What do you think?
Amateur Barbarians: A Novel
Acclaimed, award-winning novelist Robert Cohen delivers a bold, provocative exploration of the panic of midlife, following two men plateaued on either side of their forties and the unexpected consequences of changing course.Teddy Hastings is a New England middle school principal desperate for transcendence. Unmoored by his brother’s death and a health scare of his own, he tries to broaden his ordinary life and winds up unemployed and on the wrong side of the law. Meanwhile, Oren Pierce, a perpetual grad student from New York, abandons, somewhat to his own surprise, his search for the extraordinary and begins settling into the humble existence that Teddy seeks to escape. What comforts Oren alarms Teddy, and their paths overlap as Teddy’s quest for the unknown and unfamiliar experience takes him on a rash trip to Africa, leaving Oren to assume the trappings of his life, including Teddy’s wife Gail.Amateur Barbarians showcases a writer at the peak of his powers, tracing domestic ambivalence, the comic perils of introspection and desire, and the terror of an unlived life with Cohen’s signature wit and uncanny perception, proving yet again why he was touted by The New York Times Book Review as the “heir to Saul Bellow and Philip Roth.”
- GenresFictionLiterary Fiction
416 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 7, 2009
About the author
Robert Cohen
12 books5 followersRobert Cohen, Professor of English and American Literatures, is a novelist who teaches both literature and creative writing courses. His books include Amateur Barbarians, Inspired Sleep, The Here and Now, The Organ Builder, and a collection of short stories, The Varieties of Romantic Experience. Prior to teaching at Middlebury he taught at Harvard, Rice, the University of Houston, and the Iowa Writers Workshop. He earned a B.A. from University of California Berkeley and an MFA from Columbia. His stories and essays have appeared in Harpers, Paris Review, GQ, The Believer, and many other magazines, and his awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, a Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Writers Award, a Ribalow Prize, and a Pushcart Prize.
Source: Middlebury College.
Source: Middlebury College.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
December 21, 2020
Could barely finish the book, skimmed the last few chapters. It simply wasn't a book for me.
May 2, 2015
Firstly, I didn't finish "Amateur Barbarians" so my review is suspect. But here are opinions based on the first half: I wanted to like this book -- the premise is good and resonates with me, moving into my later years. It is often witty, the plot turns are sometimes interesting, the characters are initially appealing. But there are simply too many words. The author spends too much time and effort describing events that could be covered in half the space or much less. Yes, he is a good writer, but that does not justify 15+ page descriptions of a half-drunk man in a bathroom at a party, or a teenager at a local beach -- they're just not *that* informative. I'm a slow reader so my time is limited...did not want to spend it on this book.
October 20, 2009
A wise and witty novel, highly introspective, about two men in little Carthage, in upstate New York, on either end of middle age, one a rootless young man in his early 30s, the other "fifty-two. Fifty THREE," a middle school principal with deep roots in his family & community, but both trying to figure out what they want to do when they grow up. It's thoroughly engaging and enjoyable, though the female characters are not real characters--just foils for the two men at the center of the story--and there's no ending; it just quits.
Excellent writing throughout, reminds me somewhat of Richard Ford. Some examples:
After a rather snarky exchange between the main character & his wife on the way to a dinner party: "The silence that followed this exchange, like that which preceded it, might have been either charged with meaning or devoid of it--or neither, or both--but there was no time to investigate it now, they were already pulling up to the Dunns' front yard, already at the door, already saying hello, already exchanging pleasantries in the language of that foreign country they still visited occasionally, where other people lived." (64)
While in the bathroom at that same dinner party: "Down the hall he could hear [his wife's] low, confiding voice, '. . . the eternal husband. Every night in bed. You wouldn't believe how good it is . . .'
