Journal Entry 1 by fizzfred from Sacramento, California USA on Monday, October 18, 2004

"William Boyd's masterful new novel tells, in a series of intimate journals, the story of Logan Mountstuart - writer, lover, art dealer, spy - as he makes his often precarious way through the twentieth century." is the description on the back cover. It really doesn't do the book justice. It is written as Logan's journals spanning 68 years of his life (1923-1991) in London, New York, Africa and France. You really feel like you are reading a real journal too! It is so well done that you really come to love Logan more and more as he grows/matures. One of my book club friends said she felt like she was reading what Holden Caufield could have become. I especially love the small touches in this book. Like correcting the inacuracies in the journal with footnotes. And the index. This book is a fascinating look at the twentieth century through the eyes of a flawed but sympathetic character. My whole book club really enjoyed reading it.

This book travelled in a ring for members of BookCrossing to read. Now that it has completed the ring I will release it in the wild in hopes that it will find a new reader to enjoy it as much we did. 

Journal Entry 2 by fizzfred from Sacramento, California USA on Thursday, October 21, 2004

This book was pretty cool, so I thought I'd share it in a small ring. Please mail in this order...
whokyles (MD, USA)
Lorelei03 (NY, USA)
shpriz1 (NY, USA)*
ms-attitude-ca (Ontario,  Canada)
goatgrrl (BC, Canada)
sqdancer (Alberta, Canada)*
16stepper (AZ, USA)
back to me, fizzfred (CA, USA)

Please journal when you receive this book so we know where it is. Try to read it in 4 weeks after receiving it. Then, tell us what you thought of it in a journal entry. PM the next person on the list for their address and send it on in a timely manner. Make sure to let us know when you sent it in a journal entry. Enjoy!!! 

Journal Entry 3 by fizzfred from Sacramento, California USA on Saturday, October 30, 2004

Sent to whokyles to begin the ring. I inclosed a bookmark for everyone. Please just take one and pass the rest on with the book. I hope everyone enjoys reading this as much as I did!!! 

Journal Entry 4 by whokyles from Silver Spring, Maryland USA on Friday, November 19, 2004

Got it yesterday. 

Journal Entry 5 by whokyles from Silver Spring, Maryland USA on Sunday, November 21, 2004

This has to be one of the best books I've read in a while. William Boyd does an excellent job of creating a convincing protagonist. While he isn't a perfect hero, he is at bottom a likable character even when he is being a bit of a cad.
There are times when I laughed with Logan Mountstuart and times when I laughed at him (but I don't think he would mind).
I don't want to go into more detail since I'm the first on this Ring, but perhaps I'll come back and elaborate when it is done. For now I'll just say thanks for sharing this with us frizzfred.
Next stop: Lorelei03.
 

Journal Entry 6 by Lorelei03 from Flushing, New York USA on Thursday, December 02, 2004

it has arrived! i've just started it and is great so far! 

Journal Entry 7 by Lorelei03 from Flushing, New York USA on Wednesday, December 08, 2004

WOW! I cannot tell you folks how much I loved this book. I initially got interested because my husband is from Uruguay as is the protaganist. But I felt immersed in Logan's life in a very tactile way. (It probably didn't hurt that he reminds me of a friend of mine).

very well written, very engaging, highly rcmded.

On its way to shpriz1 this week. 

Journal Entry 8 by shpriz1 from Brooklyn, New York USA on Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Received it safe and sound. 

Journal Entry 9 by shpriz1 at on Tuesday, January 25, 2005

Released 7 yrs ago (1/25/2005 UTC) at

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

RELEASE NOTES:

Released to ms-attitude-ca as part of a bookring. 

Journal Entry 10 by ms-attitude-ca from Burlington, Ontario Canada on Thursday, March 10, 2005

I feel really bad. I've had this book now for about 3 weeks and have been trying to read this book for the past two weeks, but just can't get into it, so I am sending it to the next participant. I have already PM'd her and am waiting for her address 

Journal Entry 11 by ms-attitude-ca from Burlington, Ontario Canada on Saturday, March 19, 2005

sent in mail to goatgrrl 19 March 

Journal Entry 12 by goatgrrl from New Westminster, British Columbia Canada on Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Journal Entry 13 by goatgrrl from New Westminster, British Columbia Canada on Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Is there anything more engaging than reading someone else's diary? Any Human Heart is a fictional compilation of the private journals of Logan Mountstuart, born in 1906 in Montevideo, Uruguay, the son of a British beef merchant and his Uruguayan secretary. Logan's journals begin in 1923, as his family is returning to England from Uruguay. The early journals take the reader through Logan's attendance at an "eminent boys' boarding school", his three years studying history at Jesus College, Oxford, his travels between London and Paris as an aspiring young writer, the publication of his first and second books, his marriage to the insipid Lady Laetitia "Lottie" Edgefield and the birth of his son, Lionel. Later journals follow him through adventures (and misadventures) in Switzerland, Nigeria, New York City, London again and - finally - a small town in France.

