"A feat of inventiveness... This eclectic collection delights with its at times absurd, surreal, and darkly humorous look at very serious subjects." Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite RunnerThese short stories may strike some readers as familiar tales, but Saunder's craft, honesty and focus on humanity separates them from other writers telling similar stories. At the core, according to the author, is a focus on the least understood condition of humans, our ending - death. And with that in mind,...

when did george saunders become so well known? i don't mean that to sound snarky - i am honestly astonished (and delighted) by the lavish attention tenth of december has been getting. i count george saunders high on my list of favorite living authors, but for the longest time i labored under the apparently woefully misguided assumption that he was unjustly unknown and unfeted (despite his regular appearances in the new yorker et al.). i was all set to write a magnum opus of a goodreads review in...

Urgent, humane and deeply felt short stories by an absolute master of the form.Saunders’s voice is distinct, dark and confident, and he’s got a remarkable ability to set up narratives – some featuring dystopic settings – efficiently and with a minimum of fuss.The theme of chivalry and rescue runs through many of these stories, from the bravura opening story (“Victory Lap”) about an abduction attempt – told in three distinct voices – to the final two, one a tragicomic tale about a man trying to d...

It is quite something to come across a writer of versatility and skill who doesn’t figure (now that they have your ear—you bought the book, didn’t you?) they will add more than they need just because they can. This is a slim volume of stories that all of us should have--to read, to cherish, and to share. Saunders has a distinct voice that reveals us as we are now. We may say that his stories do not have the language of the old masters, but they have the language we use, with more kindness, gener...

The first and last stories in this book are, I think, masterpieces, and affected me more than I would have thought possible-- they're just short stories, after all. In the first one, a dreamy teenage girl is in her house, having fantasies about her own kindness and attractiveness. After only reading her narrative for a minute or two, I felt completely involved, which is uncommon in my experience of short stories. Next I was in the head of a neighbor boy, who is just coming home, the many, many

Reading short story collections in one sitting is ill-advised, particularly when they can be as emotionally coals-rakey as Saunders can be. However, there's a certain cloudy state my head can fall in from time to time where he is one of the only voices out there that doesn't make me feel condescended, and can make me laugh despite myself. You know how it is when your brain refuses to be pleased, where you for no good reason just pout like a grade-schooler who doesn't like her birthday present, a...

It's aggravating when all the critics turn out to be right and us readers just feel like we're trooping along behind them baa-ing and bleating obediently George Saunders go-o-o-o-d, Dan Brown ba-a-a-a-d. The cover of this book is festooned like a Chrismas tree with blurby simperings from Jonathan Franzen, Zadie Smith, Margaret Atwood, Jon McGregor and o, yes, Thomas Pynchon. I guess after that lot they couldn't be bothered to call up Philip Roth, Barack Obama or Nelson Mandela. I bet those three...

the level of genius ain't sufficient to disguise the fact that most of these stories lack heart*. consider DFW and maureen mchugh, both of whom paint with roughly the same palette -- y'know, the pomo'ey, quirky, capitalism & consumerism, blahblahstuff-white-people-like-etcetcetc** -- but whose stories feel not only topical and cultural-critiquey but also weighty and alive. saunders seems in love with an idea and kind of schematically lays it out as if a mere essay in the short, quirky fiction fo...

Saunders is not for me; he is cut from a cloth that I cannot comfortably wear. I would categorize him with Pynchon, Eggers, Donald Barthelme, de Lillo, David Foster Wallace, Thom Jones, and Ward Just. I just cannot get along with these authors, just like I cannot get along with certain types of music. I can search for a sentence or two that is remarkable but I just cannot go with their flow. I like so many authors and there are so many books that I will never read because I will have died first,...

I like reading short stories but I hate writing about them. A short story is so fleeting and ephemeral -- it's like trying to describe a cloud.This collection of 10 short stories by George Saunders is especially difficult and elusive. His writing is rich and visual, but there is always danger lurking for each character. I had to take a pause break after finishing each story because I felt so unsettled.My favorite stories were "Victory Lap," which involved two high school students and a traumatic...

