en-US Sat, 19 Apr 2025 15:15:12 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 51497 'He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp... his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and alter'

Published as a 'shilling shocker', Robert Louis Stevenson's dark psychological fantasy gave birth to the idea of the split personality. The story of respectable Dr Jekyll's strange association with 'damnable young man' Edward hyde; the hunt through fog-bound London for a killer; and the final revelation of Hyde's true identity is a chilling exploration of humanity's basest capacity for evil. The other stories in this volume also testify to Stevenson's inventiveness within the Gothic tradition: 'Olalla', a tale of vampirism and tainted family blood, and 'The Body Snatcher', a gruesome fictionalization of the exploits of the notorious Burke and Hare.

This edition contains a critical introduction by Robert Mighall, which discusses class, criminality and the significance of the story's London setting. It also includes an essay on the scientific contexts of the novel and the development of the idea of the Jekyll-and-Hyde personality.]]> 224 Robert Louis Stevenson 0141439734 Greg 0 3.92 1886
author: Robert Louis Stevenson
name: Greg
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1886
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: to-read, british-authors, classic, literature, nineteenth-century, short-stories
review:

]]> 36616045
The Russell Drysdale painting from 1945 extended the mythology and it, too, has become an Australian icon.

Other versions of the Lawson story have been written by Murray Bail, Barbara Jefferis, Mandy Sayer, David Ireland, Madeleine Watts and others, up to the present, including Leah Purcell's play and Ryan O'Neill's graphic novel.

In essays and commentary, Frank Moorhouse examines our ongoing fascination with this story and has collected some of the best pieces of writing on the subject. This remarkable, gorgeous book is, he writes, 'a monument to the drovers' wives'.]]> 373 Frank Moorhouse 014378482X Greg 0 3.50 2017
author: Frank Moorhouse
name: Greg
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves: to-read, 2000s, australia, australian-authors, essays, nineteenth-century, short-stories
review:

]]> 141310673 352 Patrick McGuinness 0241462061 Greg 0 3.67 2022
author: Patrick McGuinness
name: Greg
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves: to-read, art-of-writing, fiction, french-authors, literature, short-stories
review:

]]> 625217 93 Boris Pasternak 0140015477 Greg 3 3.00 1934
author: Boris Pasternak
name: Greg
average rating: 3.00
book published: 1934
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/12
date added: 2024/03/12
shelves: fiction, russia, short-stories
review:
I don't know what to make of this. I'll think on it. Tentatively give this 3 stars. This has a feel of The Brothers Karamazov about it. It made me wonder how much Dostoyevsky towers over Russian literature.
]]> 44458 The Collected Dorothy Parker includes an introduction by Brendan Gill in Penguin Modern Classics.

Dorothy Parker was the most talked-about woman of her day, notorious as the hard-drinking bad girl with a talent for stinging repartee and endlessly quotable one-liners. The decadent 1920s and 1930s in New York were a time of great experiment and daring for women. For the rich, life seemed a continual party, but the excesses took their emotional toll. In the bitingly witty poems and stories collected here, along with her articles and reviews, she brilliantly captures the spirit of the decadent Jazz Age in New York, exposing both the dazzle and the darkness. But beneath the sharp perceptions and acidic humour, much of her work poignantly expresses the deep vulnerability of a troubled, self-destructive woman who, in the words of philosopher Irwin Edman, was 'a Sappho who could combine a heartbreak with a wisecrack'.

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was born in West End, New Jersey, and grew up in New York. In 1916 she sold some of her poetry to the editor of Vogue, and was subsequently given an editorial position on the magazine. She then became drama critic of Vanity Fair and the central figure of the celebrated Algonquin Round Table, whose members included George S. Kaufman and Harpo Marx. Her collections of poems included Enough Rope (1926) and Not So Deep as a Well (1936), and her collections of stories included Here Lies (1939); in addition, she collaborated on and wrote screenplays including the Oscar-winning A Star is Born (1937), and Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942).

If you enjoyed The Collected Dorothy Parker, you might like Truman Capote's The Complete Stories, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

'She managed to express her real feelings in stanzas which snap and glitter like a Chanel handbag'
Peter Ackroyd, The Times]]> 604 Dorothy Parker 014118258X Greg 5 4.26 1972
author: Dorothy Parker
name: Greg
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1972
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/20
date added: 2023/12/20
shelves: 1920s1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, american-authors, art-of-writing, poetry, short-stories, social-analysis
review:

]]> 29613504 From the peerless author of The Lottery and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, this is a treasure trove of deliciously dark and funny stories, essays, lectures, letters and drawings.

