Short Stories Books - Page 6

Catharine and Other Writings (The World's Classics)

J. Austen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Oh! The Joy of Jane Austen! 4 out of 5 stars.
66 of 68 people found this review helpful.

For those who have loved Jane Austen's more mature writings, this book is a must read. Compiled from Jane Austen's childhood notebooks, these stories are full of unmasked satire, and endless jokes, aimed to point out the absurdity of the novels of the authores' day. In her more mature years, Jane Austen learned to mask her satire and calm her wit. Such knowledge undoubtably made for better writing, but there is a great deal of enjoyment to be had from a younger pen, the open satire of a girl who was wise enough to see the folly of her times. Catharine and Other Stories will not make wise, or generally inspire, but it is delightful comic relief, as well as a window into the vivacious mind of Jane Austen, the girl.

Editorial Review:

This new collection of Austen's brilliant short fiction is the first annotated edition of her short writings. The texts have been compared with the manuscripts to give a number of new readings. In addition to prose fiction and prayers, this collection contains many of her poems written to amuse and console her friends, and are unavailable in any other single volume.

This Year It Will Be Different

Maeve Binchy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Circle of Friends and The Glass Lake comes This Year It Will Be Different, a stunning new work that brings us the magic and spirit of Christmas in fifteen stories filled with Maeve Binchy's trademark wit, charm, and sheer storytelling genius. Instead of nostalgia, Binchy evokes contemporary life; instead of Christmas homilies, she offers truth; and instead of sugarplums, she brings us the nourishment of holidays that precipitate change, growth, and new beginnings.

In "A Typical Irish Christmas," a grieving New York widower heads for a holiday in Ireland and finds an unexpected destination not just for himself, but for a father and daughter at odds.  The title story "This Year It Will Be Different" also delves into the emotions of a person at mid-life--a woman with a complacent husband and grown children who are entering a season that can forever alter her life, and theirs.  In "Pulling Together," a teacher not yet out of her twenties sees her affair with a married man at a turning point as Christmas Eve approaches--and she may be off on a new direction with some unusual friends.  And in the delightful tale "The Hard Core," the four most recalcitrant residents of a nursing home are left alone at Christmas with the owner's daughter in charge: the result is sure to be disaster--or the kind of life-affirming renewal that only the spirit of the season can bring.

The stories in This Year It Will Be Different powerfully evoke many lives--step-families grappling with ex's, long-married couples faced with in-law problems, a wandering husband choosing between "the other woman" and his wife, a child caught in grown-up tugs-of-war--during the one holiday when feelings cannot be easily hidden. The time of year may be magical, imbued with meaning. But the situations are universal. And Maeve Binchy makes us care about them all. As the Philadelphia Inquirer noted, "Maeve Binchy's people come to life fully. They make you laugh and cry and disturb your sleep." They do precisely that in this extraordinary collection, on the night before Christmas when we are snug in our beds, or anywhere, any time of the year.

Nocturnes

John Connolly

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Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A great read 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

It has been a while since I read a book that drew me into it the way "Nocturnes' did. Full of short stories, each could be expanded into a book length, but John Connolly made the wise decision to keep them short and thorough enough to deliver the final blow at the end at the right time.
I liked all of the stories, but my favorite is "The Wakeford Abyss." I think the despair at the end of the story - so vaguely described yet stated clearly -- did it for me.
I totally recommend this book for someone who's into elegant horror.

Editorial Review:

John Connolly, bestselling author of five brilliantly scary mystery novels, now turns his pen to the short story to give us a dozen chilling tales of the supernatural. In this macabre collection, echoing masters of the genre from M R James to Stephen King, Connolly delves into our darkest fears - lost lovers, missing children, subterranean creatures and predatory demons. Framing the collection are two substantial novellas - The Cancer Cowboy Rides charts the fatal progress of a modern-day grim reaper, while The Reflecting Eye is a haunted house tale with a twist and marks the return of private detective Charlie Parker, the troubled hero of Connolly's crime novels. The perfect antidote to Christmas cheer, Nocturnes is a masterly volume to be read with the lights on - menace has never been so seductive...

Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton: The Illustrated London News, 1905-1907 (Collected Works of Gk Chesterton)

G. K. Chesterton

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Chesterton's most famous work, and some oft-forgotten gems 5 out of 5 stars.
103 of 103 people found this review helpful.

This volume, the first in Ignatius Press's _Collected Works_ of Chesterton series, contains what is probably G. K. Chesterton's most famous work, _Orthodoxy_.

What many people do not know is that Orthodoxy was written only at the end of a long debate in the British press. Chesterton had been making a name for himself in English journalism for attacking the Spirit of the Age in turn-of-the-century England; his critics (rather justly) claimed that it was unfair for Chesterton to attack others' beliefs without stating what he himself believed. _Orthodoxy_ was the result.

