About this title: A man buys a house for his girlfriend and her two children. When a new door appears in a wall, they find a space that appears to be infinite, even though the outside form of the house remains the same. In five expeditions, the characters explore this vast space, and each try is documented in a different kind of narrative, each in its own typeface. ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 736 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Clean and unmarked, uncreased spine, Light edgewear. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 736 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. Ships from US-NE. Support Independent Booksellers! Omahabooks offers same or next day shipping-satisfaction guaranteed. Priority, Expedited, APO, International may require additional postage-contact seller. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780375703768ISBN:0375703764
Description: Fair. Cover has marks, bumping, chipping, scratches, creases, tears, edgewear-Bumped / dogeared pgs-Few marks on pgs-Marks on edges-Cocked-Dents-Water damage-Creased pgs. read more
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. minor wear on front and back covers. Full Color Edition. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 736 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: Second Edition; First Printing
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Pantheon, New York
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780375703768ISBN:0375703764
Description: Fine with no dust jacket. 0-375-70376-4. First printing of the second edition with "House" printed in blue on the title and half-title pages. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780375703768ISBN:0375703764
Description: Very Good. This book is in very good to fine condition. The binding is tight and pages are clean. It appears to have not had use. The cover has minor bumps and scuffs. It has been corner bumped. There is no creasing on the spine. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS LTD Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780385603102ISBN:038560310X
Description: BRAND NEW PAPERBACK. 736 pages. (736 pages) johnny truant, an employee in a la tattoo parlour, finds a notebook kept by zampano, a reclusive old man found dead in a cluttered apartment. herein is the heavily annotated story of the navidson report. will navidson, a photojournalist, and his family move into a new house. what happens next is recorded on videotapes and in interviews. (Paperback) read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Pantheon, New York
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780375703768ISBN:0375703764
Description: Fine. First Edition. Original decorative illustrated split stiff wraps. 709pp. Paperback first edition issued simultaneously with the hardback. A very tight, clean, fresh, bright unmarked and unread copy with a flat uncreased spine. FINE. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Doubleday
Date Published: 2000-07-06
ISBN-13:9780385603102ISBN:038560310X
Description: Very Good. 2001 British Edition with different cover art. Crisp, clean copy. Mild shelf wear with bump/small tear at one corner and the following stamped inside: 'This book was slightly damaged in transit and is now being sold at a special bargain price. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Pantheon
Date Published: 2000-03-07
ISBN-13:9780375703768ISBN:0375703764
Description: Fine in No dustwrapper as issued jacket. Signed first softcover edition (issued simultaneously with the hardcover) signed with the author's blue Z on the "This is not for you page" and dated 3/14/00. House of Leaves is difficult to describe. This first novel starts with a house that is larger inside than it is outside: When award-winning photojournalist Will Navidson and his companion ex-model Karen Green move into the modest house on Ash Tree Lane with their two small children, their efforts ... read more
Edition: First British edition, 1st printing
Binding: Pictorial wraps (Softcover).
Publisher: Anchor, London
Date Published: 2000
Description: Near Fine. The book condition is NF, very minor edge wear. A paperback original. There was reportedly a hardcover edition of 100 copies done, but we have yet to see it. This edition went into many later printings Signed "Z, Oct 10, 2006" read more
Edition: First Edition; First Printing
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books, New York
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780375703768ISBN:0375703764
Description: 0375703764. Very Good in wrappers. 2nd Edition on the title page, although it really is the first in the Pantheon edition as stated by the number line beginning with 1 on the copyright page. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: New York, Pantheon
Date Published: 2000
Description: First edition of this well received inventive first novel. A fine copy with a small red remainder dot on the top page edges in a fine dust jacket. Uncommon in the first edition. read more
Edition: Second printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books, New York
Date Published: 2000
Description: 709pp. Octavo [24 cm] Illustrated boards. Fine/Fine. Signed with the author's bold 'Z' in blue marker. Believe the hype. This is one of best author debuts in recent memory. This is not for you. read more
Edition: First edition. 2nd ed. Illustrated.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780375410345ISBN:0375410341
Description: Fine in fine dust jacket. Signed by author. Excellent shape, never read Lg. Blue Z, Blue edition, stated 1st ed. slight-light shelf/edge wear to DJ, light rubbing possible from being w/ other books. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 736 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: Second Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780375410345ISBN:0375410341
Description: Fine in Fine jacket. Signed by Author FINE stated 2nd edition (red remainder "dot" on bottom page edges) in a FINE color pictorial dust jacket (price intact). AUTHOR SIGNED (with Danielewski's trademark blue "Z" on the second free endpaper, with a red "Signed by the author" sticker on the front panel of the dust jacket). Small quarto volume. Bound in color pictorial boards. Illustrated with photographs. This edition has the words "First Edition" printed in red on copyright page lined through in ... read more
Edition: Uncorrected Proof
Binding: Softcover; First Printing
Publisher: Pantheon, New York
Date Published: 2000
Description: VG+ One 1/2" closed tear on front cover. SOme pages are a bit blurry (manufacturing defect).; In blue wrappers with publicist letter. read more
"More than anything, House of Leaves is pretentious. It does things against the grain just because they haven't been done before, not because they're necessarily good ideas. The book seems to take pride in trying its damnedest to give you a headache, and then expects you to like it (unless Danielewski is a sociopath, and wants people to suffer while reading this, in which case I've misinterpreted).
