Book Description
If the model is the exhibitionist, then I am the voyeur.—Richard Kern

Richard Kern is a post-modernist punk photographer who has worked in New York city rock music and “No Wave” art circles since the 1970s. In Looker, through a series of carefully constructed vignettes, Kern’s models proceed through their daily private lives, seemingly unaware of the camera. Or are they wittingly playing into the obvious cinematic intrigue? The balance of control present in each frame is a powerful and sensual statement.

Looker is thought-provoking in its gentle nature, pastoral tones, and caring reflection of private innocence—but it is also freshly and stunningly erotic, silently exuberant in its portrayal of intimacy and abandon. Richard Kern’s photographs are a peek into a world of mystery and eroticism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

When the hunter becomes the hunted
The vagueness of what is going on makes this book stand out from others; the reader is kept in the dark about the present but gets the past woven in through the chapters to build up the story. I felt like I took a journey with Virgil Marcel, his invitation to the secret Everlasting Club in England wasn't traveled alone, it was a trip taken with the reader deeply immersed in with everything that was going on. For a foreigner such as himself the food was strange sure, but the real food that was served and created for the club was a mixture of disgusting combinations, fancy pairings, secret meats and an overabundance of liqueurs, not to mention the naked woman lounging on the dinging room table...

Virgil has no idea what he has gotten himself into, spoiled, rich and young he takes advantages of what the club has to offer but unknowns to him its not as simple as it seems. Something dark and secret and mysterious is happening and the members who belong to the club are no ordinary people. Sadists freaks, gluttons and weirdos with insatiable strange fetishes have feasted there for the past three hundred years and they have no intentions of changing their bizarre, dark rituals and feasts. As Vrigil gets tangled up deeper into the nets of despair and simply walking away is not an option. Half the fun was reading about the history of the members and the other was worrying what was happening to the guests, the chapters go back and forth giving more glimpses of what this club is really into.

The writing was silky smooth and flowed easily, it never bumped around my head like a blind critter and the ideas and theories the author included were not too foreign, but it was unusual to see crazy things one can make up in their head or simply know in print, staring them in the face. Nicholson's charm lays in his descriptions, the amount of food in this book is staggering, most of it doesn't come close to anything I would be able to eat, a creature put together on a silver platter with a shark's head and octopus tentacles, claws and other weird parts is not your daily fare, yet it was something that The Everlasting Club was known for and the reader gets to experience it all.

The bizarre meets gruesome and perverse in this strange but wonderful tale, and the ending was great, I felt scared that this thin book will end before thing get really ugly but it was all tied up wonderfully. Full of twists and turns this book doesn't shy on taking the deep plunge into the deep end of the psyche!

- Kasia S.

Money well saved
I am very happy to say that I did not purchase this book; it was loaned tome for my opinion.I find the author's mentality so disgusting (you cansee why from the other reviews) that I am not even going to finish readingit.Generally speaking, I enjoy satire, but I find this just a vehicle forthe grossness that so many find desireable and amusing in today's culture. Save your money - buy a GOOD book!

Capitvatingly Disgusting!
All right, I admit it. I have become a depraved and obsessive fan of Geoff Nicholson! I was compelled to read all his titles and each one has pleasantly surprised me. I don't know how the mind of this man works but itis scary how he can, with such dark humour and hysterical grotesqueness,manipulate his plots and characters.

In "The Food Chain" hedoes this once again. I literally was wincing as I read it. I have been tomovies where I was afraid to look at the screen but was so morbidlytansfixed by what was going on that I couldn't completely turn away. Thiswas how I felt about the entire book.

In short, if you love a good readand wish you could tap into the twisted side you know you must have deepdown somewhere, get this book. Then again, I suppose I'd say that about anyof Nicholson's works.

Can't wait for "Flesh Guitar"!

A love/hate book , thats hard to put down !
i loved this book so much .. yet at tymes i wanted to throw it and still ikept on reading it .. the story hold's you captive as it twist and turnsrevealing the story bit by bit.. if you haven't read it yet i sugest doingso soon... i could not stop reading it ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

More and More
Its been a while since I've read it, but I just had to review it because it was so unlike just about anything I've ever read.It was so original - such a breath of fresh air!Everything kind of transpired like a bizarredream, and it was quite suspenseful.You couldn't help but like andsometimes pity the main character.It was interesting how he actuallylived in the shopping centre, yet distanced himself from the obsession withconsuming.I love a book with intriguing characters, and this one hadplenty of them.It was basically cool.

