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Andrew's Brain: A Novel by E.L.…
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Andrew's Brain: A Novel (original 2014; edition 2014)

by E.L. Doctorow

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
6089838,674 (3.21)45
Fiction. Literature. HTML:This brilliant novel by an American master, the author of Ragtime, The Book of Daniel, Billy Bathgate, and The March, takes us on a radical trip into the mind of a man who, more than once in his life, has been the inadvertent agent of disaster.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, SLATE, AND THE TELEGRAPH

Speaking from an unknown place and to an unknown interlocutor, Andrew is thinking, Andrew is talking, Andrew is telling the story of his life, his loves, and the tragedies that have led him to this place and point in time. And as he confesses, peeling back the layers of his strange story, we are led to question what we know about truth and memory, brain and mind, personality and fate, about one another and ourselves. Written with psychological depth and great lyrical precision, this suspenseful and groundbreaking novel delivers a voice for our times??funny, probing, skeptical, mischievous, profound. Andrew??s Brain is a surprising turn and a singular achievement in the canon of a writer whose prose has the power to create its own landscape, and whose great topic, in the words of Don DeLillo, is ??the reach of American possibility, in which plain lives take on the cadences of history.?
Praise for Andrew??s Brain
 
??Too compelling to put down . . . fascinating, sometimes funny, often profound . . . Andrew is a provocatively interesting and even sympathetic character. . . . The novel seamlessly combines Doctorow??s remarkable prowess as a literary stylist with deep psychological storytelling pitting truth against delusion, memory and perception, consciousness and craziness. . . . [Doctorow] takes huge creative risks??the best kind.???USA Today
??Cunning [and] sly . . . This babbling Andrew is a casualty of his times, binding his wounds with thick wrappings of words, ideas, bits of story, whatever his spinning mind can unspool for him. One of the things that makes [Andrew] such a terrific comic creation is that he??s both maddeningly self-delusive and scarily self-aware: He??s a fool, but he??s no innocent.???The New York Times Book Review
 
??A tantalising tour de force . . . a journey worth taking . . . With exhilarating brio, the book plays off . . . two contrasting takes on mind and brain. . . . [Andrew??s Brain encompasses] an astonishing range of modes: vaudeville humour, tragic romance, philosophical speculation. . . . It fizzes with intellectual energy, verbal pyrotechnics and satiric flair.???The Sunday Times (London)
 
??Dramatic . . . cunning and beautiful . . . strange and oddly fascinating, this book: a musing, a conjecture, a frivolity, a deep interrogatory, a hymn.???San Francisco Chronicle
??Provocative . . . a story aswirl in a whirlpool of neuroscience, human relations, loss, guilt and recent American history . . . Doctorow reveals his mastery in the sheen of a text that is both window and mirror. Reading his work is akin to soaring in a glider. Buoyed by invisible breath, readers encounter stunning vistas stretching to horizons they??ve never imagined.???The Plain Dealer

??Andrew??s ruminations can be funny, and his descriptions gorgeous.???Associated Press
??[An] evocative, suspen
… (more)
Member:westcott
Title:Andrew's Brain: A Novel
Authors:E.L. Doctorow
Info:Random House (2014), Hardcover, 224 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:**
Tags:novel, 21st century, early reviewer, psychologist, disaster, politics

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Andrew's Brain by E. L. Doctorow (2014)