Let Me Tell You brings together the brilliantly eerie short stories Jackson is best known for with frank and inspiring lectures on writing; comic essays she wrote about her large, rowdy family; and revelatory personal letters and drawings. Jackson's landscape here is most frequently domestic - dinner parties, children's games and neighbourly gossip - but one that is continually threatened and subverted in her unsettling, inimitable prose. This collection is the first opportunity to see Shirley Jackson's radically different modes of writing side by side, revealing her to be a magnificent storyteller, a sharp, sly humorist and a powerful feminist.

'The stories range from sketches and anecdotes to complete and genuinely unsettling tales, somewhat alarming and very creepy ... The whole of the book offers insights into the vagaries of her mind, which was ruminant and generous ... For those of us whose imaginations, and creative ambitions, were ignited by 'The Lottery', Jackson remains one of the great practitioners of the literature of the darker impulses' - Paul Theroux, New York Times

'Shirley Jackson made a reputation with a short story in 1948. Like a lot of people I read 'The Lottery' when I was young, in an anthology of short stories from the New Yorker, and never forgot it. Let Me Tell You is a rich, enjoyable compendium of her unpublished short fiction and occasional writings, kicking off with a story of a dozen pages, 'Paranoia', which I won't forget, either' - Tom Stoppard, TLS Books of the Year]]> 416 Shirley Jackson 0241198208 Greg 0 4.17 2015
author: Shirley Jackson
name: Greg
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/02
shelves: to-read, 1940s, 1950s, american-authors, short-stories
review:

]]> 887805 Vintage paperback 478 W. Somerset Maugham 0330244906 Greg 0 4.00
author: W. Somerset Maugham
name: Greg
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/15
shelves: to-read, british-authors, short-stories, fiction, partly-read
review:

]]> 36711966
The Complete Short Stories is a collection to be loved and cherished, from one of the finest short story writers of the twentieth century.]]> 608 Muriel Spark 1786890011 Greg 5 4.10 1958
author: Muriel Spark
name: Greg
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1958
rating: 5
read at: 2018/10/21
date added: 2023/07/04
shelves: british-authors, short-stories, fiction, england
review:

]]> 948009
CONTENTS:
Intimacy - The Wall - The Room - Erostratus - The Childhood of a Leader

Translated by Lloyd Alexander]]> 220 Jean-Paul Sartre 0586010874 Greg 5 3.82 1938
author: Jean-Paul Sartre
name: Greg
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1938
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/19
date added: 2023/06/19
shelves: existentialism, 1940s, french-authors, short-stories
review:

]]> 817790
Honoré De Balzac (1799-1850) is generally credited as the inventor of the modern realistic novel. In more than ninety novels, he set forth French society and life as he saw it. He created a cast of over two thousand individual and identifiable characters, some of whom reappear in different novels. He organized his works into his masterpiece,��La Comedie Humaine,which was the final result of his attempt to grasp the whole of society and experience into one varied but unified work.

Richard Howard was born in Cleveland in 1929. He is the author of fourteen volumes of poetry and has published more than one hundred fifty translations from the French, including works by Gide, Stendhal, de Beauvoir, Baudelaire, and de Gaulle. Howard received a National Book Award for his translation of��Fleurs du mal��and a Pulitzer Prize for��Untitled Subjects, a collection of poetry.]]> 135 Honoré de Balzac 0940322749 Greg 5 3.88 1831
author: Honoré de Balzac
name: Greg
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1831
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/22
date added: 2023/05/22
shelves: aesthetics, artists-painting, classic, french-authors, nineteenth-century, paris, short-stories
review:

]]> 36436082 'If I think about it, and I have the time and inclination and capacity to do so, we dogs are an odd lot.'

How does a dog see the world? How do any of us? In this playful and enigmatic story of a canine philosopher, Kafka explores the limits of knowledge.

Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.]]> 57 Franz Kafka 0241339308 Greg 5 2.95 1922
author: Franz Kafka
name: Greg
average rating: 2.95
book published: 1922
rating: 5
read at: 2022/11/04
date added: 2022/11/04
shelves: 1920s1930s, literature, short-stories, social-analysis, music, philosophy
review:

]]> 32920943 Chroniques italiennes is a collection of nine tales written between 1829 and 1840, many of which were published only after his death. Together these collected tales reveal a great novelist working with highly dramatic subject matter to forge a vision of life lived at its most intense.

The setting for these tales is a romanticized Italy, a place Stendhal viewed as unpolluted by bourgeois inhibitions and conformism. From the hothouse atmosphere of aristocratic convents to the horrors of the Cenci family, the tales in Italian Chronicles all feature passionate, transgressive characters engaged in ��la chasse au bonheur”—the quest for happiness. Most of the tragic, violent tales are based on historical events, with Stendhal using history to validate his characters�� extreme behaviors as they battle literal and figurative oppression and try to break through to freedom.