Back in print in the U.S....and worth the wait!
One of Nicholson's best books (second only--maybe--to Bleeding London), Everything and More is also one of his most accessible. If you've readHunters and Gatherers, The Food Chain, or any of his other novels, you knowthat he's a pretty tough author to categorize. His books--while focusing oneccentric, offbeat characters and situations you rarely (if you're lucky)encounter in real life--manage to convey a universal sense of what it meansto be obsessed with...well, anything. If you haven't read any of GeoffNicholson's books before, this is a great place to start. ... Read more

Book Description
From the critically acclaimed author of The Food Chain and Footsucker comes a sophisticated comedy about three people caught in the Hollywood machine.

Following the death of his wife, Henry Cadwallader, an English doctor, insists on accompanying his aspiring actress daughter, Dorothy, on a trip to Hollywood. He fears she will fall prey to corruption and sleaze, but finds that it is actually he who is being corrupted at every turn.

On the flight to LA, they meet 'auteur of the future' Rick McCartney. Rick's trying to get the backing to make a costume drama set in seventeenth-century England about a man who owns what he fears is the last dodo on earth.

Dorothy Cadwallader's quest for fame begins badly and goes downhill from there. Meanwhile Henry becomes involved with a former actress turned estate agent. The lives of Henry and Dorothy once again intersect with that of Rick McCartney to dramatic effect as the characters find themselves drawn to the brink, where dreams die and extinction threatens.

Sharp humor and keen observation drive Geoff Nicholson's satisfyingly oblique look at America's obsession with stardom.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Dodo as Metaphor and Punchline
In this delectable satire about Hollywood and extinction, Geoff Nicholson serves up a complicated recipe of has-beens, wannabes, maybes, and a few dodos - both literal and figurative.British physician Henry accompanies his aspiring actressand yellow-toothed daughter Dorothy to Hollywood where she is supposed to meet with a talent scout.On the airplane, their paths cross briefly with self-described "Auteur of the Future" Rick, a young man prone to panic attacks and bouts of self-importance.Rick harbors an obsession with dodo birds which leads him (and the reader) to the mysterious story of William Draper, a 17th century medical student afflicted with erythrohepatic porphyria, a genetic condition that causes skin to blister with exposure to sunlight.Draper, too, is obsessed with dodos, and sets out to procure one of the last of the species on display in a seedy quarter of London. As Henry discovers a similarly afflicted man trying to sell him an animation cel of a dodo, as Rick struggles with a bizarrely vivid past life regression brought on by a beautiful one-legged woman, and as Draper tries desperately to find a mate for his beloved but aging dodo, real-life intrudes on film, becoming art in itself, and questions arise about what is contrived and what is real. And of course, since this is a novel, those questions ultimately mean nothing since all is fiction.

With chapter titles cleverly named after movies, Nicholson never loses sight of the artificiality of the genre he is mocking.The scenes that take place in Hollywood are hilarious, while Draper's affliction and affections are touchingly told.Perhaps the most daring turn is Nicholson's dovetailing of disparate plot elements into a wild, unexpected finale. While much is left unexplained, the narrative wink at the end brings it all together.

This is a truly fun novel.Nicholson's wit is more sly than biting, and he relishes the absurd.Below the hilarity lurks more serious themes - of corruption (what else in Hollywood?), of obsession, and of mortality - but these ideas never alter the established tone. Readers will find that they can't put this novel aside for more than a few hours before picking it up again to devour the next chapter. ... Read more

Book Description
Word count: 2506. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Not exactly your London Tourist Guide
If you haven't visited London as yet (and you certainly should), chances are you might put off your trip if you were relying solely on this book as your travel advisory.

London through Nicholson's pen is a dark depressing place, where things are much smaller than your monopoly set would have you think (even though that's partly true), people do very strange things in public (and also in private), and tourists live for walking tours of the city.

Beginning with an attempted mugging and working backwards, the plot starts off pretty well.The first three chapters introduce three very different characters, all doing something interesting, but then it kind of slides downhill, as the characters weaknesses are harshly exposed.

