Short Stories Books - Page 4

In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash

Jean Shepherd

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Main Street Books Amazon Marketplace: 28 new & used starting at $4.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> Essays
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> General
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 45 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A beloved, bestselling classic of humorous and nostalgic Americana, reissued in a strikingly designed paperback edition.

Before Garrison Keillor and Spalding Gray there was Jean Shepherd: a master monologist and writer who spun the materials of his all-American childhood into immensely resonant--and utterly hilarious--works of comic art. In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash represents one of the peaks of his achievement, a compound of irony, affection, and perfect detail that speaks across generations.

In God We Trust, Shepherd's wildly witty reunion with his Indiana hometown, disproves the adage "You can never go back." Bending the ear of Flick, his childhood-buddy-turned-bartender, Shepherd recalls passionately his genuine Red Ryder BB gun, confesses adolescent failure in the arms of Junie Jo Prewitt, and relives a story of man against fish that not even Hemingway could rival. From pop art to the World's Fair, Shepherd's subjects speak with a universal irony and are deeply and unabashedly grounded in American Midwestern life, together rendering a wonderfully nostalgic impression of a more innocent era when life was good, fun was clean, and station wagons roamed the earth.

A comic genius who bridged the gap between James Thurber and David Sedaris, Shepherd may have accomplished for Holden, Indiana, what Mark Twain did for Hannibal, Missouri.

Something Borrowed (Wheeler Large Print Book Series)

Emily Giffin

List Price: $25.95 By: Wheeler Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 3 new & used starting at $20.31

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> United States
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Women's Fiction -> Friendship
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> United States -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 388 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Rachel Miller and Darcy Rhone have been best friends since childhood. They've shared birthdays, the horrors of high school and even boyfriends, but while Darcy is the sort of woman who breezes through life getting what she wants when she wants it, Rachel has always played by the rules and watched her stunning best friend steal the limelight. The one thing Rachel's always had over Darcy is the four-month age-gap which meant she was first to being a teenager, first to drive, first to everything ...but now she's about to be first to thirty. And Darcy still has a charmed life. On the eve of her thirtieth birthday, Rachel is shocked to find herself questioning the status quo. How come Darcy gets a glamorous job at a PR firm and the perfect boyfriend, while Rachel grinds away at her despised job as an attorney and remains painfully single. Is it just luck? Or, looking back at their friendship and their lives together, is it a bit more complicated than that? Then an accidental fling complicated everything, and it's time for Rachel to make a few hard choices. And she's forced to learn that sometimes true love comes at a price...

Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories For Women

Nancy Madore

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Spice Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $7.65

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Erotica -> Adult Fiction

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 74 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Had potential, but sputtered out 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Many of the tales contained therein were told, not shown. Some of the stories were better than others, but a couple left me rather disappointed. The stories and ideas had potential, but ultimately fell flat.

What could have helped was to use more fairy tales, such as Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and what have you. A couple of the tales weren't really interesting or magical to start with, and didn't excite me. Frankly, I didn't feel that the money I spent on this book was worth it. Half the price would have been better for what I got.

Overall, three out of five for a decent read and effort, but nothing more.

Editorial Review:

Allow yourself to be drawn into a fantasy world like no other…where a beautiful princess is seduced into a love triangle with a handsome prince and her winsome maid…where a mysterious gentleman's young bride is deliciously disciplined for her unchecked curiosity…where a naive daughter is married off to a beast of a man whose carnal appetites awaken her budding desire….

With a unique and decidedly adult twist on thirteen classic fairy tales, Nancy Madore intrigues and arouses with her titillating, sizzling anthology of erotic stories guaranteed to keep you up late into the night.

You'll never look at fairy tales the same way again.

The Space Between Us LP

Thrity Umrigar

List Price: $24.95 By: HarperLargePrint Amazon Marketplace: 4 new & used starting at $15.95

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> United States
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> United States -> Asian American -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> United States -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 103 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Each morning, Bhima, a domestic servant in contemporary Bombay, leaves her own small shanty in the slums to tend to another woman's house. In Sera Dubash's home, Bhima scrubs the floors of a house in which she remains an outsider. She cleans furniture she is not permitted to sit on. She washes glasses from which she is not allowed to drink. Yet despite being separated from each other by blood and class, she and Sera find themselves bound by gender and shared life experiences.

Sera is an upper-middle-class Parsi housewife whose opulent surroundings hide the shame and disappointment of her abusive marriage. A widow, she devotes herself to her family, spending much of her time caring for her pregnant daughter, Dinaz, a kindhearted, educated professional, and her charming and successful son-in-law, Viraf.

