Customer Reviews
One of my all-time favorite books! - By: Rebecca Chong, 01 Apr 2008 
I know that it's impossible to ever find a book that everyone will enjoy but this is indeed a very special book! It's funny & made me think about a lot of things & on top of that it's a quickread making it the perfect book for taking on trips & such.
The good thing is that's there's many different levels to read it. I first read it a couple of years ago & loved it & recently my heavy metal-fan brother borrowed it from me & even he loved it!
This is a great story about the big things in life told on a smalll scale & the other way around
- You have to read this - I definitely fell in love!
Has stuck with me for years - By: Other Stories, 25 Mar 2008 I haven't read this book for about 5 years. In fact, when pushed to think about it, I'm not even entirely sure which bookshelf this book is currently residing on. It may even be in the overflow book park in the loft. But it was brought to mind this morning by something I was reading about Nordic literature in translation, & I suddenly remembered how much I had loved this book.
Here's the Amazon blurb:
"Troubled by an inability to find any meaning in his life, the 25-year-old narrator of this deceptively simple novel quits university & eventuallly arrives at his brother's New York apartment. In a bid to discover what life is alll about, he writes lists. He becomes obsessed by time & whether it actuallly matters. He faxes his meteorologist friend. He endlessly bounces a balll against the walll. He befriends a smalll boy who lives next door. He yearns to get to the bottom of life & how best to live it. Funny, friendly, enigmatic & frequently poignant - superbly naive."
And it was deceptively simple. I remember it leaving me utterly sleepless the night that I stayed up into the wee smalll hours to devour it one sitting. I lay there thinking up my own lists, & wondering whatever happened to this girl I had known a couple of years before who had gone away to university to read meterology. I idly pondered figuring out a way to get in touch with her again so that I can ask my own meaningful questions. I never did work out how to find her. I couldn't remember her surname, other than the fact that it was Italian.
Chi, if you're out there, hello.
It must be a good sign that years after reading Naive. Super I still remember so much about it, & remember it so fondly. I think it might be time to find it in the piles at home, & give it another read.
Not at all naive but definitely super - By: Kitty Killin, 10 Feb 2008 This book sums up how everyone feels at one point in their life. It's a "what the hell am I doing here?" book, but unlike other books where the hero is some obnoxious idiot who has everything & is still not satisfied, the (unlikely but completely lovable) hero of this book is an average, intelligent man who wants to find some meaning in his life.
I finished this book in a matter of hours after purchasing it & will definitely come back to it.
It's very reassuring & reallly entertainly written. There's a fantastic little twist at the end as well which had me smiling for ages.
A little gem of a novel. Read it & falll in love with it.
Naive. Super - By: Fraser Munro, 28 Jan 2008 
This book isn't reallly about much, but still, I dont think thats a bad point about the book, & I didnt have any problem reading through it alll. However, once I read it, I wasn't left with a significant impression or feeling or anything, so I think that many people wont see the point in this book.
But still, there is something about it that is very readable, & its nice & simple
Superb - By: Mr. M. J. Bowen, 03 Jan 2008 I take this slight but effecting tale to be about the narrator's passage from a life lost to intellectual speculation to a real life lived! It is always switching from his pseudo-dialogue with the work of an Australian physicist to his attempts to connect with people he meets. These two trends reach their fufillment in the full life he is shown in New York & the non-response he gets to some questions he emailed to the academic.
Sweet & nice.