Complete with revenge, bloody daggers, poisonings, and thick-walled nunneries, this new translation of Italian Chronicles includes four never-before-translated stories and a fascinating introduction detailing the origins of the book. It is sure to gratify established Stendhal fans as well as readers new to the writer.]]> 440 Stendhal 1517900115 Greg 5 3.60 1839
author: Stendhal
name: Greg
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1839
rating: 5
read at: 2022/09/27
date added: 2022/09/27
shelves: french-authors, literature, memoir-chronicle, nineteenth-century, short-stories
review:

]]> 4010
A collection of Hemingway's first forty-nine short stories, featuring a brief introduction by the author and lesser known as well as familiar tales, including 'Up in Michigan', 'Fifty Grand', and 'The Light of the World', and the Snows of Kilimanjaro, Winner Take Nothing' and Men Without Women collections.]]> 467 Ernest Hemingway 0099339218 Greg 0 3.93 1938
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Greg
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1938
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/22
shelves: to-read, american-authors, partly-read, short-stories
review:

]]> 1154046 65 Honoré de Balzac 1843911515 Greg 4 3.75 1830
author: Honoré de Balzac
name: Greg
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1830
rating: 4
read at: 2022/06/02
date added: 2022/06/02
shelves: french-authors, nineteenth-century, paris, short-stories
review:
Unusual story. Audiobook version. I read Sarrasine before I start reading S/Z: an essay, by Roland Barthes, an extensive 270 page book length study of Sarrasine, and the nature of reading. No writing is writerly, it can only be readerly.
]]> 9418738 Quite Early One Morning, a volume planned by Thomas shortly before his death, were read by him on such occasions. They are alive with his verbal magic, his intense perception of life, his gargantuan humor and with the very ring of his voice.

Included in this collection of prose pieces are such favorites as the hilarious “A Visit to America,�� the account of a small boy’s marvelous day’s outing—“A Story,�� and the memorable “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,�� which has been called ‘the twentieth century Christmas Carol.�� Other pieces show Thomas’s power as a sensitive critic of poetry and as an exponent of his own intent as a poet.]]> 192 Dylan Thomas 046002065X Greg 5 Poems, Stories, Essays. This selection of BBC Radio Broadcasts were mostly for the Welsh region of the B.B.C.
Preface
Part 1
Reminiscences of Childhood (First Version)
Reminiscences of Childhood (Second Version)
Quite Early One Morning
Memories of Christmas
Holiday Memory
How to begin a Story
The Crumbs of One Man's Year
The Festival Exhibition, 1951
The International Eisteddfod
A Visit to America
Laugharne
Return Journey
Wilfred Owen
Walter de la Mare as a Prose Writer
Sir Philip Sidney
A Dearth of Comic Writers
The English Festival of Spoken Poetry
On Reading One's Own Poems
Welsh Poets
Wales and the Artist
Three Poems
On Poetry
Notes

Five stars alone for the first story I read, A Visit to America. An hilarious jibe at the number of British writers, poets and experts on obscure subjects that were enticed on lecture tours across America.]]> 4.00 1954
author: Dylan Thomas
name: Greg
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1954
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/16
date added: 2022/02/16
shelves: 1920s1930s, 1940s, 1950s, british-poets, essays, poetry, short-stories, partly-read
review:
I picked up a 1974 edition, Aldine Paperbacks in near new condition.
Poems, Stories, Essays. This selection of BBC Radio Broadcasts were mostly for the Welsh region of the B.B.C.
Preface
Part 1
Reminiscences of Childhood (First Version)
Reminiscences of Childhood (Second Version)
Quite Early One Morning
Memories of Christmas
Holiday Memory
How to begin a Story
The Crumbs of One Man's Year
The Festival Exhibition, 1951
The International Eisteddfod
A Visit to America
Laugharne
Return Journey
Wilfred Owen
Walter de la Mare as a Prose Writer
Sir Philip Sidney
A Dearth of Comic Writers
The English Festival of Spoken Poetry
On Reading One's Own Poems
Welsh Poets
Wales and the Artist
Three Poems
On Poetry
Notes

Five stars alone for the first story I read, A Visit to America. An hilarious jibe at the number of British writers, poets and experts on obscure subjects that were enticed on lecture tours across America.
]]> 10046823 Each story in Love Among the Haystacks appears in a new, authoritative text.

]]> 173 D.H. Lawrence Greg 5 Love Among the Haystacks
The Lovely Lady
Rawdon's Roof
The Rocking-Horse Winner
The Man Who Loved Islands
The Man Who Died.

My favourite stories are The Rocking-Horse Winner and The Lovely Lady.
There are some things to discuss in each story. The Man Who Loved Islands and The Rocking-Horse Winner particularly. As for The Lovely Lady, it is a short story with a powerful finish.]]> 3.33 1926
author: D.H. Lawrence
name: Greg
average rating: 3.33
book published: 1926
rating: 5
read at: 2022/01/07
date added: 2022/01/07
shelves: 1920s1930s, british-authors, england, literature, short-stories, social-analysis
review:
Six short stories.
Love Among the Haystacks
The Lovely Lady
Rawdon's Roof
The Rocking-Horse Winner
The Man Who Loved Islands
The Man Who Died.