Logan's life spans every decade of the 20th century, and his journals chronicle events including the English general strike of 1926, the 1929 US stock market crash, the Spanish Civil War, World War II (including the Blitz), the birth of rock and roll and so much more. He also has an unusual, Forest Gump-like talent for bumping into historical, literary and artistic figures, including James Joyce, a naked Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell, Aldous Huxley, and Leonard and Virginia Woolf. In Paris he meets Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway. While in the Naval Intelligence Division during WWII he works for Ian Fleming, spying on the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson. Later, in New York, he encounters Frank O'Hara and Jackson Pollock. Some life!

Through it all, Logan emerges as a definite anti-hero. In the early journals, he writes with the un-self conscious and Adrian Mole-esque pomposity of any bright teenager ("the Xmas tree is surely the saddest and most vulgar object invented by mankind"). By his mid-twenties his arrogance has softened, as he struggles first with under-achievement and apathy ("some sort of lassitude disease"), then with romantic and sexual obsession and - finally - the domestic entrapment of a Bad Marriage. As Logan promises at the beginning of the book, his journals contain "no excisions designed to conceal errors of judgment", nor any "additions aimed at conferring an unearned sagacity". In this regard, I particularly enjoyed his intermittent - and very human - cultural and moral lapses: his failure to get through Joyce's Ulysses, his dismissal of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land as "pretentious", his unthinking participation as a scab during the 1926 General Strike, and his gullible involvement with the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

For those interested, there's an April 14, 2002 review in the Guardian here, and a second Guardian review here. You can also read the New York Times's review here and the San Francisco Chronicle's here.

Thanks very much for the opportunity to read this book - it was the perfect diversion during a particularly miserable week and a half spent moving! 

Journal Entry 14 by goatgrrl from New Westminster, British Columbia Canada on Friday, April 22, 2005

I have received sqdancer's address, and will mail Any Human Heart to him/her on Monday (the book is all packed up and ready to go). Sorry for the slight delay in moving this one along -- we moved in the last couple weeks, and I'm still living amidst many unpacked boxes! Thanks once again, fizzfred, for the opportunity to read this book. 

Journal Entry 15 by sqdancer on Friday, May 06, 2005

Arrived with the envelope flap unstuck, but the book was safe and sound.

 

Journal Entry 16 by sqdancer on Wednesday, June 08, 2005

I'm afraid I didn't find it a very engaging read. I don't mind a protagonist that is a jerk; but Logan wasn't even interesting. I just didn't really care what happened to him; I have sent it on without finishing it. Perhaps I read this book at the wrong point in my life.

Sent out via Air Mail yesterday afternoon.

 

Journal Entry 17 by sqdancer on Wednesday, September 07, 2005

I PM'ed 16stepper twice last month with no response.

Today I posted an ISO in the Bookring Forum.


 

Journal Entry 18 by 16stepper from Gilbert, Arizona USA on Wednesday, November 02, 2005

This got lost on my desk for a month or so. Then I had trouble getting into it. By the end, I was in love with the old fart and sorry to see him go. This was a fascinating read, fizzfred, thank you so much for sharing. Sorry to have had it for so long incommunicado. Will get it back to you as soon as I have your mailing addy. 

Journal Entry 19 by 16stepper from Gilbert, Arizona USA on Monday, November 07, 2005

Sending out in tomorrow's mail. The ring returns home to fizzfred! Thank you! 

Journal Entry 20 by fizzfred from Sacramento, California USA on Monday, November 14, 2005

After a year of traveling this book has come back home. What a great ring! Thank you all so much for making it so successful. It is funny how some of us loved this book and others couldn't get into it at all. :) I guess that is why rings are so much fun. I'm going to try to find a good home for this book soon. 

Journal Entry 21 by fizzfred from Sacramento, California USA on Sunday, January 01, 2006

I gave this to a friend in hopes that she will not only enjoy a good book but will also join us in this BookCrossing adventure. :)