The Third Brother: A Novel

Average customer rating:

Great Gag Gift

"We are all invisible until the first heart attack"

Something of a sophomore slump

Rubbish!!!!

A complex and engaging sophomore effort

The Third Brother: A Novel
Nick McDonell
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0802142672

Book Description

Nick McDonell's debut novel, Twelve, was a publishing sensation. It was an international best seller and established its seventeen-year-old author as an important literary voice. In The Third Brother, McDonell delivers another remarkable novel, a haunting tale of brotherly love, family tragedy, and national grief.

Mike was a lucky child: a vacation house on Long Island, famous family friends, an Ivy League education, and also an older brother, Lyle, who looked out for him. It's 2001, and Mike is a summer intern at a magazine in Hong Kong. Sent on assignment to Bangkok, Mike finds the city electric with violence and hedonism. Nothing goes according to plan. When terrible news about his brother arrives from home, Mike rushes back to the States. Lyle is unstable and suffering from visions of an imaginary third brother. And then, a clear September morning is broken by catastrophe. While the Twin Towers burn, Mike makes an epic trek through the ghostly streets of New York to find and save Lyle. From Patpong to the World Trade Center to Harvard Yard, as his life and country come apart, Mike struggles to find his footing and go on. The joke, it turns out, is on him.

Customer Reviews:

Great Gag Gift.......2005-12-27

My girlfriend bought this book for me for Christmas so I felt obligated to read it. After reading it I am seriously contemplating breaking up with her.
The only positive thing about the book is that it's a quick read, mainly because it is at a 7th grade reading level. Little Johnny might like this one while his mom is driving him to soccer practice.
The story is weak and fragmented. There is no character development. You get the feeling the author is writing about situations that he has no clue about. For instance, the whole first part of the story takes place in Thailand where Mike is trying to hunt down one of his boss' old college buddies. Mike is supposed to infiltrate the backpacking, drug using scene around Thailand to find him. However, you get the feeling the author might've watched the travel channel once and thinks having a few Mountain Dew's is his idea of a wild time. Mike makes Thailand seem like Kansas in a feeble effort to spice things up. I have already wasted too much time writing about the book and I have not even said anything (much like the book). This book seems forced, Just stay away from it.

"We are all invisible until the first heart attack".......2005-12-26

The Third Brother is a strange, disparate novel. Made up of short, sharp chapters, author Nick McDonell seems intent to frame his story around a series of punchy, sensory vignettes of Mike, his young main protagonist. Mike comes from a well-to-do family on Long Island, and Mike's father uses an old network to get his son a holiday job working for a magazine in Hong Kong. Mike is intitially thrilled at the idea, especially when the editor, Elliot Analect, sends Mike with a seasoned journalist to report on backpackers and party drugs in Bangkok.

The real purpose of this expedition is to locate Christopher Dorr, a missing reporter. Analect, Dorr and Mike's father all went to college together and Mike will slowly discover the complexity of the relationship between the three men, which is convoluted as it is mysterious. Mike becomes a tourist in Bangkok's underworld where he experiences an urge to save as much as to describe. Amongst the seedy nightclubs and run down hostels of Khao San Road, Mike meets are variety of shady characters.

Mike is a pure, Harvard educated young snob, but his encounters in the back alleyways of Bancock, shape his reaction to his family, and to the world around him. He hangs out with local journalists and hippie backpackers, survives some brushes with the law, and witnesses some ugly stuff, such as drug deals, and even becomes attracted to a local prostitute.

Mike is as tangential to the hip scene around him as he is perennially inactive and indecisive. It's as though he's on a dare, to see how naughty he can really be, to see how far he can go, how much trouble a white kid from New York can actually get into, "is there a hole in the world so deep that my father can't rack me down and pull me out?"

Throughout the first half of the novel, McDonell immerses the reader in the sites, sounds, and smells of Bangkok, and sets up an interesting juxtaposition between the native Thais, the Western back packer kids eating their ecstasy pills, and the "farangs," the white men who don't know anything and yet get into trouble, and also the Thais who want to be like them - "yellow on the outside, white in the inside."

