Birnbaum: A Novel of Inner Space http://imcbook.net/MoreFiction/FICTION1.html, http://www.gooddaybooks.com/contents/Booknotes/1209709164?language=english
Nectar Fragments
http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~36297.aspx ... or...
The Coat that Covers Him and Other Stories
http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid=26113 ... or...
Withdrawal: A Novel
http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~13153.aspx
The Empty Cafe: Stories
http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~5808.aspx
Reviews
Nectar Fragments (2006)
The best section of the book is Part I, which contains four excellent and fully realized short stories. Adding up to 92 pages, it might have done well as an independent collection. The lead story, “Shinobazu Pond” (originally published in The Japan Times), is a wonderful tale of the joys of homelessness, harkening back to the Taoist stories of Chuang Tsu, the Chinese mountain sages and the wandering “Zen lunatics.” - Metropolis
http://www.metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/recent/books.asp
"You will need to keep your wits about you. Something is going on at a higher level." - Japan Times
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20070218a1.html
"Despite the short form, Hoffman’s characters are richly multi-dimensional, and his choice of each word, each phrase, signifies meaning and purpose. " - Forward Magazine
http://www.forewordmagazine.com/clarion/viewreviews.aspx?reviewID=128
"Insisting that each chapter must be able to stand on its own, author Michael Hoffman nonetheless weaves a rich tapestry of cross-references, details and characterization. As the book introduces new characters, they seem at first unrelated. But eventually, it becomes clear how each and every story is connected..." - Wild Violet
http://www.wildviolet.net/phoenix_rising/nectar_fragments.html
“Nectar Fragments is a thought provoking collection of short stories by Michael Hoffman. Mr. Hoffman’s book is unique. " - Reader Views
http://www.readerviews.com/ReviewKopelmanNectarFragments.html
The Coat that Covers Him and Other Stories (2004)
“[Hoffman] takes us as far as any fiction has gone into the troubled heart of Japan…Hoffman’s shocks and climaxes work like depth charges, delayed detonations... His stories take us far away from the comfort zone into fiction of borrowed reality, one you will either find yourself nodding to sympathetically, or wincing at how close to the bone it all is.” – The Japan Times http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fb20050502a2.htm
“It is a measure of Hoffman’s skill, therefore, that he is able to make the fictional depressive who dominates every page of his novel compelling enough to keep readers happily turning pages. One hopes to see more novels by Hoffman…” – The Herald-Tribune-Asahi (not available online)
“Select just about any paragraph from any of the works in “The Coat that Covers Him and Other Stories” and prepare to be amazed by Hoffman’s prose that can make even the most mundane event seem gripping. His dialogue is also outstanding…” – The Mainichi Daily News http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/bookreviews/index.html
"Throughout the book, the writing style is high, and the content a bit heavy - this is no beach book. This is a coffee and filterless cigarettes book, the kind of thing that needs to be read on a rainy night. Hoffman is obviously a fan of the classics, as his characters often launch into long "Meaning of Life/Love" diatribes that would make even the smarmiest coffee-shop philosophers pale. Yet despite the occasional rant, these stories are ultimately compelling, and rather addictive. " - Japanzine http://www.seekjapan.jp/page2.php?id=585&sm=
“Michael Hoffman is an excellent, dramatic, fluent, insightful and literate writer.” – bookideas.com http://www.bookideas.com/reviews/index.cfm?fuseaction=displayReview&id=2396
"I have just read and enjoyed Michael Hoffmans The Coat That Covers Him and Other Stories. It was a long but worthwhile read written in a unique style. Six shorter stories set the mood for the main story. An artful combination of plots drive these stories... Highly recommended." - Betsie's Literary Pagehttp://betsie.tripod.com/literary/id261.html
Withdrawal: A Novel (2003)
" Withdrawal 's greatness lies in its ability to simultaneously charm, stun and shock the reader. Mr. Hoffman succeeds in portraying Len's unsettled personality, his growing skepticism and his mounting fascination with youth in a simple yet profound style. The book is strikingly original; the prose steady and coherent and the characters naive and life-like. Recommended." - Critique Magazine http://www.critiquemagazine.com/article/withdrawal.html
