Short Stories Books - Page 2

In the Woods

Tana French

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 259 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

$equel! 2 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I am giving this book two stars instead of one, because the author did keep me entertained for most of the book. I really only cared about one of the mysteries in this book, and it was that mystery the author decided to leave unsolved. I won't spoil the ending, if you want to call it that, but can only say this book doesn't have one. The story comes to a close, like a daytime soap opera. If the reader wants to find out what really happened, and actually I don't anymore, you'll have to tune in (and buy) her next book.

Horrible ending 4 out of 5 stars.
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Loved the book, couldn't put it down. But the ending was very disappointing. What's the point of a good mystery if the mystery is never solved?

Underwhelmed (SPOILERS) 2 out of 5 stars.
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** spoiler alert **

If I could, I'd probably rate this at 1.5 stars-- it ultimately upset me greatly, and annoyed me throughout, but it was good enough to keep me reading and I suppose that should count for something.

Maybe my opinion has been influenced by reading THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO immediately prior to this one. That book wasn't perfect, but it had characters you rooted for, didn't wallow too much in pop culture references, and most importantly IT SOLVED THE DARN MYSTERY.

Let's go through a few of these points. First, I don't think I've ever read a mystery novel with a less likable main character/narrator. Rob (Adam) Ryan is a majorly unpleasant jerk, plain and simple. Sure, he's been warped by his childhood and circumstances, but he does just about every annoying thing you could possibly imagine-- he constantly navel-gazes and feels self pity, he sleeps with then immediately plays the stereotypical male "I don't want anything to do with you now" role with his female partner (the person we were told was his best friend, and whom he would never ever sleep with), he acts like an idiot over the 17 year old villain/ temptress/ psychopath/ whatever betraying his partner, and by the end of the book he is worse off than ever. I know that lots of detectives (esp. in hard-boild stories) are unlikable, and have many personal issues, but this guy just took the cake. I wanted to take a baseball bat to his head. To make matters worse, French throws in this little gem towards the end of the novel:

"I am intensely aware, by the way, that this story does not show me in a particularly flattering light. I am aware that, within an impressively short time of meeting me, Rosalind had me coming to heel like a well-trained dog: running up and down stairs to bring her coffee, nodding along while she bitched about my partner, imagining like some starstruck teenager that she was a kindred soul. But before you decide to despise me too thoroughly, consider this: she fooled you, too. You had as good a chance as I did. I told you everything I saw, as I saw it at the time. And if that was in itself deceptive, remember, I told you that, too: I warned you, right from the beginning, that I lie."

As if that excused anything... and NO, she didn't "fool" me, because YOU'RE the narrator and YOU'RE the one telling the story. This paragraph probably ticked me off more than anything else in the book.

Second, the book seriously dates itself with little pop culture references... from Simpsons quotes to mentions of Ricky Martin and The Simple Life. Gah. The beginning of the book felt like a very special episode of FRIENDS where Chandler, Monica and Ross solve a mystery. I'm a pretty big pop culture type of guy, but the references dropped in this novel just annoyed me.

The last part is a bit more controversial I suppose. There are two central mysteries in this book-- the first, what happened to Katy, DOES get solved in the course of the novel (the "big break" in the case is our hero realizing suddenly that the murder probably took place in a shed about 20 feet from where the body was found! Really?? No one bothered to think of that for a month?), but the deeper mystery about what happened to Rob/Adam and his friends is never resolved. Your mileage may vary about how annoying that is. Truth be told, it didn't annoy me as much as the fact that the true "villain" of the modern mystery walks without being punished in any way. How incredibly unsatisfying.

I know this was a first novel, so hopefully things will improve for her second book. I know, also, that this book won a major award and that lots of people seem to love it to death, so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

Editorial Review:

A gorgeously written novel that marks the debut of an astonishing new voice in psychological suspense.

Many Bloody Returns (Sookie Stackhouse)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Never-before-published vampire stories by Charlaine Harris, Jim Butcher, Kelley Armstrong, and many others.

Suspenseful, surprising, sometimes dark, sometimes humorous-these all-new stories will ensure that readers never think of vampires (or birthdays) in quite the same way again.

In New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris's "Dracula Night," Sookie Stackhouse is the only human at the annual commemoration of Dracula's birth. But this year, the Prince of Darkness actually shows up-and finds Sookie to be a tasty-looking present.

New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher's crime-solving wizard Harry Dresden, of the Dresden Files novels, heads to a role-playing party to give his vampire brother a birthday present in "It's My Birthday Too," only to discover there are some bloodthirsty party crashers who don't share their brotherly love.

In "Twilight," Cassandra DuCharme, who appeared in New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong's Dime Store Magic, knows she has to kill to live as a vampire another year-but finds herself disturbingly disinterested in the hunt.

Plus ten more bloody good birthday stories that take the cake.