This volume allows the reader to trace the story from the beginning, in the so-called "Blatchford Controversies", through the critique of Chesterton's contemporaries in _Heretics_ to its culmination in _Orthodoxy_. _Orthodoxy_ is definitely the star of the volume, but there are treasures to be found in the other works as well. Knowing something about the figures mentioned in _Heretics_ does help, but is not strictly necessary, as their heresies are alas still with us.

In my opinion, this volume is the perfect entre into Chesterton's thought, and would make a valuable edition for anyone concerned about clear thinking in regards to life, the universe, and everything.

Editorial Review:

The is the second volume of Chesterton's novels in this series of his Collected Works. (Volume VI is the other book of novels.) Besides his well-known philosophical-theological writings, Chesterton's fiction is very popular (Father Brown Mysteries, The Man Who Was Thursday, etc.) and among those who regarded him as a great literary figure are T.S. Eliot, Evelyn Waugh, C.S. Lewis and W.H. Auden. The reader will encounter characters in these novels that defend with great vigor the dignity of the person and fundamental Christian beliefs.

The Castle of Otranto and The Mysterious Mother (Broadview Literary Texts)

Horace Walpole

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Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

On the day of his wedding, Conrad, heir to the house of Otranto, is killed in mysterious circumstances. Fearing the end of his dynasty, his father, Manfred, determines to marry Conrad's betrothed, Isabella, until a series of supernatural events stands in his way. . . .

Set in the time of the crusades, The Castle of Otranto (1764) established the Gothic as a literary form in England. With its compelling blend of psychological realism and supernatural terror, guilty secrets and unlawful desires, it has influenced a literary tradition stretching from Ann Radcliffe and Bram Stoker to Daphne Du Maurier and Stephen King.

This Penguin Classics edition includes a full selection of early responses to the novel, as well as a critical introduction, chronology of Walpole's life and works, suggestions for further reading, and full explanatory notes.

"[Walpole] is the father of the first romance and surely worthy of a higher place than any living writer." (Lord Byron)

The Three Impostors and Other Stories: Vol. 1 of the Best Weird Tales of Arthur Machen (Call of Cthulhu Fiction) (v. 1)

Arthur Machen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

More chilling than gore 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This review is only about the title story, or rather, short novel. It is a circular story, as it ends where it begins. Characters have multiple identities and strange coincidences abound. It is a macabre joke, a foundational book of the cosmic horror a la Lovecraft and his Ctulhu mysteries. It is also a peak of the late Victorian era and much more. What makes it more than a genre story is the poetic quality of its literature. There are paragraphs that would make little perfect prose poems.

Along several months, or years, Dyson and Phillips meet different persons, who have in common the search for a shy and nervous young man with a little black moustache and big spectacles. Each one of these persons tells his or her story in inserted chilling tales, full of the imagery that would later become cliche. This is no cheap horror: it has a great sense of humor, it is not about axe-grinding nor about phantoms and exorcisms. It is pure cosmic horror, the horror of hidden forces and obscure memories of a remote past. It is a horror of strange gatherings and incognoscible conspiracies. The inserted stories are often compiled independently of their contextual frame: "The novel of the Dark Valley" is an adventure in the loneliness of the Rocky Mountains, with a pre-Kafkian touch that makes you go pale. "The novel of the Black Seal" happens in the Welsh wilderness, with a mad scientist and beings from the past. "The novel of the Iron Maiden" includes a collectionist of instruments of torture. "The novel of the White Powder" is about a substance that transforms humans into something indefinible and horrific. Finally, ""The story of the Spectacled Young Man" closes the circle and "explains" everything.

Like a good Englishman, Machen is a master of the understatement. More than showing, he insinuates to let the readers feel for themselves all the weight of the horror of the world, the mysteries that haunt us, and the strangeness of this life. Little surprise, then, that this was one of Jorge Luis Borges's favorite books, since much of his beloved subjects are here: ancient and undecipherable languages; stories lost in time; mirror games; equivocal identities; implacable gods; and somber mansions. Much recommended.

Editorial Review:

Some of the finest horror stories ever written. Arthur Machen had a profound impact upon H.P. Lovecraft and the group of stories that would later become known as the Cthulhu Mythos. This first volume of Chaosium's Arthur Machen collection begins with the chilling "The Three Impostors" in its complete form, including the rarely seen sections "The Decorative Imagination" and "The Novel of the Iron Maid." Rounding out the first volume are "The Great God Pan," "The Inmost Light," and "The Shining Pyramid," all are excellent tales. Introduction by S.T. Joshi.

This book is part of an expanding collection of Cthulhu Mythos horror fiction and related topics. Call of Cthulhu fiction focuses on single entities, concepts, or authors significant to readers and fans of H.P. Lovecraft.

The Murder at the Vicarage (Winterbrook Edition)

Agatha Christie

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Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Had me guessing the whole time 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I'm a solid Agatha Christi (and Miss Marple) fan, and I have read quite a few of her books. I am always trying to figure out the ending, and who did it. This one had me guessing, like they all do.

I like Agatha Christie because she is not too formulaic, and her works are always entertaining. It seems like so many books nowadays are the same book with the names of the people and the town changed, making them tedious and predictable. Agatha Christie is decidedly not afflicted with this problem.

Overall, I rated this book four stars, because it was interesting, puzzling, and well written, but it wasn't one of her best. The setting was good,(the Vicars study in a tiny village full of busybodies) and the characters were just disfunctional enough (the mostly intelligent vicar being saddled with the shallow, silly wife). But, the twist ending was the first one I ever saw by her that went toward mundane, which is surprising for AC, but it was still good, and sort of a double twist.

Editorial Review:

What's shocking about the murder of Colonel Protheroe isn't that the vicar is the prime suspect, but that it is blithely solved by a demure spinster named Miss Jane Marple.

The Dead (Commuter's Library)

James Joyce

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Useful Case Study Collection of Literary Masterpiece 4 out of 5 stars.
10 of 11 people found this review helpful.

I've found this to be the most useful of all the "case study" texts I've tried from both St. Martin's/Bedford and Norton. The primary text is sufficiently contained and the representative critical methodologies presented clearly enough to introduce students to both literature and literary theory without overwhelming them. Moreover, "The Dead" is capable of repaying the close and observant reader with a Joycean "epiphany" perhaps not surpassed by any other literary text (the last several paragraphs, especially, require attention to the developing, altering meanings of each and every word).

I have one caveat: the essay representing feminist criticism I frankly find baffling. The writer, apparently trying to have her cake and eat it too, manages to indict Joyce as a sexist while applauding the story as a critique of sexism and patriarchal hegemony! It does not "seem" to occur to her that Joyce may be removed from his central character, Gabriel, or that her evidence for Gabriel's male arrogance may actually be Joyce's idea from the start. A close reading of the character certainly suggests an ironic portrayal--everything that appears to be in Gabriel's favor is exposed through Joyce's subtle language as self-delusion. The feminist critic, however, impugns Joyce by suggesting that his "intentions" are less honorable than the meaning of the text itself!

Perhaps the writer is overstating a point in order to provide a better example of the type of critical approach she was asked to represent for the purposes of this anthology. I know that I will suggest as much should I again have occasion to use this particular essay.

Editorial Review:

Two remarkable stories: Ivy Day in the Committee Room, and The Dead, considered to be one of the greatest works of short fiction. Nominated Golden Headset Award Unabridged -AudioWorld

The Book of Lost Tales 2

J. R. R. Tolkien

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Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

`Great was the power of Melko for ill,' said Eriol, 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

`if he could indeed destroy with his cunning the happiness and glory of the Gods and Elves...'

When the hateful god Melko marred the world, the Valar hid within the blessed land of Valinor, abandoning the Elves and Men of Middle Earth to slavery under his terrible rule. This was the time of great heroes who challenged Melko's impossible might. Beren and Lúthien entered Melko's hall to pluck his most prized possession from his crown. Cursed Túrin became a feared enemy of all evil creatures. Tuor fought to save a beleaguered realm. The mighty kingdoms of Gondolin - ruled by King Turgon - and Menegroth - ruled by King Thingol - long provided refuge for the few free people. Finally Eärendel risked all to beseech the Valar for aid. These heroes made terrible sacrifices to rid the world of the greatest evil it has ever known. Ashamedly, as magic faded and the Elves fled from the world, Men forgot these great deeds.

Ages later, the English mariner Eriol sailed to Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle, where Elves welcomed him as guest. In grand oral tradition, they recounted to Eriol the tales that should never have been lost.

Anybody who enjoyed The Book of Lost Tales Part 1, which should be read first, will love Part 2. It is also helps to first read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Unfinished Tales, and, most importantly, The Silmarillion.

Christopher Tolkien continues to expertly assemble and present his father's works. His precise commentaries are essential to understanding J.R.R. Tolkien's mythos.

Some of the stories in Lost Tales are much more detailed than their final versions in the Silmarillion. Lost Tales is a treasure trove of rejected content that really fleshes out the myths.

The Book of Lost Tales Part 2 has six sections.

`The Tale of Tinúviel', one of Tolkien's most popular stories, tells of the triumphant love between Beren and Lúthien. This version is shockingly different than that found in The Silmarillion, and it contains much more dialogue and plot.

