to make sense of it all.

This is an amazing science fiction novel that is a treat to read. Besides giving a very interesting look at historical events from the past 60 years it really makes you reevaluate how you are spending your life. I felt a range of emotions while reading, but ul More...

The premise of this book is clever and fascinating: the hero, Jeff Winston dies of a heart attack in his forties and finds himself alive again but at the age of eighteen with all the knowledge and memories of the past 20+ years. He relives his life in a different way - money from bets on certainties, hedonism etc - and dies again at the same age in 1988, only to return again to the early 60s. This is repeated several times and he tries several ways of living his life; he tries to prevent the Ken More...

The Finest Speculation. REPLAY Has it All

Replay, by Ken Grimwood, is a miraculous journey through time and the human spirit. Grimwood wonderfully exposes the possible outcomes of having advanced knowledge while leading life. What happens when you live the same thirty years over, and over, and over? What makes a life worthwhile? Is it a lifetime of money, fame, or positive interactions with others? What does anything matter if at the end of the "replay" everything just gets erased, except in your More...

When the book started off with the a first person view of dying, I knew that it would not be like a normal book. This book takes you through the mind of someone who is forced to live 25 years of his life, over and over again, keeping intact only the memories from the last world. It forces the reader to make some interesting questions about themselves and what they would do if they had to relive everything over again. Would they skip college? Use the facts that they know about the future for pers More...

After learning in my youth that Albert Einstein believed time, was a scalable, space-time continuum, I have always been intrigued by his belief that time travel was theoretically possible. Since I have yet to meet anyone remotely approaching Albert's intelligence, nor who could persuasively convince me that Mr. Einstein's theory had no merit, I remain openly and enthusiastically receptive to his theory.

From the outset, Ken Grimwood grabs the reader's attention and in very short order, thrusts yo More...

Out of so many science fiction books, my favorite theme is time-travel stories or related thereof. There can be similar plots from many stories, but Grimwood's "Replay" is different in such respect because one would have no idea what the outcome to be. The plot of "Replay" is unique and fascinating.

This is a story about a man who died in 1988 of a heart attack, then suddenly finds himself back in time as a college student in 1963 with all of the memories of his future intact. There lies a parado More...

Jeff Winston, forty-three, didn't know he was a replayer until he died and woke up twenty-five years younger in his college dorm room; he lived another life. And died again. And lived again and died again -- in a continuous twenty-five-year cycle -- each time starting from scratch at the age of eighteen to reclaim lost loves, remedy past mistakes, or make a fortune in the stock market. A novel of gripping adventure, romance, and fascinating speculation on the nature of time, Replay asks the ques

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This time travel novel is so understated and set in reality that at times it felt truly possible for me to relive my life over by making different choices. And, of course, that’s fairly true, with certain limitations, and it’s the message the author gets across fairly strongly. In between, we get to relive the historical years 1963-1988, vicariously through the main character, a man who dies at about age 43 and comes back to life again and again at age 18. Sounds like a pretty good fantasy, righ More...

I finally finished Replay. It is about a guy named Jeff Winston who dies in 1988, while he is at work talking to his wife on the phone. When he wakes up he is in his college dorm room in Atlanata, in 1963. He replays his life all the way up to 1988 where he died again. He woke up for his second replay while he was at college, he starts to make some changes from his original life. For example he creates an investing company in New York City that will only existsonly in his second replay. Jeff rep More...

Replay is possibly the most addicting novel I have ever read. (I believe I am up to six reads...possibly more. But, I can quit any time!) The premise is positively intoxicating. What if you could live your life over again?

That is what happens to paunchy, middle-aged Jeff Winston who has a heart attack in the midst of a phone conversation with his dissatisfied wife. "We need--" she says, and then Jeff "dies." You don't find out how that sentence ends until the end of the book, because Jeff is whi More...

For me, Replay is perhaps one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. When I first read it, I remember being dismayed by the endless opportunity that Jeff Winston faced in replaying his life. I panicked a lot at the notion that any moment of my one-life was a mis-step or a mistake. Like listening to Pink Floyd's Time and thinking that you really were "ticking away the moments that make up a dull day". We don't all have the luxury of stripping back twenty years' worth of life and starting a More...

Wow!! Okay... Normally when I finish a good book, I head to Amazon.com to read other readers' reviews. This process is sort of like an online book club for me. A few months ago after finishing Stephen King's time travel thriller "11/22/63," I immediately went to Amazon.com to read those reviews. During those readings, I noticed several people compared King's book to "Replay." Like I've mentioned before, there's no better genre for me than the time travel genre, and this "Replay" book fell right More...

Apparently this book won the World Fantasy Award, and now that I've read it, I can see why.

Just imagine it: dying at 43, only to re-awaken at 18, back wherever you were at that time. The only difference is that your memory of that previous life stays with you.
And so Jeff Winston does what we all would do: huge bets on events where you knew the outcome; investing in stocks and shares that multiply your finances through the roof.
And, of course, he lives a different life, but is tempted to check up More...