Bhima, a stoic illiterate hardened by a life of despair and loss, has worked in the Dubash household for more than twenty years. Cursed by fate, she sacrifices all for her beautiful, headstrong granddaughter, Maya, a university student whose education -- paid for by Sera -- will enable them to escape the slums. But when an unwed Maya becomes pregnant by a man whose identity she refuses to reveal, Bhima's dreams of a better life for her granddaughter, as well as for herself, may be shattered forever.

Poignant and compelling, evocative and unforgettable, The Space Between Us is an intimate portrait of a distant yet familiar world. Set in modern-day India and witnessed through two compelling and achingly real women, the novel shows how the lives of the rich and the poor are intrinsically connected yet vastly removed from each other, and vividly captures how the bonds of womanhood are pitted against the divisions of class and culture.

Dying for Revenge (Gideon Trilogy, Book 3)

Eric Jerome Dickey

Amazon Price: $16.35 List Price: $25.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Dutton Adult Amazon Marketplace: 56 new & used starting at $11.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> United States
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> United States -> African American -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 30 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

I Love Gideon 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Well Gideon is back in all his upside-down, kill or be killed glory. I love the character Gideon...I don't know what it is but I just can't seem to get enough of him. Even though he's a vicious killer, I just adore him. I liked the introduction of all the new characters but I did miss Lola and Miss J. Hopefully they'll be back in his life one day. I'm really over the pinning for Arizona....if she don't want you Gideon I'll take you.lol I know this was a trilogy and that means 3 but I can only hope that this is not the end of Gideon. The character is too deliciously mesmerizing, sexy and endearing. You just want to take him home, give him hugs and kisses and pray you don't get on his bad side.lol Gideon has the potential to be a long term character like James Bond, Jason Bourne, Eazy Rawlins.....I hope anyway. Question...did anybody else pick up on Gideon's animosity about being called a murderer? I found that curious and engaging....he's a contract killer but doesn't consider himself or want to be called a murderer....a lot of food for thought with that one.
NEWays...another excellent book from my favorite author.

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.

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2008

Amazon Price: $10.72 List Price: $14.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Houghton Mifflin Amazon Marketplace: 40 new & used starting at $7.77

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Classics -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Essays -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Essays -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Sheer pleasure 5 out of 5 stars.
17 of 17 people found this review helpful.

Once again this series, always the star of the "Best American" anthologies, delivers the goods. Here is just a selection of the delights it offers this year:

A hilarious introduction by Judy Blume
Best American police blotter items from Kensington, California
Best American facebook groups
Best American NY Times headlines from 1907 ("Man pours molten lead into own ear - believed to have been reading Hamlet"; "President's quiet Sunday: He goes to church, Greets neighbors, Has shot only rabbits"; "Have you a fetich? Most of us have")
Best American: last sentences of books, Ron Paul facts, champion showdog names, Kurt Vonnegut writings, diary of a young girl, diary of the living dead.

Pieces by Marjorie Celona, J. Malcolm Garcia, Andrew Sean Greer, Helon Habila, Raffi Khatchadourian, Stephen King, Emily Raboteau, George Saunders, Jake Swearingen, Patrick Tobin, Laura van den Berg, Gene Weingarten, Laurie Weeks, and Malerie Willens

an excerpt from Paul Hornschemeier's graphic novel, "The Three Paradoxes"
an illustrated story by Rutu Modan: "Queen of the Scottish Fairies"

When I say that this anthology "delivers the goods", what I mean is - of the seven pieces I've read thus far, each has been fascinating, well-written, and not something I would otherwise have come across. (Other than one piece from each of The New Yorker, The new York Times, and The Washington Post, the selection is deliberately weighted to represent non-mainstream publications, such as The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Zoetrope).

J. Malcolm Garcia's "The White Train", about the cartoneros of Buenos Aires (people who, following the economic collapse of 2001, have been forced to make a living from recycling cardboard and paper) and George Saunder's portrait, "Bill Clinton, Public Citizen" (a fascinating account of the Clinton Foundation's work throughout the developing world) -- these two pieces alone are so good, they make it worth the price of admission.

What this series manages to do, reliably, is to track down material that may be a little off the beaten path, but that is compulsively readable, and that expands the reader's horizons in the most enjoyable way possible. Starting each piece is like biting into an exotically flavored Dove bar - unfamiliar at first, but totally delicious.

This anthology rocks!

Editorial Review:

"This great volume highlights the very best of this year's fiction, nonfiction,
alternative comics, screenplays, blogs, and more" (OK!). Compiled by Dave Eggers and students of his San Francisco writing center, it is thoroughly "entertaining and thought-provoking reading" (Library Journal).