Sometimes his love for his wife and the need to distance himself from the sound of her voice occupied roughly the same space in Teddy's chest. He was not, he knew, the eternal husband; it was the name of a book by Dostoyevsky. With books as with legal cases, Gail preferred the strays. The minor ones, the difficult ones, the foreigners, the underdogs, the overlooked. Between her books and his you could hardly move around the bedroom at this point. But then books and marriages were well suited to each other, Teddy thought. Both were middle-class adventures: they conspired to keep you at home, sitting still, being good. Meanwhile the mind went sneaking off under cover of darkness, traveling the world, kissing strangers in parking lots, suffering torments and temptations no one could see.'" (81)
The younger character later reflects: "He'd got himself involved with a lawyer, a mother, a married woman. No one had imposed these burdens on him; he'd taken them on himself. Deliberately, methodically. And if he'd overshot the target somewhat, if in his panic to nail down some of the looming intangibles of his youth, the job and the house and the woman, the things that rooted you in place, he'd skipped over the best part of his adulthood, gone directly from a (protracted) late adolescence to a (premature) middle age without ever passing Go; if he now discovered himself to be boxed in and trapped at the center of the board, the Chance cards gone, no Get Out of Jail Free, in a game he could hardly imagine growing tired of someday--well, that was the deal he'd signed up for, and he would accept it and submit to it, as prematurely middle-aged people do. Yes, looking at him now, you'd have almost thought he was growing up, or going mad, or whatever it was you called it when you began deliberately and methodically to cause yourself pain." (334)
And finally: "It was Saturday night and they were going to the movies like an ordinary couple. Whether there was any such THING as an ordinary couple was yet another heavy, semi-religious question, he supposed. According to Heidegger, the ordinary was always extraordinary. But suppose you were one of those people who perpetually longed for the extraordinary; did that mean you really longed for the ORDINARY? Or was longing for the extraordinary the most ordinary longing of all?
Excellent writing throughout, reminds me somewhat of Richard Ford. Some examples:
After a rather snarky exchange between the main character & his wife on the way to a dinner party: "The silence that followed this exchange, like that which preceded it, might have been either charged with meaning or devoid of it--or neither, or both--but there was no time to investigate it now, they were already pulling up to the Dunns' front yard, already at the door, already saying hello, already exchanging pleasantries in the language of that foreign country they still visited occasionally, where other people lived." (64)
While in the bathroom at that same dinner party: "Down the hall he could hear [his wife's] low, confiding voice, '. . . the eternal husband. Every night in bed. You wouldn't believe how good it is . . .'
Sometimes his love for his wife and the need to distance himself from the sound of her voice occupied roughly the same space in Teddy's chest. He was not, he knew, the eternal husband; it was the name of a book by Dostoyevsky. With books as with legal cases, Gail preferred the strays. The minor ones, the difficult ones, the foreigners, the underdogs, the overlooked. Between her books and his you could hardly move around the bedroom at this point. But then books and marriages were well suited to each other, Teddy thought. Both were middle-class adventures: they conspired to keep you at home, sitting still, being good. Meanwhile the mind went sneaking off under cover of darkness, traveling the world, kissing strangers in parking lots, suffering torments and temptations no one could see.'" (81)
The younger character later reflects: "He'd got himself involved with a lawyer, a mother, a married woman. No one had imposed these burdens on him; he'd taken them on himself. Deliberately, methodically. And if he'd overshot the target somewhat, if in his panic to nail down some of the looming intangibles of his youth, the job and the house and the woman, the things that rooted you in place, he'd skipped over the best part of his adulthood, gone directly from a (protracted) late adolescence to a (premature) middle age without ever passing Go; if he now discovered himself to be boxed in and trapped at the center of the board, the Chance cards gone, no Get Out of Jail Free, in a game he could hardly imagine growing tired of someday--well, that was the deal he'd signed up for, and he would accept it and submit to it, as prematurely middle-aged people do. Yes, looking at him now, you'd have almost thought he was growing up, or going mad, or whatever it was you called it when you began deliberately and methodically to cause yourself pain." (334)
And finally: "It was Saturday night and they were going to the movies like an ordinary couple. Whether there was any such THING as an ordinary couple was yet another heavy, semi-religious question, he supposed. According to Heidegger, the ordinary was always extraordinary. But suppose you were one of those people who perpetually longed for the extraordinary; did that mean you really longed for the ORDINARY? Or was longing for the extraordinary the most ordinary longing of all?