It's not that Mike believes in ghosts, it's that he knows you can be haunted, and when he finally returns home to New York disaster strikes, his parents have been killed in a house fire, and Lyle, his brother has become deranged, believing that the fire was caused by a "third brother." Mike ends up in Manhattan, on the day of September 11th, frantically searching for Lyle amidst the dust, dirt, and debris the World Trade Center. The chaos of the day reflects the disarray of his own family, when Mike looks at a snapshot of his family he sees the potential craziness himself, "just like it was there in all of them."

In tightly measured and articulated prose, McDonell details a young man's journey through twenty-first century angst, exploring grief, "causalities and orders and children and friendly fire all interwoven in stupefied clouds of glassy smoke late at night." The chapters are short with the novel divided into three heavily delineated sections, the prose moving effortlessly back and forth, providing a portrait of Mike's troubled psyche.

The death of Mike's parents and the madness of Lyle reopen old wounds, bringing to the surface what the protagonist so desperately wants to suppress. The challenge is to keep a story that spans two countries together, but McDonell, using his impressive prose skills wisely keeps the narrative fluid.

McDonell is also a sharp observer of human nature, and he manages to encapsulate all of Mike's youthful desires and insecurities, providing a portrait of a young man somewhat at a loss in the world, desperately searching for answers and for some kind of peace. Mike Leonard December 05.

Something of a sophomore slump.......2005-12-24

McDonell's first novel "Twelve" was effective because although it wasn't beautifully written (and it did have moments of this), the book's style served its purpose well. In other words, the shallow characters and short chapters helped us understand these disillusioned characters a bit better and weirdly enriched the book. Bret Easton Ellis did this (fast pacing, shallow characters) before McDonell in both "Less Than Zero" and "The Rules of Attraction", but McDonell made his book unique and exciting.

"The Third Brother" is certainly not difficult to read. It is not a tedious piece of modern "literary" fiction. It is written in much the same style as "Twelve." The problem with this is that given the characters and action of "The Third Brother," short chapters make no sense. McDonell needs to garner the confidence to let his characters have depth and complexity. He needs to allow for longer dialogues, scenes, and chapters. There is nothing inherently wrong with short chapters and basic characterizations in fiction, but 21st-century expatriate journalists and intelligent post-adolescents, as nihilistic or hedonistic as they may be, aren't best portrayed like this.

As has been mentioned in reviews not on Amazon, McDonell's three-piece narrative is also weak and again smacks of a lack of confidence in his ability to maintain a good story.

McDonell nonetheless has a lot of talent and the potential to do well -- or at least much, much better than this second effort.

Rubbish!!!!.......2005-10-22

This was dribble! Thats all I can say! Loved Twelve but this was a poor effort in writing. I am sorry but for a second novel this is very much like a forced book as the editing is terrible also.

A complex and engaging sophomore effort.......2005-10-14

Young and passionate authors, celebrated for their raw and fiery prose, are often allowed to get away with less-than-skillful technique, hole-ridden plots, unrealistic characters and messy dialogue. Authors whose first books are published before they can legally drink are lauded (and rightly so) just for being so good at such a young age. With the publication of their subsequent works comes the questions of whether they can transcend their youthful literary style, whether their style and technique has matured, whether they have a viable literary voice, and whether their fame and recognition was solely reliant on their youth.

With the publication of his second novel, THE THIRD BROTHER, Nick McDonell faces just such a test. His debut work of fiction, TWELVE, which was hailed as "fast...relentless" and "a beautifully tragic and unsettling story," launched the then-17-year-old author headlong into a kind of literary celebrity that recalled the reception of LESS THAN ZERO by Bret Easton Ellis in 1985. In both cases, the praise of the novel was inextricably bound up in the youth and youthful voice of its author. Ellis managed to outgrow that initial swoop of fame and prove to be more than just a transient literary fad. With THE THIRD BROTHER, McDonell shows promise enough to follow in Ellis's footsteps and establish himself as something more than just a 17-year-old flash in the pan.

The novel begins with blue-blooded, Harvard-educated Mike's forays into the drug-addled hippie hangouts of Bangkok, Thailand, where he is on assignment for his internship in Hong Kong. Ostensibly there to infiltrate the scene, he also has been sent by his boss --- his father's ex-Harvard chum --- to undertake the task of tracking down an old roommate, a close friend and an ex-reporter named Christopher Dorr, whose history with Mike's father and their close-knit circle of college friends is thorny and convoluted. Dorr had gone to Bangkok to research a story and never returned, dissipating into a sultry and debauched world.

