Product Description

Customer Reviews (61)

Courtship like CLockwork?
I was introduced to this marvelous fantasy in junior high and despite the passing of decades and the reading of hundreds of Young Adult books and dozens of Children's Classics I still recall this tale with fondness. Known for his droll and irreverent Midwestern sense of humor Thurber is generally known for his outrageous short stories like, "The Night the Bed Fell" and "The Night the Ghost Got In,"the Ohio journalist let out all the literary stops when he took pen in hand (or was it just an old Royal typewriter?) to decant a fairy tale of 50's vintage.

Also a pen and ink artist, whose spare cartoons are more charica- tures of people and animals, Thurber easily captured the traditional elements of a fairy tale: a beautiful princess, her evil guardian who fiendishly discourages all suitors with impossible quests, a prince with an unusual name, and a "pet" monster whose loyalty is casual at best.

But it is Thurber's use/invention of Words which boggles readers of all ages; his vocabulary is from out of this galaxy and his descriptive expressions are beyond creative--brainchildren of his darkly satirical genius.Today's young readers--trained in video games of fantasy--are remarkably resilient, and will handle the physical violence verbally unscathed. Gleep! Is that the ubiquitous Todal slurking off in disregust, because the 13 clocks risk being ungefrozen as a result of human happiness? This short book should be considered a kids' klassik--no shame to adults who rejoice in their inner kiddom.

"And he ate only pops that were lolly."
Many "modern" writers seem to miss the mark, (because the mark is not themselves;)...[even if they are named "Mark"];)). Somehow, attempts at a modern faiy tale by more modern writers would seem frivolous or contrived. One can tell that Thurber has been properly informed by literary tradition, as explained by T.S. Eliot in his essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent." Writers can do nothing on their own, cut away from tradition, and purely as individuals. This is the flaw of much of our modern writers who have not read the classics and merely focus on themselves.

13 Clocks is witty and non-chalantly sarcastic. It is down to earth enough to be a fairy tale, a real fairy tale.

There is, in a sense, a sense of Odysseus in Circe's forest at one point and another, a Shakespearean minstrel, and a bit of old Disney, with prose that combines Dr. Seuss and The Brothers Grimm.


This book would make a clever gift for a clever child.

A favorite from my childhood
I found this book in my school library in 5th grade, and it is one of the few books from my childhood that I never forgot. Admittedly, it has some dark scenes, and I remember it giving me chills when I read it as a kid. But it's also beautifully written, with funny and memorable scenes. I was so thrilled to "rediscover" this book as an adult and to find it was just as magical 20 years later.

This fairy tale is not for kids
The 13 Clocks is a wonderful and witty story, but on rereading it I realize that it contains so much physical violence that it hardly qualifies as a children's book. Very enjoyable, like most of Thurber's works, but you wouldn't read it to a six-year old.

Quite Possibly the Best Book Ever Written
I wish I'd found this book long before I was 53 years old, but I am having a wonderful time reading it with my son. I own a book store and I'm going to be hand-selling this like mad, to kids who think that Harry Potter is literature.

I am also a writer, and the writing is literally amazing. Reading it aloud is the most fun I've had in a long time. I was really unhappy that my son fell asleep, I wanted to keep reading it aloud to myself. (I did finish the chapter while he snored.)

I agree with the man who wrote the introduction, and other reviewers here. This may well be the best book ever written. It is definitely my new baby shower and birthday party gift. It's an absolute treasure.

I wish I could give it more than five stars. ... Read more

Product Description
But, in the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, Bernard Marx is unhappy. Harbouring an unnatural desire for solitude, feeling only distaste for the endless pleasures of compulsory promiscuity, Bernard has an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress...Amazon.com Review
"Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto ofAldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes dailygrams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories,and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," amovie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Thoughthere is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feelssomething is missing and senses his relationship with a young womenhas the potential to be much more than the confines of their existenceallow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we takefor granted today--let's hope the sterility and absence ofindividuality he predicted aren't yet to come. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (801)

Not the masterpiece it is claimed to be
Let me start with my main peeve about this work: it's just not that realistic. A society that would homogenize its people to the extent described, stifling scientific curiosity in the process, would not last very long. Societies need the rumble and tumble of all kinds of people people bouncing off each other, or else they lose any drive to move forward and grind to a screeching halt after only a few generations. History makes it very clear that any disaster of any significant magnitude--say, earthquakes, hurricanes or pandemics--would soon wipe out civilizations that are so ill-adapted to change. Also, Huxley makes it seem as if human hatcheries and communal raising of children are bad ideas in and of themselves. I don't see why. Sure, they might seem rather odd for our current societies, but I can see how they could work for future ones.

Huxley is right though about the horrors of childhood indoctrination, but let's face it: people pretty much do that already, since parents fill their children with all kinds of superfluous notions like religion. The truly bad part is using drugs to deliberately keep people stupid. So, if people would be genetically predisposed to be a geniuses, they could still wind up being near retarded because of chemical intervention. That's not only bad, it's idiotic beyond description. Geniuses are a rare breed, and societies can't afford to suppress their highly needed capabilities.