One is a half-way decent bloke, on a mission to salvage the honor of his girlfriend, who happens to be a stripper. Two is a kinky map seller with Japanese roots, who's plotting a map project of her own, and is a tad mentally confused. Three is a married man, who walks for a living, and decides to extend his occupation into a hobby.

Inevitably, these three have to connect in one way or the other, but Nicholson's style is not to make things believable, and sometimes he hits and sometimes he doesn't.

This is London from the cheap seats, and a bleeding lot of words that ultimately say very little.

"Footsucker" may have had a cheesy plot, but "London" rambles to an ending that comes out of nowhere and leaves you there.

Amanda Richards, February 5, 2005

Stay away from this book.
I was attracted to this book by a magazine's reference to it as a book capturing the feel of London. Nah. What a waste. Dumb and dry fiction with cardboard characters shuffled chaotically by the pretending but never delivering author.

Like the main hero's plan to visit each and every London's street this book idea may have sounded cool, but the book itself plain and unfunny.

The only laughing matter here is author's constant helpless trying to imitate Martin Amis-style cool wit. It never ever comes close to it, being barely amusing at its best.

Half a star for the good title. Let it be the only part you happen to read.

A dark delight!
Bleeding London is one of the quirkiest, darkest and funniest novels I have ever read! (That says a lot, for I have read thousands of novels.) It focuses on various characters whose experiences in London are both sinister and funny. Mick, Judy and Stuart are quite different, but are somehow brought together in strange ways. They all have a different take on London -- Londoners feeling foreign in their natural habitat while out-of-towners see it as an exciting and daring challenge.

Nicholson does a great job with the description of a big city. As a New York City native, I am able to identify with the story line and the dark message the author is sending. The backdrop of London is different from all of the other British novels I have read -- it shows a more realistic view of the city.

Thought provoking and darkly funny, Bleeding London should be read by those who enjoy a unique literary experience.

Quirky characters and plot
I really enjoyed this book and loved learning about the sides of a greatcity that I didn't know about...very entertaining.

London Calling
This wonderful novel is ideally enjoyed while living in or visiting London, seeing as how the city is a central character in it. With his typical offbeat humor, Nicholson weaves together the lives and stories ofthree of its denizens. Stuart is the owner of a company that does walkingtours of London; burned out, he has decided to walk every single street inLondon in a quest for fulfillment and meaning. Julie is a native Londoner,although half-Japanese and thus is constantly being forced to prove herselfa native. She keeps detailed maps of the locations of all her sexualencounters, as well as those of her partners. Mick is a Sheffielder whosestripper girlfriend was gang-raped by six well-to-do Londoners. He's comedown to the unfamiliar city he hates in order to mete out some revenge.Both these and the supporting cast are wonderfully drawn characters, theirpaths through London are a treat. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Awesome Footie Stories
Awesome collection of 25 short stories and essays about soccer. My favorites were Stephen Baxter's "Clods," Tim Pears' "Ebony International" Nicholas Lezards' "The Beautiful Game," SteveGrant's "Casuals," Geoff Nicholson's "The WinningSide," Mark Morris's "The Shirt," and Mark Timlin's"Wonder Boy." That said, almost every story has somethingworthwhile about it, and for a soccer fan, this is a must read. ... Read more

Book Description

Term paper due tomorrow? Need to bone up for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary figure?

Turn to "Dictionary of Literary Biography" for the finest literature reference material. Brought to you by the Gale Group--the world's leading source of reference information--this e-doc contains a biographical essay written by a noted literary expert as well as extensive primary and secondary bibliographies.Download Description

Term paper due tomorrow? Need to bone up for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary figure?

Turn to "Dictionary of Literary Biography" for the finest literature reference material. Brought to you by the Gale Group--the world's leading source of reference information--this e-doc contains a biographical essay written by a noted literary expert as well as extensive primary and secondary bibliographies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Collecting laughs
This is a comedy novel about collectors, with an oh-so-perfect title. It begins with a long list of things that collect, in all manifestations of the word, then proceeds to introduce us to a weird cross-section of British society. There is the car wash man with a craving for knowledge who decides to collect the entire contents of "The Books of Power," a strange encyclopedia set, into his memory. His boss, the prototypical used car salesman, with the pitch perfected, and a collection of knickers from his one-night stands (funny, how knickers is so much more tame than the American version "panties," no?). The wealthy auto collector and his wife who collects sexual experiences. And, finally, the narrator, who is writing a book on collectors, and so finds himself ironically in the position of collecting collectors.

