Customer Reviews

Last Days of Summer

5 star:		(142)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger has to be on of the best books that I have read this year. I am not usually a big fan of baseball books but initially I found the layout of this book to be intriguing. The story is told through a series of letters, notes, report cards and newspaper clippings. Although there is a rich cast of supporting characters the basic story line follows the friendship of a lonely boy named Joseph Margolis a precocious, 95 pound, Jewish weakling, living in Brooklyn during WWII and a fowl mouthed baseball player named Charles Banks. It tells the story of how family can be made anywhere and it really did make me laugh and cry. This was fantastic.

I was skeptical about buying this book because of the format....letters..postcards...report cards etc. but something told me to buy it. I did and I can say it was one of the best books that I have ever read and I have read many. I wish Oprah would recommend this book. I am going to try to get my family to read it..I know they will love it if they do. Here's to you Joey, Charlie and the rest of the gang...you did an outstanding job.

I first got this book from the library, and I thought it was so amazing that I bought a copy soon after. The format of letters, news articles, telegrams, report cards, etc. made it very easy to read, I zipped through it in a day or so. I haven't laughed this hard out loud over a book since I was a kid, and the end had me crying my eyes out. I made most of the members of my family read it and they all loved it. I would highly recommend it, it's a sweet, spunky, smart story, especially for people who like it when characters do everything right (for example the movie the Fugitive, when the main character was escaping, he did everything right to get away from his captors, in the same respect the kid in this book does everything right with his crazy escapades).

This is one of two books that have succeeded in making me not notice the budding tap-dancer seated behind me on a plane (and the other was by JRR Tolkien, so that says something). The "sports book" label is a misnomer; the baseball is really secondary to the friendships.

This book is about a boy and a man who change one another's life. It is laugh-out-loud funny, it is moving, and contrary to other reviews I found it completely believable--Joey Margolis is so unusual that his exploits seem completely within his abilities, but at the same time he has very human flaws. The time you've spent reading this review could have been put to better use reading the book!

I absolutely loved this book, and began to read it again immediately after finishing it. I fell in love with the main character, as he reminded me of so many young, precocious children I have met. This book made me laugh and cry over and over again, and I think about it all the time. It offers incredible historical insight from the eyes of a brilliant child, and it is a tribute to the human condition. I recommend this book to anyone who has an open heart. This is a book to be cherished and passed around.

I would love to be able to describe this book to you, but I can't. The fact is, the book is like the movie Citizen Kane-- you can say it is about a man who runs a newspaper, but it would be a massive oversimplification. I could say that this book is about a little Jewish boy and his hero, best friend,m and surrogate father, but it would do the book no justice whatsoever. The book is funny and sad, hilarious and heartbreaking, all at the same time. You just have to read it.

A wonderful book! Enjoyed equally by an 83 year old WWII vet, a 20 year old female college student and a variety of people in between. A great gift idea for anyone on your list!

If I could rate this book 10 stars, I would. As a sucker for sports books, I looked forward to reading this book only for the sports content. This book cannot be categorized as a sports book, as it deals poignantly with a Jewish adolescent growing up in World War 2 Brooklyn. A truly moving and still hilarious story, a must read for all adults and young adults alike.

I have always been a sucker for "coming of age" stories, even those in which the main character and I have little in common. Although I am not Jewish and have never lived in Brooklyn, I saw many similarities between my own adolescence and that of the main character, Joey Margolis: an absent father, feelings of vulnerability and all the other chaotic feelings common to any thirteen year old boy. And then there was baseball. Sometimes I think that those turbulent years were measured out by box scores and radio broadcasts of summer afternoon games. The author is well aware of the importance of the game to 1940s America and weaves in just enough baseball to give his story a good realistic foundation.

Charlie Banks is the up and coming star of the New York Giants, and the kind of person that offers Joey the model of the perfect hero. But whereas most boys would be satisfied with a simple autograph or photo, Joey wants Charlie to become his friend. Kluger is very successful in developing this friendship. Joey is shown as a confused and vulnerable kid who is dealing with the perils of growing up, and Charlie as a somewhat surly and reluctant hero who is running from his own demons. Joey uses every trick in the book to get what he wants and the friendship that comes out of a simple exchange of letters is completely believable. However, after Joey and Charlie become friends, the book becomes obsessed with the totally unbelievable antics of a thirteen year old. Joey sings with a broadway star, dances with Eleanor Roosevelt, sneaks across country in an army convoy, plays with Louis Armstrong, and hobnobs with Hollywood stars; greatly damaging, I think the feeling of reality that the author so painstakingly developed. When I made this remark to my surrogate son in Phoenix, he replied: "Hey, it's fiction!" True, but there is a point where fiction turns to fantasy and the latter part of the book unfortunately borders on the fantastic.

Much has been made about the epistolary nature of the novel, and while the style is not completely original (Ring Lardner did essentially the same thing in 1914), Kluger uses this technique to create an emotionally satisfying reading experience. Counterbalancing Kluger's fits of fantasy are episodes in the novel that, without using traditonal narrative description, create characters that are absolutely believable, especially some of the secondary characters. I thought the exchange of letters between Charlie and "Rabby" Lieberman was brilliant and the two characters thus described were more lifelike than any six page narrative description could have achieved. Although I don't share the extraordinary high opinion of this novel that other reveiwers have, I did enjoy the book and think it made perfectly clear one major point: that true friendship can occur even between persons of considerable age difference.

I recently discovered (upon reading Syrup by Maxx Barry) that a unique writing style can do wonders for a book. This book was defintely unique, with the story being told through letters, notes, interviews, programs, and various correspondence between the characters of the story. I really enjoyed that aspect of it, but I also quickly realized that this book was more than just a novelty.

About a third of the way through the book, I formed a pretty strong impression of what I thought was going to happen at the end, but instead of that making me less interested, it made me more interested. I kept reading until I was finished to see if my impression was right. I didn't know if I wanted to be or not.

Along with the unique perspective, this book provides a compelling story about growing up when it must have been a very difficult time to grow up. It really made me appreciate my relatively easy childhood of the 70's and 80's. It also shows, however, that even in such a difficult time with so many bad things going on in the world, there are good things too. And if you work hard enough to achieve your goals, then anything is possible.

I really enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it to anyone.