My favourite stories are The Rocking-Horse Winner and The Lovely Lady.
There are some things to discuss in each story. The Man Who Loved Islands and The Rocking-Horse Winner particularly. As for The Lovely Lady, it is a short story with a powerful finish.
]]> 1495662 86 Anaïs Nin 0146000609 Greg 3 3.43 1995
author: Anaïs Nin
name: Greg
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1995
rating: 3
read at: 2022/01/01
date added: 2022/01/01
shelves: american-authors, french-authors, short-stories, paris, sub-culture
review:

]]> 71016 'And much of Madness and more of Sin And Horror the Soul of the Plot'

This selection of Poe's critical writings, short fiction and poetry demonstrates his intense interest in aesthetic issues, and the astonishing power and imagination with which he probed the darkest corners of the human mind. 'The Fall of the House of Usher' describes the final hours of a family tormented by tragedy and the legacy of the past. In 'Tell-Tale Heart', a murderer's insane delusions threaten to betray him, while stories such as 'The Pit and the Pendulum' and 'The Cask of Amontillado' explore extreme states of decadence, fear and hate. These works display Poe's startling ability to build suspense with almost nightmarish intensity.

David Galloway's introduction re-examines the myths surrounding Poe's life and reputation. This edition includes a new chronology and suggestions for further reading.

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED AS SELECTED WRITINGS]]> 544 Edgar Allan Poe Greg 0 4.09 1967
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Greg
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1967
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/09/01
shelves: to-read, american-authors, classic, essays, literature, nineteenth-century, partly-read, poetry, short-stories
review:

]]> 10589860
������The��Greening of Mrs. Donaldson,��a recently bereaved widow finds interesting ways to supplement her income by performing as a patient for medical students, and renting out her spare room. Quiet, middle-class, and middle-aged, Mrs. Donaldson will soon discover that she rather enjoys role-play at the hospital, and the irregular and startling entertainment provided by her tenants.

In��The Shielding of Mrs. Forbes,��a disappointed middle-aged mother dotes on her only son, Graham, who believes he must shield her from the truth. As Graham’s double life becomes increasingly complicated, we realize how little he understands, not only of his own desires but also those of his mother.

A master storyteller dissects a very English form of secrecy with two stories of the unexpected in otherwise apparently ordinary lives.]]> 175 Alan Bennett 1846685257 Greg 4 The first story, The Greening of Mrs Donaldson is the more humorous. Both stories would adapt well to film, though on first reading maybe The Shielding of Mrs Forbes the better material for adaptation to film.]]> 3.49 2011
author: Alan Bennett
name: Greg
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2021/04/16
date added: 2021/04/16
shelves: british-authors, england, short-stories, humour
review:
Alan Bennett never fails. The writing, not a wasted word. Makes one realise, inadvertently, that Orwell didn't write anything funny, not intentionally anyway, an odd fact in the most English of writers.
The first story, The Greening of Mrs Donaldson is the more humorous. Both stories would adapt well to film, though on first reading maybe The Shielding of Mrs Forbes the better material for adaptation to film.
]]> 490596 You Know Me, Al, as well as such familiar favorites as “Alibi Ike,�� “Some Like Them Cold,�� and “Guillible’s Travels.”]]> 410 Ring Lardner 0141180188 Greg 0 3.94 1997
author: Ring Lardner
name: Greg
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2021/01/14
shelves: to-read, 1920s1930s, american-authors, early-20th-century, fiction, humour, short-stories, social-analysis
review:

]]> 1842636
The Old Adam and Witch à la Mode reflect the years of intense sexual frustration Lawrence endured while a schoolmaster in Croydon.

A Chapel and A Hay Hut Among the Mountains records a happier period - the first months of his life with Frieda.

The Thimble and The Mortal Coil ('a first-class story, one of my purest creations') take us to the years of the First World War, years of Lawrence's maturity and growing sense of tragedy.]]> 236 D.H. Lawrence 0140032649 Greg 0 3.11 1971
author: D.H. Lawrence
name: Greg
average rating: 3.11
book published: 1971
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/03/09
shelves: to-read, 1920s1930s, british-authors, early-20th-century, literature, short-stories
review:

]]> 455219
Lady Charlotte Guest in the mid 19th century was the first to publish English translations of the collection, popularising the name "Mabinogion". The stories appear in either or both of two medieval Welsh manuscripts, the White Book of Rhydderch or Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch, written c.1350, and the Red Book of Hergest or Llyfr Coch Hergest, written c.1382 �� 1410, tho texts or fragments of some of the tales have been preserved in earlier 13th century and later mss.

