Amazon.com
Familial dysfunction defines this Price effort--his first experiment with a first-person narrator in a full-length novel. Kate Vaiden is left parentless as a child when her father fatally shoots her mother and then himself. As an adult, Kate attests, "I'd caused their deaths." She isn't the only one in such a predicament: her mother's mother died in childbirth, and the father of her child was raised an orphan. Trapped in a self-defeating cycle, Kate forever seeks stability, only to flee when it gravitates within her reach. This rich Southern tale, which won a National Book Critics Award in 1986, is slathered with Christian themes of guilt, salvation, shame and, occasionally, triumph.
Book Description
0ne of the most feisty, spellbinding and engaging heroines in modern fiction captures the essence of her own life in this contemporary American odyssey born of red-clay land and small-town people. We meet Kate at a crucial moment in middle age when she begins to yearn to see the son she abandoned when she was seventeen. But if she decides to seek him, will he understand her?
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, Kate Vaiden is a penetrating psychological portrait of an ordinary woman in extraordinary circumstances, a story as joyous, tragic, comic and compelling as life itself.
Customer Reviews:
A Great American Novel.......2007-07-05
One of the best late 20th century American novels I've read. It stayed with me for weeks.
best book all year.......2005-07-24
I have read probably at least 50 books this year and this one I am finding to be one of the very best. I have been doing some coursework through Duke of course and I guess I feel like I have some ties to much of the locales in this book (Norfolk and the Raleigh area) but beyond that I think of all the books this year I have read, this book just has kept me the most interested. I turned each page anticipating what would be on the next page, and I like that in a book.
Unconvincing.......2002-09-18
Kate Vaiden is a novel filled with unrealistic characters doing unlikely things for unexplained reasons. The biggest problem is Kate Vaiden herself. She doesn't think or act like any woman I have ever run across, in truth or in fiction. As a woman myself, I found Mr. Price's attempt to write in a woman's voice singularly unsuccessful. But Kate is not the only problem. None of the characters' thought processes or emotional impulses are clearly conveyed. Certainly Kate, as narrator, doesn't clue us into the motives of the people she describes to us. I suppose one could say that in this way the novel reflects real life, because we often do not understand the purpose behind the actions of the people we meet. But frankly, I expect more than that from a novel. I expect purpose and meaning, characters who come alive on the page because they behave in some manner that I can perceive as authentic. Instead, this novel only left me with questions. Why did the characters do the things they did? And what in the world was the author's purpose in writing this book?
Enjoyable.......2002-07-26
I am a big fan of southern fiction and enjoyed Price's book quite a bit. I read it in about a week, reading right before I went to bed. It pulls you in and it is hard to put down, particularly because it isn't broken up into chapters so there aren't easy stopping points. I had a little bit of a hard time relating to Kate's decisions in the book, but I suppose that is often the mark of a good character-- she is not transparent and your every-day kind of person. I fully appriciated the ending which explains a lot that you wonder about throughout the book. I didn't mark it five stars because, although I enjoyed it, it certainly doesn't rank up there with *stand out* books that I would read again. I also see quite a bit of similarity in his writing, and always appriciate an author that can vary his or her style a bit more. Overall, however, worth the time.
Wonderful.......2002-06-16
This was a mother's day gift from my daughter, and a first shot at Reynolds Price. I loved it. This author understands small places in the south. As a mother (and this is in the very first paragraphs of the novel), I just couldn't fathom how Kate Vaiden could have abandoned her child when he was just a baby, and "down for a nap." But Kate's life certainly explains it. Understanding why she abandons her child doesn't make it easy to forgive her. It's great that Reynold Price tells the story in the order he does, because you keep asking yourself, "how could she possibly have done such a thing, and how can she ever be redeemed?" The expressiveness in the dialogue is especially great. Kate Vaiden's story will linger for a long time; I feel better for having experienced it. And bravo to a male author who can write from a female protagonist's perspective like this.
