First book in the "Earth's Children" series. There are presently five novels in this series, which is a saga of humankind during the early Ice Age. I had been meaning to try this series for years, and when I finally picked up this book, I could not put it down. Before I even finished it, I started searching for the rest of the series. It's not the sort of thing I normally read, but I loved every page of every book. I will continue to buy copies of all five books whenever I come across them at library or goodwill book sales, so that I can keep on sharing them with other people.

The five books are:
1) The Clan of the Cave Bear
2) The Valley of the Horses
3) The Mammoth Hunters
4) The Plains of Passage
5) Shelters of Stone

UPDATE 9/06/04: On its way to RonOren at the request of his girlfriend - what a nice idea! Ron, I have all the next three books in this series available if you decide you like the story - just PM me and I'll send them along.

I just got this in the mail, thanks to my darling girlfriend and Jamesmum! The thing is, I just got another copy of both this book and two other ones in the series in a bookring about three days ago. Hmmm, goes to show how well my girlfriend anticipated my taste :-)

Well, I guess the ring will be moving on somewhat earlier than expected and I get to read my own copy :-). I'll just have to figure out how to journal this correctly...

I loved it so much, I went through it in about a weekend (granted, it was a weekend in which I had very little else to do, but it's still kinda quick isn't it?).
I really liked the language that the Clan uses, although I tended to forget that they do not speak (at least, not as we're used to the word). Apart from that, I had a lot of trouble envisioning Ayla as a 7 year old girl, she justb kept turning into an 18-year old (or so) in my head. I guess it makes sense, considering that maturity was reached earlier, but it's a little disconcerting anyway...
I wonder how much of the way of living that is described is in accordance with the "true" way of life then (as far as we know it), and how much is Auel's fantasy. It felt like it was based on real facts!

I understood the book is to go to my better half (when I get back) and will then embark on a journey in Europe.

Oooh goody, after reading all the positive reactions to this book I'm glad to get to read it.

Finally got round to this book (it's amazing how they pile up, isn't it). It took me a while to get into it, but after about 150 pages I suddenly found myself reading while walking from the train to work, so obviously it did captivate me in the end.
The story is well told, truly inspired and extremely well researched. I particularly enjoyed learning about the medicinal properties of the various plants, and also about what these people actually ate (apart from meat, which was fairly obvious). I also enjoyed all the spirituality, it all seemed to make sense in that context.
However, I was so into the clan traditions that I really found it hard to believe that Ayla was not extradited sooner. She just violated too many traditions, and though from my vantage point I of course wanted her to survive, I could hardly imagine that the clan would accept her, however difficult in some cases. Furthermore, the tension between Ayla and Broud was stretched to breaking point.

But hey, I've always been critical. All in all, it was a very good read and I'm glad to have finally given it a go. I'll get round to the next ones soon. As promised, this book will be released somewhere in Europe (let's see if there are any caves near our summer holiday destination, that would be fun!).

RELEASE NOTES:

Left the book in a sort of party cave/wine bar.