"Is this artlessness or is it art perfected? One hardly cares, for Hoffman is a natural storyteller... sufficient with his people and fearless about ideas. He has many characters and he keeps them in order so that the attentive reader never has to labor over the 'who-the-hell-is-he-talking-about-now? ailment of less able writers. Withdrawal shows an advance over The Empty Café. Good as are many of the stories in the latter, the novel seems Hoffman's natural habitat. This is an honest, well-crafted book by a writer with a fresh voice and original ideas." - Compulsive Reader http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=480"
On the surface, this is a "quiet" book, with much of the action taking place internally. But it is exactly this understated crafting of this deceivingly quiet story that gives Withdrawal a feeling of authenticity." - Wild Violet http://www.wildviolet.net/phantom/withdrawal.html
"This is a thoughtful, beautifully written novel... involving and stimulating...I would like to recommend his book to those looking for a thoughtful, considered, intelligent read." - Tregolwyn Book Reviews http://tregolwyn.tripod.com/id111.html
The Empty Café (2001)
"The Empty Cafe... is not fiction but literature. Possibly I would want to add the word "fine": "fine literature," yes I believe that's better. Michael Hoffman is not merely an author but a writer." - Kristen Voskuil Book Review
"Hoffman might be an author to keep an eye on." - Bard's Ink http://www.globalserve.net/~pjduane/Reviews2.htm#cafe
"Hoffman is a very talented storyteller; his prose is lyrical and flowing, drawing you effortlessly into the story, but the stories are not what they seem to be. Reality becomes slightly skewed, and yet it isn't possible to say exactly what that reality is. The characters and places are familiar and at the same time strange. I was caught by surprise at the obscure endings, with dark issues confronting me that I really had to stop reading to think over. Not many books have that effect on me." Beverley J. Rowe, MyShelf, http://www.myshelf.com/literary/02/emptycafe.htm
"All Hoffman's stories show events occurring on a plane different from the one that we occupy. And they concern truths that have their own imperatives. However much this demands of the reader, this strange world is in the hands of a gifted storyteller. His people may be puzzling but his manipulation is magical. " - Compulsive Reader http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=226
"It's always difficult approaching books published by vanity presses with an open mind. These presses, more insidious now thanks to the Internet, are little companies that wannabe authors pay to publish their manuscripts for them. It's hard to speak to the message without judging the medium, since the texts these hack machines churn out are almost always awful--swimming in unspeakably bad prose, typographical errors, poor grammar and shoddy construction. The Empty Café, by Michael Hoffman, is no exception. This collection of short stories contains so much stumbling incompetence that it's almost unreadable. With the exception of the last two pieces, these "stories" wouldn't keep a real publisher reading beyond the first paragraph." – The Danforth Review http://www.danforthreview.com/reviews/fiction/hoffman.htm
"These stories are really good. Hoffman has done a fine job throughout. They are easy to read, with real people as characters and are highly recommended." - Booklore
"Michael Hoffman is a terrible writer. Cursed with a tin ear for dialogue, he's unable to produce even one line that sounds remotely natural; instead, he alternates between long-winded philosophical discourse, and two-word sentences followed by a page of extrapolated meaning. At no point do his characters feel like real people, and it doesn't seem as though that particularly bothers Hoffman. He just wants a forum for expounding on incest, and missing children, and smoked-meat sandwiches." – Curled Up With a Good Book http://www.curledup.com/emptycaf.htm
"Like the Buddhist masters, Hoffman dips his brush into charcoal gray, drawing lines that may seem muddy -- as he questions motives, desires and possibilities -- while creating the suggestion of a picture, which comes to full fruition in the reader's mind." - Wild Violet,http://www.wildviolet.net/summer/cafe.html