The plot is an intricate construction that links all of the above together. I found it almost exactly opposite of a mystery novel, in that you have to unravel the events to get to the point, whereas Nicholson works to weave his characters together to show you the mystery. The book has echoes a couple of other works that I had read in the past, but these are not conscious on Nicholson's part, I believe, but simply the baggage I brought with me. It is similar to Stephen Fry's The Hippopotamus, which should not be that surprising, as Fry's novel was also a British comedy about writers. It had some of the feel of A.S. Byatt's Possession, in that Nicholson continued to explore the theme of collecting much farther than I thought possible, and possession is an aspect of collecting.

It is a short book--only about 200 pages in the American edition--and Nicholson's prose style is breezy and vibrant, easily sped through. The only thing I could find to complain with was the strange narrative shifts early on when I had trouble placing the narrator in the sections told in what I had thought was third person, but later ended up being first person anecdotal. I've got Nicholson's earlier novel, The Food Chain, and I'm looking forward to spending three hours with it sometime soon.

Starts strong, then fizzles
I loved "Everything & More" and "Bleeding London," and while this book started with Nicholson's trademark razor-wire wit, I thought the last quarter or so of the book suffered from awkward, forced and unbelievable resolutions. I also found some of the social observations, which were so keen in the other Nicholson books I'd read, to be unconvincing and even, in some cases, irrelevant to the main story. I will say, though, that his metaphors are great, and I love the irony of a book of collected anecdotes railing against the collecting of anecdotes (among other things). I say skip this one and go right to "Everything & More."

Intriguing, funny and well-crafted novel hits the spot
This is a story about a writer who is collecting stories about people who collect things.Things such as cars, beer cans, lovers, sounds, knickers,information,even a man who collects Martini Recipes: " I madea series of variations on the Martini theme for this guy.I becamefamiliar with the Naked Martini, the Trinity, the de Luxe, the Gibson, thePerfect, the Gordon, the Somerset and the Queen. We could have had theInternational but I was clean out of absinthe. I was initiated into themysteries of the vermouth rinse and the vermouth spray, and told of barmenwho merely SHOW the vermouthto the gin. I was lectured on thesignificance of bitters, the twist of lemon peel and the cocktailonion."(p66 Paperback Edition).In the event, the barmen, our hero,gets irritated with the arrogance of the customer, urinates in one martiniwhich the customer mistakes for yellow Charteuse and promptly hurls thedrink into our hero's face who relaliates by throwing the jug full of thespecial mixture over the customer.A melee ensues. Apart from the sheerjoy of the characters and their situations, it does make one reflect on theobsession which is the novel's themes:Imelda Marcos and her shoes, PolPot and his skulls, Elizabeth Taylor and her husbands, me and my ?You andyour...? A very enjoyable read.

My favorite Nicholson novel so far
Having read 'Footsucker' and 'Volkwagens'; this is my favorite Nicholson novel so far. (The others were good too.)A great cast of eccentrics showcase the search for the nature of collectors and their collections.

This one should be filmed
According to the jacket blurb, Nicholson has sold film rights to more than one of his novels.This is the one I'd like to see.The intricacies of the story and the criss-crossing of paths the narrator and the other characters make in this wild trip demand to be seen.I've also read Footsucker (not as erotic as the two reviewers are making it out to be), but this novel has more weight and satirical insight. Thank God, for writers who know how to poke fun at the rest of the world, who have no mercy for the ignorant and the vain, who relish giving it to the arrogant and the condescending and who still have room for a bit of compassion for the lonely, the misunderstood and the off-center misfits of this often insane world we live in.I only wish Nicholson were writing more often.It seems that he's sitting back and reaping the rewards of his satire.Good for him! ... Read more