Scholars agree that the tales are older than the existing mss, but disagree over just how much older. The different texts originated at different times. Debate has focused on the dating of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi. Sir Ifor Williams offered a date prior to 1100, based on linguistic and historical arguments, while later Saunders Lewis set forth a number of arguments for a date between 1170 and 1190; Th Charles-Edwards, in a paper published in 1970, discussed both viewpoints, and while critical of the arguments of both scholars, noted that the language of the stories fits the 11th century. More recently, Patrick Sims-Williams argued for a plausible range of about 1060 to 1200, the current scholarly consensus.]]> 311 Unknown 0140443223 Greg 0 3.95 1400
author: Unknown
name: Greg
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1400
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2020/03/08
shelves: to-read, anthropology, england, history, reference, short-stories, social-analysis, sub-culture
review:

]]> 13239950 A conversation in a Spanish cafe between a man and a woman that is not as simple as it seems.

Hills Like White Elephants is a short story by Ernest Hemingway, which was first published in the 1927 collection Men Without Women. Here, a man and his girlfriend wait for a train to Madrid at station in rural Spain, the almost casual nature of their conversation evading the true emotional depth of what’s happening between the two of them.

This story is considered to be among Ernest Hemingway’s best short fiction, showcasing the author’s powerful ability to strip writing down to its bare bones and allow the reader’s imagination to fill in the subtext.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was an American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works. Three novels, four collections of short stories and three non-fiction works were published posthumously. Many of these are considered classics of American literature.]]> 6 Ernest Hemingway Greg 4 3.86 1927
author: Ernest Hemingway
name: Greg
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1927
rating: 4
read at: 2020/02/25
date added: 2020/02/25
shelves: 1920s1930s, american-authors, art-of-writing, short-stories, existentialism
review:
Existentialist Hemingway. 1930s. I can see Ernest writing this piece in a café, de Beauvoir and Sartre quietly observing from a table in the corner.
]]> 16106371 352 Rabindranath Tagore Greg 3 I was a little disappointed with the writing, a bit flat and the style is best suited to reading a single story now and then, not as a book. Each story is short, so not easy to recall later. I'll come back to the book.]]> 4.22 2011
author: Rabindranath Tagore
name: Greg
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2018/10/24
date added: 2018/10/24
shelves: india, literature, short-stories, partly-read
review:
I read the first thirteen stories and the Introduction.
I was a little disappointed with the writing, a bit flat and the style is best suited to reading a single story now and then, not as a book. Each story is short, so not easy to recall later. I'll come back to the book.
]]> 1383709
This swift-moving comic fable will surprise you with its concealed depths. When the sedate Ransomes return from the opera to find their Notting Hill flat stripped absolutely bare—down to the toilet paper off the roll, they face a dilemma: Who are they without the things they've spent a lifetime accumulating? Suddenly the world is full of unlimited and frightening possibility.]]> 112 Alan Bennett 1861970900 Greg 5 3.79 1996
author: Alan Bennett
name: Greg
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at: 2018/05/03
date added: 2018/05/03
shelves: british-authors, england, short-stories, 1990s
review:

]]> 2675130 The Fat Man in History, brought early acclaim to Carey for his brilliant and ingenious fiction. These twelve stories introduce visionary landscapes of intense clarity, where the rules of the game are bizarre yet chillingly familiar.]]> Peter Carey 0702230200 Greg 0 3.87 1974
author: Peter Carey
name: Greg
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1974
rating: 0
read at: 2018/02/28
date added: 2018/02/27
shelves: australia, australian-authors, short-stories, lost-interest, partly-read, abandoned
review:
I read the first two stories. No, not for me. Abandoned.
]]> 15797659
Leskov's short stories exploded the traditions of nineteenth-century Russian fiction. Innovative in form and richly playful in language, these 17 tales are visionary and fantastic and yet always grounded in reality, peopled by outsized characters that include serfs, princes, military officers, Gypsy girls, wayward monks, horse dealers, nomadic Tartars, and garrulous storytellers. In stories long considered classics Leskov takes the speech patterns of oral storytelling and spins them in new and startlingly modern ways, presenting seemingly artless yarns that are in fact tremendously sophisticated. And it is the great gift of this new translation to allow us to hear all the unexpected nuance of Leskov's singular voice.]]> 575 Nikolai Leskov 0307268829 Greg 0 I did not continue.]]> 3.75 1967
author: Nikolai Leskov
name: Greg
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1967
rating: 0
read at: 2018/01/30
date added: 2018/01/30
shelves: nineteenth-century, russia, short-stories, partly-read
review:
I found this new hardback edition for $5 in a remainder bookstore. I read the Introduction and two of the stories. Very dark and depressing. The style is factual and dry.
I did not continue.
]]> 3453489 329 Graham Greene 0140040234 Greg 0 3.25 1975
author: Graham Greene
name: Greg
average rating: 3.25
book published: 1975
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/10/22
shelves: to-read, british-authors, graham-greene, short-stories
review:

]]> 21031444 0 Julian Barnes 1408468751 Greg 5
Onto the second CD. I really like these stories. The narrators voice is perfect for the characters and sense of place.