November 22, 2017
Nov. 29, 2017. I am having a tough time with this one, due to 2 factors:
1. Poor timing: Having recently finished Exit West, a timely parable of forced migration, this story of two somewhat clueless, entitled white men at different midlife stages of disenchantment in a stultifying academic town seems not very interesting or relevant, even though I am the same age as Teddy Hastings, the protagist, and can certainly appreciate a middle-age burnout scenario. Given the current #MeToo flurry of reports of men behaving badly, it was hard to get through the scene of Hasting's cluelessly voyeuristic photo session with his unclothed Sleeping-Beauty teen daughter Mimi without a squick of revulsion. You just know it is going to end badly for him, while he has absolutely no idea of his transgression. Would a middle-school principal really be unaware of the potential ramifications of his photo subject when he drops off the film for developing? It defies credulity.
2. Rob Cohen's writing is clever and has many deft comic details, and yet...there is a kind of juiceless sardonic dryness, which makes it as hard to swallow as dry turkey leftovers. Do I like any of the people in this story? Not really. Does Cohen? It's hard to tell...part of me feels he has a shiv out. Maybe the empathy comes later on. The comparison that came to my mind reading about the parasitically shiftless, commitment-phobic Oren Pierce was with two early novels of Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies and A Handful of Dust.
___________
Postscript: 1/23/18. I plodded on, and finally finished. If I could give half stars, I'd bump it up to 3.5. Persevering, I found more empathy for these characters. Not a whole lot, but more than before. The scenes in Ethiopia have more verve than the chapters set in Carthage. But still, this is a novel about interior thinking. The constant interior monologues of middle age. There are many clever prose descriptions (I liked the description of spring in Carthage, with ice receding incrementally along the shoreline like old people's gums) but ultimately, it's not enough to stay deeply engaged.
1. Poor timing: Having recently finished Exit West, a timely parable of forced migration, this story of two somewhat clueless, entitled white men at different midlife stages of disenchantment in a stultifying academic town seems not very interesting or relevant, even though I am the same age as Teddy Hastings, the protagist, and can certainly appreciate a middle-age burnout scenario. Given the current #MeToo flurry of reports of men behaving badly, it was hard to get through the scene of Hasting's cluelessly voyeuristic photo session with his unclothed Sleeping-Beauty teen daughter Mimi without a squick of revulsion. You just know it is going to end badly for him, while he has absolutely no idea of his transgression. Would a middle-school principal really be unaware of the potential ramifications of his photo subject when he drops off the film for developing? It defies credulity.
2. Rob Cohen's writing is clever and has many deft comic details, and yet...there is a kind of juiceless sardonic dryness, which makes it as hard to swallow as dry turkey leftovers. Do I like any of the people in this story? Not really. Does Cohen? It's hard to tell...part of me feels he has a shiv out. Maybe the empathy comes later on. The comparison that came to my mind reading about the parasitically shiftless, commitment-phobic Oren Pierce was with two early novels of Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies and A Handful of Dust.
___________
Postscript: 1/23/18. I plodded on, and finally finished. If I could give half stars, I'd bump it up to 3.5. Persevering, I found more empathy for these characters. Not a whole lot, but more than before. The scenes in Ethiopia have more verve than the chapters set in Carthage. But still, this is a novel about interior thinking. The constant interior monologues of middle age. There are many clever prose descriptions (I liked the description of spring in Carthage, with ice receding incrementally along the shoreline like old people's gums) but ultimately, it's not enough to stay deeply engaged.
Read
July 29, 2011I am on the fence here about this book. THe story is well told, but I have a hapless sense about the narration, not just Teddy--which is decidedly not how the story should go in my mind. I am not sure how this got into the top 50 notable NYT books for 2009, but while it was not a book I regretted reading, it didn't rise to that level for me. It is a book about losing the momentum in your life, and the trouble that can get you into--coupled with a system that allows you to retain an income whilst taking a year off to either figure out where you need to go or to go somewhere else, or find more meaning in what you were doing before--Teddy does two out of three, but he never quite manages the tough stuff, which is that his relationship with his wife is totally out of wack, and he never went to her for help in the whole mess. This is good, has some excellent points, and I would recommend it if you read 50 books a year.
October 14, 2010
You can't escape your own life -- the only way out is to dive deeper in.
Okay, that sounds abstract, and possibly annoying, but it's the heartfelt message of this emotionally dense, beautifully written novel. It's another one of these books about mid-life crises in a small town, so if you've had enough of that, give it a miss. But if you can stand to read the interior monologues of characters who are thinking too much and doing relatively little, I highly recommend it. Honestly. Every movement, every group of paragraphs, every bit of imagery, gave me new insight into both my interior life and the world around me. And there were some surprises, too.