Book Description
One of the most transgressive of American photographers, Richard Kern makes brazen portraits of enticing nude women. But if his photographs easily cross over into the world of pornography, they are distinguished from prosaic porn by their beauty and, more importantly, their treatment of voyeurism as a theme. As Kern once said, "The best part of anything is watching," and through his photographs, he not only seduces the viewer into looking but forces a subsequent recognition of his or her own voyeurism. This publication presents a new series of black and white photographs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

cyber-pornography
"Richard Kern rapes the nude brain of a chemical=anthropoid and generates the cyber-pornography for a drug fetus." - Kenji Siratori, author Blood Electric

Black, White, and Noir
This volume could also be called 'The Best of Richard Kern' as it presents a review of his work ranging from 1976 to 2001. Covering a wide range, we find bondage shots and girls with guns, as well as girls in the bedroom, bathroom and other scenarios, presenting an overview of Kern's interests and low-key fetish work.

Perhaps the strongest pictures are the close-up portrait shots, where the models reciprocate your gaze, as though daring you to enter their slightly dark and edgy world. In one shot, a small lizard crawls over a model's face, in the stark monochrome looking almost like a tribal tattoo. Most striking is the picture from 1993, simply titled 'Monica with Candle'. The model tilts her head backward and a lighted candle protrudes upright from her mouth. A very arresting picture the first time you see it (why that was not used on the cover is a mystery. Too provocative maybe?) Certainly a deeply erotic image.

Like all the best books of photography, this one starts well and gets better the more you look into it. A good one to keep on the bookshelf and delve into from time to time, and well worth buying.

Noir?Perhaps in that it is all black and white. . .
Richard Kern here has presented a fine collection of photographs. Though his style, at least in this presentation, seems to be mostly snap shots of ameture models; there are some nice shots none the less.

The Light of Kern
As a young man I have been searching for the perfect woman and theres no such thing.But Kern captures both a meaningful persona and porcelain like femininate in his photography.And this book delivers all expected from Kern and more, its better than New York Girls and thats hard to do.This book deseves to be on even the Queen of Englands coffe table but I for one will keep it hidden away as a unsering boy may hide his chocolete easter eggs from his anoying sister. (ABLOL) ... Read more

Book Description
In Bedlam Burning, Geoff Nicholson takes deadly satiric aim at the ivy-covered walls of academia and the rubber rooms of insane asylums. When the debut novel of Gregory Collins is accepted by a publisher he seems set on a course for literary stardom. There's just one problem: he doesn't quite have the looks to match his talent, and his publisher wants a photo to put on the book jacket. He asks his handsome (but dim) college classmate, Mike Smith, to take his place.

Consequently it is Smith rather than Collins who receives the offer to be writer-in-residence at an asylum where therapy is centered on the soothing powers of literature. It's not long before the boundaries between inmate and observer are blurred in this literary cuckoo's nest and this comedy of errors verges on tragedy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Entertaining, funny, clever
This is a very, very funny book.The other reviews were pretty accurate, the one thing I will add is there is quite a bit of British humor...non-Brits might not get all the jokes!But don't let this put you off, the book is very amusing and has a couple of clever plot twists too.

Witty and Clever
Geoff Nicholson's Bedlam Burning is a cleverly-told story about, Michael Smith, an attractive 23 year-old British man, who allows a less-better looking acquaintance of his from University (they met at a book burning party), Gregory Collins, use his photo on the book jacket of Gregory's first novel.Michael, masquerading as Gregory at a book reading, is offered a position in a psychiatric clinic as a writer-in-residence, part of the therapy for those being treated there.Bedlam Burning is also a witty examination of what it is to read, what it is to write, who, and how much, we can believe.Michael almost immediately begins getting submissions from everyone at the clinic.As he ruminates on these submissions, you may wonder, who is really writing these?Can you believe it at all?Gregory keeps coming back into Michael's life, complicating things, but allowing Nicholson to give us more ruminations on the nature of writing, authorship and reading.The novel is engaging, humorous and witty.The characters are just that--characters.The story moves along fairly quickly and it works.An enjoyable read.

