Customer Reviews
If you're doing A Level English these are the best - By: L. Green, 25 Feb 2008 
Barcode: 9780582823105
So, like most people, i used CGP notes while doing my GCSE's & found them mostly good (especially on the poem anthologies) - the humour though, while sometimes fun on many occasions gotin the way of serious learning & the notes were brief when dealing with full length plays & novels.
Stepin York Notes. For my A Level English i got one of these books for each of my set texts & they were massively helpfulin prompting class discussions, writing essays & revising for the exams. They offer detailed chapter summaries & analyse themin an extremely informative way.
There's quotes too, maybe a little too few, but the ones they pick out are good & then at the end of the book you get a wealth of extra info relating to characters, themes & symbolism. If you're an A Level English student or a parent who wants their kids to do well, i'd get these notes - they make your life a lot, lot easier.
Lacking in detail - By: C.D.B, 28 Jan 2008 
The book gives an acceptable brief summation of each chapter; however, advanced analysis is quite limited, & bizzarely, only the even chapters are analysed. In all, it is quite a poor resource for more advanced study.
The Great Gatsby - By: Hye Won, 05 Mar 2006 
When I first start reading chapter one & two I wanted to give up reading the book because I couldn¡¯t understand what the author was talking about. When he said ¡°Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,¡± he told me, ¡°just remember that all the peoplein this world haven¡¯t had the advantages that you¡¯ve had¡± & ¡°In consequence, I¡¯m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me & also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores.¡± I didn¡¯t understand it until later. It means that it¡¯s not wise to judge people by the looks because sometimes you might misunderstand that person & create some problems. However, I think the story was mainly about how wealth, popularity, love, loss, betrayal & emptiness. The whole story is kind of depressing because two characters dies & Daisy betray Gatsby again when she ran over Myrtle. Everyone¡¯s life is depended on money but nothing else. People tend to care about money than the social problems between groups of people. There is a social problem that caused through many years. People divide themselvesin to three groups, high class, Midd class & low class. If you¡¯re not very wealthy, people would just ignore you but when your fairly rich people would remember your name. If your like some millinery person than you become famous. Someone of the chapters¡¯ mood changes by the weather. For example, when Nick invites Daisy to his house & have cup of tea, Gatsby feels all nervous which then the weather changes to cloudy & rainy but when Gatsby was satisfied the weather becomes sunny. Even though it¡¯s depressing I would recommend other people to read it, which that is who haven¡¯t read this book yet. How the author describes things are great, you can feel what the author is going through. It feels like you were therein the past.
A good reference book - By: , 06 Jan 2005 I used the York Notes Advanced on F.Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" whilst studying my AS levels, & whilst I found it useful for glossing over some of the easy issues, I didn't feel it went into enough depthin some areas. However, I find York Notes Advanced to be one of the best reference books around & would recommend getting one for any book you may study.
