This is a hard one for me to review. The writing is good (and the translation is well done). I've read Ryu Murakami's work before and I've enjoyed some of it but this didn't grab me as much as I would have hoped (though that may have more to do with me at the moment that I read it than it has to do with the book itself). The stories are fascinating and they have a range that covers sides of humanity that aren't always pretty. I didn't mind the brutality in the stories. That is a part of what makes it interesting, though it can also be repulsive in its way. Sometimes the stories are lighter and sort of funny and that also has a certain charm. As I said, it's hard for me to review. It's good, and I'm glad to have read it, but I still don't really feel that I loved it.

I'm torn. I did quite like this book while I was reading it, but once I put it down I didn't really feel much pull to pick it up again, so it took longer to read than I'd expected (since I kept getting distracted by other books). The language was beautiful and once I'd finished the book I felt really satisfied with it. The many characters and points of view was occasionally distracting, but once I reached the end it really came together for me.
So my grade is a strong 3½, very nearly a 4.

The poetry in this book feels very raw in a lot of ways, and this has its good sides along with its bad sides. A lot of it has a highly personal and intense feeling, but I think it could have benefited from a short introduction (even if it was no more than the odd paragraph). I think this could have lent a bit of structure to the volume as a whole, as it is I feel a bit set adrift when I read the poems, particularly at the beginning of the book. Something to start things off in a less abrupt way would probably have made me enjoy the whole a bit more. There's a lot of room for interpretation here and the reader may take very different things away from this volume depending on their perspective.
Some of the poems I rather enjoyed (such as the very first one, that one struck a chord with me) whereas some left me fairly cold.
The artwork is not really of a type that I'm particularly drawn to personally, but I can see how the art works very well with the words. The rough heaviness of the artwork matches a lot of the poems very well. Though there is one drawing (page 41) that I really like.
As a physical object the book is lovely. The high quality of the paper and the layout are great as it adds to the elegance of the book.

I couldn't quite decide on whether I should give this 3½ or 4 stars, but in the end I decided to be generous and give it a four.

I really rather liked the book. It's got a pleasant creepiness to it, whilst still having a realistic feel, and that combination can be really good when done right. I found myself "believing" it in the way that you can when a writer pulls off the blending of the natural and the supernatural in a good way (I think the way that the story unfolded, with the jump back in time, helped a great deal here and was rather pleasing to me). I also really liked the unfamiliar Alaskan environment and the lives of the fishermen, the folklore aspect, the curse and the history. It was a big plus for me that I felt that the characters were interesting and likeable enough to keep me interested in their fate.

A few things did strike me though. I would have liked to see a slightly more thorough editing job. Some parts could have been cut or shortened whereas others could have been expanded upon. At some times it felt as though the book as a whole would have been helped rather a lot by a stricter editor who tidied things up a bit, because the writing did unfortunately got a bit messy here and there (though I still liked the enthusiasm of the writer, which I feel shone through) and certain aspects of the writing could have done with being tightened up a bit.

But to sum things up, it IS a flawed book, but one I just can't help but like. It's interesting, enjoyable and show more rather a good read. (Also, the cover is nice and fits the feel of the book really well.) show less

I received this book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

It's Time, by Pavel Kostin, is an interesting book in so many ways.

(I'm not going to make a summary of the story it here, as others have done that so much better than I could. I also don't want to risk throwing spoilers at you.)

There's a mixture of the fantastical with the real world that I feel works really well, especially considering the lyrical style of writing. Woven into the story there are a lot of philosophical thoughts about life, art and so on. Mostly they're quite interesting and thought-proviking. I quite liked the characters, who are different, and in many cases rather odd, but I felt that the author still managed to make them feel believable.

It is a young book in a lot of ways. Partly because the book has a youthful innocence (and emotions that are in so many ways raw and young) that I feel permeates both the story and the writing. There is also the fact that even though I did rather enjoy the book, I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if I'd read it in my early teens.

Whilst this is a review (so I shouldn't give away too much about the end) I must say that I personally liked the ending. I found it quite well crafted and was, I felt, very strong emotionally.

All in all, it was a good book. I felt it was a bit flawed but it was still interesting, well-written and a pleasingly odd book and that made up for the flaws. I'm sort of weighing between giving it a 3,5 or a 4 out of 5... The beauty of the show more ending tipped me over into a 4/5. show less

A rather useful and informative book, especially considering its size, there's a fair bit of information and it should provide quite enough of it for most readers. The illustrations are of good quality and not only serve to make the book very pleasant to look through but also help explain the text more clearly. Very interesting.

A charming and amusing collection of essays and oddments, some of them rather thought-provoking. (It's also a very pretty volume.)

This is by no means an in-depth biography of Coleridge, and it neither claims nor tries to be. It is instead a short and easily digested introduction into the life of one of the great poets. The fact that the text is interspersed with Coleridges poems is a nice touch which adds some life to what otherwise could have felt like rather a dry and thin text and at the same time the biographical information in many ways illuminates the poetry.
All in all I found it a charming book. If one is looking for an in-depth, scholarly work on Coleridges life this may not the place to look but it is a lovely, ahort (and therefore quick) read if one is interested in his life and work.
Also, as Antiquary said in his review below, it is a very portable book.

A collection of 200 titlepages from the 15th century up to the early 20th century. As an artistic reference work (By this I mean a reference work for painters and illustrators.) it's an excellent book with great examples of decorative titlepage illustrations through several historical periods.
It also holds some interest for art-historians though more so in its breadth of pictures than through its writing, which is somewhat short and superficial. (It is rather useful as a way to find a way into further studies but on it's own the writing is rather shallow.)