Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2011181 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-01
• Format: Import
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 380 pages

Customer Reviews

How simple is the meaning of life?
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.

Good Message To Glean From The Book
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.

Perceptive, entertaining, and laugh out loud funny
A.M. Homes has been a favorite since "Music for Torching". She has a gift for satyrizing stereotypical characters confronted with atypical situations, while keeping it all on the precipice of believability. "This Book..." opens with Richard (don't call me Dick) Novack - divorced, middle-aged and financially free - experiencing an epiphany after a scare with a mystery illness. Richard has spent his past several years glued to his computer screen managing his investments, while his housekeeper, nutritionist, and personal trainer manage his personal needs. He is as removed from social intercourse as anyone in LA could manage to be, until the illness and an emerging sink-hole on his property change his life. A chance meeting with a woman crying in the produce department at Ralph's, the rescue of a horse from the sink-hole, a stop at an out-of-the way donut shop, a trespassing trash-picker, and a stray dog all lead to funny and lasting relationships which Richard greedily invites into his empty life. Offstage, Richard's estranged teenage son Ben is en route for a visit with the father he despises for his neglect. The book plays in your mind like the multilayered movies about LA life - Crash, Laurel Canyon, for example - and could easily be adapted to screen. But enjoy it in your mind - it's a trip worth taking.