It's easy to read, but so rich that it's sometimes hard to pick up again once you've put it down for a day or so.
Okay, that sounds abstract, and possibly annoying, but it's the heartfelt message of this emotionally dense, beautifully written novel. It's another one of these books about mid-life crises in a small town, so if you've had enough of that, give it a miss. But if you can stand to read the interior monologues of characters who are thinking too much and doing relatively little, I highly recommend it. Honestly. Every movement, every group of paragraphs, every bit of imagery, gave me new insight into both my interior life and the world around me. And there were some surprises, too.
It's easy to read, but so rich that it's sometimes hard to pick up again once you've put it down for a day or so.
May 13, 2022
A doctor in this novel says that modern society is too clean, “immunologically speaking”: “We’d be better off out in the wild, living like barbarians. Out there with the mold and the germs and the animal feces. Our native state.”
February 3, 2010
I don't understand how this book made the "best books of 2009" list. To its credit it did make me laugh and had some insightful bits of dialogue. Where it falls flat is any promise of offering up a nugget of knowledge or hidden truth about the drive to keep going in life. We are thrust into the story of two men at two very different stages in life. In one corner we have Oren, a 30 year old that took his time deciding exactly what path his life should lead. He had jumped from major to major in a few upscale American universities. He is well-travelled and has had his adventures abroad and now feels the pull to finally put down some roots. In the other corner we have Teddy; who it seems was born rooted. The principal of a community middle school he has spent his whole life playing the role of upstanding citizen. His family life, career and health seem to be in a period of upheaval which leads him on a strange course to his own new adventure. What I found odd was though I am more around Oren's age I identified more fully with Teddy. It may have nothing to do with age after all. There is lies the rub. Connections were non-existant. I could relate in some small part to all of the characters but they all seem so flawed. I hated the character of Gail. She seemed cold. Teddy really loved her and at a time he needed her the most she ran into the arms of a younger man, namely Oren. Oren was another piece of work. At times disarming but on the whole just self-conscious and whimpering. Is this what a close look at a family unit would reveal? I should hope not. I felt absolutely no love within the Hasting's household. The only emotions were cowardly ones. I could not understand the simmering anomosity contained by the female member's of the tribe against a father that clearly was just trying as hard as he could to retain some sort of family structure.
October 2, 2009
Why I read It
Doing my usual scan of the new book shelf the word Barbarian jumped out at me, enough that I pulled it down. From there I was intrigued by the cover image of a lion on a couch so I opened the cover. The first words on the inside flap where from a review by the San Francisco Chronicle and said “A dazzling comic novel…” Good enough for me so I checked it out.
The Good
Parts of these two intersecting stories were fascinating. When Teddy seeks out his wandering daughter in Africa I was enthralled. And just sometimes the writing was almost poetic in its perfection. When Oren describes Don as “a know-it-all, a burnt-out case, a glutton who, having feasted too long on the same limited menu, fancied himself a connoisseur” you can picture that guy exactly. I also found a great Ralph Waldo Emerson quote I had never seen before; “Every ship is a romantic object, except the one we sail on.” That was almost worth the read by itself.
The Bad
The plot was rambling, or maybe just not clear. I never really got the sense of what the author was trying to say. I also didn’t get the sense of any conclusion. Two men on either side of 40 held together by the same job and woman; where are we going with that?
The Ugly (my opinion)
Parts of the book were brilliant. In fact if the story of Teddy and his daughter Danny in Africa had been the whole story instead of just 50 pages I would have loved it. Overall it was just okay and the San Francisco Chronicle and I clearly differ over the definition of a “comic” novel. That said I will try another of Cohen’s books based on the strength of the bits I liked. Most reviewers disagree with me about this book
Doing my usual scan of the new book shelf the word Barbarian jumped out at me, enough that I pulled it down. From there I was intrigued by the cover image of a lion on a couch so I opened the cover. The first words on the inside flap where from a review by the San Francisco Chronicle and said “A dazzling comic novel…” Good enough for me so I checked it out.