Now I'm listening to this I can see why I gave Sense of an Ending 5 stars, but then couldn't recall much of the story six months later. The strength of Barnes' writing is in the subtle portraits of character in his writing.]]> 4.00 2011
author: Julian Barnes
name: Greg
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2016/07/19
date added: 2016/07/19
shelves: british-authors, england, short-stories
review:
Bought this from a sale bin for five dollars. Six CDs. The narrator has a good voice.

Onto the second CD. I really like these stories. The narrators voice is perfect for the characters and sense of place.

Now I'm listening to this I can see why I gave Sense of an Ending 5 stars, but then couldn't recall much of the story six months later. The strength of Barnes' writing is in the subtle portraits of character in his writing.
]]> 10066171 152 Albert Camus Greg 5 3.59 1950
author: Albert Camus
name: Greg
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1950
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/07/13
shelves: 1950s, short-stories, french-authors
review:
The reason I haven't got around to writing a review is due to the absurd amount of books in the world.
]]> 8732 95 John Steinbeck Greg 5 steinbeck, short-stories 3.49 1933
author: John Steinbeck
name: Greg
average rating: 3.49
book published: 1933
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/02/15
shelves: steinbeck, short-stories
review:

]]> 5308
A story of classic simplicity, based on a Mexican folk tale, The Pearl explores the secrets of man’s nature, greed, the darkest depths of evil, and the luminous possibilities of love.]]> 96 John Steinbeck 0142000698 Greg 5 steinbeck, short-stories 3.52 1947
author: John Steinbeck
name: Greg
average rating: 3.52
book published: 1947
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/02/15
shelves: steinbeck, short-stories
review:

]]> 12074430 ��
So begins Guilt, Ferdinand von Schirach’s tense, riveting collection of stories based on real crimes he has known. In these brief, succinct tales, von Schirach calls into question the nature of guilt and the toll it takes—or fails to take—on ordinary people. In “The Illuminati,�� the popular mean crowd at an all-boys�� boarding school wages a vicious attack against an outsider schoolmate, and ends up accidentally killing the boy’s beloved teacher. Attempting to hurdle through a midlife crisis, a housewife begins to steal trivial things no one will miss, an act that gives her a rush and staves off depression in “Desire.�� And in “Snow,�� an old man whose home is used as a way station for a heroin ring agrees to protect the identity of the lead drug runner, who receives his comeuppance in due course.
��
Compassionate and seen with the same cool, controlled eye that propelled Ferdinand von Schirach’s debut collection, Crime, onto best-seller lists, Guilt is a stunning follow-up from one of Germany’s finest new writers.]]> 160 Ferdinand von Schirach 0307599493 Greg 5 short-stories 3.94 2010
author: Ferdinand von Schirach
name: Greg
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2016/01/12
shelves: short-stories
review:
I love this style of writing, very sleek and economical. Perfect for the short story.
]]> 1009039 224 David Malouf 070118048X Greg 4 3.75 2006
author: David Malouf
name: Greg
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2015/10/25
shelves: australia, australian-authors, short-stories
review:

]]> 18668111 288 Henry Lawson 0207127247 Greg 5 4.00 1896
author: Henry Lawson
name: Greg
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1896
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/04/29
shelves: australian-authors, australia, short-stories, favorites
review:
These stories take me out beyond the bitumen to times past. I can smell the gum leaves. I think I'll have a cup of tea. Better still, make it a tin cup.
]]> 5875927
In some ways, the people in these stories are a tribe - a modern, urban tribe - which does not fully recognise itself as such. Some of the people are central members of the tribe while others are hermits who live on the fringe. The shared environment is both internal - anxieties, pleasures and confusions - and external - the houses, streets, hotels and experiences. The central dilemma is that of giving birth, of creating new life.

The experiences of the inner city ambience are shown through stories of growing up, leaving home, coming to the city from the country, or returning there; first love affairs, hetero- or homosexual; and finding a peer group, a life style, an ideology, and the anti-ideology of Libertarianism.]]> 173 Frank Moorhouse 0207159718 Greg 3
Some stories are interesting, like 'What Can I Say', about Thomas, the narrator, and Jimmy. Another good one is 'Lou Shouted "Hey!". Some of the stories are boring, like 'Will Power+Sex Drive+Intelligence+Personal Organisation+Aggression=Sexual Success. Some stories I couldn't see the point of what it was about.

