Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules

Now it begins, the sorting and testing of words. Remember that words are not symbols of other words. There are words which, when tinkered with, become honest representatives of the cresting blood, the fine living net of nerves. Define rain. Or even joy. It can be done.

So, short stories. I do like them, but have trouble reading several by one author as they end up feeling like Faberge eggs. You know, you see one and it's exquisite. And then you see the next one and, hey, it's quite nice too, but by the third or fourth, any elements of surprise are gone and after a half dozen I'm a little bored and looking forward to the cafe. An anthology of some sort is a different matter. Each author spins their perfect little tale and then is show more finished. I don't become jaded with a dozen instances in a row of subdued disappointment or witty dialogue, but get to be astonished all over again with the next story.

This book is a collection of short stories gathered by David Sedaris. There is the expected Dorothy Parker (Song of the Shirt, 1941), but there's also Richard Yates (Oh, Joseph, I'm So Tired), Joyce Carol Oates (The Girl with the Blackened Eye) and Jhumpa Lahiri (Interpreter of Maladies). Sedaris favors stories with emotional resonance over clever wordplay, and the best two stories in the book were amazing; Revelation by Flannery O'Connor and Cosmopolitan by Akhil Sharma.

I loved rediscovering how a short story can compress all the emotion and heft of a novel into a dozen or so pages. I think I may start reading from all those Collected Stories of I have sitting around, but one at a time, with a few months between each story so that I can be newly astonished with each one. show less

I saw David Sedaris' name on the cover while I was browsing books at a used book sale and added it to my cart without a second thought. So it was a surprise to discover that this is actually a short story collection, not a collection of hilarious essays. It worked out, though. I've been meaning to get to several of the authors featured in this collection, and now I feel more well versed as a book person.

I really liked a lot of the stories, didn't like a few, and some were just meh. So I'm giving the book as a whole an unremarkable 3.5 stars. That's the law of averages for you.

Ah well... I thought this was WRITTEN by David Sedaris and was all ready to chuckle along with my fave memoirist. Despite my initial disappointment, this collection is great! I enjoyed the stories and will be exploring each of the authors in more detail.

David Sedaris's introduction to this short story collection, which he edited, is a lovely ode to reading and taste, and the way a really good story can just flatten you. "I believed, and still do," he writes, "that stories can save you." The stories included here, he says, are the "Herculai"--the literary giants that make him feel like "a comparative midget, scratching around in their collective shadow." Among my favorites here were "Oh, Joseph, I'm So Tired," "Gryphon," "People Like That Are the Only People Here," and "Cosmopolitan." And--on top of a great read--when you buy this book you get to feel like a do-gooder, too; all proceeds from the sale go to 826NYC.

A friend gave me this, as we are both Sedaris fans. None of this is his work (save the introduction, which was on par with most of his better essays), but I decided to trust his judgment and try something new. As with most collections, the stories were of varying quality.

Where the Door is Always Open and the Welcome Mat is Out by Patricia Highsmith, read by Cherry Jones: Mildred is rushing around frantically to prepare for her sister Edith’s visit. The reader was great, but the story itself was pretty boring. Maybe it was because I just wasn’t all that interested in the characters, or maybe because all the minutia felt excessively detailed.

Bullet In the Brain by Tobias Wolff, read by Toby Wherry: A fascinating little vignette that show more stretches out an instant of time into a fully coherent narrative, and it ended at just the right spot too.

Gryphon by Charles Baxter, read by David Sedaris: A new substitute teacher with crazy ideas. Sedaris did an excellent job, which is kind of surprising since he tends to narrate in a sort of monotone, but somehow he managed to get across everything with subtle changes in pitch and inflection. Probably my favorite of the batch.

In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried by Amy Hempel, read by Mary-Louise Parker: I’ll be perfectly honest here: I had a whole lot of trouble following this one. Maybe I was just distracted, but I have absolutely no idea what it was about.

Cosmopolitan written and read by Akhil Sharma: A somewhat strange tale about an older Indian man attempting to have an affair with his American neighbor. Sharma probably should not have read his own story, as his cadence tended toward the droning, but I still very much enjoyed the story, and the ending made me smile.

In all, not a bad collection. These are the sorts of stories we’d read in creative writing classes, which gave me weird flashbacks from time to time, but it was a nice break from the string of novels I’d been listening to lately. show less

This is a compilation of David Sedaris' favorite short stories by literary greats such as Alice Munro, Flannery O'Connor and Dororthy Parker, just to name a few. With a crowd like this, you can expect stories that will leave you ever so slightly unsettled, such as Tobias Wolff's "Bullet in the Brain" and Lorrie Moore's troubling tromp through a pediatric cancer ward in "People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk." The stories seem to gather eccentric value as the book progresses. They are provocative and probably not best read right before bed. But Sedaris has indeed gathered the best of the best, and each of the stories represents an intricate piece of literary art.

But there is another reason to buy this show more book. All the proceeds benefit 826NYC, an afterschool tutoring organization that also does community outreach by way of writing workshops for young people. Literature to help foster literature-it is a great idea and one worthy of support. show less

I love David Sedaris and I went to see him live... he recommended some books to read and then I found this collection he compiled. I am not a huge fan of short stories. I like them only if the story completes itself and isn't all about symbolism and themes. A few stories I loved and some I couldn't get into (... borderline hated). If you like short stories, David Sedaris is a great author with excellent taste and I am sure this compilation will not disappoint. If not, go into it realizing it's what it is... that's what got me through it. Thankfully there were a few stories to make the book worthwhile.