Lots of hype around this book, but I couldn't get into it, mainly because it's a different genre than my usual fare. Everyone else I know loved it, but I can't give it any stars as I didn't complete it.

The book differs quite a bit from the movie, and it took me to the middle of the book to really get into it.

Good story and character development. You really start to feel for them and I wished the story had a happier ending.

This book is an soul-searching study of humanity during the Civil War.
Inman is a Southern soldier left to die in a field hospital- who decides that he wants to live and not be cannon-fodder for a cause he doesn't understand. He escapes from the hospital and begins a long walk home- hiding from both the South and North soldiers. The people he meets are both helped by him and help him in turn. Some of the interactions are heartwrenching, some humorous. The whole time he's walking, he's thinking of home, and a girl he met just before leaving for battle...

From being a comfortably-kept, lovely daughter of a preacher, Ada is moved from her genteel home on the east coast to a small farm community for the sake of her father's health. After a brief reprieve from his illness and coming to terms with the rural environment, Ada is suddenly left on her own when her father dies. Unable to cook or fend for herself, and now in the dire straits of the war, she fights a losing battle with her own hunger and ineptitude. Beaten by a rooster, hungry and totally lost as to what to do, she is met on her own porch by Ruby... another hungry soul- but one who knows how to make do with every opportunity.
Between the two of them, the women strike up a relationship for survival that turns into a deep friendship.
The story winds through the lives of the people surviving through the ravages of the final days of the Civil War, as Inman and Ada dream of their earlier lives in a more abundant, gentle time, and as their own paths draw together again.
The story is engrossing, poignant, and has a sort of justice to it, with a bittersweet ending.

(The movie, while good,and well-acted, does not do the book adequate justice.)

Cold Moutain is the best Civil War novel since Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels. Written in a style equal to that of Shelby Foote, a must read.

So much better than the movie!!

Good, but sad story. It drew me in.

Excellent book even better than the movie. You will love it.

Civil war era love story. I really enjoyed it.

Heartbreaking and gorgeous. Absolutely lush in its vocabulary and imagery.

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This was SUCH a lovely book, I couldn't put it down. It took me several tries to get started with it, not sure why, but I'm very glad I kept up with it. And if you love this one, also read his THIRTEEN MOONS, it was wonderful also. I've not seen the movie, but do want to now.

Although the plot is compelling on its own, I loved the passages describing the wild mountains of North Carolina. I spent the summers of my childhood in a mountain retreat in NC, and the descriptive passages of the deserter's rugged homeland brought back memories. He longed for a homeland that was threatened by the Civil War; many of those same mountains are still there, but could be easily laid to waste by developers but for national park/forest designations.

If you saw the movie you know one version of this story. Willie Morris says, " Charles Frazier's 'Cold Mountain' is the most impressive and enthralling first novel I have read in a long time. It's a magical story, ambitious in scope, with richly developed characters and beautiful evocations of landscape' Though set in an earlier time, it is con-temporary in the profoundest sense, with resonance of 'A Farewell to Arms'." High praise comes from Rick Bass as well, "...the joy I received in reading it, will fall over every other book, so wonderful is this one. 'Cold Mountain' is one of the great accomplishments in American literature."

Saw the movie--which was good until the stupid, predictable and annoying ending--but I couldn't get past the first 10 pages of the book. I found the author's style of writing just too pretentious and juvenile to let me enjoy the story. Has he never heard of quotation marks? Would it kill him to let the readers feel as if we're getting into the character's head, rather than telling us what the character said? Hey, it's just my own pet peeve. If you can get past the obnoxious attempt at eccentric prose--and the unsatisfactory ending after being dragged through months these poor character's lives--then go for it.

"Cold Mountain" ia a heartbreakinly beautiful story elegantly told and utterly convincing down to the last little detail"

Beautifully written story of love and war in changing times. Hard to put down!

Three of the early Spenser novels. Great to have them in one volume.

goes with great movie

READ A LONG TIME AGO BUT i DO REMEMBER i LIKED IT A LOT

"Cold Mountain is a heartbreakingly beautiful story, elegantly told and utterly convincing down to the last haunting detail."-John Berendt

This book I have listed is hardcover, some of the reviews say that it is not, just wanted to clarify.

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