What Mike discovers in Thailand --- about his father, about Dorr, and about himself --- is enough to throw his once-stable conception of identity, of family, and of good versus evil completely off-kilter. And Mike's struggle with, and final acceptance of, the closest truth he can find is well-depicted. We see the initial Mike, a serious but coddled young man who is accustomed to easy answers, face ugly truths about human nature and human instinct. We see those truths change him, but in a way that is natural and steady, and never forced.

When we meet up again with Mike, his parents have died in a fire, the work of his always-troubled older brother Lyle. Lyle has descended into a kind of madness, and Mike has transferred to Columbia to look after him. Mike and Lyle's story begins and ends on September 11, 2001. Any writer who attempts to make use of that day in their work faces the inevitable allegations of literary manipulation --- of attempting to milk an instant so full of national pathos that the author can lazily fall back on the emotions it induces in readers and imagines there is no need to create any with his or her words.

Yet McDonell evades this accusation simply by presenting Mike's life as relatively gloomy even before the first plane hits. The collapse of the towers, the chaos in downtown New York, and the panicked, nervy journey that Mike makes downtown to see his brother are all written at a kind of frantic pace. McDonell captures the breathless fear, the seeming absurdity and need for movement --- for action of any kind --- that that day invoked. As the novel propels itself to a climactic finale, the delusions of Lyle echo the madness of the world, made suddenly very real to a once-sheltered nation. And the capacity for evil that America suddenly must bear witness to echoes Mike's own revelatory experience in Thailand.

The novel is divided into three sections. The first, in Thailand, takes place over about a week. The second, in New York City, details the events of just one day. The third takes place a year later and darkly presents the consequences of the first two. All three are made up of quick --- often less than three-paged --- chapters. All are interspersed with a series of flashbacks to Mike's childhood and the events that culminate in his parents' deaths. Thus, THE THIRD BROTHER is rather technically complex --- asking the reader to travel with Mike's subconscious back and forth in time, to jump from the laconic heat of Thailand to the rapid-fire events of September 11th and beyond, and yet to still remain engaged. McDonell succeeds in holding his reader to the potentially unwieldy story with his uncanny ability to render scenes and places with simple language and direct sentences.

It is in describing a very specific scene --- a backyard in the slums of Bangkok, or the 24-hour bar of a sleazy hotel --- that McDonell proves his staying power. His skill lies in his very real ability to bring his reader into the world on the page. It is to McDonell's credit that he doesn't try to infuse his prose with flowery descriptions and complicated sentences; it bespeaks a kind of self-assurance that, for a 21-year-old, is both unsurprisingly age-appropriate and surprisingly earned. He is a talented writer who will keep getting better --- and luckily we are along for the ride.

--- Reviewed by Jennifer Krieger

Average customer rating:

Chance and Lana-SPOILERS

:)
The Coltons: Pregnant in Prosperino
Carla Cassidy
Manufacturer: Silhouette
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Romance | Subjects | Books
General | Contemporary | Romance | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0373387148

Book Description

"This marriage has strings attached, Chance . . ."

Yeah, and it's all based on my, um, performance. When Lana Ramirez came to him with an offer of marriage, Chance Reilly knew it was too good to be true. He needed a wife to claim his rightful inheritance, but what did the sweetly sensual private-duty nurse want from the marriage bed? Little did the rugged rancher guess, the Colton housekeeper's eldest daughter had been hopelessly in love with him forever . . . and she wanted a baby -- his baby. Their torrid nights would no doubt leave her pregnant in Prosperino, but would Chance still be by her side?

Customer Reviews:

Chance and Lana-SPOILERS.......2004-02-13

Favorite scene with Lana-
Her heart to heart with her mom.

Favorite scene with Chance-
Discovering that Lana has left him and going after her, with no success.

Together-
Dinner out and taking a walk and going to look at baby stuff.

What did you like about Lana-
She loved Chance. She accepted him for who he was. She made his home a real home. She wanted a baby more than anything.

What didn't you like about Lana-
I know she was heartbroken, thinking Chance didn't love her, but I felt like she gave up on him when she left him.

