Nigeyb

Good books are absorbing, and the best books allow the reader to completely inhabit that book's world.  "Stoner" has a mood that completely engulfed me.  A beautiful, compelling, sometimes horrific, haunting, powerful, quietly profound novel that has something to teach us all.  Simple, elegant prose takes us to the heart William Stoner's life.  His is a very ordinary life.  A dirt-poor farm boy from Missouri, born at the end of the nineteenth century, goes to college to study agriculture, and, instead of returning home stays to teach.  How can such a simple premise result in such perfect literature?  Read it and find out.  The story is in turns depressing, uplifting, appalling, tragic, insightful, wise and funny.  A remarkable book.