First of all, I have to say, I got spanked today for spending most of my free time reading books when I should be looking for a job. And I’m more than a little pissed that the book I’ve spent all my time reading lately turned out to be completely underwhelming.Before October, I’d never read anything by Steve Almond, but then Dale assigned us one of his stories in the kick-ass, everyone should read it Best of Tin House. I loved the story. It was funny and dirty and sorta sad — most everything I l...

First off, thank you to my GR friend Tracy for recommending this one! It's a relatively slim collection of stories, but Almond packs a punch in each one. Dealing predominantly with romantic and/or sexual relationships, the stories present different dynamics and explore the search for love, desire, and connection. The voice always feels authentic with a wonderful kind of balance and pace, plus a good bit of humor. I'm already hoping to read more of his work.

I don't feel that I'm very accomplished at writing Goodreads reviews mostly because I tend to like everything. When I first started my profile, I was reading a lot Tao Lin (something I probably would not do now) and his goodreads profile gave every book listed five stars and no review. I liked it. It seemed pure and intentional. Opaque in a way that that was pleasing. But alas, my discipline faltered, and a few four star reviews crept in and a few timid attempts at comments on books I've read (I...

As strange as it feels to say, this book reminds me a little bit of Milan Kundera's _Laughable Loves_. It's strange to say because Almond is a young guy who lives in Boston and doesn't share much of the formal writing style or the philosophizing that is characteristic of Kundera, and he lacks Kundera's level of cruelty in his sense of humor. Perhaps the resemblance is because this book is also about love, sex, and the risible failures that accompany preoccupation with them. As Almond's narrator

This book was just alright. I think that Almond is a better non-fiction writer than fiction. His observations about things that happen are really funny and interesting. And he seems like a real person. In stories, his characters feel more like sketches.

While reading these 12 very well written stories, songs would spontaniously pop into my head, and in no particular order, below is my playlist. Enjoy:1. Cherry Pie ~ Warrant2. Lovesong ~ The Cure3. Push It ~ Salt N Pepa4. Make Me Sweat ~ Basement Jaxx5. Wild Thing~ Tone Loc6. One Thing Leads To Another ~ The Fixx 7. I Want Your Sex ~ George Michael 8. Rasberry Beret ~ Prince9. Pour Some Sugar On Me ~ Def Leappard10. You Shook Me All Night Long ~ AC/DC11. Metal on Metal ~ Anvil12. Love Comes In S...

I read Candy Freak and loved it from the first letter to the last. I closed up that book wanting more. I found My Life In Heavy Metal by Steve Almond. I was excited. Then I found out it was fiction--short stories--and not another memoir. Hmm, did I want to read it? Could I read it knowing the freakness about this guy? Could I forget about the author's real life and focus on the characters? After reading a blurb from the first short story that shares the collection's title, I said, yes. He mentio...

In Steve Almond's collection of short stories, he manages to capture within a few pages each the initial joy and sense of well-being at the spark of a relationship, the continuance of that feeling into the beginning stages of love and the sexual pleasure couples take in one other, to the decay and inevitable collapse of the affair. The language rings true, and the turns of phrase are beautiful.

A fun, but simple series of short stories. A friend enticed me into reading the book by saying that when he read it, it made him feel as though anyone can write, and that it inspired him to have increased confidence when writing.I feel like this is both a good and bad thing. The stories to have simple short paths, with simple writing style and technique, which makes it both accessible in it's best instances, and a bit drab in others.It did have a strong theme of sex; unclean, honest, and brutal

It is in these moments of tender and ridiculous nostalgia that I know something inside me is still broken.

This book is all about sex. In one of my creative writing classes, a prof said something that has stayed with me. He said that when someone is writing about sex, he or she is also writing about something else. Something else. What? Sex as a metaphor, as a literary conceit? I may write a blog on this at some point, but I'm reminded of other books about sex. Remember Milan Kundera's THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING? Consider the title and what Kundera did with sex to get at that title. Am I reall...

There are some really great stories in here. "Among the Ik," for instance, a story that will move you unless you're just plain immovable. Also, "The Body in Extremis." A fantastic story about love and desire and the normativities to which we help society chain them. Most of the stories are about different kinds of relationships and how we assign value to their particularities. The theme of the collection, I think, is summed up nicely for the reader at the end of the last story: "The heart is not...

I bought this book despite the atrocious cover and I am so, so glad i did. I love it! I started it last night and was loving it so much i couldn't control the underline impulse - i made myself get out of bed and go to the kitchen just so I could circle and underline things (for what? who the hell knows? but it felt imperative at that moment).The first story reminded me of a time I was waiting outside a bathroom at a MEGAdeath concert for my boyfriend to return. I was the ONLY person not in black...

My girlfriend Carol is very good at knowing what short stories I will like, and so it came as no surprise to me that I liked this book pretty much the moment I picked it up. Maybe that's over-stating it a bit, but actually, the cover is bizarre and awesome, as are the stories. While maybe young Mr. Almond is a little obsessed with pale, Eastern European girls and "stiffening against himself," these are the kind of stories that make me want to be a writer. Or maybe even make me realize my own lim...

I'm sorry that I said Steve Almond wasn't cool once, to Amanda. SA IS cool. He has a cool website, he likes music. I found about him from his interview of Smoosh in the June/July 2003 Believer. When I approached the less-approachable girl in Smoosh about this interview, she couldn't recall it, which is weird because it was an 826 benefit...the probably don't know the ins and outs of such things because they are children. Or because they don't care which is smart. There is a bull mastiff who live...

There is a line between literature and pornography. A book can be a fine piece of literature while still involving sexual scenes. However, if there is too much sex, then slowly, but surely, the book turns from literature into pornography.This book is a collection of short stories about man-woman relationships. Granted, some of the stories were amusing, poignant, and funny at times. There are stories about couples belonging to different political parties, couples transcending language and citizen...

I had no expectations of this book, a it was recommended to me with no background info, just the title that sucked me in. It's not really what it sounds like, although the first story features a hair band journalist. It's a book of short stories, by the way, and a bit unusual than most I've read. Only one hit a wrong note with me: I think the writer is too masculine to be a convincing female first-person. The rest are largely stories about love affairs from a male perspective. The type I'd alway...

Nobody writes funnier about sex than Steve Almond. In some of his stories -- the earlier ones, I suspect -- that's the whole point, frequently featuring a feckless male unable to rein in his phallus and thus following it into ridiculously bad relationships. But that's not always all: Almond has become such a master of the comedy of sexual desperation that he can use it as a device to tell other, less predictable stories. You'll want to read this collection, not so much for the title story or eve...

This is easily Steve Almond's best book and one of the best collections of short stories I've read in years. It's honest (which is about as high a compliment as I could possibly give to a book) raw..and really strikes me in its confessionalist tone, especially with regard to sex. It's very difficult to write a sex scene and not only make it sound fresh but not make it sound like this: "he touched her sex, glistening.." you know, a lot of people write about sex like they're reading a Fabio novel....

Steve Almond writes about ****ing lots of ladies, many of whom seem to be from Eastern Europe (suggesting that Almond had a thing for one or several Eastern European-type ladies.) I am a great admirer of this man! Quite simply one of my favorite writers. I am only slightly ashamed to admit that I read Steve Almond the way other women must read Cosmo's Bedside Astrologer for Your Man* (i.e., to gain insight into the psyche of the opposite sex by relatively oblique means). In my inner world, Almon...