The Good
Parts of these two intersecting stories were fascinating. When Teddy seeks out his wandering daughter in Africa I was enthralled. And just sometimes the writing was almost poetic in its perfection. When Oren describes Don as “a know-it-all, a burnt-out case, a glutton who, having feasted too long on the same limited menu, fancied himself a connoisseur” you can picture that guy exactly. I also found a great Ralph Waldo Emerson quote I had never seen before; “Every ship is a romantic object, except the one we sail on.” That was almost worth the read by itself.
The Bad
The plot was rambling, or maybe just not clear. I never really got the sense of what the author was trying to say. I also didn’t get the sense of any conclusion. Two men on either side of 40 held together by the same job and woman; where are we going with that?
The Ugly (my opinion)
Parts of the book were brilliant. In fact if the story of Teddy and his daughter Danny in Africa had been the whole story instead of just 50 pages I would have loved it. Overall it was just okay and the San Francisco Chronicle and I clearly differ over the definition of a “comic” novel. That said I will try another of Cohen’s books based on the strength of the bits I liked. Most reviewers disagree with me about this book
Read
July 25, 2011Middle school principal Teddy Hastings is in the midst of a midlife crisis. His brother recently died, he's battling his own health issues, his older daughter has escaped to Asia and he may be having a minor emotional meltdown. And there's this little issue of being in prison.
Oren Pierce has always been a drifter, moving from major to major in college, from relationship to relationship, place to place. Suddenly he's found himself as co-acting principal and on the verge of a challenging relationship, and he can't figure out if he wants either one.
Teddy and Oren's stories, along with the ripples they make in the lives of their family and friends, are the backbone of Richard Cohen's Amateur Barbarians. Many of us have found ourselves sharing at least one trait with either Teddy or Oren (hopefully not the jail thing), so I think their stories are fairly easy to digest and understand.
Cohen was at his best when writing about Teddy. I don't know if it was his blustery nature or the situations he found himself in, but I found myself caring much more about him than Oren (and Teddy was the one in more trouble). Oren's lack of ambition and backbone frustrated me after a while. I thought this was a good book, but not a great one.
Oren Pierce has always been a drifter, moving from major to major in college, from relationship to relationship, place to place. Suddenly he's found himself as co-acting principal and on the verge of a challenging relationship, and he can't figure out if he wants either one.
Teddy and Oren's stories, along with the ripples they make in the lives of their family and friends, are the backbone of Richard Cohen's Amateur Barbarians. Many of us have found ourselves sharing at least one trait with either Teddy or Oren (hopefully not the jail thing), so I think their stories are fairly easy to digest and understand.
Cohen was at his best when writing about Teddy. I don't know if it was his blustery nature or the situations he found himself in, but I found myself caring much more about him than Oren (and Teddy was the one in more trouble). Oren's lack of ambition and backbone frustrated me after a while. I thought this was a good book, but not a great one.
January 19, 2010
A fun story about two men on either side of 50 whose lives become interestingly intertwined. When Teddy, local Vice Principal, ends up in jail for a small breach of social norms, Oren takes over. When Teddy then leaves the country on a mission to bring back his eldest daughter, well, Oren finds a way to take over his, um, domestic duties as well.
This is an enjoyable read that does a good job of carrying two story lines right alongside one another. Cohen keeps the story novel while not challenging the reader too much. Nice for a light before bed read though I'd be hard pressed to say anything much more in praise of it.
The only thing I might have asked for would be a bit of continuation as I was left wondering a bit about both of the characters, though this is seemingly the point. Guess I'll just have to read the sequel?!
This is an enjoyable read that does a good job of carrying two story lines right alongside one another. Cohen keeps the story novel while not challenging the reader too much. Nice for a light before bed read though I'd be hard pressed to say anything much more in praise of it.
The only thing I might have asked for would be a bit of continuation as I was left wondering a bit about both of the characters, though this is seemingly the point. Guess I'll just have to read the sequel?!
August 24, 2009
You've read this book before -- actually, several books in one -- the small New England college town adultery hijinks (think Updike, Ford, Cheever, Bellow, etc.), the misunderstanding that provokes the P.C. police (Francine Prose, Philip Roth), and the husband has spiritual crisis and goes off to Africa to find himself (Conrad, Hemingway, etc.). There are pleasures to be had here, when the author isn't trying so hard to be writerly, and on occasion he hits the mark. But more often than not, his reach exceeds his grasp and his characters, while well drawn, don't really elicit sympathy, empathy, or even understanding. If this didn't come so highly recommended, perhaps I'd have enjoyed it more; as it did, I was disappointed.
