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The Schedule for July through Dec. 2025
By Lynn · 3 posts · 36 views
By Lynn · 3 posts · 36 views
last updated Jun 25, 2025 08:25PM
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Other topics mentioning this book
Schedule for July 2009 - February 2010
By Sherry , Doyenne · 38 posts · 468 views
By Sherry , Doyenne · 38 posts · 468 views
last updated Nov 08, 2009 05:34PM
What I'm Reading - July/August 2017
By Mary Anne · 174 posts · 83 views
last updated Sep 01, 2017 05:46PM
What Members Thought
Until this year I had only passing familiarity with James Baldwin. This year, perhaps to do with Black Lives Matter and the civil rights movement he is everywhere. This is a deeply moving book beautifully written. The opening pages are the most cinematic I can recall. They read like stage direction. A young man, having fled from his family to seek freedom in Paris finds that he is now bound by chains of his own making. Unable to come to terms with his sexuality and to recognize the love of Giova
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3.5 stars--may up later, I think this book may stick with me
I have heard so many raves about this book, and I think I built it way up in my mind. And there was nothing wrong with it--it is quite well done. But it didn't live up to my expectations. I also felt like it was snippets--or, rather, that there were significant snippets missing. Like David's whole first year in Paris--is that when and where he met Hella? How long and significant was their relationship when she went to Spain? How long ha ...more
I have heard so many raves about this book, and I think I built it way up in my mind. And there was nothing wrong with it--it is quite well done. But it didn't live up to my expectations. I also felt like it was snippets--or, rather, that there were significant snippets missing. Like David's whole first year in Paris--is that when and where he met Hella? How long and significant was their relationship when she went to Spain? How long ha ...more
I’ve always been a big fan of James Baldwin, but up till now, all I’d read from him were non-fiction and short fiction. Seemed like about time that I check out some of his longer fiction. I wish I hadn’t.
The story here is OK, though honestly, all the characters other than the narrator are pretty one-dimensional. And the writing, I’m sorry, is awful. Long sections are really overwritten, trying to stage a lot of philosophical and psychological ideas behind a masquerade of fiction. It doesn’t work ...more
The story here is OK, though honestly, all the characters other than the narrator are pretty one-dimensional. And the writing, I’m sorry, is awful. Long sections are really overwritten, trying to stage a lot of philosophical and psychological ideas behind a masquerade of fiction. It doesn’t work ...more
Mar 30, 2009
Michelle
rated it
really liked it
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review of another edition
Shelves:
classics,
constant-reader
Depressing, but very thought-provoking. Highly flawed and human characters. Very short and fast read -- didn't want to put it down once I got into it.
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May 25, 2009
Kat (A Journey In Reading)
marked it as to-read
May 04, 2010
Mounir
marked it as to-read
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
a-to-buy,
literature-american
Apr 10, 2011
Sharron
marked it as to-read
Feb 28, 2014
Cheryl
marked it as to-read
Jan 06, 2015
Padya
added it
May 05, 2015
Elizabeth
marked it as to-read
May 17, 2016
Linda
marked it as to-read
Aug 14, 2016
Mandy
marked it as to-read
Jul 19, 2017
Sheila
marked it as to-read
Jun 25, 2020
Paige
marked it as to-read
Jul 13, 2020
Aileen
marked it as to-read
