Short Stories Books - Page 3

The Best American Short Stories 2008 (The Best American Series)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Recommended 4 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 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

Pride and Prejudice (Everyman's Library)

Jane Austen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 904 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

“Jane Austen remains the most misunderstood of great English writers . . . Austen’s is an extended, exploratory, dangerously subversive art, and is neither harmlessly decorative nor picturesquely provincial . . . [Irony] is the secret of the perfect self-sufficiency of Pride and Prejudice.”—from the Introduction by Peter Conrad

No novel in English has given more pleasure than Pride and Prejudice. Because it is one of the great works in our literature, critics in every generation reexamine and reinterpret it. But the rest of us simply fall in love with it—and with its wonderfully charming and intelligent heroine, Elizabeth Bennet. And everyone is held fast not only by the novel’s romantic suspense but also by the fascinations of the world we visit. The life of the English country gentry at the turn of the nineteenth century is made as real to us as our own, not only by the author’s wit and feeling but by her subtle observation of the way people behave in society and how we are true or treacherous to each other and to ourselves.

Asfixia 21/ Choke (Debolsillo)

Chuck Palahniuk

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 472 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

An interesting book you'll never read again... 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I picked up Chuck Palahniuk's Choke after seeing the movie preview for the same title a few weeks ago. The movie preview made absolutely no sense, was hard to follow, and tough to summarize - as Palahniuk's novel would turn out to be. But the preview was intriguing enough for me to go out and buy the book, and I'm glad I did... sort of.

There really isn't much of a story line to Choke. The book centers on a drop-out med school student, Victor Mancini, who works at a colonial theme-park; fakes choking in restaurants to ultimately pay his mother's institutional bills; and is a raging sexaholic. In a strange twist, he also may be a direct descendant of Jesus Christ.

That pretty much sums up Choke.

The book doesn't so much present a linear story line, as it is a tale of self-discovery for Victor, who is trying to figure out his ancestry as well as why he is the way he is. Along this path, Palahniuk describes detailed sexual situations, gruesome medical conditions and creepy mental disorders that follow Victor from scene to scene. Palahniuk's descriptions are so vivid, in fact, that you'll start to wonder, "Could this ever happen to me...?" And you'll then quickly pray that it does not...

On the plus side, Choke is certainly interesting, moves quickly, and is very funny in some parts. You can knock this out in a long weekend or two, and it's an easy read, especially after trying to absorb The Unbearable Lightness of Being, as I did previously.

But along the same lines, there are better options out there if you're into books about 20- to 30-somethings looking for answers on the road through life.

Editorial Review:

Victor Mancini has devised a scam to pay for his mother's medical care: pretend to be choking on a piece of food in a restaurant and the person who "saves" you will feel responsible for the rest of their lives. Multiply that by a couple of hundred times and you generate a healthy income.

Life of Pi

Yann Martel

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1842 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

So-so book 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I ventured out of my usual kind of reads for this book because of all the hype. It sounded kinda interesting. When I read the blurbs on it, I was expecting some kind of big epiphany from it. I'm disappointed in it, it was just a weird story that dragged on, and the back and forth in time thing was confusing. I've read other books with that technique that flowed well and were easy to follow. I am giving it three stars because Mr. Martel can obviously write, no shortage of talent there. There is also a decent amount of creativity in his book. The third star is me admitting that I bought this book because of the hype, so I won't punish it because it's not my usual taste. Honestly, the story is not that interesting, a lot of the scenes seemed pointless, and the big message of the book comes across weak and contrived. Like someone shoved it in hoping it would leave you in awe. It doesn't. I really don't get the big hoopla here. Wasn't time well-spent for me.

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.

For Whom the Bell Tolls (Scribner Classics)

Hemingway

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 269 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Stylistically superb but lacking in action and thin on the background of the Spanish Civil War 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I began reading For Whom The Bell Tolls directly after finishing a particularly bad modern novel. At first, For Whom... was a breath of fresh air: no long, run-on sentences; no excessive adverbs in the dialog tags; not a whole lot of meaningless adjectives, etc. The dialog was crisp and terse and enjoyable, and the setting was captivating.

