From Amazon:

This is a tightly focused, high-performance, stream-of-consciousness drama about one day in the life of a sanguine London neurosurgeon. Henry Perowne is a good man. He loves to perform delicate operations while listening to classical music, and he adores his smart lawyer wife, adventurous poet daughter, and gentle musician son. For him this particular Saturday in February 2003 is a day full of promise, even though he's had a strange night and London is gearing up for an immense protest march against the impending war in Iraq, and even though he gets into a frightening altercation with a twitchy thug named Baxter, a confrontation he escapes by diagnosing his attacker's degenerative condition. It's been said that what makes literature so enthralling is its devotion to detail and its digressions. McEwan is a master of both, and consequently the reader reads this embroiling tale with two minds: one luxuriating in Henry's piquant ruminations on everything from the dysfunctions of the brain to evolution, Iraq, and society's retreat from "big ideas"; the other cued to suspense: how will Baxter exact his revenge? McEwan is as provocative, transporting, and brilliant as ever as he considers both our vulnerability and our strength, particularly our ability to create sanctuary in a violent world.

Offered as a Bookring - Order to Date:
twinkpuddin - NY
KarenZero - NY
ireland424 - WI
glade1 - NC
tuff517 - TX
Rob-B - OH/VA - asked to skip turn
bakerwhencan - CA
Navig8r - UK
katayoun - Iran
outofreach - Australia
aunt-sophie - Quebec, Canada
spiritinflight - Ontario, Canada - HERE NOW
heartsong2 - Kearney, NE
Psyche - Red Wing, MN
kryan - Toronto, Canada
ariuca - Madrid, Spain
tobysrus - MA - Back to me!

Mailed to twinkpuddin today for the start of the bookring. Enjoy!

Standard bookring rules apply:

1. When you receive the book, make a journal entry, so we all know where it is.
2. Read the book within a month of receiving it in the mail.
3. Journal with your thoughts/opinions/etc.
4. PM the next person on the list to get their address.
5. Mail to the next person on the list, and include this information in a journal entry, so we all know where the book is.
6. Enjoy!

Received in the mail yesterday and started last nite!

I finished the book this morning. It didn't rope me in the way I expected at first. The last hundred pages is where I found myself the most drawn in and made the reading worthwhile to me. I found the medical terms hard to deal with, but thought they really fit the character. And, while the copious details painted a vivid picture, sometimes I found them to be a bit too much. At the same time, I know that details are what make up a person's day and are to be expected. Thanks for including me tobysrus!

Out to KarenZero tonite!

Will start this weekend!

Finished yesterday! I liked this book. I thought it was an interesting look at time, cause/effect, etc. Thanks for sharing the book!

I will send it out tomorrow.

RELEASE NOTES:

Off to the Badger State! Goodbye, book!

The book arrived on Saturday in the mail - appropriately enough! I'm going to get started on it this afternoon and hopefully will have it on it's way again by the end of the week!

*** Update ***
6/16/05 - I've attempted to finish this book a couple times now and just find that it's not suiting my reading mood at the moment and I don't want to stall the bookring any longer. I've contacted glade1 to get a mailing address so this book can be on it's way again soon.

RELEASE NOTES:

Sorry for the delay Glade1, but this one is finally on it's way to you!!!

Received in the mail today. It's behind about three other ring books but shouldn't take too long. More later...

Well, not exactly a fast-paced adventure! This is a pretty slow moving book, with all the action taking place during the course of one day. It has many beautiful and eloquent passages and contains little kernels of truth about cause and effect, life's randomness, the haves and the have-nots, etc. Nevertheless, I was not riveted by it. Perhaps because it is the second book in a row that I have read that took place in a single day, I'm ready for something a little "perkier" and action-packed (getting ready to pick up Eleven on Top, so that should do it!).

I'm glad I read this and got a taste of McEwan's writing. I can see why he is popular but I'm sure he's a "thinking person's" writer, not someone whose books you pick up for light entertainment. Thanks, tobysrus, for sharing this one.

I have tuff517's address and hope to mail this early next week.

Update: Mailed on 8-10-05.

Received today, will start ASAP.

As mentioned by a earlier reader, I too had a hard time getting interested in this book. It was after the incident with Baxter that I was curious to find out how the rest of the day would go. I enjoyed 'being' Henry for a day; I wish there could've been a bit more interacation between him and his children, but I doubt it would've served the story. Very interesting end to his day. A fairly enjoyable read after all. Thanks for sharing!

Rob-B has asked to be skipped, so this will go to bakerwhencan tomorrow.

Arrived today! I'm looking forward to this.

Because I had some preparation about how the book centers on Henry's perspective and experience from the other readers, I was drawn quite quickly into the book. I really liked it and I felt for the characters very deeply in the end. I have sent this off today to Navig8r in the UK. I am so sorry for my awful delay! Thank you for including me in the ring!

