Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

...reviews a while back on Cloud Atlas and the book appealed to me so since then I've been looking in my library for this particular book. I could have bought it from Amazon but money is tight and my bookshelves are overflowing so I only buy a book when its one I really want to own. I finally had to order the book in from the main library and at 529 pages even I couldn't read it in one sitting, in took me two days to read it and then a further day to ...
...dolls so at first glance Cloud Atlas reveals its six main stories but in such a way that the reader either has to carry on to the end or give up altogether. I knew in part what to expect from reviews but nothing could prepare me from being catapulted from one part of an unfinished story straight into a new and incomplete next story. Eventually the individual stories do reach an ending but it's the structure of the various endings that still seems ...

Elffriend 10.06.2005 (11.06.2005) · Read full review
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Review of Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

...and enjoyable descriptions, had I been Mitchell´s publisher I´d have advised him to write a series of stories, one after the other, un-cleverly and without any artsy-fartsyness. I feel like giving 3 ½ stars. David Mitchell Cloud Atlas (2003) Sceptre 529 pages 7.99 GBP amazon 4.79 GBP ...

MALU 14.04.2005 (19.04.2005) · Read full review
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Review of Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

...the praise and pass on Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell, to you. ~~~THE PLOT. This is actually quite difficult to summarize, because Cloud Atlas is a series of six stories. These stories are separate but also linked ~ sounds weird, but it works because the individual tales overlap and interlink. The narrative takes us through the ages and around the world, spanning both the past and the distant future. Through the years we see a lawyer crossing ...
...the 1930s who writes the Cloud Atlas sextet (for six overlapping voices) and a Californian journalist, in the 1970s at the time of Ronald Reagan’s tenure. We then move on to a publisher in the London of the 1980s, a genetically modified clone on death row “somewhere” in the future and a young man on a Pacific Island witnessing the end of civilization. We end in the location we began in, thus ending the story and completing the link between the separate ...

tange 12.04.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

...one of Mitchell's own characters, Cloud Atlas is a sextet of overlapping narratives. Six short stories linking the past, present and future of the human race: each one enveloping the next, like a set of Russian dolls. A bold enterprise indeed. Please don't be put off though, Cloud Atlas is the sort of book you don't so much read, as devour. From the journal of Adam Ewing, on his voyage home to San Francisco across the South Pacific in 1850; to Zachary, ...
...the 2005 British Book Awards, Cloud Atlas won the Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year award as well as the prize for literary fiction. An unlikely, but well-deserved, double. Trust me, if you choose to wait for this book to be made into a disney, so you can watch it on your sony while drinking a cup of starbuck, you will be missing out. Don't just take my word for it, read what other reviewers have said about it: "At once audacious, dazzling, ...

PJE_ 22.09.2004 (28.11.2004) · Read full review
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Review of Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

...paperbacks were going for £3.73. Cloud Atlas caught my eye because was the winner of the Richard and Judy Best Read of the Year and I had recently enjoyed another book recommended by them. It has also been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and after reading the back of the book I was intrigued, but no wiser to what the novel could possibly be about. I think what caught my interest were the first two lines: "'Souls cross the ages like clouds cross ...
...********** There isn't really one single plot to this story, but more of a series of plots. If I might explain: The book starts with 'The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing' which turns out to be not so much a chapter as a small story. It is based in the 19th century and focuses on Adam Ewing's brief experiences on a New Zealand Island whilst waiting for his ship to return him home. Here he learns something about the Moriori, a tribe almost wiped out ...

Ankes-un-amun 17.10.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

"Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell was nominated for the Booker Prize; received rave reviews and has been touted as one of the greatest reads of all time. As such I delayed reading it for many months. After all, I was bound to be disappointed. "Cloud Atlas" is a novel told in six parts. Telling the tale of six radically different, yet undoubtedly linked lives it is a disjointed mish mash of a book. Rather than a novel this book reads like a collection ...
...is its strength and ultimately its weakness. Covering six lives in vastly different times and places is daring, unique and refreshing as it moves away from the writer's obsession with structure, chapters and linearity. Instead Mitchell offers the reader a variety of writing styles as each of the six sections are told from different perspectives be it an unwitting American Adam Ewing, hero to a stowaway Moriori. This native is one of the last of ...