But then... nothing happens. For a really long time. And all of the flashbacks via thought and story start to get confusing. At times, I wasn't sure if the story was in the present or past; in the thoughts of the protagonist or the speech of another character. And speaking of characters, four of them are strong and compelling: Robert Jordan (the protagonist), Maria (his love interest), Pilar (a tough old woman), and Pablo (a once-great but now tarnished soldier). A fifth character of note is the Gypsy, but the other characters in this ensemble cast are largely indistinguishable from one another.

One more criticism: I was really hoping to get a better understanding of the Spanish Civil War and its politics. Maybe I did. But Robert Jordan and his cadre are not hardline Communists nor anarchists (they have special contempt for the latter) but "republicans" in their fight against the Fascists. Not a lot of background is given as to the roots of this conflict or the underlying motivations of each camp.

Overall, I feel I have been enriched by reading this book, and I like Hemingway's writing style (this is my first Hemingway since reading The Old Man and the Sea in 9th grade), but all in all, I understand why this has been called one of the "10 Books Not to Read in your Lifetime." Also: Did I have an edited version? What was with all of this "I 'obscenity' in your milk," etc.?

Editorial Review:

High in the pine forests of the Spanish Sierra, a guerrilla band prepares to blow up a vital bridge. Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer, has been sent to handle the dynamiting. There, in the mountains, he finds the dangers and the intense comradeship of war. And there he discovers Maria, a young woman who has escaped from Franco's rebels...

Holidays on Ice: Stories

David Sedaris

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 164 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

HOLIDAYS ON ICE:STORIES 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I am very pleased with the book. The condition was perfect. It arrived on time. I would purchase from dealer again.

Good, but not as good. 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

While I enjoyed this book (especially the final story), I did not find it as outright hilarious as his other books. Which is not to say it isn't funny. It just did not meet the very high bar the other books set.

David Sedaris is brilliant. A must own! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Holidays On Ice is a terrific compilation and should be given as a gift to anyone who is less than enthused when December rolls around. David and his sister Amy are two of the funniest people on earth it seems. While there are a couple of stories in here that are less enjoyable than others, it is still superb comic writing and had me in hysterics while reading some parts of this collection. SantaLand Diaries is pitch perfect and ends on a hilarious note that sums up much of the ridiculous nature of the Christmas season. Front Row Center With Thaddeus Bristol is a brilliant idea executed to perfection as various children's pageants are picked apart without pity. My favorite in this collection is perhaps Season's Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!! which is written in such a similar nature to so many Christmas letters I've read over the years except for some of the more theatrical elements of course. The tone he writes with in that piece is dead on. An absolutely wonderful present to give yourself or anyone who deserves a treat at any time of year. I'm fairly irritated to see that it is being released again this coming holiday season with new stories included which seems like a ploy to make more money, similar to the Christmas shopping season exploits depicted in this book.

Editorial Review:

A new holiday classic--six of the most profound Christmas stories by the author of the bestselling "Naked" and "Barrel Fever"--is now in a paperback edition perfect for stocking stuffing.

The Secret Scripture

Barry Sebastian, Wanda MCCaddon (Narrator)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Dark Irish tale of a 100-year-old woman that's good but too melodramatic 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

So many awful things happen to Roseanne McNulty, the protagonist of Sebastian Barry's Booker-shortlisted novel "The Secret Scripture," that at a certain point I couldn't help but look forward to more of them. McNulty's a century-old Irish woman who has been living at a mental hospital for so long that nobody can remember why she was sent there in the first place. A staff psychiatrist, Dr. Grene, undertakes an investigation to determine whether she had genuine mental problems or was institutionalized for "moral" reasons.

As her hospital and home for 50 years is being prepared for demolition, Roseanne tells her life story in longhand, hiding the pages under a floorboard. These passages alternate with the psychiatrist's "commonplace book," his observations from the ongoing investigation.