House of Leaves gives off the impression of a modern art experiment, daring you to say it's pointless even as it flips the sentences sideways and has one word per page for a whole paragraph. Not to mention the convoluted narrative, which can be described in more detail by someone who liked the book. However, I will say this: it's interesting to note how I stopped caring about the core of the story as soon as its sorta-narrator explains that it never happened (which he does right in the beginning, so this isn't a spoiler). Even though I know it didn't happen, because it's fiction, I became apathetic about the story of a family moving into a house with impossible interior dimensions because even the other characters in the book said it wasn't real. I don't know if that counts for or against House of Leaves, since it tells me something about the way I read books on the one hand, and it also invalidated most of the plot on the other.
One of the three sorta-narrators uses an absurd amount of foreign languages and obscure quotes (also possibly fake) to drag the story down even further, and to top it off, there's the first guy who frequently interrupts with random stories about his sex life. Maybe Danielewski wants us to envy the tattoo artist that lives like a rock star, or maybe he wants to convince us that he's not a square by breaking up all the academic nonsense that makes up about half the book, but either way it feels forced and unnecessary. By the way, as far as I can tell, there's no explanation for why this fake story of a Twilight Zone house is driving the tattoo artist, Johnny, slowly insane. Admittedly, I didn't finish the book, but I haven't found an explanation elsewhere, and it's probably another one of those things that the author left so deliberately obtuse that scholars and intellectuals can argue about it for the rest of time.
If that sounds like fun to you, then get the book, by all means. For me, all of Danielewski's attempts at being different and artsy were just irritating. When I get a book, I want to read it, not juggle it around because the sideways words are supposed to represent the characters walking up the walls or something. By the way, did you notice how I underlined house and bolded book every time in this review? I'm not going to tell you why - hell, I don't even know myself - but there's bound to be someone out there who thinks it's a deep artistic message. It worked in House of Leaves."
"too much style, too little substance. the story of the house lured me in and propelled me through to the conclusion but most of the book was filler. the excessive footnotes were distracting and annoying and added little or nothing at all to the story. as i was having to turn the book upside down and sideways and very nearly bending over backwards to read some pages, i pictured danielewski grinning with delight at the headache and neck strain he'd caused me on account of his being so gosh darn clever! all of this over-complication and assault of useless words made me grow more and more detached from the plot and the characters until i just wanted the book to end. my irritation level elevated to the point that i was even annoyed by the pages with almost NO WORDS. "waste of trees" comes to mind. i appreciate the effort that it took to do something different but not the effort that it required to drudge through most of it. i would recommend reading "tom's story" and "the three attic whalestoe institute letters" and then picking up a new book."
"Hey, I finally finished this book. This story, by far was the most difficult for me to read; why? I painsakenly struggled through all of the different fonts, words in squares, used a mirror for the reversed words, and tried to find a story within. I found the story throughout all the fuss. Was it worth it? Well maybe not a whole lot, but I do admire the courage it took to write this mess. I know this is a very scary story about a house... and I'll stop right there, because you might still want to read this load of trash. If you had seen the movie "The Blair Witch Project", then you will get how this book, "The House of Leaves" was written, add a dash of days of smoking crack and there you have the manuscript. My friend Lupoman also read this book, and here is his quote: "A magnificent piece of sh_t, but it's still sh_t." I couldn't have said it better myself."
"This is one of the few books that I consistently recommend to people. It frightened me more than anything Stephen King's ever put out, as well as sparking some fascinating discussion between my friends and me about madness, reality and perception. Basically, it's a book about a documentary that was never made, about a house that doesn't exist. This book plays with your mind, plays with language, and plays with conventions to create an extremely unconventional - and strangely compelling - novel. Highly recommended."
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