Midnight: A Gangster Love Story

Sister Souljah

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 142 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Sister Souljah, the hip-hop generation's number one author and most compelling storyteller, delivers a powerful story about love and loyalty, strength and family. In her bestselling novel, The Coldest Winter Ever, Sister Souljah introduced the world to Midnight, a brave but humble lieutenant to a prominent underworld businessman. Now, in a highly anticipated follow-up to her million-selling masterpiece, she brings readers into the life and dangerously close to the heart of this silent, fearless young man.

Raised in a wealthy, influential, Islamic African family, Midnight enjoys a life of comfort, confidence, and protection. Midnight's father provides him with a veil of privilege and deep, devoted love, but he never hides the truth about the fierce challenges of the world outside of his estate. So when Midnight's father's empire is attacked, he sends Midnight with his mother to the United States.

In the streets of Brooklyn, a young Midnight uses his Islamic mind-set and African intelligence to protect the ones he loves, build a business, reclaim his wealth and status, and remain true to his beliefs.

Midnight, a handsome and passionate young man, attracts many women. How he interacts and deals with them is a unique adventure. This is a highly sensual and tremendous love story about what a man is willing to risk and give to the women he loves most. Midnight will remain in your mind and beat in your heart for a lifetime.

Her "raw and true voice" (Publishers Weekly) will both soothe and arouse you. In a beautifully written and masterfully woven story, Sister Souljah has given us Midnight, and solidified her presence as the mother of all contemporary urban literature.

Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories (Vintage Contemporaries)

Steven Millhauser

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

"I have something to say to you, which can't be said." 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Bizarre, profound, and gorgeously written, the thirteen stories in Steven Millhauser's collection will transport the reader to a world that is strikingly similar to our own, but where impossibly strange things are dangerously possible. A lonely, ignored woman literally vanishes into thin air after preparing a cup of tea one night. In the titular story, a group of teenagers experiment with laughter as a potentially deadly new drug whose high they cannot resist. A miniaturist becomes obsessed with creating invisible, pristine pieces of art. A tower rises higher and higher into the sky until it finally pierces Heaven itself. A historical society courts controversy by obsessively recording the details of the present (or, as they refer to it, the New Past). In each installment Millhauser skirts the line between fantastic and mundane, sane and insane, to create a collection rich in depth and profundity.

"A book is a dream machine. Its purpose is to take you out of the world." If this was indeed Millhauser's intent, he succeeded with aplomb. Each story is grounded in the real world's sensibilities, but Millhauser's wild imagination and prose style weave in just the right amount of oddness. I can see that for some, his quirks and outlandish twists could be seen as irksome, but I found myself enthralled with every story and each new take on his themes.

"For we are no longer innocent, we who do not see and do not remember, we incurious ones, we conspirators in disappearances."

If the stories in the collection's last segment, "Heretical Histories," are a touch weaker than the rest, they still stand head and shoulders above the majority of other offerings in the fiction section this year. The stories in "Dangerous Laughter" are a towering achievement, and Millhauser pulls them off with panache - making this very likely the best new book of 2008.

Also recommended: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The Garden of Last Days: A Novel, and Purple America: A Novel.

Grade: A

Editorial Review:

Thirteen darkly comic stories, Dangerous Laughter is a mesmerizing journey that stretches the boundaries of the ordinary world.

Holidays on Ice

David Sedaris

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Bitter and violent but still funny 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

OK, I love David Sedaris on This American Life and loved his previous books about his family. This little book was more bitter and violent than I expected. "Santaland Diaries" is a classic and a great read, but after that there are stories of people dismembering themselves, family members treating each other cruelly, and a barnyard animal being led to slaughter. Not denying Sedaris' talents but I enjoy it more when he is turning is razor wit and observations to his hilarious, off-kilter, endearing family and less when he is creating stories that seem designed to shock us out of whatever little holiday cheer we have. Sorry David!

Editorial Review:

David Sedaris's beloved holiday collection is new again with six more pieces, including a never before published story. Along with such favoritesas the diaries of a Macy's elf and the annals of two very competitive families, are Sedaris's tales of tardy trick-or-treaters ("Us and Them"); the difficulties of explaining the Easter Bunny to the French ("Jesus Shaves"); what to do when you've been locked out in a snowstorm ("Let It Snow"); the puzzling Christmas traditions of other nations ("Six to Eight Black Men"); what Halloween at the medical examiner's looks like ("The Monster Mash"); and a barnyard secret Santa scheme gone awry ("Cow and Turkey").

No matter what your favorite holiday, you won't want to miss celebrating it with the author who has been called "one of the funniest writers alive" (Economist).

Life of Pi

Yann Martel

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1851 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A Story of stories 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I cant think of a better story to recommend. Sometimes you do wonder if it is a novel. Pi is a great character, simple, physically weak, a non-hero, he could be any one of us. He goes through extraordinary experience out of pure luck. More extraordinary than this is the way it is described and perspective offered at every turn. It is simply beautiful. I cannot tell you more than this. As Pi says "My greatest wish--other than salvation--was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One that I could read again and again, with new eyes and fresh understanding each time." This can be that book.

