Bought to replace this book. However, it is not (yet) going to continue the other one's journey as a bookring, but will be my choice for the favorite book roundabout #3.

The book now begins its journey as part of the favorite book roundabout. Enjoy!

EDIT (September 13th):
I'm very sorry, Sternschnuppe28, I only now realized that you were one of the participants of my own bookring for this book...

Arrived safely this morning. I am thrilled - and it's brand new too! This book has just been recommended to me. I saw you had it as a book ring and wanted to join, but saw it had been stalled. So I am truely delighted.

One of the problems with joining a favourite book carrousel is that you get to expect quite a lot from the surprise book you receive. Everybody raves about this book – but I think it’s overrated. It’s clever, and well written. But the visual side, the photos, colour, the printing was unnecessary to me: I have my imagination for that. It gave the book the feel of a scrap book or a diary, in which case the whole story should only have been written from one point of view.

Contrary to some of the earlier reviewers I did not find the grandparent part displeasing, I found it very necessary for the story. It paralleled the events at Dresden nearly 60 years before with the events of 9/11: two disastrous, unexpected, utterly life changing events. In a way, the grandfather was the negative example of what happens to people if they cannot let go of the past, if they are unable to give new love a chance because of the love they lost.

There were parts I really liked, the wonderful and amazing life stories that emerged during Oskar’s search for the lock. I think Safran Foer is a good story teller. But in the end I found there was no solution, no moral to the story. It’s just an observation on how different people deal with loss and grief, without offering any answer or giving real hope.

But it’s still an interesting read, thank you Qantaga for sharing!
Sent to Tinkaday on 09.09.2008.

I have the book myself and sent it out as my favorite... lol

it's going to the next after the next... that is it's going to Lynette, skipping sister-act because she has the same book, only i had sent it.

we're sorted.... sort of. lol

The book arrived just today. I'm very interested. The title sounds promising.

Okay, what do I want to say about this book. It's really incredible and amazing. A really bittersweet story about this young boy who has to grow up without his father. His journey through New York was interesting and surprising. I liked this book very much and I want to thank Qantaqa who made it happen that I read this book.

Angekommen, danke!

Schwer einzuschätzen, klingt aber ganz interessant.

26.03.09:

Well, it was a unfamiliar reading, I had to get used to the writing-style first. But Oskar is a well composed character and the story was involving. The grandparents' parts were necessary and completing, but often repeated itself, which I found boring sometimes. I would have preferred to read more of Oskars search. The end of the book is somehow disappointing.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

On the way to Urfin. Have fun!

Oha, ein Lieblingsbuch :o)
Sieht so beim Durchblättern schon mal extremely ungewöhnlich aus ;D
Bin gespannt.

Zwischenstand (2.August 2009):
When going through all of my (virtual) shelf, looking for Tinkaday's roundabout book, I found this one! I realised that it also belongs to the roundabout, and put it on top of my (real) Mt.TBR now, so that its journey can go on this summer... Sorry for being such a hold-up...

Maybe I shouldn't have read the blurb first... because on the very first pages I was like "No way, he's not nine!" all the time but I guess this will go away.

Also, first, I was annoyed, by the authors choice to have Oskars dad killed in the 9/11 event of all things... but soon the narrated became so much bigger than this and my annoyance was forgotten.

The tears started when I read the letter on page 76, what a letter! (Maybe I had cried during the marriage proposal too, can't remember now.) They were not the last tears and I'm only halfway through yet.

It was not until page 190 that I realised Buckminster was a cat. Not a dog. A cat.

Can lions love? (p.213)

15.August: Well, finally, I'm glad I'm through. I think, reading this book gave me heavy boots (or similar), some books do that to me, I remember when I read House of God many years ago, and wondered, why I'm so down, until I realised it had to do with the book, it went away after I moved on to the next (probably less tough) book.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Sent on to Sternschnuppe28.

Found it in my malbox, when I returned back home from my vacation last Saturday. It´s a nice surprise to find my all-time favourite. I read it first, when Qantaqa mad a ring of it ... right now I will not give it another trial (I also have my own copy on my shelf) and pass it on.

My entry from here: http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/3229830:

incredibly great! This book has made it into my all time-favourites.

To write on September 11 is a very difficult challenge, Foer (28) succeed it by telling a sensitive, smart and deep-grounded story that covers the big topics of love, death, grief and comfort. I liked best:
- the character of Oskar himself: over-educated, over-sensitive, very earnest, multilingual, vegan, musical
- the complex story construction
- the visual dimension (photos, number codes, plays with words, blank pages, ...)
- the parallels to Günter Grass´ "The Tin Drum" (Oskar Matzerath vs. Oskar Schell, drum vs. tambourine, traumatisizing event)
- descriptions of New York (greetings to Paul Auster)

There is a lot more to write about, but I feel it is a bit unfair to those, who will read the book afterwards. Enjoy yourselves by discovering this great piece of literature!

Ah, it's the next favourite book! At first i wondered if/when i subscribed to the ring... ;-)

Ohje, also das ging ja nur garnicht!

Nicht mal entspannte, ruhige Lesehaltung im Urlaub hat bewirkt, dass ich mich mit diesem Buch auch nur etwas anfreunden konnte. Dann hab ich es mit querlesen versucht, ging auch nicht. Ich nehme an, dass ich einfach von Anfang an dem Autor den achtjährigen Ich-Erzähler nicht abnehmen konnte.
Nun hatte ich dadurch das Problem, dass mit diesem Totalausfall fast mein Urlaubsbuchvorrat - wegen Fluggepäck nicht allzu übermäßig eingepackt- nicht für den Urlaub ausgereicht hat...aber das ist eine andere Geschichte ;-)

Ich frag jetz inkling1, ob er empfangsbereit ist.


25.09.2009
Das Buch macht sich auf den Weg nach Südbaden zu inkling1.

There are still "favourite books" around- May take a while

Sorry, horrible book (and deserves my first 1*-rating)

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Farewell...

Now... there are three favourite books here at the moment..
Where did they all come from!?!?! :-)

I'll do my very best to keep them moving!

I loved it!

Half way through the book I realized that I know the author because I have seen 'Everything is illuminated' recently which I also thought was just great (at least the movie was...)

Back to qantaqa now!

Gestern (3.August 2010) an qantaqa zurueck gegeben...

Danke!

Kommt mit in die "Platz-schaffen-Kiste".