`Turambar and the Foalókë' is the stirring tragedy of Túrin son of Úrin (or Húrin). Cursed as a child, Túrin rages against fate with heroic intensity. This account is wonderfully detailed.

`The Fall of Gondolin' recounts the final days of King Turgon's fair city. Ulmo (the only Valar to intervene in Middle Earth during this period) sends brave Tuor upon a divine quest to bring counsel to the doomed realm. This Lost Tales version is staggeringly well detailed. The final battle for the city (summarized in a few sentences in The Silmarilllion) here receives tremendous attention. This action-heavy scene is definitely a highlight of the book.

In `The Nauglafring', Elves and Dwarves battle over cursed gold. This early-abandoned tale flatly contradicts much of Tolkien's other work.

`The Tale of Eärendel' tells of the legendary mariner who now sails the firmament above Earth as a radiant star, bringing hope to men. J.R.R. Tolkien never wrote this story, so this section consists of outlines, poems, and heavy commentary.

`The History of Eriol or Ælfwine' delves into Eriol's life. It clearly identifies Middle Earth as our Earth; for instance, the origins of England and Ireland are spelled out and Rome is presented as an Elvish enemy. Although enlightening, this thoroughly explained setting lacks the mysterious grandeur of LoTR's Middle Earth. This tale was never finished, and Christopher Tolkien shows superhuman diligence in piecing together jumbled outlines and narrative fragments. It is densely commented and makes a slow, though worthy, read.

The Book of Lost Tales shows the devotion J.R.R. Tolkien had for his craft. It is a perfect choice for any Silmarillion fan.

-Zach Zelmar

Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon (Penguin Classics)

Jane Austen

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Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Phyllis Ann Karr's little-read treasure: the excellent re-write of Austen's novella 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Unlike most of the reviews below, this review discusses NOT Jane Austen's short epistolary novella "Lady Susan", but, rather, the product presented in this page- Phyllis Ann Karr's 1980 re-write of Austen's novella.

The original novella deals with Lady Susan, a beautiful and crafty young widow who uses her appearance and intelligence as a weapon to dupe and manipulate everyone to her own satisfaction. She takes on a married lover while making at least two younger men fall in love with her, all the while trying to bully her "milky", oppressed daughter Frederica into marrying a foolish young baronet. She is the heroine-villainess of the tale, and a rather unique figure in Austen's literature (although not so unique, since the novella was written in Austen's youth, and anyone who read her Juvenilia knows that the young Austen's early writing could be brutally funny and even amoral).

Karr's completion of this tale is absolutely excellent. She chooses to re-write Austen's story in third person rather than the original letters. Her prose is clear and beautifully written and, while not exactly Austen, very suitable to the kind of novel she is writing. Immeasurably superior to the many poorly written completions deluging the market nowadays.

Karr's characterization is excellent as well. She carefully follows the characterization presented in Austen's novella, and with additional, attractive development. Lady Susan is clever and crafty; Frederica is shy and "milky" but, at the same time, a serious, deep character, and extremely appealing as the novel's heroine. Other characters follow their original outlines, except two. Maria Mainwaring was drastically altered; but Karr's reasons for doing this were perfectly sound, and Maria merges gracefully into the novel. There is also the important addition of Charles Smith, only briefly mentioned in the novella but fully developed as Karr's original character. In some ways he perhaps becomes a little too important, but by the end of the novel I understood the reason for it and did not resent Karr's development of this character, who is actually quite appealing. My only complaint is that he seems to be better developed and more sympathetic than Reginald De Courcy.

Karr follows Austen's plot fairly closely, only making modifications where needed. "Lady Susan" is incomplete in some ways, the author finishing the tale with a hasty, although quite funny post-script. Karr completes the tale, only altering details when necessary and also enriching the rather slim plot by adding details to originally short incidents or events only briefly mentioned. There is one extremely significant alternation, in the romantic department, which I am not sure that all readers would like; but I understood the reason for it (although the author did not specifically state it in her Author's note) and I ended up liking it, even though it does not follow what was (apparently) Austen's original intentions.

In summary, this is DEFINITELY one of my favorite Austen sequels and completions, and superior to most modern Austen derivative works. If you like Austen completions, also try John Coates' "The Watsons" (1969) and Another Lady's "Sanditon". (1975). Both the best Austen completions/sequels I have read except this one.

Editorial Review:

These three short works show Austen experimenting with a variety of different literary styles, from melodrama to satire, and exploring a range of social classes and settings. The early epistolary novel "Lady Susan" depicts an unscrupulous coquette, toying with the affections of several men. In contrast, "The Watsons" is a delightful fragment, whose spirited heroine - Emma - finds her marriage opportunities limited by poverty and pride. Meanwhile "Sanditon", set in a seaside resort, offers a glorious cast of hypochondriacs and spectators, treated by Austen with both amusement and scepticism.