Generosity: An Enhancement Audiobook

" A writing teacher, his class, a geneticist entrepreneur, a TV impressario and a therapist are all drawn into the magnetic field of a young Algerian refugee student with an extraordinary capacity for happiness. Even the narrator of the novel, making his fictional choices explicit, cannot resist the impulse to exploit her nature. This is a profound-- but entertaining-- meditation on our rapacious culture. "

" Marvelous book! English teachers will likely love the description of Russell Stone's class and students. And the love affair between him and the psychologist Candace Weld is so nuanced and interesting. Stone is a character I'll remember for a long time to come, a bit like Annie Proulx's Quoyle, a man who is half-dead and awakens, a man who suffers and doesn't know how heroice he truly is. This is a 4-star and not a 5-star only because I couldn't bond with character Tonia Schiff and sometimes the happiness theory wasn't clear enough for me. "

" I struggled with Echo Maker but have thought of it often. I wonder if the same will apply to this book? There is at least one amazing sentence per page but I wasn't pulled in. "

" you can read it fast and enjoy it and read it slow and...well I probably should read it again. "

" I think I really loved this, apart from the end. "

" Thought provoking and entertaining. "

" Gave it 75 pages, and it's gone. I forgot that I didn't like Echo Maker either...guess I'm just not Richard Powers' target audience... "

" I hate it when the book is highly recommended, and has rave reviews, and I don't get it at all. I was totally lost all the way through; kept hoping for enlightenment, but it never arrived. Maybe I needed a reader's guide... "

" I also attempted to read Operation Wandering Soul. I would call his writing Operation Excising Soul. Very good writer but too clever for me and lacking something human. "

" I love Richard Powers. As far as excitement in my life, his fiction is probably right behind roller coasters and the fact that I'm allowed to see my wife's cans pretty much anytime I want. This book though? Didn't love it. Didn't even like about half of it. "

" So tedious, and the personifications were too much, as if the author were trying to impress someone on every page. "

" Fabulous - highly recommended! "

" Got it on audio book from library and disc 2 is too scratched to even play. booo. Got another copy on hold at a different library that I need to pick up soon... "

" Powers explores some interesting ideas around the basis and meaning of happiness and the links between mood/personality and genetics, but doesn't go into quite enough depth. The archly knowing postmodern narration distracted and irritated, rather than adding anything to the experience. "

" This book is decent but was overrated by reviewers. The puzzling ending (attempted suicide and apparent web of deceit) of the supposedly perfectly scientifically-happy protagonist is intriguing. Still, I will revisit this author's other works as he so lyrically weaves science into the novel form. "

" The happiest woman in the world is hounded by the unhappy rest of the world. "

" Powers again shapes fascinating subject matter into a brilliant story, this time a tale of human nature and the ambiguities of personality. Powers, a recent winner of the National Book Award, is certainly one of our best living novelists. "

" This book was so deliberate. After every sentence I could just see the author sitting in his chair of academia, smirking to himself. "

" powers is a sublime writer - this fantasia takes the idea of a gene for happiness and spins the narrative and the reader into a novel that left me wanting to either reread it or -- better yet -- enter it's world. grab this book now ! "

" I wanted to give it a 4, and if I had stopped 2/3rds of the way through, I would have. Parts of this are stunning, but the whole was less than the sum of those parts. It appears that the author knew that and tried to cover it via some meta razzle-dazzle. That part also worked, but still... "

" This book was so deliberate. After every sentence I could just see the author sitting in his chair of academia, smirking to himself. "

" Après un démarrage un peu long, l'histoire prend son envol entre science et humanité. "

" A good-but-not-great book. Powers continues to blend science and story. This story, which focuses on the genetic basis of happiness, was a bit clunky. It is fairly clear what is happening from early on in the book. Still, there were lots of nice moments in the book. "

" The happiest woman in the world is hounded by the unhappy rest of the world. "

" What's difficult about reading Richard Powers is that anything you read after Richard Powers seems unintelligent. Generosity is my favorite of his yet although the echomaker is a close runner up. "

" Booooooooooring. I couldn't finish it which is a bummer because I love optimism and was eager to get to know Thassa's character. "

" The book brought up interesting questions about the nature of happiness, but I wasn't crazy about the structure. The way the author repeatedly inserted himself and called attention to the fictionality of the story was distracting and a little irritating to me. "

" I found myself not caring about any of the characters and really becoming annoyed with them. I didn't feel sorry for any of them and I didn't particularly want to find out what was going to happen to any of them. "

" I liked this book a lot, as I like almost everything Richard Powers has written. My one complaint was that I didn't care for the way in which he injected his voice in the narration; I felt that it was unnecessary distraction and interfered with the flow of the novel. "