return to home  
Join   |  Gift   |  Member Login   |  Library Login
BookBrowse Mobile
Follow Us: 
   Reader reviews of Elizabeth Costello

Read what people think about Elizabeth Costello by J M Coetzee, and write your own review.

Elizabeth Costello

Elizabeth Costello
by J M Coetzee
Hardcover: Oct 2003,
240 pages.
Paperback: Oct 2004,
224 pages.

Publication information
Author Information
Critics' Opinion:   
Readers' Rating:  
About BookBrowse Rankings
Share: 
Buy This Book
Page 1 of 1 There are currently 5 reviews
for Elizabeth Costello
Select your view:
Order Reviews by:
Click Here To Write Your Own Review
Rated 2 of 5 of 5 by J.A.M.
Yawn, though challenging, in the end a boring exegesis.

Rated 3 of 5 of 5 by David Levine
Coetzee wrote thise stories to read at scholarly conferences. While the ideas behinding them are always fascinating, they don't always work well as stories. They have all the brilliance and not much of the power of Coetzee's novels. I kept reading to find out what Coetzee thought about the issues he raises -- african literature, animal rights. But the characters didn't always rise to the level of the ideas they were discussing.

Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by Sarah
This book is amazing! While I was reading it, I thought I hated it. I couldn't stand the characters and was truly bored out of my mind. When I finished it, I was in awe. I don't want to give anything away but you will feel like you were rewarded for a great accomplishment if you finish this book.

Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by Johanes
Trul, Costello stole my heart. Coetzee writes for people with a specific outlook to life, and this work especially is one that typifies his writing. May be, he has a limited readership. and very few people will read through this one, but it is always his previlege that his readers are serious about their reading, and that they work with his mind to bring out a text that is the combined outcome of the reader and the writer.

Rated 4 of 5 of 5 by Elise
This is a challenging, grim book, but worth the effort. Other reviewers call Coetzee mentally or morally rigorous. Both are true. At times, I felt defeated by the loftiness and vagueness of Costello's arguments. But the writing is so elegant and spare that I felt compelled to continue. Costello is a brilliant, tired woman and endearing due to her common fallibility. I felt uplifted from the exercise of reading this book.

  1

Lists of books with similar themes


Read-Alikes


Other books by J M Coetzee
Buy This Book:

Become a Member
Click Here
Editor's Choice
  •  May 18 
  •  May 16 
  •  May 15 
The Woman Upstairs
Claire Messud

The Woman Upstairs Jacket

The riveting confession of a woman awakened, transformed, and betrayed by passion and desire for a world beyond her own.
How to Create the Perfect Wife
Wendy Moore

How to Create the Perfect Wife Jacket

Stranger than fiction, blending tragedy and farce, How to Create the Perfect Wife is an engrossing tale of the radicalism, and deep contradictions, at the heart of the Enlightenment.
Happier Endings
Erica Brown

Happier Endings Jacket

A wise and affirming meditation on living fully and preparing for death, written by a highly regarded spiritual teacher.
Click Here
   Most Recent Blog Entries
Jewish Young Adult Books That Are Not About The Holocaust
Books to Give This Mother's Day
A Short History of Chechnya
rss  RSS   rss  subscribe
Recent Reader Reviews
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Fowler
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight... read more
Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on... read more
The House at the End of Hope Street by Menna van Praag
Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read... read more
RSS RSS feed More...  
Most Viewed This Week
1. Half the Sky
Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn
2. Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake
Anna Quindlen
3. Because of Winn-Dixie
Kate DiCamillo
4. Eagle Strike
Anthony Horowitz
5. K Blows Top
Peter Carlson
More...
Book Club Recommendations
The Gods of Gotham
by Lyndsay Faye
Paperback (Mar/13)
Forgotten Country
by Catherine Chung
Paperback (Mar/13)
Philida
by André Brink
Paperback (Feb/13)
Gone Girl
by Gillian Flynn
Hardback (Jun/12)
More...
First Impressions
Members read and review books often months before they're published. See what they think in First Impressions!
A Dual Inheritance
by Joanna Hershon
Four Stars            (May/13)
The Sisterhood
by Helen Bryan
Four Stars            (Apr/13)
The Laws of Gravity
by Liz Rosenberg
4.5 Stars            (May/13)
More...
  Latest BookBrowse News
U.S. ebook sales up in 2012, but rate of growth is slowing (May 16 2013)
In 2012, trade book sales (i.e. non academic book sales) rose 6.9%, to $15.049 billion, and e-book sales continued to grow, although the rate of growth... Full Story
rss RSS feed More...
 
BookBrowse Poll
Q: Do you mainly read newly published or older books?
Mainly newer books
Mainly older books
A mix of new and old books
Search: Title or Author
Free Newsletters
Bring Up the Bodies

Online Book Club
More about
Five Days
Join the discussion!


Win This Book!
The Pigeon Pie Mystery


Enter To Win Now!

wordplay
Solve this clue:
"I I M B T Give T T R"

and be entered
to win....
frame top
New Author
Interviews
Menna van Praag
Erica Brown
Helga Weiss
Kate Morton
frame bottom
HOME Book Submissions | Advertising | Library Subscriptions | Reviewing for BookBrowse | Contact Us