What did you like about Chance-
He was tough, yet sensitive. He wasn't afraid to show his emotions. Although the start of his marriage with Lana was a contract, he still cared about her and made her feel important.

What didn't you like about Chance-
That his dwelling on his past could have cost him Lana's love.

:).......2002-04-06

Chance Reilly did not have a happy childhood. His father was verbally and physically abusive. Chance is a salesperson and moves from place to place never putting down roots. Chance knows that a wife and children will never be in his future. Chance thinks he will have his dream of owning his own business when his father dies and leaves behind the family ranch. Chance is hurt and angry to discover that his father has put a clause in the will stating that Chance must marry within five days to inherit the ranch. Chance is ready to walk away from the ranch and his dreams until Lana Ramirez comes to him with a proposition.

Lana was Chance's fathers private-duty nurse and knows about the will. Lana has known Chance since she was a little girl and he spent time on the Colton ranch. Lana tells Chance that she will marry him so that he can inherit the ranch if he will give her the one thing that she wants, a baby. Chance is reluctant at first, but finally agrees to what Lana has proposed. It is supposed to be a simple business arrangement, but most of us know that nothing in life is ever simple.

Chance is a very wounded man and Lana is just the woman to help him. Of course the love story between Chance and Lana takes a back seat to those readers that have followed the series and are interested in the homecoming of Meredith Colton. If you have read the other books than it is no secret that Meredith was getting her memory back. Another attack on Emily finally brings both Emily and Meredith home to the Colton ranch. Their homecoming also leaves us anticipating the next book in the Colton series.

Book Description

George Alex Effinger's first short-fiction collection in nearly 15 years, these nine tales are set in Budayeen, the walled city in the sand, a city of dark shadows and even darker inhabitants, where a Raymond Chandleresque vision has been created-hardboiled, noir, futuristic-but with a twist. The sights, smells, and denizens of Budayeen are brought to life-from the city's sordid, decadent underbelly to the glamorous excesses of the sex industry. This collection includes four tales of Marîd Audran, the protagonist in Effinger's three highly acclaimed Budayeen novels. Also included is Effinger's best-known story, "Schrödinger's Kitten," in which a young girl's dreams portend myriad possible quantum futures, all focused on her encounter with a would-be rapist.

Book Description

Un historia que despierta la imaginación de una manera tan poderosa y conecta al lector de una forma tan profunda. El caballero de la armadura oxidada es mucho más que un libro, es una experiencia que expande nuestra mente y que nos llega al corazón.

Customer Reviews:

Wow!! It's like a movie with no image.......2007-08-12

Audiocoleccion has done it again! This audiobook excels the book in so many way. With such a great script it was easier but they really mastered the audio production. If you are a fan of audiobooks and are LEARNING SPANISH, be sure to get a hold of this one. Cheers

Femomenal!.......2003-01-30

Un libro motivador, sencillo pero con mucho que dar!

Makes you think...a lot! /Te obliga a pensar.......2000-06-15

A wonderful short book which shows you the road to self discovery, self love, self appreciation and the ability to give and receive love. Un fabuloso librito que te muestra el camino hacia tu descubrimiento personal, hacia la autoestima y hacia la capacidad de dar y recibir amor.

El caballero ..........2000-01-28

Leedlo! os gustará, no todo en la vida es conseguir cosas materiales. Los verdaderos valores los llevamos dentro, dejad que éstos afloren libremente y brindemos amor alli por donde vayamos. Entre más demos más recibiremos. Funciona! yo lo intento y tu?

Lectura para señores poderosos.......2000-01-08

este libro es de muy facil lectura, ideal para aquellos que estan siempre corriendo, buscando nuevos desafios, nuevos exitos, nuevas metas. Si eres una de esas personas que esta acostumbradas al exito, siempre quieres mas, preguntate porque no has tenido tiempo para leer un buen libro como este.....tal vez, la respuesta la encuentres en este libro.

Book Description

A practical guide for women to regain their self-esteem and discover the true meaning of love. Using metaphors, the author narrates a story about women who wish to find true love but not fall for a man who can make them lose their self-esteem and their dignity. "Don't take off your crown just to seem less tall and thus your knight in rusty armor can feel more comfortable with his height next to you."