The stories somehow remind me of Katherine Mansfield.]]> 4.14 1981
author: Frank Moorhouse
name: Greg
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1981
rating: 3
read at: 2014/08/17
date added: 2014/08/17
shelves: short-stories, australian-authors, australia
review:
Mostly very short stories, each one is like a snippet of life. The names re-occur throughout the book in the various stories. All the stories are about relationships or personal quirky habits.

Some stories are interesting, like 'What Can I Say', about Thomas, the narrator, and Jimmy. Another good one is 'Lou Shouted "Hey!". Some of the stories are boring, like 'Will Power+Sex Drive+Intelligence+Personal Organisation+Aggression=Sexual Success. Some stories I couldn't see the point of what it was about.

The stories somehow remind me of Katherine Mansfield.
]]> 2104813 Great condition 221 James Baldwin 0552084581 Greg 0 4.30 1965
author: James Baldwin
name: Greg
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1965
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/08/11
shelves: to-read, american-authors, short-stories
review:

]]> 570963 A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS ORIGINAL

Novels in Three Lines collects more than a thousand items that appeared anonymously in the French newspaper Le Matin in 1906—true stories of murder, mayhem, and everyday life presented with a ruthless economy that provokes laughter even as it shocks. This extraordinary trove, undiscovered until the 1940s and here translated for the first time into English, is the work of the mysterious Félix Fénéon. Dandy, anarchist, and critic of genius, the discoverer of Georges Seurat and the first French publisher of James Joyce, Fénéon carefully maintained his own anonymity, toiling for years as an obscure clerk in the French War Department. Novels in Three Lines is his secret chef-d’oeuvre, a work of strange and singular art that brings back the long-ago year of 1906 with the haunting immediacy of a photograph while looking forward to such disparate works as Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project and the Death and Disaster series of Andy Warhol.]]> 171 Félix Fénéon 1590172302 Greg 5
People dying on every page. Most of the murders, suicides, accidents and the occasional miracle in 'Novels In Three Lines' could be on today's news, such is human nature. I prefer Feneon's brief descriptions to the Media News as Entertainment shows in this day and age. Today's news reporting would be better if it followed Feneon's format. I don't watch Television or listen to any Radio.

A few examples -

"Women suckling their infants argued the worker's cause to the director of the streetcar line in Toulon. He was unmoved."

"It was believed that work would start up again today at the steelworks in Pamiers. A delusion".

Fallen from a train travelling at high speed, Maria Steckel, 3, of Saint-Germain, was found playing on the gravel ballast".

]]> 3.97 1906
author: Félix Fénéon
name: Greg
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1906
rating: 5
read at: 2014/05/03
date added: 2014/05/03
shelves: french-authors, art-of-writing, short-stories
review:
Luc Sante's Introduction is Five Stars by itself. Feneon, this fascinating character, is Five Stars also.

People dying on every page. Most of the murders, suicides, accidents and the occasional miracle in 'Novels In Three Lines' could be on today's news, such is human nature. I prefer Feneon's brief descriptions to the Media News as Entertainment shows in this day and age. Today's news reporting would be better if it followed Feneon's format. I don't watch Television or listen to any Radio.

A few examples -

"Women suckling their infants argued the worker's cause to the director of the streetcar line in Toulon. He was unmoved."

"It was believed that work would start up again today at the steelworks in Pamiers. A delusion".

Fallen from a train travelling at high speed, Maria Steckel, 3, of Saint-Germain, was found playing on the gravel ballast".


]]> 9255767 442 W. Somerset Maugham Greg 4
The stand out stories are -

The Fall of Edward Barnard
The Luncheon
The Ant and the Grasshopper
Appearance and Reality
The Facts of Life
The Voice of the Turtle
The Unconquered
The Poet

The stories I didn't find interesting -

The Pool
Before the Party
The Yellow Streak

]]> 3.94 1951
author: W. Somerset Maugham
name: Greg
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1951
rating: 4
read at: 2014/04/27
date added: 2014/04/27
shelves: british-authors, short-stories
review:
A good, diverse collection of stories, some tragic, some light and amusing. Most are excellent, a few are too long and the story did not interest me, which is why I gave four stars, not five.

The stand out stories are -

The Fall of Edward Barnard
The Luncheon
The Ant and the Grasshopper
Appearance and Reality
The Facts of Life
The Voice of the Turtle
The Unconquered
The Poet

The stories I didn't find interesting -

The Pool
Before the Party
The Yellow Streak


]]> 18769518 160 Gerald Kersh Greg 4
My favourite story was Buried Treasure.]]> 4.00 1960
author: Gerald Kersh
name: Greg
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1960
rating: 4
read at: 2014/04/03
date added: 2014/04/03
shelves: british-authors, fiction, short-stories
review:
Very enjoyable. Every story is different, ranging a variety of genres, including science fiction, crime, historical fiction, humour. Gerald Kersh is a writer of great, and weird imagination.

