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• Oakes is right about this one. Of course, Oakes is usually right.

  5.00 out of 5

  dreamingtereza

• Thursday is one of the great Edwardian thrillers, though its ending still mystifies me--is it Catholic, Pagan, etc.? It is one of the top ten novels in any genre that I would recommend to a friend.

  5.00 out of 5

  oakesspalding

• On re-reading, Chesterton's miniature masterpiece remains as fresh and queer as ever: a star-fruit among the bananas. No one seems to know quite where to place this book, and almost all definitions fail. Lethem calls it a somersault, Chesterton himself subtitled it "a nightmare." Rather than add my own failed attempt, I will note a thought sparked by this re-reading.There are books which acquaint you with parts of yourself you find disagreeable, shameful, or low. All this past month, I have been trying to finish a book by Philip Roth. He's a marvelous stylist, and has an absolute needle eye that penetrates through all one's lies about oneself. Yet, his characters are loathesome: they think loathesome thoughts, they want loathesome things, they evoke loathesome responses. They are an education in baseness. Chesterton's books are the precise opposite of this. You may not find Chesterton's ideology sustainable, you may think him deluded, you may even consider him flippant, but his work ever and always points you in the direction of the person you would like to be, that you wish you were. He speaks to the elements of your personality you hope will become stronger, or govern you more fully. That's the kind of book The Man Who Was Thursday is, and that's why you should read it. (8.25.06)

  5.00 out of 5

  ben_a

• This is one very good book! Well written, short and fun. I need to re-read it though, thoroughly deserves a re-read.

  5.00 out of 5

  Owan

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