Kim Paperback – January 8, 2018

What a wonderful story, beautifully written, about India, back in the day, of the cultural currents mixing, of rivers, espionage, food and magnificent scenery, all exquisitely told.

I lived in India for three years and visit often. Kipling describes a single country that stretched from Lahore to Dhaka, the subcontinent before partition. His foreigner's perspective on ethnic relations among the populations of India are interesting, and the great game seems as relevant today as it was at the start of the Twentieth Century when Kipling wrote the book. I'm grateful for the ability of ebooks to look up definitions of florid British and Indian words and phrases: that made it much easier for me to make my way through this fascinating story.

Some books are timeless. This is one of them. i put off readying it for some reason for years. Glad I read it. The writing and story make the time spent worthwhile.

Hadn't read this classic and decided it was time. Still haven't read it. Did start it several times but it will take more perseverance than I had on previous attempts to read.

Kim was first read when I was 13, after coincidentally just finishing Tom Sawyer. Reread the story when in my mid thirtysomethings. Just as enjoyable then, as now, after my fifth, (I think), reading. I have the complete Kipling collection as well as the Mark Twain collection. "Kim" has been one of my absolute favorites throughout my 77 years, and one of my favorite authors. There is much to praise in Mr. Kipling's prolific writings, I suggest you read as many as you can. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have. Don't get me started on Mark Twain.

I never read this, assuming that it was another Victorian era example of convoluted and ultimately boring writing. But I have been coming across more and more excellent writing from 1880 to 1920, and then I read the Laurie King novel, The Game, which featured Kimball O'Hara, the grown up version of Kim. The story was interesting enough to get me to look at the original. To my surprise, the reason that people have raved about this book for multiple generations is that it is a good book, with excellent writing that puts you into 19th Century India/Pakistan very easily. I quite enjoyed the journey.

While I gave this 4 stars, it’s because it is one of my favorite classic books. Unfortunately, the typesetting (or whatever you call it for ebooks) is not good. The main text is fine, but the many Hindi or Urdu are rendered in italics that are quite a bit smaller font size and in grayscale instead of black, so they are hard to see clearly. I don’t know why this was done, or how anyone thought it was a good way to print it. I feel as though I should probably go and buy a used paperback copy to read instead of this.

Rudyard Kipling’s story speaks to young and adult minds alike. The story leads you along, easily using your imagination, and never allowing you to guess the outcome. A very entertaining story that today would be the first of many volumes.