Shortsharpshock 19.10.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

...off reading a book, then Cloud Atlas isn't for you. However, if you are bloodyminded enough to wrap it in newspaper, and only dip into it at home with some large contraption you have build in your shed with which to hold the damned thing, then the following review may be of some interest to you. Cloud Atlas is a ridiculously ambitious book - which may account for the size of the thing. It spans several hundred years, takes in a large handful of ...
...I'm not entirely sure that Cloud Atlas manages to. Shall we start from the beginning? The book opens with the pacific journal of a Mr. Adam Ewing, documenting his homeward bound journey from the Australias. He is a rather uptight chap, given to disparaging accounts of the seamen, but good at heart for all his bluster. The device, however, is one that has come to the literary fore rather too recently to be used again as an opener in any book wanting ...

melee 18.04.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

...crap on the telly!" Cloud Atlas is the tale of six different characters whose lives intertwine without knowing. Set over six different time periods from way back to a post apocolyptic future. That in itself is no small feat, but also makes it no small read. The book is also bizarrley set out like a pyramid of storys where you climb up the first half of everyones tale then climb back down. Hang on this'll help... the chapters read: The Journal ...
...First Luisa Rey Mystery The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish An Orison Of Sonmi Shoosha's Crossin' An' Ev'rything After An Orison Of Sonmi The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish Half Lives - The First Luisa Rey Mystery Letters From Zedelghem The Journal Of Adam Ewing You see what I mean? Anyways this gets very confusing in parts and like I said these characters lives all entwine... only sometimes I couldn't really see how. The was obvious ...

simoon69 13.05.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

I picked this book up from the library mainly because of the cover (shallow, I know!) and decided to take it home after reading that the book would be a tale of 6 inter-connected stories that span from the 19th century to the post apocalyptic future'. I feel my first warning should be that, whilst the book does indeed span the time it mentions, it's the smallest of threads that keeps these 6 stories connected. The first story tells of Adam Ewing ...
...his home town of California. He's ill, and there is a 'blackie' stow-away but apart from this, not a great deal else happens. The story stops mid sentence and we are on to a new chapter. Robert Frobishner, an English society boy, has travelled to Belgium to work with a renowned composer, Ayrs. Arys is moody and irrational, with an unfaithful wife (as Robert Finds out). Robert happens to be reading a book but only has one half......can you guess ...

jonescraiga 30.10.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

...novel. Never the less, Cloud Atlas is a great read for any situation and I recommend it to anyone looking for something different, however, I must warn you, the narrative and writing style can be a little hard to stomach at first. Keep at it and you unlock a little gem of a read. ...

djhworld 13.11.2006 · Read full review
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Review of Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

...to get into, many of Cloud Atlas' individual stories are well grounded and humorous featuring a journalist, a musician and an old publisher. Each of these stories is told with wit and humour and is beautfiully written and easy to follow. Mitchell clever picks out the few minute details in any scene that can aid your imagination in painting a magnificent image. Unfortunately the first installment is rather hard to penetrate, written in olde English ...
...the rest of the book is a joy to read, though the story does again lose its way around the middle when it turns into a sci-fi thriller crossed with Conan the barbarian. Again, perhaps Mitchell would have done better were his goals a little more modest. Overall though this is a great improvement on 'Ghostwritten' and achieves the full potential that was missed in the latter. Each story is enjoyable and the book is thought provoking and mystical when ...

Squirrel_monkey 12.01.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

...I was very excited when Cloud Atlas arrived, and I was not disapointed. Some people say that it is disjointed but I actually think that is it the very opposite. It is, in effect, a collection of short stories, all interlinked, that give an incredibly rich novel by the end, and I believe that these stories flow quite seemlessly into one another. There are definately stories within the book that I prefer, but when you re-read the book you notice things ...
...you missed for example, and my favourite stories tend to change with each reading. If you are looking for a book that is a little out of the ordinary then I would definately recommend this. It is great to read on the train, or on holiday. I have recommended it to many people, and all have been impressed, and even gone back and read his other books - so give it a try! This book also won the Richard and Judy bookclub, which pushed it's sales up extensively, ...

daisydaisym 10.09.2005 (11.09.2005) · Read full review
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Review of Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

I bought this book because I saw it on the Richard and Judy book club a couple of years ago and also partially because I thought it was a great title! They said on their program that it was a little bit hard to get in to but once you did, it was a gem. Unfortunately, I did not find this an easy read in the slightest. The story jumps through time, sometimes finishing its chapter and time period in the middle of a sentence. Apparently, the story was ...

froggyandgiraffe 26.05.2007 · Read full review
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Review of Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell