Subscribe to Read | $0.00
Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Quick and Easy Sign Up!
It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.
Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Quick and Easy Sign Up!
It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.
Read Anywhere and on Any Device!
Rate this book!
Write a review?
I am a big fan of the short story. After reading this contemporary collection I came to understand my love of the form is closely aligned with traditional approaches to short stories. Authors like Alice Munro, William Trevor, among many others subscribe to the formula I appreciate - concise, sometimes intense, bites of a life. Barry's collection includes both novice and well known writers. I liked some - for example Julian Gough's "Earworm" because I am familiar with the author and his outlandis...
I bought this book in Dublin and was excited to try out a sampling of current Irish authors. However, like many anthologies, the stories were a bit mixed. That comes with the territory. I definitely am glad that I read this, though, because it introduced me to several writers that I really want to read more from. That definitely makes up for the two stories that I didn't understand at all. (And the two-three stories that were just annoying!)The four best stories in this collection, in my opinion...
This collection was a bit of an odd one and I find myself having to readjust my expectations after reading it. I heard of it when it came out but I have recently finished Donal Ryan's A Slanting of the Sun and read it hoping it might be similar but it was in no way as exciting..I found some of the stories hard to connect with and quite frankly boring but the ones that were good were brilliant.My favourite story by a mile was Summer's Wreath by Eilis Ni Dhuibhne. It is is a singularly surreal and...
A volume edited by the now well known, multi-award winning and eminent short story writer Kevin Barry. This is a mixed bag, with established writers and new names. There are a couple of duds in my opinion, but, most, as expected, are different in style and theme. There are the usual themes of desolation, loneliness, bereavement, small-town insular life and personal sadness and frustration, but, also, innovative imagination, some satire and a good deal of black humour. The new names give a good p...
3.5 stars - didn't really connect with the first two or three stories I read (not in order), and thought oh dear, but then I read the fabulous The Clancy Kid by Colin Barret (which I'd already read in his great collection Young Skins), followed by several other good-to-great pieces, and the collection was saved. So, as with most anthologies, didn;t like everything, but enough to make for a good read.
As well as town and country, this eclectic collection also takes in Cadiz and Croatia, beauty and brutality, teenage dreams of sex and later-life dementia, a global IT virus and the tale of what happened when the Devil took a two week holiday in a caravan park in West Cork. Such variety means you'll not take to everything but I thought the gems shone brightly. Favourite story: The Ladder by Sheila Purdy.
The collection overall Was hit-and-miss for me, but the ‘hits’ I found to be exceptional. “Earworm” and “How I Beat the Devil” are outstanding. Several other selections are also solid (“While You Were Working,” “Paper and Ashes,” “The Mark of Death,” and “Images” come to mind).
A mixed bag but some very enjoyable stories. I picked the book because I enjoyed Kévin Barry's own short stories so much. The works here are similar in that many of them focus on marginal people. I particularly liked earworm the first story and how I beat the Devil by Paul Murray whose first two novels I also loved.
A rather lack-luster collection of short stories, all of which were well-written, but ultimately forgettable. I was hoping for a little more insight into what it means to be "Irish", but I suppose the whole idea is that it's getting harder and harder to link ourselves to our geography in this day and age. M'eh.
Have written a full review on my blog www.rozz.ie
Well its a collection of short stories from a selection of vastly different writers so naturally some are very good and some are not so good.
Excellent collection of short stories varied in topic and style. Something for everyone if you like the short story format.Very enjoyable collection of short stories from well established and lesser known ones. Variety of style and topics and something for everyone in this book.Has encouraged me to research the lesser known novelists and has sparked my interest in their own publications.
Contemporary short story collections are usually mixed bags; this is no different, but it's definitely more satisfying than most. The ones that work are the ones that could only be short stories. Julian Gough's Earworm fantasises about an irresistible song that paralyses the world would be silly if it were any longer. Sheila Purdy's second-person narrative The Ladder, for my money the best story in this collection, is one of those stories that microscopically distill a single moment, and in doin...