My favourite story was Buried Treasure.
]]> 31327 256 W. Somerset Maugham 0140018735 Greg 0 4.11 1951
author: W. Somerset Maugham
name: Greg
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1951
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/03/09
shelves: to-read, british-authors, short-stories
review:

]]> 887795 464 W. Somerset Maugham 0140018743 Greg 0 4.25 1952
author: W. Somerset Maugham
name: Greg
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1952
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/03/09
shelves: to-read, british-authors, short-stories
review:

]]> 1955215 102 Albert Cossery Greg 5 short-stories, favorites 2. The Girl and the Hashish-Smoker
3. The Barber has killed his Wife
4. The Danger of Fantasy
5. The Hungry only dream of Bread

There is no story to any of these five short-stories, none have an ending, they are oblique. Each one is like an extract, a day out of a continuum in their relentless poor lives of despair. These stories are miserable and have a simplicity that draws you in. Although each story is individual, they collectively combine as a greater whole. The characters are illiterate, their street is their world. They don't understand how the world works. Events or news of a neighbour are magnified huge and significant. Some terrible act they don't understand becomes driven by mystical malevolent forces. There is an underlying theme of their fear of authority.
Albert Cossery likes the word 'lugubrious', or the translator does. This makes me wonder how well these stories translate from the original.

The third story, The Barber has killed his Wife - The one thing that didn't ring true for me was, to emphasise their poverty, despair and suffering, the Tinker's small son is fully aware of 'the injustice in the world, that he is alone in an unknown world of distress'. His father tells him that God has forgotten them.

The fourth story, The Danger of Fantasy - about a school of beggars, explores an interesting point. In a conversation between Abou Chawali, professor of Mendicancy, and the man of letters Tewif Gad, they discuss whether begging should be a sincere reality of their suffering of an act similar to acrobats to induce sympathy. "It is a reality, not a fantasy - Mendicancy will not stand modifications".

Re-reading this book, it still has the magic.

I find these stories are very similar to Paul Bowles' A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard.
]]> 4.25 1940
author: Albert Cossery
name: Greg
average rating: 4.25
book published: 1940
rating: 5
read at: 2014/02/19
date added: 2014/02/19
shelves: short-stories, favorites
review:
1. The Postman gets his own back
2. The Girl and the Hashish-Smoker
3. The Barber has killed his Wife
4. The Danger of Fantasy
5. The Hungry only dream of Bread

There is no story to any of these five short-stories, none have an ending, they are oblique. Each one is like an extract, a day out of a continuum in their relentless poor lives of despair. These stories are miserable and have a simplicity that draws you in. Although each story is individual, they collectively combine as a greater whole. The characters are illiterate, their street is their world. They don't understand how the world works. Events or news of a neighbour are magnified huge and significant. Some terrible act they don't understand becomes driven by mystical malevolent forces. There is an underlying theme of their fear of authority.
Albert Cossery likes the word 'lugubrious', or the translator does. This makes me wonder how well these stories translate from the original.

The third story, The Barber has killed his Wife - The one thing that didn't ring true for me was, to emphasise their poverty, despair and suffering, the Tinker's small son is fully aware of 'the injustice in the world, that he is alone in an unknown world of distress'. His father tells him that God has forgotten them.

The fourth story, The Danger of Fantasy - about a school of beggars, explores an interesting point. In a conversation between Abou Chawali, professor of Mendicancy, and the man of letters Tewif Gad, they discuss whether begging should be a sincere reality of their suffering of an act similar to acrobats to induce sympathy. "It is a reality, not a fantasy - Mendicancy will not stand modifications".

Re-reading this book, it still has the magic.

I find these stories are very similar to Paul Bowles' A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard.

]]> 492908 156 Paul Bowles 0720662001 Greg 0 3.98 1968
author: Paul Bowles
name: Greg
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1968
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2014/01/10
shelves: american-authors, short-stories, to-read
review:

]]> 1140436 255 Katherine Mansfield 0140181482 Greg 4 literature, short-stories
Although I appreciate the writing and Katherine Mansfield's sure touch of characters and creating the environment, about 2/3rd the way through these short stories I began to think they are formulaic, a bit the same & mostly sad tales. Non are joyous happy stories.





]]> 3.92 1922
author: Katherine Mansfield
name: Greg
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1922
rating: 4
read at: 2013/11/25
date added: 2013/11/25
shelves: literature, short-stories
review:
I enjoyed At The Bay and The Garden Party the most from this collection of short stories. At The Bay is the winner for me. Each of the stories on it's own is strong. It is collectively they are diluted, probably because the style and people are so much the same for each one.

Although I appreciate the writing and Katherine Mansfield's sure touch of characters and creating the environment, about 2/3rd the way through these short stories I began to think they are formulaic, a bit the same & mostly sad tales. Non are joyous happy stories.






]]>