McNulty grows up Protestant among the Catholics of Sligo on Ireland's northwestern coast, raised by a gravedigger father and a mother he brought home from Southhampton, England. The family becomes caught in the Irish civil war in the early '20s, her father demoted to rat-catcher by the local Catholic priest after he asks him to give last rites to a rebel. Roseanne's mind obscures the worst of her life's tragedies by changing the details, as we learn later, but the ones she relates clearly are grim enough, as when her cherished father accidentally burns down an orphanage and kills 123 girls. Taking his demotion with aplomb, her father had devised his own method of dispatching rats: Dip each in paraffin, kill it with a conk on the head, then drop it into a fire. (It says a lot about Roseanne's childhood that she enjoys tagging along with her father on these jobs.) Unfortunately, step 2 really should follow step 1, as they discover when a paraffin-drenched rat escapes and scurries back into the orphanage, climbs down a chimney and catches fire. Father and daughter keep this mistake a secret between themselves.

The Catholic priest Father Gaunt is enormously cruel, dispensing moral decrees with absolute certainty to terrible effect in the life of Roseanne, whom he loathes for (a) being so beautiful she's a "mournful temptation" to the men of Sligo, and (b) refusing to convert when she weds a Catholic. After she's seen with another man in a suspicious but innocent circumstance, Gaunt succesfully pursues the annulment of her marraige with the Vatican, then icily relates the news:

If you had followed my advice, Roseanne, some years ago, and put your faith in the true religion, if you had behaved with the beautiful decorum of a Catholic wife, you would not be facing these difficulties. But I do appreciate that you are not entirely responsible. Nymphomania is of course by definition a madness.

More terrible things happen to Roseanne, of course, as likeable a long-suffering protagonist as Father Gaunt is despicable. Barry tells a larger story about Irish strife and the fallibility of history as filtered through human memory, but I don't know enough about Ireland to appreciate it fully. Though "The Secret Scripture" features two great characters and evocative writing, I'm surprised it rates the Booker shortlist and has become the betting favorite to win. The book's as melodramatic as a romance novel, though it's long on corpses, rats and dementia and short on heaving bodices.

Editorial Review:

Barry has given us a heroine of delicate complexity in a setting of regged beauty. His flawless use of language and plot hold the reader rapt from beginning to end

Dying for Revenge (Gideon Trilogy, Book 3)

Eric Jerome Dickey

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

3.5 Stars Gideon Wanted, Dead or DEAD? 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Eric Jerome Dickey brings his character, Gideon, from Sleeping with Enemies and Waking with Strangers back to life. Gideon, a cold-blooded killer, with a somewhat sensitive heart, has been a hired killer all his life. Being raised by a prostitute, who molested him, and taught him the way of the streets has formed him. However, after committing an atrocious murder in book one, he is haunted by his life and his career choice. He is also chased by the desire and love for one woman. A woman he can never have. Gideon is a conflicted hunter, who is now the hunted.

Dying for Revenge is a slower-paced, less sexually saturated book than the other two. Gideon is on the run for his life. A character, who is now the Mayor of Detroit, has a contract out for his life. Though she failed to kill the killer, her life is geared towards Gideon's death. She literally wants his head on a platter. The chase for Gideon is an intriguing, though at times meandering story, filled with violence and flashbacks.

Mr. Dickey also provides a backdrop of other characters. There are the husband and wife assassins who are chasing Gideon, while trying to work out issues of their own. There is also, the sometimes killer, Hawks, who after a sexual fling with Gideon is unable to not love him, and is haunted by memories of him. And, of course, there is the ever elusive bloodline that Gideon constantly seeks.

I recommend Dying for Revenge to all who love Eric Jerome Dickey novels and those who enjoy intriguing novels with a backdrop of violence and sexuality.

