Choiring Of The Trees

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely one of the most beautiful books I've ever read
Review: Brilliant, romantic, moving, just wonderful

Rating:
Summary: An exceptional read! One of the 10 best novels I have read.
Review: CHOIRING OF THE TREES resonates with memorable aspects. Harrington develops the setting of this story in masterful detail, capturing the essence of life in a remote, turn-of-the-century Ozark community called Stay More, Arkansas. Rich with lore and colloquial expressions, this novel is particularly poignant as regional fiction, but excellent literature by anyone's standard. The story includes a few actual people from Arkansas history and it graphically portrays the brutality of the Arkansas prison system as it was prior to World War I. CHOIRING. . . is an interesting exploration of justice as well as a touching love story, but most importantly, it is a compelling read. Harrington develops convincing and lovable characters who are hard to abandon when the story is finished, and remarkably, he accomplishes all of this in the voice of a female narrator.

In January, I read bestselling COLD MOUNTAIN by Charles Frazier, and I admired it greatly. CHOIRING OF THE TREE! S, also an odyssey, is in my estimation even better.

Rating:
Summary: An historical novel
Review: I am writing this review only because all the other reviews are so favorable. Harington develops his settings very competently, occasionally eloquently (see Pangburn's review of 8/7/03). There is plenty of plot. I was very interested at times, and I can see how some readers might love this book. However, his characters are not really developed, and I just could not take them seriously. When he describes life in prison, he does not have the skill to transform despair and horror into art. At other times the plot reads like a TV script. Enjoy the book as a kind of historical novel, if you can, but this is not good literature.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful...
Review: I loved this book, as well as all of Mr. Harington's books. I was lucky enough to have him as a professor in college...

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful...
Review: I loved this book, as well as all of Mr. Harington's books. I was lucky enough to have him as a professor in college...

Rating:
Summary: Top Read of 2002
Review: I read 75-80 novels a year and this was hands down the best read of 2002. Moving, thought provoking, a wonderful historical characterization of a time and era, absolutely vivid characters, and surprises throughout. I always choose a top read of the year and this is the second time Mr Harington has topped the list for me. Not many novels make you feel you're there; this one does.

Rating:
Summary: Some parts of this book I read over and over again.
Review: Like this part:

"In the last days of June, Stay More eases into the slow rhythm that will stay with it throughout July and into August: just enough rain, not very often, to settle the dust and keep things green; just enough work to keep everybody from being idle but not enough to keep them from enjoying what summer was mainly meant for: the casual contemplation of the inexorable passage of time.

Summer is a season for endurance and abidance. It is too hot to enjoy life but too green not to. And green is cool. The color alone sustained us, and was all around us, in every conceivable tint and hue."

Rating:
Summary: Some parts of this book I read over and over again.
Review: Like this part:

"In the last days of June, Stay More eases into the slow rhythm that will stay with it throughout July and into August: just enough rain, not very often, to settle the dust and keep things green; just enough work to keep everybody from being idle but not enough to keep them from enjoying what summer was mainly meant for: the casual contemplation of the inexorable passage of time.

Summer is a season for endurance and abidance. It is too hot to enjoy life but too green not to. And green is cool. The color alone sustained us, and was all around us, in every conceivable tint and hue."

Rating:
Summary: Easy as Breathing
Review: This may be the most intimate, for me, of Harington's novels. TAOTAO was the first, and is the spine of all my Harington reading - but this one is easily the one my *girlish* heart loved most. It is the best balance of Harington's wild fancy and his talent for character development, and it is the book that feels like he must have had the same breezes in his fingers that live in Nail's trees. Merely seeing this title makes little hairs on my neck stand up a bit, this story is so affecting.

I want to go read it once more, and cry and smile as it carries me again.

Rating:
Summary: provocative,chilling repeat meetings with the electric chair
Review: This novel is intricate and unforgettable. The now common phrase Dead Man Walking does not begin to capture the tense, sensitive life of an unfairly doomed man and a woman who takes such chances to love him. Challenges all our ideas about bearing fair witness, justice, and goes on for years. Rich character development, rich writing. A rare find.