Not A Book That I'd Want To Burn
Michael Smith is a man who is convinced that he is your pretty decent, average sort of guy with absolutely no outstanding talents either positive or negative. However, that is not enough to stop him from having an extraordinary adventure. In 1974, when he attends a "book-burning" party of an eccentric old college professor, Smith meets Gregory Collins, the epitome of a loser and a self-proclaimed writer-wannabe. However, when Collins actually succeeds in acquiring a publication deal for a bizarre novel, he calls on his old acquaintance, Smith, to help him out by posing for him on the author-jacket to improve sales by making the author seem attractive. Amusedly, Smith agrees. When events take a surprising turn and Gregory Collins is asked to do a reading for his book, he is left no option but to call on Smith again. And again, Smith comes to his aid. It is at this reading that Smith meets, Alicia, an attractive young female psychiatrist. She wants to hire him to work at the Kincaid Clinic (a lunatic asylum) as a writer-in-residence to inspire the patients to pour out their thoughts and feelings through the catharsis of penning them. Desperate to remove himself from his own trite job and London life, and eager to be in the vicinity of the attractive Alicia, Smith agrees, carrying his duplicity even further.

Under these circumstances, Michael Smith cannot possibly be expecting a typical sort of reception. However, when he finds himself wading through thousands of pages of anagrams, trivia, sex-and-violence stories, football matches, and spiritual enlightenment guides, even he finds himself overwhelmed. When his boss responds to his gesture of furnishing the patients' library by tearing the covers off of all the books, he begins to feel a certain amount of concern over his current situation. The inmates come in varying degrees of catatonia, hyperactivity, psychosis, and antisocial, yet how can he resist Alicia's fulfilling--even if strange--sexual encounters? And how can he escape from his scheme, when the entire clinic is counting on him to publish an anthology of their creative writing efforts?

The first one hundred pages of this book were absolutely hysterical. The plot was funny, engaging, and never dragged on with non-essential details. It was very fast-paced and did not take long to read. However, I found the parts detailing Alicia's sex with Michael, which described her coprophemia (arousal by spouting verbal and graphic obscenities) to be a bit over-the-top. At times, the plot seemed to get a little far-fetched and unbelievable beyond the point of satire. Some people might find the book irreverent in its treatment of the mentally ill (the concept of the so-called Kincaidian therapy being quite laughable itself). However, this novel was unlike anything I had read in quite a while. The characters were very well-developed, Michael Smith was very likeable, as the self-assured yet blundering narrator, and whenever Gregory Collins appeared on the scene you were rolling your eyes. A certain amount of wry amusement is warranted as you find that you ought to have guessed what was coming next in this corkscrew plot. In the end, Geoff Nicholson does manage to very cleverly reign in all of the chaos he produces and give us a conclusive--if not somewhat tidy--finale. ... Read more

Book Description
"Geoff Nicholson's twelfth novel is an elegantly constructed and often funny story rendered with wry, surgical precision." (Matthew Klam, The New York Times Book Review)

"Deliciously cynical and witty. A clever and original novel of deception, failures, and hope."(Washington Times)

Female Ruins is the story of Christopher Howell, a cult architect who allegedly built just one building-reputedly a wild, willful amalgam of styles ranging from 11th-century Norman to 20th-century Neutra. When Howell's daughter-and keeper of his flame-Kelly, and a Howell groupie named Jack Dexter hook up in a free-falling love affair, the search for this apocryphal building becomes a search for a lost past. Brilliantly funny and seriously obsessive, Female Ruins shows how the castles we build are often symbols of our own needs, follies, and magnificent obsessions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

mythical erections
Architects these days just build things, and they don't even get to be very famous.There used to be architect-gurus back in the twentieth century, who said things that got quoted a lot - people like Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier. Kelly Howell is the daughter of one of these architect-philosophers, who was famous for not having built anything until he got crushed by one of his creations (a concrete hand).. She is conflicted about her feelings for her parents, makes a living driving a cab, and keeps trying to avoid giving interviews to biographers.A persistent American admirer of her father inveigles his way into her life.
It's mostly set in rural Norfolk, England.It is brilliantly satirical but also very cleverly plotted, especially in the last few chapters (set in California) that twist and turn and set the story on its head.

Architectural Madness
I am so addicted to Mr. Nicholson! I own pretty much everything he's written, except for a few out of print pieces I'm still searching for. This new piece has his signature style of taking something common and twisting your perspective so that you see things in ways you never could in everyday life and you become just as intertwined with the subject as the characters are...

This book deals with the world of architecture (not the typical art history terminology and styles I memorized in college) and what it says about our human condition, especially about the coincidence and sometimes wimsy of it all.

