4.39 avg rating — 2,887,493 ratings

"I forgot about reading this book.Maybe because it affected me so much. I read it in one day. I was captivated. I am some what of a World War II buff and to see the war from ordinary Germans during their crisis made me feel sad for them too. They were good people over there attempting to do good. I cried so hard at the end. The reaper, who narrates the story and who is busy taking away death at the same time. But even the reaper at the end shows his heart in the last line-" I am haunted by humans"
This book will grab hold of your heart, caress it with kindness and goodness, then rip it out like it was a thing of black coal and ash. Fantastic read! I have too much empathy for this world and brings unto me much pain. I feel the events as if it were happening to me. Working as a Nurse this would happen all the time. But that's another story. and no there is no happy ending whatsoever



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4.02 avg rating — 4,572,539 ratings

4.29 avg rating — 1,086,541 ratings

"I believe it is a novel of existentialism and individualism. Crime sort of takes a back stage until the end. A Nietzsche perspective on existentialism, or perhaps Dostoevsky's take on it before Nietzsche. Dostoevsky never claimed to be an existentialist, although many of his character's struggle with the concept. I presume Dostoevsky did not want any more prison time or mock executions, so I believe he placed the idea in a psychological setting or front. Although "Notes from the Underground" was a precursor on existentialism, it wasn't until Crime and Punishment that the theme could be placed in a societal setting. In my opinion Dostoevsky is the greatest thinker that ever was. Crime and Punishment is about uncertainty, psychosis, realism, determinism, choice, and introspection. What if social rules do not bound me? What if I am alone forever? What if nothing exists in the after life? Entering the world of the nihilistic protagonist, Rodin Romanovich Raskolnikov, Dostoevsky shows us the inner workings of the unconscious, to which we have no access to but in dreams. Yet, it is this unconscious part of the mind that play's the largest part of our lives and without us even being aware of the fact.It is evolution's greatest trick. The best feature of this psychological novel is Raskolnikov's dual personality, where at one end he could be cold, apathetic withdrawn,and of course antisocial; on the other hand he was warm and compassionate. Does this remind us someone of ourselves? (Of course most of us are without an ax in hand ready to commit murder.) Is this the reason why we look at him with sorrowfulness and empathy; and not with disdain,hatred or fear; compared to say Hitler or a serial killer? I believe so. After he commits the heinous murder of the pawn broker you begin to see his conscience boiling in action, conscience being the most prodigious achievement of the mind.The conscience is a deeper more hierarchical order process compared to consciousness. Our conscience requires meta-cognition incorporating self morality and societal view of right and wrong. All of these feedback loops are connected indirectly to our emotional centers, then back further to our visceral feelings about them, then to our unconscious.I should say we know more about Conscience and consciousness, than of our deep unconscious. And through this mechanism he suffers tremendously at the ability to sense a discord of feelings and later a discord of abstract ideas, which is the source of the sense of truth.It is this critical detection of discords that leads to a search for truth and a desire to build norms and ideals for behavior and for the analyses of facts.However, there are always consequences or cause and effect that play out and this is the most important external factor. Furthermore, the book is revolutionary in how it is written in the third person(omniscient)not that this has never been done before, what is unique is how he switches perspective at times into each character's consciousness or theory of the mind. You gain multiple views from above, below, and beyond. There are certain secrets that a man has and never shares with others and there are certain secrets not even know to the individual who has them. To know one's self requires a high determined individual, with an internal detective and monologue. And likely in the end he may not want to know his secret of secrets. Dostoevsky shows us a look into our inner zombie- through his writing, style, pragmatism, and realism of human nature- Mark Miller "

3.99 avg rating — 2,083,296 ratings

"Somehow, this near-blind English intellectual had seen the future. His New World entertainments include druggy “Solidarity Services (“orgy-porgy”) that prefigure our Ecstasy-fuelled discos; date nights at the “Feelies” (porn, more or less), and a rage for all things synthetic: clothes, perfumes, music. I wrote an essay about how America is in the throws of a narcissistic personality epidemic. Similar in all respects to Gustave Flaubert time in France during the mid 1800's. I work as Nurse in the Emergency Room and you would not believe the number of Borderline personality pathology cases we receive each day.
If you really want see "Brave New World" instead just open your eyes around you. Listen to what general people in all classes talk about. Just ask an average American what there definition of Freedom is to them. I think I can predict what they will say. One answer they will not give, I promise, is one by Albert Camus,"Freedom is not made up principally of privileges; it is made up especially of duties." The other thing that is most disheartening is the low percentage numbers of college graduates that read books for enjoyment is 40.4 percent according to the NEA. The percentage of 17-year olds who "Never read or hardly ever" read for fun more than doubled from 1984 to 2004, 9% to 19%. I think that is staggering. But this confirms that Huxley's book was not fiction at all, it's a non-fiction horror story and were living in it. Believe me please. No lie!"

3.97 avg rating — 2,849,903 ratings