Product Description
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Kate Vaiden
Reynolds Price
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000HHRS5Q |
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Kate Vaiden
Manufacturer: Atheneum
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000I4L8VS |
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Kate Vaiden
Reynolds Price
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NY1H6E |
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Kate Vaiden
Reynolds Price
Manufacturer: Atheneum
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OOX680 |
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Kate Vaiden
Manufacturer: Rocco
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 8532502326 |
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Kate Vaiden
Reynolds Price
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OVAPS2 |
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Reynolds Price: Duke of writers
Anne Tyler
Manufacturer: Vanity Fair Pub. Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
Tyler, Anne
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ASIN: B00073CZF8 |
Amazon.com
"Stuart Lund came in at six-two and three hundred pounds in gray silk tailoring with a large head of wavy yellow hair, blue eyes like wax drippings, and a black chevron-shaped moustache he hadn't bothered to bleach." That description of a lawyer who summons private detective Amos Walker to a secret meeting with Jay Bell Furlong, a world-famous architect who is supposedly dying in Los Angeles, could have come straight from Raymond Chandler. So could characters with names like Royce Grayling and Lynn Arsenault. That's why Chandler fans should rejoice that Loren D. Estleman's Walker--who first appeared in 1997's Never Street--returns in grand style in The Witchfinder. Walking the wickedly hot streets of a Detroit described as vividly and lovingly as Chandler's Los Angeles, Walker searches for the nasty parties who faked a photo that shows Furlong's much younger lady friend in bed with another man, thereby scuttling the architect's last chance for romance. Walker takes a bullet to the head, sneaks out of the hospital too early, and generally behaves as though he hasn't heard that this classic branch of the mystery tree has been declared dead by so-called experts. Other Estleman outings in paperback include Red Highway, Stamping Ground, and Stress.
Book Description
"Stuart Lund came in at six-two and three hundred pounds in gray silk tailoring with a large head of wavy yellow hair, blue eyes like wax drippings, and a black chevron-shaped moustache he hadn't bothered to bleach." That description of a lawyer who summons private detective Amos Walker to a secret meeting with Jay Bell Furlong, a world-famous architect who is supposedly dying in Los Angeles, could have come straight from Raymond Chandler. So couldcharacters with names like Royce Grayling and Lynn Arsenault. That's why Chandler fans should rejoice that Loren D. Estleman's Walker--who first appeared in 1997's Never Street--returns in grand style inThe Witchfinder. Walking the wickedly hot streets of a Detroit described as vividly and lovingly as Chandler's Los Angeles, Walker searches for the nasty parties who faked a photo that shows Furlong's much younger lady friend in bed with another man, thereby scuttling the architect's last chance for romance. Walker takes a bullet to the head,sneaks out of the hospital too early, and generally behaves as though he hasn't heard that this classic branch of the mystery tree has been declared dead by so-called experts. Other Estleman outings in paperback include Red Highway,Stamping Ground, andStress.
Customer Reviews:
Great Series!!.......2003-03-15
This is my first Amos Walker detective novel, and I must say, Boy am I impressed! I listened to the audio version and the narrator manages to capture Amos Walker's dialog, and the dialog of the other characters with such detail, I found myself taking the long way home just to extend the listening experience!
Amos Walker, is a Detroit Private Investigator hired to discover the 'witchfinder' a person who faked an incriminating photograph of a famous architect's girlfriend. While he is investigating this case, Amos finds himself up against a whole bevy of strange and interesting characters including a hitman, a pornographer, and cops from two police departments!
Amos's one liners were really amusing, and quite unrepentant. If you haven't already done so, pick up the audio version of this book. You won't be disappointed. This book is a must for lovers of mystery fiction, or private investigatory fiction in general.
Great story.......2002-02-10
Jay Bell Furlong is a successful architect who only has a few weeks left to live. Before he dies he wants to make sure that all his affairs are in order. His biggest regret was losing the love of his life, Lily Talbot. Eight years ago, Furlong received a picture that showed Lily and another man in an uncompromising position. Feeling betrayed, Jay broke off his relationship Lily without giving her a chance to explain. Furlong recently discovered that the picture was a fake and that this lie has caused him the love of his life. He hires Amos Walker, a Detroit Private Investigator, to find out who was the instigator that wrecked his chance at happiness.
Amos Walker is a riot. He does not take guff from anyone and he has a quick mind that helps him with his detective job as well as coming up with great one-liners. Estleman explores most of the aspects in the life of Jay Bell Furlong. He introduces several of his relatives and acquaintances and shows how he affected each of their lives. He does not make Furlong to be a saint but he does a great job in developing him as a character.