“The Tenth of December” by George Saunders was published in 2013 to quite a bit of fanfare. After reading the book of stories now I understand why all the noise and fuss. In fact the book was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013 by the editors of the New York Times Book Review. This is a sound reason to avoid a book.I would normally shy away from this kind of book, which I did, until someone convinced me to read "The Tenth of December" which consists of the following stories:003 -“Victor...

Three stars???You gave the Adam Levin short story collection five stars, and this three stars?Yeah. Someone could probably successfully argue me out of this opinion, but there was a feeling that too many of the stories in this collection were not substantial enough. Maybe it is that it has been so long since his last collection was released that I felt there should be something more here. I did like all of the stories, none of them were groan worthy but none of them really stood out either. Mayb...

Generally ---this is not my type of book. I wanted to read it (expand my view --see if maybe I've 'matured' in taste) --Overall I had a few laughs -- most of the stories were dark --(I found hard to find funny) --and I don't think I've matured at all.My mind drifted - (I had to 'work' to bring it back)--Its seems there was less character storytelling & character development than storytelling of ideas. I still give the book a 3 (not less) --for the pure artistry I observed from the author.

One of the stories in this collection features experimental drugs that can enhance someone’s verbal ability to describe an event. I feel like I could use a few doses of that stuff to help me review this book because I’m struggling to articulate what I found so good about it. At a basic level, there are ten short stories that reminded me somewhat of Kurt Vonnegut because Saunders uses sci-fi concepts and humor in several of them to depict various aspects of human nature, but this has some nastier...

You know those disconcerting dreams where nothing you can do will seem right; lose-lose propositions are the only ones on offer? Well George Saunders is the large deluxe pizza you ate before bed. He's the likely culprit. I started with a comment about Saunders himself because his stories, and collections in general, are hard to review. Plot summaries don’t really work because there are too many of them. Unifying themes aren’t always easy to come by either. Even if there are common threads, they’...

“It was that impossible thing: happiness that does not wilt to reveal the thin shoots of some new desire rising from within it”--SaundersI know, I know, I should have been reading George Saunders for decades, but I just didn’t. Maybe a couple stories here and there. Oh, and his commencement address on kindness. Then I read Lincoln in the Bardo and loved it. That combination of experimental fiction and unexpected, down-to-earth warmth. So I finally read Tenth of December, his 2013 collection of s...

My second foray into Saunders after a lukewarm response to Pastoralia was an unprecedented success. His writing has sharpened its teeth and mellowed its heart and toned down its comedic chutzpah and the results are staggering pieces like ‘Escape From Spiderhead,’ a short moral parable that builds to a slow, devastating climax, ‘The Semplica Girl Diaries,’ a long moral parable that unfurls creepier revelations and a deeper-rooted sadness with each page, and ‘Home,’ a medium-sized moral parable th...

I knew that I liked George Saunders' after loving last year's Lincoln in the Bardo , but this short story collection made me want to run out and grab everything else he's done. There's a palpable thrill to picking up one of Saunders' stories, which show an immense range over the course of ten individual tales of varying length. I always looked forward to reading this collection because I never knew which Saunders I'd be encountering. While one of the more recent collections I read had very go...

When this book was released in January of this year I heard that one reviewer proclaimed it the "best book of the year." I guess there's some wisdom in some circumstances to not have very high expectations, like when anticipating the accomplishments of the latest election winnners, but certainly the contemporary publishing industry in this country and world is still turning out enough remarkable writing, that we can at least be hopeful throughout the year. Unfortunately this is not one of those

Saunders is a master at taking the ordinary, the usual, the hum-drum and tossing in a bit of bizarro (okay...in some cases, it's a whole lot of bizarro!) to mess with the proceedings. Not every one of these stories hit the jackpot with me, but the ones that did were right on the money.And, yes, I did wait until today, December 10th to read the title story. Sometimes I'm so cute I make myself sick.