Still, this wouldn't be so bothersome if Huxley had come up with a compelling story with interesting, rich characters. Uhm, no. I find all of the main characters in Brave New World to be obnoxious to the max. They often respond in totally unrealistic, moronic ways to their circumstances, and I often caught myself wishing they'd be kicked off some ledge at some point. The worst offender is John. How the heck did he get so small-minded? Wasn't he a Shakespeare buff? You'd expect someone like that to respond a bit more maturely when being confronted with a different society. I also can't believe for the life of me that a person who is so articulate and so knowledgeable about Shakespeare's works would be so downright appalled by the mere idea of a woman wanting to have sex with a man. Just saying "no" would have sufficed, John; there is no need to physically abuse the woman who expresses her attraction to you.

Huxley also appears to be incapable to write convincing female characters. Where the men in his stories could be seen as somewhat believable, although highly brain-damaged, individuals, the women are usually nothing more than talking showroom dummies. Whether this is due to misogyny or simply lack of ability is not clear, but it didn't make reading this book any more enjoyable.

All in all, I believe the classic status of this work is not quite justified. I guess it just got published at the right place at the right moment.

Brave New World
America's Galactic Foreign Legion - Book 1: Feeling Lucky

We need more humor in our science fiction.

most boring book on the future
How do you ruin a book on the future involving:

1) the future
2) sex
3) drugs

Why by being the most boring book ever and going ape over:

1) Shakespeare
2) religious nonsense


This book had many, many good ideas that COULD have made for a very thought provoking and entertaining read, but a plot is never fleshed out and there is no character development.Unfortunately, it was utterly UN-entertaining on every level!It's good (ideas) till they go to the Savage Reservation then it completely nose-dives into BORING!!!Ideas without a story.I recommend reading the first ~25% of the book then lighting it on fire.

A challenging but Interesting Book
Brave New World is a very interesting book that draws you in. This book makes you think about a different world other than the world we live in today and how people think differently as a result. The author uses different points of view and changes from character to character to make the reading interesting.
I feel that the only weakness in this book is the level of explanation or depth. They throw you right into the story without much explanation or background. This gives the book an appealing aspect but also makes it confusing to read.
If you are planning on reading this book you should know that there is some very challenging vocabulary. These words would make it very challenging to read this book at a young age.
But overall I think this is an awesome book if you are in the mood for a dystopian adventure.

An Amazing Book
I really admired reading Brave New World, Aldous Huxley brings life to each one of characters and brings the reader into a world where normal human desires such as, the human interaction, human abilities to reason or to argue, beliefs, human's intelligences. The human's physical longings such as theattraction to the opposite sex, and also the human communication doesn't longer matter in this new world that Huxleycreates.
The novel opens at Central London Hatching Conditioning Centre factory, where the director and Hatchery is givinga tour to a group of children who are learning about the society in which they live in and how it is the way it is. Within the tour the boys discover that this factory isn't a normal factory, this factory creates human embryos for theWorld State. This embryos are categorized in five different castes called Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon. Each castes are trained to obtain a certain role within the society, such as leadership or menial labor but one characteristic each castles posses, is the loss of real human emotions, attachments, intellectually, and the ability for self reasoning.

This World State is located in London and its the new world, everything outside of it is considered savage reservations, one man named Bernard Marx who is seen as one of the leaders in this new World State questions his own beliefs about the society in which he lives in, which forces him to take a trip to one of the savage reservation in New Mexico, this is where he encounters the protagonist, john. John is considered to be normal within the world that we live in today, he has the ability to reason, choose beliefs, resist sexually desires and to be his own person, a real human being.
Bernard Marx takes John out of the savage reservation and into this World State,once John arrives he starts to realize that this World State is utopia on earth, the World State civilization is controlled by soma (soma is a chemical spry that takes away the humanly emotions, such as fear, sadness, pain, hurt, everything that makes us human). The ability to be intelligent no longer exists in this civilization. "Christianity without tears--that's what soma" is.
Within the world State John struggles to live and understand this new society and themeans to be free, to be a human being, to long for real danger, goodness, and the ability to express real emotions such as tears and happiness.

In my life the only thing that makes me human is the ability to be hurt, sad, afraid, excited, and weary; this are my emotions. Without emotions I would not be able to fall in love, enjoy books or movies, or anything that makes life wroth living. If I was john brought to this World State I too would struggle to finding where I belong and eventually would lead me to insanity. In a society where people are created without any personal freedoms andwithout the ability to have emotions, that society will never stand strong but instead collapse to the ground. ... Read more

Product Description
Dove Audio - 2 Abridged Cassettes Read by Edward Woodward, star of the t.v. show The Equalizer. copyright 1992. total time approx. 3 hrs. ... Read more