The book arrived today! Thank you for sending it on.

This book had two major pulls for me: I know plenty of doctors (OK not neurosurgeons but hey), and I have lived or worked (sometimes both) in the precise area of London where the book is set, for the past 20 years. I went to school there. I know that area inside out, upside down and back to front. I have imbibed beer in the Jeremy Bentham pub, lost count of the times I have walked up and down University Street, Charlotte Street, Warren Street, and used the pillar of the Telecom Tower to navigate my way home from afar. I even bought my cigarettes from the newsagent mentioned in the book as the place where the people congregate outside and from whom you can get hold of anything at a cut rate. I once walked past the Spearmint Rhino and saw a be-thonged pair of buttocks pressed up against the inside of a window of a limo. I still work within striking distance of where I calculate the Perowne house to be. These places exist, just in case anyone was wondering... and McEwan describes the ambience of the place beautifully.

So, it was extremely gratifying to note that the accuracy was spot-on. The one thing missing was the presence of a vast (and I mean vast) number of students in the area. UCL is literally across the road and during term time there are huge quantities of people who are clearly studying, wandering about. If they're not students they are academics. The presence of a suit in that area would be fairly unusual. Not newsworthy, but definitely not the predominant dress code.

In terms of the story, I was so distracted by the wonderful feeling that happens when you can visualise exactly what the author has in mind, that I didn't find the beginning slow at all. The middle section of the book did wane slightly but I perservered and there was always something that added: the introduction of more characterisation of his children, the fear in London of an impending terrorist attack (now substantiated and it was unsurprising that Perowne's - and everyone else's - prediction that it would be the underground has since been made out). The story of him meeting his wife. To me, all this added up to a book that maintained a steady momentum right up until the last third of high drama.

And high drama it really was. I don't want to give away plot spoilers but I do want to say that I thought it was perfectly executed. Dramatic but not melodramatic, and the thought-process of Perowne was definitely interesting. I liked Perowne even if I did find him slightly boring. I wasn't surprised by his conclusion of what to do at the end of the novel, although part of me did think he might take the opposite path.

I will send this book onto Iran on Tuesday, by surface. I hope it finds the next reader safely. Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful book!

three book in one day!! i think my postman is reading the books before passing them on!! also got one book on hand and one in the wings before i get to my three so will be probably a couple of weeks before i get to this. but will be back! thanks Navig8r and tobysrus

an excerpt from my bookshelf "Feb 25: i'm sick and so i think would be behind schedule on the ring on 8-10 day. got the flu, but can't say only the flu cause there is no only about it; my cough would bring tears to the coldest heart, my tummy is doing the cha-cha and the temperature is havinf a field day at the roller coasters. and you'd think if one is sick and lieing down all the time then there is all the time in the world to read books, not so, it's lieing down and drifting in and out of sleep and not really having the energy to do anything. so sorry about the delay, well gotta go and do some coughing and moaning! :)" so sorry for a bit of delay.

starting it!! it seems that i just needed to say that i was going to be behind schedule to get better and start reading! :)

so the book is finished and am not sure what i though! :) i definitely enjoyed it and there were some moments when i excatly knew what he meant or times when i was thinking this is how i wanted to say what i was thinking, and yet through it all there was this feeling of detachment. it was beautifuly crafted and yet you'd be thinking Ian McEwan knows what he's doing and he got these beautiful sentences and paragraphes and yet not much of soul and passoin was there, ah! it was not passionate, he was not all there. well have to go and think more about it.. thanks tobyrus would be mailing this in a week or so.

mailed to outofreach today, it should take (touch wood!) not more than a month to get there. happy sailing. thanks everyone again for a lovely ring.

this book arrived yesterday at my doorstep. right now i'm really busy with university work but i hope i won't hold the book up too long. thank you katayoun for sending the book all the way from iran to australia...

just finished the book and already put it in an envelope to send to aunt-sophie.

i liked the book but it wasn't as good as some of his other novels.

thank you tobysrus for sharing this book...

This book reached me sometime over the last two weeks, while I was on vacations. I have several other rings to read, so it might take a couple of weeks before it gets going again.

I just finished the book, and I found it really interesting. The details, how a tiny incident can alter the course of a day - of life. So much can happen in one day!... The medical terms were a bit hard to grasp, but as someone else mentioned, it just fit the character really well, his perspective of the world... Thanks for sharing, tobysrus!

I've got spiritinflight's address, and I should send the book out tomorrow or Saturday.

have not read

Being held hostage by spiritinflight. She never mailed it to the next person on the list. Sorry but this bookring is now dead. Let this be a WARNING: don't let spiritinflight join your bookring!