I found myself completely thrust into the world of the characters and even though things seemed a bit predictable, the way things are revealed through Mr. Nicholson's twisted and descriptive language kept me completely inthralled and waiting to see what happens next.

If you liked his other books, this is a definite must-read. If you've never read anything before, try the Food Chain, Hunters & Gatherers or Bleeding London first and then go for this one.

Female Ruins a Fun Read
Geoff Nicholson's latest book is a fun read that doesn't amount to too much.And while the protaganist is likable and nicely drawn, there is little movement or development in her character.

In general Nicholson isa cultural critic, a sort of poor man's Roland Barthes.And hisobservations about architecture in "Female Ruins," are funny andastute.One gets the feeling, after reading a lot of Nicholson, that thisis the reason he writes novels.He wants to talk about some subject thatis obsessing him.Whether it be the electric guitar, VW bugs, footfetishism, or the city of London, it's always some external subject thatdrives the story.Sometimes this is successful (Hunters and Gatherers,Bleeding London, Everything and More) and sometimes this drive to explainand expose the facts gets in the way (Flesh Guitar).

Here we have a storythat carries the reader through, but doesn't ultimately satisfy.FemaleRuins won't bore you, it's a nice ride, but when you close the book you'llbe finished with it.

Female Ruins is a forgettable book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Geoff is fun to read
I purchased this title a a gift for a "bugged" friend after reading another of his books and seeing this on his back list.
It shall not disappoint.

I was not impressed
If there was any more fluff in this book contractors would buy it by the truckload and use it as landfill.The obvious waste of time, energy, and research that went into this book is staggering, on par with the worst writer of our time, Tom Robbins.I admit, I did finish it, even though I regret that waste of life, but the ending was worthless.Mr. Nicholson, in an attempt to tie up loose ends only succeeded in putting a bullet in the head of a horse that didn't even make it out of the starting blocks.The characters were unbelievable as human beings from the start, the author's asides into his depressing and pathetic life were a complete waste of paper, and the story line went from bad to worse to unimaginably stupid.At no one point could I succeed in a suspension of disbelief.Maybe it was the nine year old car thief savant, or the sodomasochist undercover reporter, or the closeted gay neonazi; I don't know, but they all seemed to be part of the cast of an off, off, off broadway musical dreamed up by a necrophilic methamphetimine addict.I think after awhile I just kept reading out of pity for poor divorced Mr. Nicholson, who is obviously so obsessed with Volkswagen toys and writing that he can't seem to keep a normal personal relationship.Poor guy.If he ever reads this I hope he takes my advice and lays down the pen.If I were a psychic I'd say his future lies in the manufacture of kidney pies.

Quirky Fun
Apparently this is the second Volkswagen-themed novel by this British author. I have not as yet read "Street Sleeper," so I can't tell you if this is the better of the two or not. What I can tell you is that isa mostly amusing tale of a number of Brits all bound together in one way oranother by Volkswagens. The main problem is that all across England, thereare Volkswagen's blowing up left and right. Who is doing and why, and howthey can be stopped is the alleged plot which drives this book, but thereader is mostly along for the ride as the main characters search formeaning in their existence. I get the impression that many of the maincharacters appeared previously in "Street Sleeper," but how longthe interval has been in unclear. It's a little tough to describe a novelwhich culminates in a rave/VW expo under siege by eight neo-Nazi skinheadsand their delusional leader, who is questing after a holy grail comprisedof a hand carved VW whose sun roof opens to reveal human bone replicas ofHitler and Eva Braun in flagrante... All I can say is that if you have ataste for the quirky, check it out.

Unexpected and fun.
I bought this book at first because I too have a strange passion forVolkswagens. I was thoroughly delighted when I discovered that Mr.Nicholson had a great story to back up the VW obsession, once I got overthe horror of destroying all those VWs that is. The strange cast ofcharacters and their individual motivations are brilliantly woven together.The amazing thing is that even at it's most confusing and destructive Ididn't want this novel to end. I look forward to trying his other works.

Cool Obsession
I was worried that this book might be to 'British' for my American tastes, but it was wonderful.Well paced, colorful characters, and a good mix of action and humor.Well worth the money. ... Read more