Editorial Review:

WINNER OF THE 2002 BOOKER PRIZE After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The crew of the surviving vessel consists of a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan, a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger and Pi -- a 16-year-old Indian boy. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary pieces of literary fiction of recent years.

The Best American Short Stories 2008

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Recommended 4 out of 5 stars.
16 of 16 people found this review helpful.

I look forward to this series every year, so it was with high hopes that I opened up this year's editon and began to read. The format is the same as it has been for years, with Ms. Pitlor cherry picking stories and handing over a hundred or so vetted stories to the guest editor. I don't get too caught up in who the guest editor is in any given year - I think Ms. Pitlor does a good job in gathering a pool of quality stories, but this year I thought the overall effort was slightly below the average.

Four of the stories in the collection come from Harper's Magazine, and while I was glad to see the series move away from being so New Yorker oriented, I subscribe to Harper's, so those stories weren't new to me. To of them deserved rereading anyway - the masterful Alice Munro with "Child's Play", and Nicole Krauss, "From the Desk of Daniel Varsky."

Two of the three stories from the New Yorker were also quite well done - "Puppy", by George Saunders, and "Nawabdin Electrician" by Daniyal Mueenuddin. Others that I felt really rose above were "Buying Lenin" by Miroslav Penkov, "Man and Wife," by Katie Chase, and "Straightaway," by Mark Wisniewski.

Four of the stories in this collection would fall under what I would loosely consider 'Fabulist' stories, and those are not really my thing, although I still enjoyed "Man and Wife." Perhaps that is a trend, because I don't remember as much of that in years past.

One of the things I've always enjoyed about this series is that it collects stories I'm sure I'd never get to see otherwise, and that always makes it worth it to me. This year, I would just have to say that not all of it was as interesting to me as other years. I would still definetly recommend it to anyone who enjoys short stories.

Editorial Review:

This brilliant collection, edited by the award-winning and perennially
provocative Salman Rushdie, boasts a “magnificent array” (Library
Journal) of voices both new and recognized.With Rushdie at the helm,
the 2008 edition “reflects the variety of substance and style and the consistent quality that readers have come to expect” (Publishers Weekly).

“We all live in and with and by stories, every day, whoever and wherever we are. The freedom to tell each other the stories of ourselves, to retell the stories of our culture and beliefs, is profoundly connected to the larger subject of freedom itself.”—Salman Rushdie, editor

The Best American Short Stories 2008 includes
KEVIN BROCKMEIER • ALLEGRA GOODMAN • A. M. HOMES • NICOLE KRAUSS • JONATHAN LETHEM • STEVEN MILLHAUSER • DANIYAL MUEENUDDIN • ALICE MUNRO • GEORGE SAUNDERS • TOBIAS WOLFF • and others

The Things They Carried

Tim O'Brien

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 712 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Absolutely a number 10 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Of all the books published on the Vietnam War, this is the grandaddy. O'Brien's ability to capture the mood and setting of grunts sent to fight an unjust war is amazing and heartrending. While surviving with your buddy was the most important task in 'Nam, the ways to make that happen differed dramatically. If it meant fragging your Lieutenant, it was often done. If it meant shooting yourself in the foot, lots of soldiers didn't hesitate. O'Brien shows us the insanity of the times, putting the reader in the middle of firefights and boredom. His writing is above the genre' and even develops a style of its own, often copied. O'Brien is the master.
Ron Lealos author of Don't Mean Nuthin'

Editorial Review:

In 1979, Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato--a novel about the Vietnam War--won the National Book Award. In this, his second work of fiction about Vietnam, O'Brien's unique artistic vision is again clearly demonstrated. Neither a novel nor a short story collection, it is an arc of fictional episodes, taking place in the childhoods of its characters, in the jungles of Vietnam and back home in America two decades later.

Shantaram

Gregory David Roberts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 282 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured."

So begins this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear.

Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter Bombay's hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.

As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city's poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals. The keys to unlock the mysteries and intrigues that bind Lin are held by two people. The first is Khader Khan: mafia godfather, criminal-philosopher-saint, and mentor to Lin in the underworld of the Golden City. The second is Karla: elusive, dangerous, and beautiful, whose passions are driven by secrets that torment her and yet give her a terrible power.

Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas---this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart. Based on the life of the author, it is by any measure the debut of an extraordinary voice in literature.

Sarah's Key (Thorndike Reviewers' Choice)

Tatiana De Rosnay

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 108 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Fascinating story that keeps you riveted. 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I did not read this book as much as I devoured it over the course of two days. The back and forth between the two voices of the novel kept me turning the pages long after my bedtime. The story was interesting, and your heart just broke for Sarah and her family.

The book also shines a light on France's government involvement in Nazi Germany's "Final Solution." After finishing the novel I have been compelled to find more historical information on the Rafle du Vel d'Hiv.

Really a great book.

Editorial Review:

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.
Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.
Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.