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• Fabulous! I absolutely loved Solar. Prize winning physicist, Michael Beard, whose brilliant work as a young man has given him a sufficient reputation to rest on his laurels, stumbles through late middle age. His private life is chaos, but so amusing. I was reminded a bit of "Therapy" by David Lodge, but this is Ian McEwan and the action never stops. Before I read Solar I read the review in The New York Times Book Review which described the book as so good that it is bad but in it's description of the tale, it dwelt almost lovingly on the nature of the writing and I found myself shivering with delightful anticipation. I almost tossed the book I was reading to dive right in to Solar.By way of disclosure I should add that I am a dedicated fan of McEwan and have read everything that he has ever written.

  5.00 out of 5

  bhowell

• This took my by surprise, a brilliantly dark, sometimes laugh out loud funny, comic novel.

  5.00 out of 5

  saitchy

• With grim wit, Ian McEwan masterfully dissects the sort of civilization threatening problem we face in climate change. The book is a satirical character study of one Michael Beard -- Nobel laureate, womanizer, glutton and intellectual charlatan who through an improbable and hilarious chain of circumstances comes to be in possession of an idea for an alternative energy source that is perhaps the last, best hope for the world as we know it. Beard's grotesque self-destruction through over-indulgence of every kind of comfort and pleasure embodies the sort of thoughtless excess that puts the world in peril; his greed, arrogance, dishonesty and capacity for self-delusion -- qualities that afflict most of the characters in the book, albeit to a much lesser degree -- are the reason why it will be not so easy to solve even as revolutionary approaches to energy are developed. My read of the book is that, though it deftly explains the science of global warming and avoids being preachy, it persuasively argues that climate change is not a technical, scientific problem, but a moral one. To deal with it successfully, we will not only have to develop new technology, we will have to scrutinize and master the frailties of human nature.

  5.00 out of 5

  JFBallenger

• An entertaining exploration of a pathetic character. No spoilers. Just read it.

  5.00 out of 5

  Unicycledad

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