Irving, more than any other author that comes to mind, wrote his books along a perfect bell curve of quality.
He started out a bit odd ("Setting Free the Bears," "The Water-Method Man," and "The 158-Pound Marriage"), then wrote "The World According to Garp" -- a a 20th Century classic. He dipped just a bit with "The Hotel New Hampshire," but then wrote two more great ones: "The Cider House Rules" and "A Prayer for Owen Meany."
Sadly, nothing he's written since (especially his most recent) has come close to Garp, Cider House, and Owen Meany. :(
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onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">Until I Find You (2005)
by John Irving
Amazon says:
At over 800 pages, John Irving's Until I Find You is a daunting proposition at best. Anyone who finishes it will have acquired forearm muscles, sore shoulders, and not much else. The story is self-indulgent, repetitive and, ultimately, boring, that cardinal sin that readers can't forgive. Longtime Irving readers have stayed with him through a few hits and a miss or two, but this is an all-time low. We are accustomed to Irving's work as quirky, bizarre, and off-the-wall and have forgiven all by calling such high-jinks and characters "imaginative" or "absolutely original." The only thing original about this tome is the descent into soft porn.
There is a bit of a twist at the end. If you, somehow, actually finish this book, you deserve to find out what it is on your own. Call it a reward.
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848 page paperback
|$10.85
|250 reviews
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/A_Sound_Like_Someone_Trying_Not_to_Make_a_Sound_Childrens_Book_2004');"
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onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound (Children's Book, 2004)
by John Irving
Amazon says:
In John Irving's ninth novel "A Widow for One Year," a creepy children's book author writes a bedtime story about things that go bump in the night. That odd, gently comical tale is brought to life here with Tatjana Hauptmann's shadowy, moonlit pencil illustrations. Not too scary, nor too comforting, Irving's picture-book debut imaginatively captures that late-night world where everything looks and sounds a little like a monster.
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40 page hardcover
|$10.85
|3 reviews
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/The_Fourth_Hand_2001');"
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onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">The Fourth Hand (2001)
by John Irving
Amazon says:
While reporting a story from India, New York journalist Patrick Wallingford inadvertently becomes his own headline when his left hand is eaten by a lion. In Boston, a renowned surgeon eagerly awaits the opportunity to perform the nation's first hand transplant. But what if the donor's widow demands visitation rights with the hand? In answering this unexpected question, John Irving has written a novel that is by turns brilliantly comic and emotionally moving, offering a penetrating look at the power of second chances and the will to change.
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352 page paperback
|$11.66
|276 reviews
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/My_Movie_Business_Memoir_1999');"
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by John Irving
Amazon says:
After two producers, four directors, thirteen years, and uncounted rewrites, the movie version of John Irving's acclaimed novel, "The Cider House Rules," at last made it to the big screen. Here is the author's account of the novel-to-film process. Anecdotal, affectionate, and delightfully candid, My Movie Business dazzles with Irving's incomparable wit and style.
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192 page paperback
|$11.01
|22 reviews
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/A_Widow_for_One_Year_1998');"
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/A_Widow_for_One_Year_1998');"
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onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">A Widow for One Year (1998)
by John Irving
Amazon readers say:
"More than I bargained for..." "A great story I was unable to put down." "A magnificent exploration of grief, love and family." "A wonderful change for Irving."
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576 page paperback
|$11.21
|581 reviews
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/The_Imaginary_Girlfriend_NonFiction_1996');"
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by John Irving
Amazon says:
...a miniature autobiography detailing Irving's parallel careers of writing and wrestling. Tales of encounters with writers (John Cheever and Kurt Vonnegut) are intertwined with those about his wrestling teammates and coaches. With humor and compassion, Irving details the few truly important lessons he learned about writing.
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192 page paperback
|$11.16
|7 reviews
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/A_Son_of_the_Circus_1994');"
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by John Irving
Amazon says:
Though there are flashes here of the dramatic verve of "The World According to Garp" and "Cider House Rules," Irving's long-awaited eighth novel is generally a tedious affair: rambling; lacking suspense; devoid of energetic or lyric prose; sometimes verging on farce and other times almost as lethargic as the sultry atmosphere of Bombay, where it is set.
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672 page paperback
|$10.85
|101 reviews
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/Trying_to_Save_Piggy_Sneed_1993');"
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onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">Trying to Save Piggy Sneed (1993)
by John Irving
Amazon says:
A treat for John Irving addicts and a perfect introduction to his work for the uninitiated. To open this spirited short story collection, Irving explains how he became a writer. There follow six scintillating stories written over the last twenty years ending with a homage to Charles Dickens.
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448 page paperback
|$10.17
|24 reviews
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/A_Prayer_for_Owen_Meany_1989');"
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onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989)
by John Irving
Amazon readers say:
"Faith, war and friendship in the sixties." "The best book I have ever read, even the third time." "Intelligent and engaging." "I didn't expect to like it, but it became one of my favorite books..."
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560 page paperback
|$10.17
|1,061 reviews
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/The_Cider_House_Rules_1985');"
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/The_Cider_House_Rules_1985');"
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by John Irving
Amazon readers say:
"Irving is required reading for life." "One of the greatest american novels of all time." "All about choices." "Irving is one of the best modern day writers."
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576 page paperback
|$10.17
|347 reviews
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/The_Hotel_New_Hampshire_1981');"
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onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">The Hotel New Hampshire (1981)
by John Irving
Amazon readers say:
"As always, bizarre, dysfunctional, yet loveable characters." "Surreal storyline, but real feeling for the reader." "Tragically amusing." "I've never seen a family that made mine look so normal."
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432 page paperback
|$10.17
|94 reviews
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/The_World_According_to_Garp_1978');"
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/The_World_According_to_Garp_1978');"
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onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">The World According to Garp (1978)
by John Irving
Amazon readers say:
"This novel makes you think, reason, and wonder." "Not a typical classic... but a classic nonetheless." "Engaging, funny, and poignant." "Garp's world is our world."
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464 page paperback
|$10.17
|284 reviews
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/The_158Pound_Marriage_1974');"
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onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">The 158-Pound Marriage (1974)
by John Irving
Amazon says:
The darker vision and sexual ambiguities of this erotic, ironic tale about a menage a quatre in a New England university town foreshadow those of "The World According to Garp;" but this very trim and precise novel is a marked departure from the author's generally robust, boisterous style. Though Mr. Irving's cool eye spares none of his foursome, he writes with genuine compassion for the sexual tests and illusions they perpetrate on each other; but the sexual intrigue between them demonstrates how even the kind can be ungenerous, and even the well-intentioned, destructive.
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256 pages
|$6.99
|27 reviews
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/The_WaterMethod_Man_1972');"
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onMouseOut="window.status=''; return true;" rel="nofollow">The Water-Method Man (1972)
by John Irving
Amazon says:
The main character of John Irving's second novel, written when the author was twenty-nine, is a perpetual graduate student with a birth defect in his urinary tract--and a man on the threshold of committing himself to a second marriage that bears remarkable resemblance to his first.
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288 page paperback
|$11.16
|42 reviews
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onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/to_amazon/Every_Book_by_John_Irving/Setting_Free_the_Bears_1968');"
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by John Irving
Amazon says:
It is 1967 and two Viennese university students want to liberate the Vienna Zoo, as was done after World War II. But their good intentions have both comic and gruesome consequences.
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304 page paperback
|$11.16
|30 reviews
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