Reindeer Moon

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: A great book, well-written and honest. I was sad to end it and thought about it long after I finished reading it. I was completely mesmerised.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: An excellent book with strong research in all areas, from natural history to shamanism. Vividly described and "real"; told in a spare, effective voice. An especially good portrayal of an adolescent character. Far superior to any of the "Clan of the Cave Bear" books.

Rating:
Summary: A Terrific Read
Review: It's un-put-down-able! I was sorry when I finished it - I wanted more and more. Wonder why this author hasn't written more? I know very little about the history of this era, but this rang true with what I do know, and the writing really drew me in. I found it gripping, fascinating.

Rating:
Summary: Difference between this and Clan of the Cave bear
Review: One thing, I thought the clan of the cavebear lacked, even though it was an excellent book, was the raw sensations of living in a primeval world.
This book does give you this impression, and it is a lasting one. In this book, you are cold, and hungry and lost in a world full of predators. The brutality of each day is brought out to it's fullest, the emptiness of the space around you. The winters are freezing, and the summers are brief and fleeting and bittersweet.
The relationships between the characters are for the most part, well done. The one between Yanan and her sister Meri was especially well done. In the beginning, Yanan looks at her as spoiled brat. Later on, in the journey home they bond rather well. The book demonstrates this to us and does not tell this to us.
Another thing worth mentioning is how well Elizabeth Marshall Thomas writes the various animals that inhabit the tundra. You can almost see the mammoth storming across the plains and the yellow gleam of a wolf's eyes. Yanan, after she becomes a spirit, (she introduces herself as one in the beginning of the story) takes the form of various animals and their habits are well described and thought out.
This is a story about death, but also about life, and what hasn't really changed after billions of years.

Rating:
Summary: Stupendous, experientially and intellectually delicious
Review: Simply one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. Easily the best invocation of what life may well have been like for our hunting and gathering ancestors, and a stupendous illustration of animistic modes of experience, and of the reciprocity between human beings and the living land. Brilliant insights into the sensorial worlds of other animals -- wolves, mammoths, and others -- as well as into mysteriously beautiful styles of thought and awareness still common among many indigenous, oral peoples. An anthropological and deeply ecological classic -- and yet its a novel! Its not forthose who like their nature sentimental and sweet, but if you care about the wild otherness so rapidly dissappearing from our world, don't miss this astonishing book.

Rating:
Summary: a wildly beautiful novel
Review: Simply one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. Easily the best invocation of what life may well have been like for our hunting and gathering ancestors, and a stupendous illustration of of animistic modes of experience, and of the reciprocity between human beings and the living land. Brilliant insights into the sensorial worlds of other animals -- wolves, mammoths, and others -- as well as into mysteriously beautiful styles of thought and awareness still common among many indigenous, oral peoples. An anthropological and deeply ecological classic -- and yet its a novel! Its not for those who like their nature sentimental and sweet, but if you care about the wild otherness so rapidly dissappearing from our world, don't miss this astonishing book.

Rating:
Summary: Good Story, But Kind of Stressful
Review: This is not the kind of book I normally read, but I could stop myself from reading it once I began. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas truly knows how hook a reader. I felt pain and sadness, at the deaths of Yanan's lodge members, but also their joys. The other does a seamless job of moving the story back and forth from the really world [if you can call it that], to the sprit world, and somehow make me [a strong non-fiction reader] believe. I will worn the reader, that this book did not leave me feeling relaxed, I found that I was stressed and restless after reading it. I would call the book a good read, one I wouldn't want to have missed out on, but I wouldn't call it an enjoyable read.

Rating:
Summary: Good Story, But Kind of Stressful
Review: This is not the kind of book I normally read, but I could stop myself from reading it once I began. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas truly knows how hook a reader. I felt pain and sadness, at the deaths of Yanan's lodge members, but also their joys. The other does a seamless job of moving the story back and forth from the really world [if you can call it that], to the sprit world, and somehow make me [a strong non-fiction reader] believe. I will worn the reader, that this book did not leave me feeling relaxed, I found that I was stressed and restless after reading it. I would call the book a good read, one I wouldn't want to have missed out on, but I wouldn't call it an enjoyable read.

Rating:
Summary: And you thought your life was stressful...
Review: This is perhaps the best novel I have ever read in the prehistory genre, BAR NONE. The story telling is realistic to the point that this could easily have been a real-life account, with possible exception given to the supernatural elements. All of the characters are well developed and above all, easy to read emotionally. The story is essentially about people living their daily lives, but the author excels in imparting how stressful and brutal that life may have actually been in an ice-age culture and I found myself completely absorbed and unable put it down because of its intensity. I'm looking forward to reading its companion book "The Animal Wife".

Rating:
Summary: This isn't a "pretty book",realistic and gritty
Review: This story could be a survival guide for traveling in pre-historic Europe. The only enemy in this story is nature and hunger. There aren't a whole lot of happy gatherings or cave paintings or flowery "too modern" dialog or hunts that get enough meat in one shot here. There is a real sense of if this hunt goes badly we will starve to death and her baby will die if she cannot produce milk. This story shows what it was like to live a step away from disaster, how to survive, how good a distant lodge looks when your fighting off freezing to death.