The plot is well done and I did not feel lost at any point in this book. I have read some of Estleman's short stories and none of them have been very memorable to me, however I digress with his character of Amos Walker. This is the first Amos Walker novel I read and it will not be my last. One reason I consider him a winner was that I was able to understand the character without having read any of his previous adventures. I have read some novels that take readers for granted and assumes one knows everything about their main series character. This particular author does not do that and for that I am grateful.
You'll find this Amos Walker novel to be typical.......2001-08-16
The Amos Walker private detective series is one of the best ones currently going, as is also one that a reader who has never indulged can pick up any entry in the series and not feel lost. Loren Estleman has all the moves down by this time for Walker, and "The Witchfinder" is typical of the series. Walker has run-ins with the cops, gets mixed up in a homicide investigation, and comes up against an assortment of low lifes and homicidal killers, your typical day at the office. He's hired by a dying millionaire archetect to find out who "framed" the love of his life eight years ago and caused him to break off their relationship. The story takes an appropriate number of twists and turns, and as usual Walker remains uncorruptable throughout.
Though not among the best of the Walker series (that would be "Sugartown," or "The Glass Highway"), it is still a solid effort from one of the best P.I.s since Phillip Marlowe.
Prose punching and verbal martial arts........1999-12-03
Amos walker is a heavyweight prose puncher and a verbal jujitsu master. There are so many one-liners here that you could squash a pack mule under their combined weight. But what great one-liners! The kind of lines you write down on 3 x 5 cards and study before parties. Jab and punch phrases like, "He is so rich that the amount of his property taxes alone would keep the Third World in rice and prayer rugs for the next decade." Not a direct quote, but something close; you kinda make em' your own after a while because Amos Walker is your friend and you know he won't mind.
Yeah, OK. The one-liners distract a little, but they don't disguise how smart Amos is. He notices everything, and as Hard-Boiled fiction fate would have it, the smallest details hold the most significant revelations. This is a Motor City mystery and Amos details city life with quick sour sketches guaranteed to make you pucker with delight.
Amos is an old-school detective: He pours his own drinks-straight, packs simple heat-concealed; he's tougher than a 99 cent steak-well done, and is never more than two phone calls away from finding out anything needing finding out. If you've gone a few rounds with the likes of Chandler, Hammett, Parker or Leonard, than at least come ringside with Estleman cuz he can go the distance.
Hey, At Least It's Better Than Blair Witch Project.......1999-09-01
Amos Walker's jaunts around the Motor City are always fun reads. Estleman's descriptions of Detroit (including one character's slam of the Renaissance Center as the "Abortion on Jefferson Avenue") are gems. Even though it is obvious who the "Witchfinder" Walker is hired to find is, one is never truely disappointed for having had the opportunity to hang out with Amos. Walker is the type of guy I'd like to shoot the breeze with in some seedy Detroit bar, throwing back shots and discussing the overall baseness of mankind. I recommend all of Estleman's Amos Walker novels, particularly "Sugar Town."
Book Description
Thulmann continues his search for the vampire Sibbechai through the nightmare-infested forests and cities of the old world.
Customer Reviews:
Worthy Successor, But Not Quite As Good.......2005-10-15
This second book of M. Werner's Witch Hunter series once again follows the adventures of the Witch Hunter Thulmann and his less-savory companion Streng, who seem a slightly altered, medieval Sherlock Holmes and Watson (compliments to Sir Doyle). The book picks up right on the tail of the first novel, and though reading the first book isn't strictly necessary, it's highly recommended. The continuity is so direct that not only do all the same heroes make the crossing, but so do all of the villains, as well as adding a few more to each category for good measure.
Those additions, while they add some excellent supporting protagonists and fascinating villains, also prove a weakness in the work as a whole. There are too many characters and too many plotlines for each to receive the attention from M. Werner that they deserve. Likewise, the climax pulls a little too hard to bring all of the threads together without taxing the reader's credulity.
These flaws aside, the book draws upon the rich history of the Warhammer world, and those looking to add to their knowledge of that fictional universe will be well rewarded. M. Werner's spins an immersive tale with gritty action true to the dark spirit of the setting.
In conclusion: an entertaining, enjoyable read, but not as good as the first of the series.