January 12, 2010
I have a new favorite fiction author--Robert Cohen, author of this book and Inspired Sleep, plus a few others I haven't gotten to yet. I would give my incisors to be able to craft fiction with this guy's humor and irony. Definitely put either one on your "to read" list and see if you don't agree.
As I was reading Barbarians, I kept telling Nancy "this guy is me", although, if so, things are not going to end well for me. The protagonist in Sleep is a forty year old woman who is not me, but is still a great character.
Robert Cohen rocks.
As I was reading Barbarians, I kept telling Nancy "this guy is me", although, if so, things are not going to end well for me. The protagonist in Sleep is a forty year old woman who is not me, but is still a great character.
Robert Cohen rocks.
July 8, 2009
A wonderfully written tale of a man going through a mid-life crisis, who shares alternating chapters with 30-year-old man trying to get a start on adulthood.
Wonderful insights into male psyche here, but the main reason to read Robert Cohen is the beauty of his prose, his genius-level observations on the human condition, and his light humorous touch that makes taking all his brilliance in such a joy.
Wonderful insights into male psyche here, but the main reason to read Robert Cohen is the beauty of his prose, his genius-level observations on the human condition, and his light humorous touch that makes taking all his brilliance in such a joy.
September 28, 2009
This book was about two men, one in his fifties and one in his thirties, each going through some sort of life crisis. The older one goes to Africa to retrieve his daughter and my favorite part was how that experience appearred to resolve his issues. I especially like the character development concerning him, his daughter and wife
August 6, 2009
Two adult men come of age, hungry for/terrified of their inner beast. Delicious, semi-satirical prose that fixates on the minute details. Cohen does, though, seem to find the middle-aged ex-principal more compelling than the small-town neophyte.
August 24, 2009
A novel about small town America, complete with a neurotic academic Jewish guy from the city. I can relate to this character's angst over his inability to commit to a profession or a person, not to mention the globe-trotting daughter. Not plot spoilers here.
October 3, 2009
I really thought/hoped Amateur Barbarians was going to be really good, after about 100 pages or so it was interesting enough. But ultimately the two main characters, Teddy and Oren, are just boring...and the story itself doesn't rise much above that designation either.
Rating: 3.2
Rating: 3.2
October 5, 2009
I enjoyed the rootless young man and his adventures in settling down. The father's story arc got predictable, and I lost interest in the mother's ...
Wow. I can barely remember what happened in this book. It did have some good philosophical quips along the way.
Wow. I can barely remember what happened in this book. It did have some good philosophical quips along the way.
December 30, 2009
Not bad, but not up to its potential. Interesting concept about two guys on either side of their forties contemplating life. Some good insights, but could have done without the extramarital affair, and the trip to Africa wasn't what it could have been.
June 30, 2010
Cohen's language is consciously beautiful and playful without being pretentious. His characters are richly imagined, interesting, and believable. This is all good because the novel lacks a standard narrative arc. If I read more of his work it'll be for that consummate turn of phrase.
January 23, 2016
Witty writing, world-weary story. I enjoyed reading it more for the dialogue and writing style than for the characters themselves. I plan to try his earlier "Inspired Sleep." I've given four stars to many books I liked better than this one, but the prose carried the day.
August 10, 2009
loved it, very well done
December 8, 2009
I randomly pulled this book from the "New Books" shelf at the library and it was a lucky find. A strong story about life, midlife, choices and paths both taken and not.
December 9, 2009
"plumbing the depths of
unlived life with uncanny
wit and perception"
unlived life with uncanny
wit and perception"
January 11, 2010
Another rung closer to the pantheon of great writers climbs Mr. Cohen!
February 23, 2010
wow - the book is not really funny, but I have laughed out loud constantly; there are plenty of opportunities to recognize yourself here!
March 1, 2010
An amusing book about two men in various stages of crisis. Do people really act and feel like this? I don't know. It didn't feel particularly true to my own life experiences.
March 10, 2010
This may be a brilliant, clever, fascinating book. Maybe it's a timing thing that I just wasn't ready for Cohen's style of writing. I don't know what it is exactly. I just couldn't get into it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews