About this title: A strange book draws a lonely boy named Bastian into the doomed world of Fantastica. It seems that only Bastian can save Fantastica from the dragons, giants, monsters, and other terrors that haunt the land. Will Bastian be able to succeed at this dangerous quest?
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Date published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780385176224ISBN:0385176228
Description: Good. 1983; Hardcover; No notes/hiliting; Bumped corners; Lightly edgeworn cover; No dog-ears; Strong binding; no dustcover; page edges are lightly soiled. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Date published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780385176224ISBN:0385176228
Description: Fair. Dust Cover Missing. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Date published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780385176224ISBN:0385176228
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Edition: Second Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Inc., New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780385176224ISBN:0385176228
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. Juvenile Clean, bright and tight. Price clipped. A little edge and shelfwear with small chips and tears. Looks great in new protective clear covering. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday,, Garden City:
Date published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780385176224ISBN:0385176228
Description: Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. 0385176228. Made into the 1984 film. Translated from the German by Ralph Manheim. Illustrated by Roswitha Quadflieg. Second American printing. Very good in a very good, price clipped dust jacket. read more
Edition: 1st edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Inc, Garden City
Date published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780385176224ISBN:0385176228
Description: Very good. NF/NF-1st edition, 1st printing. First book by author to be published in the United States. Translated from the German by Ralph Manheim. Basis for the popular film directed by Wolfgang Petersen. Book has slightly discolored boards Jacket has minor chipping at spine and flap fold ends. We offer a LIFETIME GUARANTEE. See KHBOOKS for details. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday
Date published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780385176224ISBN:0385176228
Description: Fine/Near Fine. 6 x 9 0385176228 Dust cover has light shelf wear, is now in mylar. Book binding new book tight, no marks from previous owner. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Date published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780385176224ISBN:0385176228
Description: Good. Our feedback rating says it all: Five star service and fast delivery! We have shipped four million items to happy customers, and have one MILLION unique items ready to ship today! Text in English, German. Sewn binding. Paper over boards. read more
Edition: Later printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday & Company, Inc, Garden City
Date published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780385176224ISBN:0385176228
Description: 396pp. Octavo [21.5 cm] Red cloth with a gilt titled spine. Very good. The spine is subtly rolled. There is a brief gift inscription on the verso of the front free endsheet. Internally clean and bright. The dust jacket is in very good condition. The edges are lightly bumped and rubbed. There are a couple of tiny closed tears in the top edge. Price-clipped. Since the original publication of The Neverending Story in Germany-and its subsequent success on bestseller lists around the world-Michael ... read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Date published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780385176224ISBN:0385176228
Description: Very Good-in Very Good-dust jacket. 0385176228. NOT first edition. Dustjacket tattered. Boards edge worn. Binding cocked. Former owner's embossement on half title page. Stain on title page.; 1.3 x 8 x 5.8 Inches; 396 pages. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780385176224ISBN:0385176228
Description: Roswitha Quadflieg. Fine in Good jacket. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. 1st American hardback edition. 1st printing. Stated first edition. The dustjacket is not price-clipped. Near fine book in good to good+ dustjacket. Book is free of any markings. The dustjacket has a three inch closed tear, and some light rubbing to the corners. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Doubleday, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date published: 1983
ISBN-13:9780385176224ISBN:0385176228
Description: Very Good in Very Good- jacket. Book has light shelfwear, else clean and tight, jacket has edgewear to the top and a small closed tear, wrap-around cover art, translated from German by Ralph Manheim, interior illustrations by Roswitha Quadflieg. read more
""Screwball? Why do they call you that?" "I talk to myself sometimes." "What kind of things do you say?" "I think up stories. I invent names and words that don't exist. That kind of thing." "And you say these things to yourself? Why?" "Well, nobody else would be interested." Mr. Coreander fell into a thoughtful silence. p.5
Human passions have mysterious ways, in children as well as grown-ups. Those affected by them can't explain them, and those who haven't known them have no understanding of them at all. Some people risk their lives to conquer a mountain peak. No one, not even they themselves, can really explain why. Others ruin themselves trying to win the heart of a certain person who want nothing to do with them. Still others are destroyed by their devotion to the pleasures of the table. Some are so bent on winning a game of chance that they lose everything they own, and some sacrifice everything for a dream that can never come true. Some think their only hope of happiness lies in being somewhere else, and spend their whole lives traveling from place to place. And some find no rest until they have become powerful. In short, there are as many different passions as there are people. Bastian Balthazar Bux's passion was books. If you have never spent whole afternoons with burning ears and rumpled hair, forgetting the world around you over a book, forgetting cold and hunger-- If you have never read secretly under the bedclothes with a flashlight, because your father or mother or some other well-meaning person has switched off the lamp on the plausible ground that it was time to sleep because you had to get up so early-- If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful story has come to an end and you must take your leave of the characters with whom you have shared so many adventures, whom you have loved and admired, for whom you have hoped and feared, and without whose company life seems empty and meaningless-- If such things have not been part of your own experience, you probably won't understand what Bastian did next. Staring at the title of the book, he turned hot and cold, cold and hot. Here was just what he dreamed of, what he had longed for ever since the passion for books had taken hold of him: A story that never ended! The book of books! he had to have this book-- at any price. pp.6-7
Bastian looked at the book. "I wonder," he said to himself,"what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, something must be happening, because as soon as I open it, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures and deeds and battles. And sometimes there are storms at sea, or it takes you to strange cities and countries. ALl those things are somehow shut up in a book. Of course you have to read it to find out. But it's already there, that's the funny thing. I just wish I knew how it could be." p.11
Reluctantly Bastian's thoughts turned back to reality. He was glad the Neverending Story had nothing to do with that. He didn't like books in which dull, cranky writers describe humdrum events in the very humdrum lives of humdrum people. Reality gave him enough of that kind of thing, why should he read about it? besides, he couldn't stand it when a writer tried to convince him of something. and these humdrum books, it seemed to him, were always trying to do just that. Bastian liked books that were exciting or funny, or that made him dream. Books where made-up characters had marvelous adventures, books that made him imagine all sorts of things. Because one thing he was good at, possibly the only thing, was imagining things so clearly that he almost saw and heard them. p.21
Loved this book. On an academic level had so many ideas of critical theory and the narrative.. i LOVE the idea of how the narrative works with the narrator and how stories work within stories.... and it discussed all this MAGICALLY!
the book was delicious.
On a metaphysical level, ... well, i just love wordplay and idea play.. and ... all that jazz. (aka conversation with Werewolf; the conversation about Old Emperors)
I love how the evil guys are not gruesomely taken away. i love how love overcomes. i love friendships in this. i love .... Bastian Balthazar Bux's growth.
"I have loved this book ever since I was a little kid. My first encounter with The Neverending Story was the movie, which is wonderful in that completely genuine '80s-movie way. At some point I got the book, which took me a while to finish. The movie only depicts the happy first half of the book. According to the movie, Bastian's journey ends with saving Fantastica. But in the book, Bastian's journey continues on, delving into depressing depths as Bastian begins to lose his former identity. I suppose the depression is why it took me so long when I was little. Bastian's plight gets worse and worse, but he doesn't even realize it and fight against it. He is his own enemy. It's painful to read at times. But now I realize that the second half is incredibly important. The first half is about learning to imagine, not to be apathetic to the world around you. This is all well and good. But the second half deals with when you stay too immersed in that dream world and lose sight of real life. The halves together show the middle path: keeping your creative brain alive while remaining grounded in reality."
"It is a bit tricky to review the plot of The Neverending Story because it is a story about itself. It opens with a boy named Bastian discovering a book called The Neverending Story. This book that Bastian finds is not exactly the book I am now reviewing, but Bastian's book does contain the the book I am now reviewing within it. That means each book (my book and Bastian's book) contains the other within it, and together they are The Neverending Story. Confused yet?
As the paradox unfolds, the reader is introduced to the appropriately named Fantastica, the land of human fantasy. Everything ever imagined and every fictional story ever told is part of Fantastica. But Fantastica has a problem: piece by piece it is ceasing to exist. This phenonmenon is called "The Nothing" and we are told that unless something is done to stop The Nothing, it will consume and destroy all of Fantastica in the near future. Who and what can stop such a thing? The answers to that are essential secrets of the story, so you'll have to read it to find out.
Of course, the real secrets of the story are not about Fantastica itself, but rather what Fantasica represents - namely the relationship that human beings have with stories and imagination. Is it good for us to spend hours reading books and escaping into another world? Or is it dangerous? Is the function of fiction to tell us lies about the world? Or is there some truth to be found in fiction? As an attempt to answer these questions, The Neverending Story is masterfully done - fantastic not just in the imagination put in it, but in the symmetry of its paradoxical tale. Unfortunately, for exactly the same reasons, it is also an extremely bizarre work. Extremely. I do not recommend it for anyone who prefers conventional reading. However, I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in testing the limits of the impossible - or just anyone who wants to know what value imagination has.
It is also the possibly only book you'll ever read in which you are a major character."
"Although I saw this movie when I was a child and thoroughly loved it, it never occured to me that it might be based on a novel. So when I was gifted this book, it came as a complete surprise. The book read almost exactly like the movie which was both a surprise and a pleasure. It was when I almost half way through the book, but nearing the end of the story as I knew it that I started to get nervous.
And I discovered I was right to do so. Some of you might remember the movie 'The Neverending Story 2'. I do. It was an amazing disappointment. Never would I have believed 'The Neverending Story 2' was actually based upon the second half of the novel. I wish it wasn't the case. The second half of the novel, while not as bad as the movie, was still disappointing. Bastians descent as he loses his memory and improves his physical condition comes completely out of nowhere and as near as I can tell is a function of AURYN. Why such a thing would happen makes no sense and why they would put a child in that position without any warning also makes no sense. It makes the Childlike Empress seem like a horrible cruel thing to do that. Suffice to say, this is one story that I actually prefer the Hollywood version of."
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