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A sweetly unfolding love story that will catch you by surprise.

Unexpected. Inventive. Creative. Thought provoking.
At times reads more like a script than a novel. Enjoyed the mixture of voices and fiction with historical material. A quick read even at 350+ pages.

Enjoyable to read and thought provoking. Because it's only 400 or so pages it necessarily is rather simple in covering millenia of human history. This, however, does not detract a great deal from my enjoyment of this book. In fact it is this very simplicity that makes tackling such an expanse of history conceivable. Definitely a worthwhile read.

Throughly enjoyable. Hard to put down. Finished in just a few days. Not a work of great literature but a fascinating dive into the last days of WWII in northern Italy. At times uplifting and other times horrifying. Some aspects that I'm sure were condensed for the narrative arc were too quickly glossed over and that made them less believable. Particularly enjoyed how there were no clear cut answers for the questions raised by war.

A thoroughly delightful read that chronicles the paths of both the artist and model before and after it's creation. If you're a fan of art history I'd say it's a "must read".

I enjoyed the first two books in this series much more than this one. I found this one easy to put down and not very enjoyable to finish. Generally feels like the author ran out of steam but wanted to wrap up the storyline inline with history.

Throughly enjoyable. Vivid and compelling storytelling. Of course it helps that I already like historical romance novels set in Scotland.

Glad I decided to reread this. It was first read to me by my 5th/6th grade teacher. I enjoyed it then but didn't remember much about it. I can see why it's proven to be a classic. Not sure yet if I like it enough to read others in the series.

Another stellar novel form Backman. I've read A Man Called Ove and My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry and loved them both. This one was equally heartwarming and insightful. He's a master story-teller and I won't hesitate to pick up whatever he writes.

I have to say I was quite disappointed in this book. The first half read as if the editor said, "your book isn't long enough I need more". So while there's some interesting brain science and biology in there it really didn't add much at all to the discussion of consciousness. In fact one of my major complaints with this book is that it's not until somewhere in the middle that the author even tackles the sticky question of how to define consciousness at all. I had hoped to learn much more from this book and sadly most of the information I'd already come across in other articles that were more interesting and better written.

It's exceedingly rare for me to give a rating of five stars. This book deserves every single one and then some. I might even go so far as to say it's one of the very best books I've ever read. Whimsical, enchanting, riveting, heart-wrenching (I haven't cried so hard since I read the short story "The Wonderful Cat of Cobbie Bean" as a child - literally sobbing at one point), insightful, and wise beyond belief. Oh there are lots of other things I could say and I've tried but deleted them all. Read it and see for yourself.

A glimpse into the thoughts of Paul Gaugin during his first trip to Tahiti. No art historical babble, just the words of the artist himself describing his experiences and some of the Maori mythology he learned from his Tahitian wife. Well worth reading if you're interested in his work at all. (the version I read had no introduction as was paperback published by dover)

I picked this up because she's gone and the latest Star Wars movie was about to come out, her last. Glad I did. It's a fun, funny, stream of consciousness stroll through both memories and reflections on life 40 years on. Makes me even more wistful wishing she was still with us.

Love and grief and reconnecting wrapped in a simple tale of neighbors. At times darkly humorous, at times with penetrating insight. Looking forward now to reading more by this same author.