Book Description

This practical, illustrated how to book describes the best ways to clam, including where to find the creatures, what equipment to use, and how to collect and cook them with dozens of tasty clam recipes included. The author, a veteran clammer along Virginia's clam rich Eastern Shore, also examines the natural history of clams and answers frequently asked questions about them.

Customer Reviews:

Take your money and shred it instead of buying this book........2006-02-18

This book is a total rip off. 32 pages of text about clams and few more pages of recipes. Plus, this book could have been written by one of Jerry's kids, it is so poorly done.

Book Description

This third edition of the best-selling handbook for Carlton

Ware collectors is sure to fulfill the demand for up-to-date

information on the popular pottery. Complete with a history

of Carlton Ware, this book explores how the products changed

with the company and provides vital information collectors

need to make secure purchases.

Included inside is a section on building a collection, with tips

on spotting reproductions and counterfeits, and advice on what

to purchase. Collectors will also find information on how to

date Carlton Ware, and learn to identify pieces with the

convenient pattern list. Over 280 full-color photographs

display the diversity and beauty of the most popular Carlton

Ware collectible pieces and sets, and include pattern number

and current market value in British Pounds and U.S. Dollars.

Customer Reviews:

Collecting Carlton Ware.......2007-09-17

This book is a must if you are into collecting or selling Carltonware. There are lots of coloured photographs showing most of the patterns . The book has been a great help in identifying patterns so that I can descibe them accurately when selling on ebay. I recommend this book to anyone interested in Carltonware.

Average customer rating:

Dermesid Beetles....how to live with them.....

Beetles & Bones: Care, Feeding, and Use of Dermestid Beetles

Manufacturer: Jillett Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0977463001
Release Date: 2005-12-22

Product Description

Beetles & Bones: Care, Feeding, and Use of Dermestid Beetles is a must have for anybody interested in raising these amazing creatures, which museum curators and others have used in skeleton preparation for over a hundred years. In this easy to understand handbook, specialist Rob Graves discusses every aspect of starting, growing, and using a colony of dermestid beetles. With the aid of over two-dozen photos and illustrations, you will learn where to find or buy beetles, how and where to keep them, what to feed them, and the optimal growing conditions to quickly raise a colony big enough to clean skulls and bones. You'll also learn how to properly prepare skeletons for beetle cleaning, ways to put even a small colony to work right away, and European mounting techniques for your game head. Beetles & Bones is the only resource where laypersons can quickly learn the key points and pitfalls of this unique and fascinating hobby. This mountain of valuable information in a single, understandable text makes this book worth its weight in gold!

Customer Reviews:

Dermesid Beetles....how to live with them............2007-05-14

This is agreat little book and gives you all the information you need in starting a Dermestid Beetle colony...and what to expect in the future. Rob Graves gives lots of tips that are more valueable than the price of this wonderful little book. This is a "must have" for anyone interested in this hobby.

Book Description

The Illustrated Room is a beautifully produced, full-color collection of interior design renderings by well-known designers, covering every style and every medium of the 20th century. It includes stunning illustrations of commercial, residential, and institutional interiors, and covers all types of projects, from the U.S. to the Far East; as well as discussions of each period and the techniques used. An invaluable source book for designers of period interiors, this book is destined to become a standard reference in that field.

Customer Reviews:

depends on what you are looking for.......2004-01-26

If you are looking for a book to teach you how to render
interiors, as I did, then this is not the book for you.
If you are interested in looking at beautifully rendered interiors throughout the last century, then you will love
this book.

HIGHEST ARTISTIC STANDARDS.......2002-01-19

QUALITY ARTISTIC RENDERINGS IN A VARIETY OF MEDIA AND STYLES - A JOY TO SEE - HOWEVER NO DESIGN INFORMATION OR TIPS ON RENDERING - GREAT INSPIRATION FOR DESIGN PRESENTATIONS

The Illustrated Room: 20th Century Interior Design Rendering

Average customer rating:

The Illustrated Room: 20th Century Interior Design Rendering
Vilma; Antman, Dani Barr
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OFM022

Book Description

38 stencils derived from authentic Victorian stencil designs—scrollwork, florals, medallions and more—presented in reusable form in a variety of popular sizes, ideal for decorating walls and furnishings and for crafts projects. Instructions. Introduction.

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