Rating: 
Summary: A Great Book
Review: All of Edna Ferber's novels (which are very hard to find!) are terrific. Classic literature from an era gone by. If you like reading great stories from the 1940s, pick up any Edna Ferber book!
Rating:
Summary: An excelent and inspiring Pulitzer Prize winning novel
Review: An interesting story of a woman's life and her struggle to raise her only son and teach him what is valuable in life. The Story is set in the late 1800 and early 1900's in rural and urban Chicago. The author called it "a book about cabbages..." but really, it's a story about Selina DeJong, orphaned as a young, wealthy child, who struggles to make a life for herself and her only child Dirk whom she has nicknamed "sobig". She marries a dolt for a husband and begins to work on a farm. Her husband is a small man with a small brain and is afraid of his own shadow which limits and frustrates Selina and keeps her from accomplishing anything for many years. Fortunately, her husband suffers an accidental death and she is fianlly able to make some necessary improvements which allow her son (who otherwise would have been a cabbage farmer his whole life) to attend college in the city. He succeeds in college, but when he gets out he sacrifices his dream profession(architecture) to make a lot of money doing something boring in finance, and in doing so, he misses the point his mother tried to teach him about success. (i.e. that money doesn't equal it.) This is a really good book with a wonderful and inspiring ending. If the whole book had been as good as the last couple chapters, I would have given it five stars easily. Although "So Big" isn't a famous book, Edna Ferber made it big with most of her others... You may have heard of a couple of them... "Giant" from which the Rock Hudson, James Dean film was made, and "Showboat", which was made into a sprawling musical. (My head aches just to think about it).
Rating: 
Summary: Single motherhood at the turn of the last century
Review: An interesting story of a woman's life and her struggle to raise her only son and teach him what is valuable in life. The Story is set in the late 1800 and early 1900's in rural and urban Chicago. The author called it "a book about cabbages..." but really, it's a story about Selina DeJong, orphaned as a young, wealthy child, who struggles to make a life for herself and her only child Dirk whom she has nicknamed "sobig". She marries a dolt for a husband and begins to work on a farm. Her husband is a small man with a small brain and is afraid of his own shadow which limits and frustrates Selina and keeps her from accomplishing anything for many years. Fortunately, her husband suffers an accidental death and she is fianlly able to make some necessary improvements which allow her son (who otherwise would have been a cabbage farmer his whole life) to attend college in the city. He succeeds in college, but when he gets out he sacrifices his dream profession(architecture) to make a lot of money doing something boring in finance, and in doing so, he misses the point his mother tried to teach him about success. (i.e. that money doesn't equal it.) This is a really good book with a wonderful and inspiring ending. If the whole book had been as good as the last couple chapters, I would have given it five stars easily. Although "So Big" isn't a famous book, Edna Ferber made it big with most of her others... You may have heard of a couple of them... "Giant" from which the Rock Hudson, James Dean film was made, and "Showboat", which was made into a sprawling musical. (My head aches just to think about it).
Rating:
Summary: A timeless message
Review: Edna Ferber's book is touching and timeless. The themes of money, working hard, family, and real "living" are as appropriate today as when the book was written. You can't help but be taken in by the inspirational story of Selina Peake...don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: A timeless message
Review: Edna Ferber's book is touching and timeless. The themes of money, working hard, family, and real "living" are as appropriate today as when the book was written. You can't help but be taken in by the inspirational story of Selina Peake...don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: An excelent and inspiring Pulitzer Prize winning novel
Review: I loved this book. I am currently reading through the Pulitzer Prize winning novels and this is one of my favorites to date! The story reminds one of who you want to be - one who is strong, principaled and loving. The main charachter is a woman who faces virtually every challange that life has to offer and who still remains an individual of hope and direction. I thought that the novel was inspiring. The prose and the themes were engaging and very readable. The book reminds us to push on an be the people that we know that we can be.A great inspiring book - read it.
Rating:
Summary: The Story Stays With Me
Review: I read So Big literally decades ago, and the story has stuck with me through all that time. Selina DeJong's positive and hard working attitude is inspirational. Ferber does her justice in the end, when Selina achieves "gravitas," the state of being satisfied with her life and wise in old age. Typically, her son doesn't appreciate what his mother has given him until his is older and can see her through his girlfriend's eyes. Suddenly she becomes clear to him as a heroine. This story even inspired me to each vegetables more! I can only hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.
Rating:
Summary: The Story Stays With Me
Review: I read So Big literally decades ago, and the story has stuck with me through all that time. Selina DeJong's positive and hard working attitude is inspirational. Ferber does her justice in the end, when Selina achieves "gravitas," the state of being satisfied with her life and wise in old age. Typically, her son doesn't appreciate what his mother has given him until his is older and can see her through his girlfriend's eyes. Suddenly she becomes clear to him as a heroine. This story even inspired me to each vegetables more! I can only hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I've read.
Review: I throughly enjoyed ths book. It was the second Ferber novel I had read, and truly, I don't think there are many that top this one. I laughed, I cried. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in meeting an incredible woman who takes what she gets in life and makes the best that she can. A truly compelling novel.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I've read.
Review: I throughly enjoyed ths book. It was the second Ferber novel I had read, and truly, I don't think there are many that top this one. I laughed, I cried. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in meeting an incredible woman who takes what she gets in life and makes the best that she can. A truly compelling novel.
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