Angelia Menchan
APOOO BookClub

Editorial Review:

After a bestselling doubleheader in 2007 with Sleeping with Strangers and Waking with Enemies (both reaching #9 on the New York Times bestseller list), Eric Jerome Dickey is back with the final installment in his thrilling trilogy—Dying for Revenge.

This fast-paced story about a steamy, seamy underworld of crime that spans the globe features the hit man Gideon, a character who captivated fans in the first two books, squaring off against his most intriguing adversary yet.

Shantaram

Gregory David Roberts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 276 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.

The Things They Carried

Tim O'Brien

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 705 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

"Some dumb thing happens a long time ago and you can't ever forget it..." 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

... is a quote from O'Brien's daughter, Kathleen, in the story "Field Trip." Kathleen had just turned 10, and O'Brien had taken her back to Vietnam, to show her where her dad had been. He was trying to convey what it was like to have been a soldier in that war. As the story is written, clearly he had not been very successful. Going back to the sadness and failure of Vietnam is so totally different from strolling along the high cliffs of Normandy, where purpose and success reigned.

"The Things They Carried" is widely recognized as the classic soldier's account of the Vietnam War. It now has 702 reviews on Amazon. What more can be said? Hopefully a number of things, including a few personal parallels. When the Second World War commenced, Norman Mailer, the author of that war's classic account, "The Naked and the Dead," asked himself one thing: From which theater of the war could he write a better book? He consciously chose the Pacific. You never get that sense of ambition from O'Brien's stories; rather you feel that he was haplessly swept along with the events, and his eclectic montage of images reflect the experiences he is still trying to understand.

O'Brien was a "grunt" in the ill-starred Americal Division, in Quang Ngai province, mostly in 1969. I was in the next province south, in Binh Dinh, at the end of 1968, as a medic in a tank unit. Like O'Brien I would stare at the hills to the west of the coastal plain, and dream of waking up one morning, and walking through them, away from the war, a fantasy that he turned into another moving book, "Going After Cacciato." O'Brien was certainly right in taking his daughter back to the `Nam, in the hopes of transmitting to the next generation our experiences. I did the same thing; my first of three trips back was in 1994. This is probably the same year O'Brien took Kathleen, since I saw his signature in the ledger at the memorial at My Lai. "Ill-starred" became the most common adjective for the Americal, due in part to the massacre of what was official determined as 504 civilians in this hamlet. This event was only revealed to the wider American public thanks to the courageous actions of a couple soldiers, Ron Ridenhour who wrote numerous American leaders, and Ronald Haeberle, whose photographs were published in Life magazine. Others in the military hierarchy, including Colin Powell, tried to cover up the massacre.

A few of O'Brien's stories did not resonate. I remain puzzled as to the significance of "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" which truly had to be a stoned-out fantasy. But most of the stories overwhelmingly hit resonance, including the suicide of Norman Bowker in "Notes," the hauntingly tragic portrait of a young Vietnamese school teacher in "The Man I Killed," and the philosophical underpinnings of "How to Tell a True War Story." O'Brien shifts in his story-telling, so that it is hard to tell what really happened, and what was imagined, and if there was a difference. Oh memory, speak truly.

It was only on my third trip back to Vietnam, in 1996, that I thought it was "safe" enough to take my wife and two children. At the time, my daughter was 12, my son 11, and I experienced some of the similar problems that O'Brien had in trying to convey what had happened in this now peaceful country. I insisted on climbing the hills surrounding the Mang Yang pass, site of ambushes for both French, and later American forces. Climbing in the heat, and through tough "elephant grass," my daughter turned around and said: "Dad, I think you are just a little bit crazy." Yes, the obsession.

Our post-war actions were not sufficient to stop a repeat of the same stupidities in Iraq, though I at least was successful in ensuring that my own children would not participate.

Perhaps O'Brien's most haunting story is the one which describes his mindset before he went to the Nam - "On the Rainy River." He concludes with: "... and then to Vietnam, where I was a soldier, and home again. I survived, but it is not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war."

This book is our own "All Quiet on the Western Front," deserves more than 5 stars, and should be read in every American school.

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.