It was a good follow up and had great action..........2005-05-20
I like C.L. Werner because he represents the Warhammer world very well. This follow up to Witch Hunter throws the protagonist Thulmann into a world not only of necromancy and undead (like in the first one), but chaos. And not the nice Slaneesh chaos, but the nasty Nurgle chaos. The web of characters is richer than the first book. If you play the game you will enjoy this tremendously, and if you run the game this is a very good template and has descriptions that can contribute to you creating the depth of the Warhammer world. This is a fast read reflecting the pace of the story so if you're on vacation make sure you have another book on hand. I made that mistake and ended up having to read the back of my shampoo bottle until we got out of the jungle. That'll learn me.
Book Description
This book examines the lives and careers of possibly the most sadistic group of people of the 16th and 17th centuries, the “great age” of witch-hunting in Europe and North America. From the doyen of witch-hunters, the Jesuit del Rio, to the British Matthew Hopkins, not to mention Pierre de Lancre, a judge who was responsible for burning 600 women, P.G.Maxwell-Stuart charts the progress of these fierce and dangerous zealots, while providing an insight into the world they perceived as evil and which they sought to destroy.
Customer Reviews:
A prized book.......2006-03-09
This book should not intimidate. It provides lots of historical information in a way that is easily grasped and easily visualized.
Maxwell-Stuart's writings are clear and takes you very easily back and forth through accounts of "witchcraft" and "sabbats".
This a book for a serious student of the history of witch hunting and the societies in Europe that it affected.
The careers of those said to be able to identify a witch.......2005-03-12
If witches were supposed to look and sound like everyone else, how could they be detected, in Salem days? WITCH HUNTERS is the first history of the careers of those said to be able to identify a witch, charting the claims and backgrounds of zealots, professional folks and others who perceived evil and sought to expose it. History lecturer Maxwell-Stuart provides a lively survey which uses source material quotes to back cultural and biographical insights.
Customer Reviews:
A mazing tale.......2002-05-10
John Bellairs is best known as the author of fifteen gothic mystery novels for young adults, plus four similar works completed by Brad Strickland after Bellairs's death. "The Vengeance of the Witch-Finder" (1993) is the next-to-the-last book in the Lewis Barnavelt series, and was completed by Brad Strickland. It takes place in 1951, mainly at the Barnavelt mansion in England.
This book can be read in conjunction with "The Ghost in the Mirror" which takes place simultaneously with `Witch-Finder' and stars Lewis Barnavelt's friends, Rose Rita Pottinger and Mrs. Florence Zimmermann.
When orphaned Lewis Barnavelt, now age thirteen, and his Uncle Jonathan go on vacation in Europe, they drop in on their English cousin Pelham, who owns the ancestral Barnavelt Manor. The housekeeper's son Bertie, who is blind, takes Lewis on a tour of the old mansion and grounds.
Lewis is especially interested in the maze, which he has read about but never seen, and his new friend Bertie shows him the trick of reaching its center. From the description given in `Witch-Finder,' it was probably a hedged labyrinth of the sort that became fashionable in the late sixteenth century (see M.R. James's story, "Mr. Humphreys and His Inheritance" for a similar tale of a maze and the awfulness at its center).
All is well, until Lewis discovers an old map of the maze with what might be a treasure in the center. He sets out on a midnight excursion, accompanied by Bertie, to the hidden heart of the maze.
Instead of treasure, Lewis accidentally unleashes a demon that summons the ghost of the witch-finder Malachiah Pruitt, three hundred years dead. Lewis and Bertie barely escape the maze with their lives.
Back during Cromwell's reign in England, Malachiah Pruitt had accused one of Lewis's ancestors of witchery and tried to have him burned at the stake. Now Pruitt's ghost has been set free by Lewis and Bertie.
`Witch-Finder' is full of deliciously spooky occurrences, and I enjoyed the `Sherlock and Watson' role-playing of the two boys as they try to solve the horrible predicament they've gotten themselves into (along with everyone else in the mansion).
Jolly good fun.......2002-04-20
Lewis Barnavelt's Sherlock Holmes deerstalker comes in handy in this bone-chilling (no pun intended) adventure in the present and past of England -- and one of its darker secrets.
Lewis Barnavelt accompanies his uncle Jonathan to England, where they are visiting an older cousin. The cousin also has a housekeeper, and Lewis soon befriends Bertie, the housekeeper's blind son. Bertie and Lewis soon begin exploring happily in a hedge maze, until they find a strange monument in the center. When they pry a brick loose, some invisible, laughing creature escapes and chases them back to the house.
