This Book Will Save Your Life [Import] [Paperback]

A.M. Homes (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 380 pages
• Publisher: Granta; New Ed edition (2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1862079331
• ISBN-13: 978-1862079335
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,150,675 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved this book from the beginning to the end, June 20, 2006

By 

Eliza Bennet (The Ozarks) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: This Book Will Save Your Life (Hardcover)

The title might be a bit presumptuous, but this novel, in the most captivating way, makes you think about stopping to smell the roses. In a way, it does throw out a lifeline. The book is charming, funny, outrageous, and just might be a long, modern day parable for good living.

When Richard feels incredible, real pain, he seems to "wake up" from his repetitive, meaningless life. By opening up, he allows himself to meet, and befriend, a cast of intriguing, genuine, although slightly eccentric, characters. From the donut maker, the crying housewife, the movie star, and my favorite, Nic the writer, Richard's eyes are opened to life as it could be, maybe should be. As Richard starts remembering who he is, and what really matters, the most incredible things are going on around him.

I tried to read this book straight through, although my life kept getting in the way (school, sleeping, family) but believe me, once I started, I didn't want to put it down. Now I'm going to lay it down, recommend it to my friends, and go love on my cat, call my kids, and do something nice for someone.

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Message To Glean From The Book, May 1, 2006

By 

Brett Benner (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: This Book Will Save Your Life (Hardcover)

This chapterless marathon through one mans isolated existance in modern Los Angeles is brimming with optimism and hope. Richard Novak is a wealthy day trader living in the Hollywood Hills with a sink hole in his back yard, and a famous actor next door. When he calls 911 while experiencing what he believes is a soon to be fatal heart attack, the course of his life radically begins to change. For me, the book was almost fable like in it's telling with events transpiring that are both fantastic and nearly unbelievable. Yet the underlying message of making a simple connection with your fellow man sustains successfully without slipping into Hallmark sentimentality. On a side note, being an Angelino, the book captures the city and it's inhabitants with razor sharp precision.

29 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How simple is the meaning of life?, April 24, 2006

By 

Mark Mauer (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: This Book Will Save Your Life (Hardcover)

A friend who also has read this book said it was Cheever as if written by Bill Hicks: savage, funny assault on suburban life. (If he stole that line from someone else then he's now double damned.)

Still, it may not be as cynical and savage as Bill Hicks would have it. Hicks wanted LA to fall in the ocean so he could live oceanside in Arizona Bay. Though that does come close to happening here, no one is laughing manically about it. In fact, there are no villains in This Book Will Save Your Life. (At least not among the main characters). There is no one out to destroy another person to make their own life better, and there is no one who cares nothing about other people.

There is however an abundance of surreality that does not seem far removed from life in Los Angeles. The possiblity that a saber-tooth tiger is loose somewhere in the Hollywood Hills doesn't seem as far-fetched as it could, when coupled with the rest of the book's car wrecks, kidnappings, artisan donuts and kindness of strangers.

It's a book about helping other people, trying not to be selfish, and seeing what's going on around you. And despite my decription and the book's title, it's not mushy feel-goody pablum. It is not chicken soup for anyone's soul. It's a good read though.