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» See also 45 mentions

English (99)  Italian (1)  Dutch (1)  All languages (101)
Showing 1-5 of 99 (next | show all)
I love Doctorow's writing and stories but this one just didn't do it for me. I got to the end and figured I must have missed the point. I just didn't understand what I was supposed to think at the end. ( )
  ellink | Jan 22, 2024 |
This is a strange book. Not the first time I've read it. Well, listened. The narration is by the author, E.L. Doctorow, who is not a professional narrator and may have detracted from the book. It did help strengthen the stereotype of smart people being crazy. Maybe if I'd read it instead of listened or listened to it read by another reader I'd have another opinion. ( )
  nab6215 | Jan 18, 2022 |
Very satisfying read, kept me interested enough until the story went somewhere I totally did not expect. Then I couldn't put it down. Highly recommended! ( )
  ChetBowers | Mar 10, 2021 |
I received a free ARC of this book through Goodreads First Reads giveaways. Andrew and Andrew's Brain are meeting with a therapist(?) and this is the result. With all of the unknowns in this book it could be a frustrating read but I found it captivating. Doctorow's descriptions of people, places, and situations really bring them to life while at the same time you aren't even sure that they are real. Andrew claims to be a cognitive scientist and professor so the questions of what is true and what is false (intentionally or unintentionally) about Andrew's story are addressed by the characters even as his story unfolds.
( )
  SteveKey | Jan 8, 2021 |
Not rating because nothing against this book, I just got tired quarter-way through reading a book about a middle-aged white guy by a middle-aged white guy.
  katebrarian | Jul 28, 2020 |
Showing 1-5 of 99 (next | show all)
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Rabinovitch, AnneTraductionsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

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Wikipedia in English (1)

Fiction. Literature. HTML:This brilliant novel by an American master, the author of Ragtime, The Book of Daniel, Billy Bathgate, and The March, takes us on a radical trip into the mind of a man who, more than once in his life, has been the inadvertent agent of disaster.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, SLATE, AND THE TELEGRAPH

Speaking from an unknown place and to an unknown interlocutor, Andrew is thinking, Andrew is talking, Andrew is telling the story of his life, his loves, and the tragedies that have led him to this place and point in time. And as he confesses, peeling back the layers of his strange story, we are led to question what we know about truth and memory, brain and mind, personality and fate, about one another and ourselves. Written with psychological depth and great lyrical precision, this suspenseful and groundbreaking novel delivers a voice for our times??funny, probing, skeptical, mischievous, profound. Andrew??s Brain is a surprising turn and a singular achievement in the canon of a writer whose prose has the power to create its own landscape, and whose great topic, in the words of Don DeLillo, is ??the reach of American possibility, in which plain lives take on the cadences of history.?
Praise for Andrew??s Brain
 
??Too compelling to put down . . . fascinating, sometimes funny, often profound . . . Andrew is a provocatively interesting and even sympathetic character. . . . The novel seamlessly combines Doctorow??s remarkable prowess as a literary stylist with deep psychological storytelling pitting truth against delusion, memory and perception, consciousness and craziness. . . . [Doctorow] takes huge creative risks??the best kind.???USA Today
??Cunning [and] sly . . . This babbling Andrew is a casualty of his times, binding his wounds with thick wrappings of words, ideas, bits of story, whatever his spinning mind can unspool for him. One of the things that makes [Andrew] such a terrific comic creation is that he??s both maddeningly self-delusive and scarily self-aware: He??s a fool, but he??s no innocent.???The New York Times Book Review
 
??A tantalising tour de force . . . a journey worth taking . . . With exhilarating brio, the book plays off . . . two contrasting takes on mind and brain. . . . [Andrew??s Brain encompasses] an astonishing range of modes: vaudeville humour, tragic romance, philosophical speculation. . . . It fizzes with intellectual energy, verbal pyrotechnics and satiric flair.???The Sunday Times (London)
 
??Dramatic . . . cunning and beautiful . . . strange and oddly fascinating, this book: a musing, a conjecture, a frivolity, a deep interrogatory, a hymn.???San Francisco Chronicle
??Provocative . . . a story aswirl in a whirlpool of neuroscience, human relations, loss, guilt and recent American history . . . Doctorow reveals his mastery in the sheen of a text that is both window and mirror. Reading his work is akin to soaring in a glider. Buoyed by invisible breath, readers encounter stunning vistas stretching to horizons they??ve never imagined.???The Plain Dealer

??Andrew??s ruminations can be funny, and his descriptions gorgeous.???Associated Press
??[An] evocative, suspen

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