agony. No plot line. no action...one of the only books I have ever quit on. I found it because it had been abandoned on an airplane, and now I know why.

This book just washed over me with it's excellent word crafting and ideas. I so enjoyed not being hit over the head with the "spiritual" message of life as a special creation. Even though the main character is a preacher, there is no preaching to the reader, only soft guidance and pleasures of discovering relationships. I also liked how some small part of history was woven into the story and in the end, it was a circle within the story. No wonder it won the Pulitzer award in 2005 - it's a book not to be missed.

I'm an avid reader and thought this would be a good book since it won an award...but I could not get interested in it and finally just gave up on it - never did finish it.

was disappointed --trouble getting through it

Sometimes I feel that a good story could have been told in a short story format rather than a full length novel. This is one of those cases. For a portion of the book, I thought the author would never get to the point (or plot) of her book. However, the book then suddenly grabbed me and for the last half I had a hard time putting it down. I'm very glad I kept with it!

So precise, so distilled, so beautiful that one doesn't want to miss any pleasure it might yield.

A wonderful book - as a conscientious older minister from the midwest reflects on his life, thoughts, regrets - in the form of a letter to his son.
May be more appreciated by someone with a Christian heritage...

Very, Very Good. Reverend Ames leaves his son an amazing legacy through a letter, he doesn't have long to live so he wants his son to remember the kind of man he was.

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Deeply moving and thoroughly engaging, this novel's focus is on character rather than plot - a character which unfolds, deepens, and profoundly illuminates not only his world, but our own.

This book is full of wonderful thoughts. I'm not a religious person, though, and it was sometimes a little heavy with religion for me. I'm glad I read it, there were many beautiful sections about children, about family and about the importance of reflection.

Housekeeping was a very haunting book (I loved it). Gilead certainly seems haunting at times, and Robinson’s main character is leaving this life, which lends palpably to its ethereal quality. but Gilead seems more revealing and mature somehow, and, whereas I lent my copy of Housekeeping back out to the world, I’m keeping Gilead for a reread or two, right here on my shelf.

John Ames is a preacher who married young, but lost his wife and child young too. he remarried very late in life, and now he is 80 years old and dying, with a 7 year old son. this book is written as if a letter to that son, who otherwise will never know his father.

it tells about his [John Ames’] childhood, and his father the pacifist (who was also a preacher), his grandfather the radical abolitionist (who was a preacher as well), and his best friend (you guessed it- also a preacher)’s son, who was named John Ames in his honor and grew up to break the hearts of all who loved him. three wars are encompassed in this tale, as well as the Great Depression, the advent of television, and the ending of a way of life.

John Ames’ reflection on all of this, his personal struggles with all of this, and his all-encompassing joy and love of life, even with its terrible sufferings and inexplicable turnings, is highly original and ultimately universal at the same time.

Gilead is earthier and more hopeful really than Housekeeping, with greater insight (if possible), and evokes shades of Faulkner while written in that resounding poetic bliss that is Robinson’s style.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

"Gilead is a beautiful work-demanding, grave and lucid...Robinson'd words have a spiritual foce that's very rare in contemporary fiction"

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