Soon afterward, the adults at Barnavelt Manor start behaving strangely. The cousin becomes sly and cackling, the housekeeper is like a sinister wind-up doll, and the gardener is snarling. Lewis suspects that somehow, this is all connected to a psychotic Puritan witch-finder, Malachiah Pruitt, who once made life miserable for Lewis's ancestor... until the ancestor struck back somehow. And now Pruitt is somehow back for revenge against the Barnavelts.
It's always sort of a guilty pleasure to read one of these books, where horror is handled in a way both lavish and sparing. Something as minor as the rustle of twigs or a funny-looking gravestone can be significant and can strike horror in the reader. Writing-wise, this is one of the better ones. Strickland, who completed the book, knows well how to flesh out Bellairs' storyline. The atmosphere is chilling and almost claustrophobic, in that the walls keep closing in on our heroes. The main problem, perhaps, is that there is relatively little humor leavening the story, except for the continuing Watson-Holmes joke between Bertie and Lewis. On the flip side, late in the book is one of the most touching scenes I have ever read in a Bellairs and/or Strickland book, between Lewis and Jonathan.
Characterizations are very nice. Lewis gains a little more self-confidence and loses a little weight; Jonathan is a little less zesty than usual, but he is also absent for large sections of the book. Bertie is a nice sidekick for Lewis, and his means of knowing that there is something wrong despite his blindness is well done. (The best meaning of stiff-upper-lip) The housekeeper and cousin are a little two-dimensional, but then dimension is not needed. Malachiah Pruitt is a wonderfully sinister villain -- great idea, to make one of the Puritan witch-hunters a psychotic wanna-rule-the-world type. (Though his ambitions to rule the world did feel a little tacked on)
For those of you who are not yet ready to read Stephen King, try these John Bellairs books. Spooky, bone-rattling fun.
The best one of the Lewis Barnevelt series.......1998-02-11
Jonathon and Lewis go off to England to sight see and visit a relative. Lewis gets into a mystery at the big,old, house. ***I have reviewed several other of his books so check them out!
Book Description
Together with a Reprint of The Discovery of Witches from it's rare original of 1647 and Collectanea: Witchcraft Reprinted from the Folk-Lore, being the quarterly transactions of the Folk-Lore Society.
Customer Reviews:
The Discovery of Witches.......2007-02-06
A good historic document of the mindset of Middle Age thinking on the subject of witches.
An Edifying Example of Anti-witch Mania!.......2005-09-23
Montague Summers was a devout Roman Catholic who believed witches were evil, but his work has been considered important to Wiccans who wish to understand the history of magical religion before the Wiccan revival of the 1950s. This book reprints Matthew Hopkins' anti-witch tract first published in 1647, along with Summer's commentary, but its chief value may be in the reprint of a brief essay by Gerald Gardner dating back to 1939-over a decade before Witchcraft Today was published. Not for the beginner, but a serious book for the dedicated student of magic and occult history.
Book Description
THIS 8 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Mysteries of Astrology and the Wonders of Magic, by C. W. Roback. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564597997.
Download Description
THIS 8 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Mysteries of Astrology and the Wonders of Magic, by C. W. Roback. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564597997.
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Matthew Hopkins: Witch finder general
Richard Deacon
Manufacturer: F. Muller
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books | Adolescent Psychology | Applied Psychology | By Topic | Child Psychology | Clinical Psychology | Cognitive | Counseling | Creativity & Genius | Developmental Psychology | Education & Training | Ethnopsychology | Experimental Psychology | Forensic Psychology | General | History | Hypnosis | Industrial Psychology | Logotherapy | Medicine & Psychology | Mental Illness | Movements | Neuropsychology | Occupational & Organizational | Pathologies | Personality | Philosophy of Psychology | Physical Illness & Psychiatry | Physiological Aspects | Psychiatry | Psychoanalysis | Psychobiology | Psychopharmacology | Psychosomatic Medicine | Psychotherapy, TA & NLP | Reference | Research | Sexuality | Social Psychology & Interactions | Statistics | Suicide | Testing & Measurement
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ASIN: 0584101643 |
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The Witch Finder
Manufacturer: Dell First Edition
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000DCNSVS |
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The Witch Finder
Thomas L. O'Brien
Manufacturer: Dell First Edition #B135
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000TXJ8AG |
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