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2008 includes
MARJORIE CELONA • DAVID GESSNER • ANDREW SEAN GREER • RAFFI KHATCHADOURIAN • STEPHEN KING • EMILY RABOTEAU • GEORGE SAUNDERS • PATRICK TOBIN • LAURA VAN DEN BERG • MALERIE WILLENS • and others

Blindness

Jose Saramago

Amazon Price: $21.86 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: BBC Audiobooks America Amazon Marketplace: 41 new & used starting at $17.49

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> Portuguese

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 366 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Unfinished 2 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

In an unnamed city lives an anonymous reviewer who has been struck by a sudden and unexplainable affliction: he cannot finish any book by Sarramago, no matter how hard he tries. "Blindeness" is his second such book - the story of a plague of unseeing that spreads through an unnamed, South European capital, causing the government to quarantine the afflicted. Alas, to no avail - the plague spreads, exacerbating the inherent cruelty of society... soldiers shoot at the blind, afraid they might be infected; one blind thief tries to fondle a blind hottie, gets stabbed in the leg by her stiletto heel, gets infected and dies... and on and on, through page after page of unpunctuated sentences, each running longer than the eye can see or the mind can follow without yawning.
The initial premise is interesting - there is something there, you tell yourself. The unashamed, unafraid approach to political topics - and such an interesting starting point! Add to that the quirky style, the flowing, meandering sentences, and it's no wonder the man got a Nobel. For my money, though, once I got over the inherent shame (he's a genius, a friend said - read him!) I realized I had to stop, after about 130 pages. The thing is, the stuff is boring, which sounds paradoxical, given all the details I've given. i read another book by him, something about the voters returning all blank ballots, and it had the same feel to it - and then it hit me: the unusual syntax hides the fact that most things he says are very banal: to read, stroke by stroke, what happens in the hospital with the blind is to realize that, even though the most unusual sequence of events is happening, he's managed to make it feel boring; I got hammered by all the small details of existence, the humdrum noise of daily conversation and chatter - he goes on so much about mundane stuff, his free-flowing style covering everything under a patina of sameness, that I stopped caring about the extra-ordinary things: the soldiers start shooting at the blind men? yes, but God, you know he's gonna go back soon to telling you all the petty details about it, sprinkling in some rhetorical question, or proverb in-between, to make it sound deep.
I'm unhappy to add that this disease of not finishing, which started with "Blindness," has now spread to other books. Maybe it will mysteriously afflict those few who read my review, thus unleashing forces greater than myself, and revealing the inherent oddness that ensues once you accept odd premises. As for myself, I haven't given to despair yet - there's always the movie tie-in.

Editorial Review:

A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers-among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears-through the barren streets, and the procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A magnificent parable of loss and disorientation and a vivid evocation of the horrors of the twentieth century, Blindness has swept the reading public with its powerful portrayal of man's worst appetites and weaknesses-and man's ultimately exhilarating spirit. The stunningly powerful novel of man's will to survive against all odds, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature

The Namesake

Jhumpa Lahiri

Amazon Price: $23.07 List Price: $34.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House Audio Amazon Marketplace: 27 new & used starting at $17.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> United States
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 480 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies established this young writer as one the most brilliant of her generation. In The Namesake, Lahiri enriches the themes that made her collection an international bestseller: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations.
The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of their arranged marriage, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name.
Lahiri brings great empathy to Gogol as he stumbles along a first-generation path strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. With penetrating insight, she reveals not only the defining power of the names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents, but also the means by which we slowly, sometimes painfully, come to define ourselves.

Drown

Junot Díaz

Amazon Price: $10.78 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Riverhead Trade Amazon Marketplace: 119 new & used starting at $7.98

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 81 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Quick easy read... 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I ordered this book and was pleasantly surprised by it. Being a "Dominicanphile" I felt it brought much insight from a Dominican's perspective. A very easy and enjoyable read. I finished hoping for more.

a Bukowski rip-off 2 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I read Drown and liked it. And then I read Bukowski's Ham on Rye. Man... Diaz is a thief.

Diaz Writes With Memorable Voice 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Junot Diaz has accomplished something rare in this collection of short stories: he's created an authentic voice for a cast of characters we desperately need to hear from but have previously been silent. More impressive, he does so without the cheap cynicism or affected posturing which characterizes so much "cutting edge" writing. He writes with sincerity, even pathos, while his unforgettable stories cut straight to the bone.

Drown 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

It's been a while since I read this book, but it is one that stays in my library to read over every once in a while, and to lend out to my friends. So far everyone who has ever read it has enjoyed it.

Editorial Review:

A critically acclaimed debut collection of ten cynical and sentimental stories captures the bleakness of life, first in the Dominican Republic and then in New Jersey suburbia, for immigrants of color. Reprint. NYT. "